USA offshoot from "Blame it on Inflation?"

[Chaos Turtle]

Random blurting

There are two "ass"-es in "assassinated."
(The one doing it and the one being it, presumeably.)

I agree with anyone who said that blind patriotism is no excuse for whatever that mess was.

Without any real evidence to back it up, I'd just like to point out that all great countries throughout history have done foolish things, made terrible mistakes, committed unspeakable atrocities, and other stuff. That's how they come to be "great." (insert tongue-in-cheek smiley here)

Anyway, Magic cards do cost about 30 cents too much per pack. Boxes will never be available for $40 or less at the size they come in now. And. The World's Smartest Person (documented, anyway) is an American.

Our elections take too long? Where did that come from? The campaigns take a brief eternity, but the election takes a day. The results are known (with one glaring recent exception) within hours after polls close, and the inaguration takes place on a couple of months afterward (not of necessity, but of the fact that that's just when it happens).

At least we don't have to wait for our government to decide that it's okay if we even have an election. (aimed at no one in particular)

And I'd like to know which countries, in particular, are laughing at the US and think we're all stupid. I mean, since it's most of them (?) it should not be hard to come up with a list of them along with actual scientific poll results, perhaps some quotes of national leaders... I mean, I know that at least one country is convinced that we are the Great Satan but this idea that we are globally reviled is, well, ignorant.

I would never buy an individual booster pack again if boxes only cost $40.

Is the reason that American fashions and fads sweep Japan (and other nations) like wildfire evidence of the universal hatred directed at us? We must hate them, too, to buy so much PokeMon stuff... (hmm... PokeMon could be evidence of our stupidity after all)

PokeMon did not kill Magic. Praise god.

If PokeMon cards could be had at $40 per box I still would not buy them.

I have two holofoil Charizards. Does anybody want to trade me something for them? No foreign offers, please. I also have Blastoises. Actually I have quite a few holofoils. I am eager to sell. Offer only good in English-speaking countries that do not hate the US. (sorry)

Those in the US who hate the US should go live in Canada. Canada rules even thugh they still have the Queen of England on their backs. Queen. Heh.

I wonder why the band, Queen, chose that name?

DO they play Magic in Viet Nam?
I rest my case.

 

[Mr USA]

Spiderman - Why do you think we lost Vietnam? Didn't you read my comments? Those are not just my opinions. They are a part of documented history.

Gizmo - Nothing positive came from Vietnam? From who's perspective? Where do you see blind patriotism? From the FEW proud Americans on this board who will stand up for their country?

Lotus Mox - For what reason does the US deserve this incessant bashing? I find it hard to believe that a person from Germany could cast aspersions on any other nation about being ashamed. LOL.

 

[Rando]

No won evr akused mi uv beeng abil tu spel.

And I think the reason for Freddie Mercury choosing the name "Queen" for his band is quite obvious.

...and I don't think we will be hearing from Ol' Slug Man for a while. I notice he has posted no retort.

 

[terzarima]

Choas Turtle Its not a result from the american schooling system that you have the "smartest" (Highly debatable) documented person in the world. Don't forget you have a ton more people than most countries, so mutations are bound to happen.

Everyone Else One of the main reasons everyone bashes americans is that most people base things opun them. The world is pretty much set to the American Dollars, and even though you guys are *cough*donkeybutts*cough* and refuse to switch to the metric system and make the whole world easier, we still find humor in making fun of you. Hey, the only funny thing about Canada, is, well, the beaver.

 

[Rando]

The U.K. has not switched to the metric system either, as far as I know, and it's thier Imperial Mesurements we're using.

And it's the U.K. that has been the most influential country in history, maybe with the exception of Rome. Why is that you think that so many other country's citizens speak both thier native tounge AND English?

People point to American's lack of bilingulisim as a sign of our stupidity. Have they ever considered that it was because we were already speaking "THE language of the developed world" and have no reason to learn another.

At least that's the way I look at it.

 

[Spiderman]

MrUSA: (who is probably another user anyway since all of a sudden you signed on this board, why don't you use your original alias?)

We lost Vietnam plain and simple because:

1. We are not "there" right now.
2. South Vietnam IS communist.

Kill ratios do not win the "war". So what if we killed 1 million of them (and right now, I doubt that number if you are getting it from US reports because it is commonly known that the US inflated the enemy body counts. The expression "lost the battle but won the war" can most certainly be applied here.

Den Bien Phu was more a French battle, was it not? In any case, most of the American effort was "guerrilla warfare"; there were no land battles of "tank vs tank". It was mostly ambush and counter-ambush.

