Made in China.

[BenThere]

We won the Cold War. South Korea was saved from Communism. Viet Nam is turning capitalist and doesn't threaten its neighbors. Kuwait was liberated and Hussein in Iraq was vanquished. Terrorist camps no longer generate attacks from Afghanistan. It hasn't all been perfect, but I make the case that we won them all.

[boing]

As has been said many times, there is a difference between who won the war and who won the peace.

.

[Capetonian]

There are no winners in any war. The reality is that one party comes out of it less wounded than the other(s).

Ben says : "We won the Cold War", but at a huge cost in lives, reputation, and material losses.

[BenThere]

Capetonian, I consider you a compadre but I have to take issue with this one. The Cold War had the potential to explode into a hot, nuclear war. That such an outcome was avoided was a major achievement, as is the fact that the free world prevailed, Eastern Europe was liberated, and the Communist undermining of more pluralistic governments ceased for the most part in the early 1990s. I think the US played a significant role in that outcome, even if not to the level, as some would suggest, of New Zealand or France.

I'm interested in learning more about your perception of the huge cost in lives, reputation, and material losses. There's a lot to discuss and we all have our own experiences and perceptions. I spent several years of my life sitting on nuclear alert, ready to respond immediately as an air force pilot in command if the balloon went up. That gives me a stake in the discussion, I think. I never thought Russian Communism was anything but sinister, an evil that had to be opposed.

I've had doubts about the US from time to time, but never questioned that our intentions were good, only that the thought processes informing our electorate were dangerously faulty at times.

[boing]

I've had doubts about the US from time to time, but never questioned that our intentions were good, only that the thought processes informing our electorate were dangerously faulty at times.

That's a reasonable opinion. Do we wish we had Plato in charge, certainly but he has better things to do right now.

The crucial problem with American politics is that the established party system makes it impossible for cream to rise to the top of the pail. It never ceases to amaze me that in a nation of 300,000,000 people we would be forced to choose between Trump and Biden, the lesser of two evils (or weevils as in "Master and Commander"). It is not that the US does not have potentially great leaders it is simply that to get anywhere they have to sign on to the corrupt and incompetent present power system.

Still, the UK has the same problem.

.

[John Hill]

We won the Cold War. South Korea was saved from Communism.

To endure decades of dictatorship, corruption and political instability. Democracy did not get a foot hold in South Korea until about 1980.

Viet Nam is turning capitalist and doesn't threaten its neighbors.

So the US won the war in Vietnam? Alternative fact.

Kuwait was liberated and Hussein in Iraq was vanquished.

How is Iraq nowadays?

Terrorist camps no longer generate attacks from Afghanistan.

Have you not been to Afghanistan lately?

It hasn't all been perfect, but I make the case that we won them all.

I have not seen a US victory parade in my lifetime, plenty of old newsreels though.

[Seenenough]

TRAVELPublished 1 hour ago
Trump administration banning Chinese airlines from operating incoming flights as of June 16

The Department of Transportation (DOT) on Wednesday issued an order banning China’s airlines from operating passenger flights to and from the U.S. as of mid-June.

The ban is set to take effect as of June 16, or earlier, depending upon the orders of President Trump.

The DOT explained that its decision comes as a response to China denying U.S. carriers to resume flights to China as global travel restrictions begin easing amid the coronavirus health crisis.

“Currently, four Chinese carriers and no U.S. carriers operate scheduled passenger flights between the United States and China,” reads the DOT’s statement. “U.S. carriers have asked to resume passenger service, beginning June 1st. The Chinese government’s failure to approve their requests is a violation of our Air Transport Agreement.”


Just the Chinese doing " one way" business again

[TheGreenGoblin]

We won the Cold War. South Korea was saved from Communism.

To endure decades of dictatorship, corruption and political instability. Democracy did not get a foot hold in South Korea until about 1980.

Viet Nam is turning capitalist and doesn't threaten its neighbors.

So the US won the war in Vietnam