The goal of stopping communism in surrounding countries may have been achieved, but it could also be said that the result was merely side-effect. It appears the main goal of North Vietnam to consolidate with South Vietnam and make it communist has been achieved. I don't know if the leaders were planning to expand into other countries (in which your statement would have more bearing), but most likely other communist would-be leaders may have been discouraged. The above phrase might apply here to the US in its global war against communism, it lost the battle here but pretty much won the war overall <shrug>

 

[Mr USA]

Spiderman -

I can understand why you think I am another user. This IS only my third post. But to be honest I am new to this board. I have been hovering around, just reading other posts - being the silent watcher. Slug Man's comments set me on fire and forced me to take action. So here I am posting. I'm not sure what I say or do to prove I am me.

You made some valid points. But I wouldn't agree with all. Because we do not have a presence in South Vietnam now, does it mean we lost? Because they are under the red boot, does it also mean we lost? Not really. Overall, our mission was to stop the domino affect, not to save Vietnam per se. The North took over the South, but communism didn't spread to other parts of SE Asia. This is an important point. Documents released from the big guns of world communism conceded that because of USA's strong commitment to Vietnam efforts to spread their ideology was checked. Historians (and myself) see that as a victory.

"Lost the battle but lost the war". True, true. Very valid point in many cases. But my reason stating kill ratios was to show that on the field of combat we ruled. The Vietnamese virtually refused to face us in the open field because of our better trained soldiers and massive firepower. You are half correct about Dien Bien Phu. It was an engagement between the French and Vietnamese earlier in the century (where elite French forces were bested, mind you). But there was another major fight there in the late 60's. Our base was surrounded and we were outnumbered. But with perseverance and air-lifts, we held out and the NVA had to lift their siege.

 

[Spiderman]

So I'm assuming you play Magic? Feel free to jump in other discussions there... sorry if I offended by my presumption, it just seemed kinda "coincidental" that a user with your alias would pop up in the middle of the "USA bashing" (although if you were a lurker before, I could see why you chose the alias to begin with).

You made some valid points. But I wouldn't agree with all. Because we do not have a presence in South Vietnam now, does it mean we lost? Because they are under the red boot, does it also mean we lost? Not really. Overall, our mission was to stop the domino affect, not to save Vietnam per se. The North took over the South, but communism didn't spread to other parts of SE Asia. This is an important point. Documents released from the big guns of world communism conceded that because of USA's strong commitment to Vietnam efforts to spread their ideology was checked. Historians (and myself) see that as a victory.

It seems we are talking about two different things. You seem to be talking about the war on communism is general and using Vietnam as an example of "stopping" or "winning" the war.

I'm talking about the actual specific case of Vietnam itself, disregarding any "metagaming" of communism, and saying that if one of the main goals for entering the conflict to begin with was to stop communism from spreading into South Vietnam like what happened in Korea a decade before, the US failed and lost.

 

[Rando]

I think the time has come to turn this into no less then three seperate threads:

The original "economics" thread.

The God-bless-the-USA thread

And the "Did we lose Viet Nam" Thread.

 

[Mr USA]

Yes, I play magic. I've been playing since '94 - around when Unlimited came out. Re: posting on other topics, well, to be honest, I'm kinda lazy (you know us lazy Americans - wink, wink). I need to be really motivated to write something. But I would like to get in on the trading action though.

Looking solely at the Vietnam War, rather than the bigger picture, I'd have to say that we didn't leave because we were defeated. We left because the hippies and liberals got their way. We kicked the crap (I can say that right?) out of the NVA and if we had public support at home we would have stopped the communist aggression. We also suffered from a president that tied one arm of the military by not letting ground troops into North Vietnam.

 

[Spiderman]

Rando: <sigh> Do you know how much work that would be since this is three pages? I'm hoping this will die down... but maybe next week if no one else does it.

MrUsa: I agree partly with you and here's why: I see the US lost Vietname because of those contributing factors that you mentioned. Sure, if the US had the home support and full range to do what they needed, the outcome might have been different. Or it might have ended up like Korea and dragged China into it (which is probably a significant factor as to why the US didn't fully commit).

But since we were run out, forced into helicopter evacuations, the fact says the US lost. It's not like an armistace was reached and we were able to leave with all our equipment and men, taking our time.

 

[Mr USA]

Boy, I'm starting to sound like Sam Kineson (in Rodney Dangerfield's - Back to School) with all my raving about Vietnam.

Rando – Sorry for the tangent.

I think we should honor those that fought and fell during that time and stop saying that they/we lost. The soldiers didn't lose. They performed superbly. They did everything that was asked of them. By saying we lost, you dishonor the Vietnam vets and infer that they performed inadequately in their service. These vets did a great service to our country under difficult circumstances - and what did they get? They were spit on.

But let's take the discussion in the context that it originally came from - Slug Man's original comments. He said, "If your military is so wonderful, how did you lose Vietnam?" Do you think our military lost Vietnam? Do you think they were bested? I doubt it. We had social trouble on the home front that put an end to our participation in that engagement. Militarily speaking we probably couldn't have done any better.

 

[Lotus Mox]

For what reason does the US deserve this incessant bashing? I find it hard to believe that a person from Germany could cast aspersions on any other nation about being ashamed. LOL.

First off, I'm ashamed of some parts of the history of Germany, but the U.S.A. should definitely be as much ashamed for the Vietnam war as Germany IS for WW2, it's not viewed very well here, when someone publicly praises a german soldier from WW2 except those who opposed Hitler in some form or another.

Vietnam's economy and ecology still suffers greatly from the War, and while practically all the US losses were military, most of the killed Vietnamese were civilians, it was IMO nearly an attempted Genocide, that's nothing to be proud of.

BTW the Vietnam war as whole was pretty unneccessary and don't give me that communism BS, that's a lame excuse for testing out new weapon systems (same in Kosovo (e.g. Napalm in Vietnam, Uran missiles in Kosovo))

 

[Mr USA]

Lotus Mox -
Oh my goodness!?! What conspiracy stories have you been reading lately? 'An excuse for testing new weapons?' heheheheh. Could you please substantiate this statement? Was there an international study done? Was there an independent group that looked into suspicious activities? Were there numerous objective newspaper articles about it? Or is this a far-fetched fantasy that you pulled out of your armpit.

Most of the Vietnamese killed were NOT civilians. Were some civilians killed incidentally and a few intentionally? Yes. But that is true with any war - especially a civil war. Every war, past, present and future will have civilian casualties. Fighting the enemy was tough during Vietnam, it was hard to detect the enemy (VC and NVA) because frequently they were hiding among the civilians. There were instances where enemy and civilians were mixed together and both were eliminated. This happened and is tragic. But this wasn't surprising since this was a favored tactic used by the North. Do you think any other nation on this Earth could have taken sides in a civil war and not had unintended casualties? No, so why is the US being pointed out for this.

Finally, with much emphasis, No - the US should not be as much ashamed of Vietnam as Germany is for WWII. We don't have 6 millions Jews to answer for. Also, Germany entered WWII for her own glory and the US entered the Vietnam War to stop the proliferation of a deeply flawed ideology.

 

[Rando]

I like this guy.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord...

 

[Spiderman]

Originally posted by Mr USA
I think we should honor those that fought and fell during that time and stop saying that they/we lost. The soldiers didn't lose. They performed superbly. They did everything that was asked of them. By saying we lost, you dishonor the Vietnam vets and infer that they performed inadequately in their service. These vets did a great service to our country under difficult circumstances - and what did they get? They were spit on.

Hey, I'm not saying that our soldiers did terrible. They did the best they could under the constraints given to them. And as I said before, it's because of those constraints and factors is why we lost, and not because of the performance of the soldiers. I don't see how that's disrespecting them in any way.

But let's take the discussion in the context that it originally came from - Slug Man's original comments. He said, "If your military is so wonderful, how did you lose Vietnam?" Do you think our military lost Vietnam? Do you think they were bested? I doubt it. We had social trouble on the home front that put an end to our participation in that engagement. Militarily speaking we probably couldn't have done any better.

That is true and I couldn't agree more.

Lotus Mox: Now, is it because of the WAR is why the Vietnam's economy is doing "terrible", or is it because of COMMUNISM? Please give examples...

 

[Lotus Mox]

MrUSA:
Also, Germany entered WWII for her own glory and the US entered the Vietnam War to stop the proliferation of a deeply flawed ideology.

The Germans during WW2 also wanted to stop a in their view deeply flawed ideology (the existence of other races as something different than slaves ). Oh now that I mentioned slaves, I will NOT tell you anything about the ongoing suppresion of colored ppl in the U.S.A. because you should know that anyway.

Vietnam: at least 60% of the 3.3 million Vietnamese casualties were civilians, not all of them were killed by americans but it is wrong to say that american mostly killed military targets (an especially perverse example of them killing civilians is the My Lai massacre, which was part of the american strategy of wiping out villages so the Viet Cong can't hide there anymore).
7.5 million (metric) tons of bombs (4x the number of bombs dropped in europe during WW2) were dropped over Vietnam by Americans.
If million hectars of the land is polluted via (Agent) Orange and Herbizides and nearly the whole country is destroyed any land will have economic struggles.
Vietnam is among the poorest countries in the world, and they aren't even communistic anymore.
(Agent) Orange included the most toxic substance known to mankind, Dioxine, 1/1000000 gramm of it can cause cancer. Don't listen to the american "scientists" that say it is practically harmless, this is definitely a lie. The regions where (Agent) Orange was used, show an unusual high number of cancer etc.
BTW the global warming (which is ignored by our favourite monkey W. ) caused massive floods in the past 5 years in Vietnam.


Kosovo: this was basically just a demonstration of power from the americans and the gruelties that are described in Serbia were overexxagerated by american/NATO propaganda. I have read the arguments of both NATO and russian sides of this war and I think this was unneccessary.
They definitely have tested uran missiles, there are germans soldiers who got cancer of this. I also heard that they tested anti-electronical thingies (forgot their name, sorry), FYI I was in German Army during that time. Not that it really matters

BTW, sorry about that post before I'm retreating some of those "statements" I made, but you basically compared me to a Nazi that's why my brain went off into turbo-rant mode.


edited in:
the Children of Agent Orange: http://www.photo.nl/IndexVietnam.html

Statements and Facts of the NATO-War against Yugoslavia (in German, a very interesting read)
http://staff-www.uni-marburg.de/~naeser/kriegtgb.htm

 

[Salacious Crumb]

Well, this thing about inflation is turning to World Studies or History Class or something
*shudder*

Hoipa

 

[Mr USA]

Lotus Mox -

Interesting points you make. But not all accurate. Remember, Greater Germany wanted the Third Reich to last thousands of years. Germany felt that it was their place to rule all Europe - they also wanted to conquer more territory (Liebenstrom). Combating communism was somewhat of a side show for them - truely what they believed was that the Slavs were not worthy of living and it was their place to exterminate them. Funny that when the Werhmacht entered Ukraine they were seen as liberators yet shortly thereafter they found themselves randomly killed or working in a forced labor camp. You know all this already, and my point for mentioning it is that you really shouldn't be trying to defend Germany's actions or try to compare its injustices with the US of A.

Agent Orange - sure it is an extremely potent toxin. I can't argue with that. But you know what? Our intended use was as a defoliant. We wanted to destory foliage so that the enemy had fewer places to hide. Another thing, we didn't know how caustic it was. We had our own soldiers sitting in fixed-wing aircraft dispensing the stuff from the air. They were drenched in it and most suffered a fate worse than those on the ground.

Your figures for tonnage of bombs dropped are accurate. But why does it matter that we dropped four times as many bombs on Vietnam than Germany? It was a war - and we used the arsenal available to us. Its not like we violated the Geneva Convention. Are you inferring that we should have been a little easier on them? I can't agree with your stated figure about total Vietnamese casualties nor percentage of civilian deaths. Please substantiate this figure.

Sorry Johnny, but our participation in saving Kosovo was not a show of power. I don't care what you read from Russia. Russia is a country that is embroiled in anarchy and corruption (sorry if there are any Russian Nationals reading this). Also, its media is state run. Do you know what that means? It means they fabricate whatever stories they want. The US has a free press. We can't control what gets out. If you want an example of how this affects our country, take a look at how the media wrecked public support during the Vietnam War. Another point, if international intervention was unnecessary, why was Milosivic detained and now being tried for crimes or war and inhumanity in an international court? Your European friends are pushing this as much as the US.

Allow me to correct myself about a previous comment. I mentioned that it was Dien Bien Phu where the US marines were under siege, it was actually Khe Sanh. But many compared the situation to the 1954 battle with the French.

 

[Lotus Mox]

Could you please point out the part of my text, where I defended Germany? You probably misunderstood me.

Vietnam: I got the numbers from a German Site, heck I didn't even found an american site which had the numbers of dead Vietnamese and not only the number of dead Americans. Keep in mind that not all of the killed people were killed by Americans though.

Basically war is never a good thing, especially a war which is not defensive in nature. Trying to defend the concept of solving problems with a war is IMO wrong.

I don't really care what the Kosovo thing was, but it was at least one thing, an attacking (not defensive! and definitely not peace-keeping, how is declaring a war peace-keeping? ) war of the NATO against Yugoslavia, which practically destroyed the infrastructure of a whole country, it was a violation against human rights (as is every other war) and should be punished by the UN accordingly. If Russia wouldn't depend on american credits, they would have defended Yugoslavia, which could have escalated in WW3, and that the USA is risking so much for so little is impossible for me to understand, especially when some of the NATO members were against the war (e.g. Greece).
BTW, I got most of the facts I used from the German site I linked to, while the site was after all against the war it views at both sides and just collected material out of German and international medias.

Finally I don't want to bash the USA especially for those things practically every other country has done many (in some cases even more than the USA) things wrong. I just don't like the attitude of some americans that their country is superior in all points to every other country. If I said Germany is the best country in the world and ownz all other countries you would be pissed too? right?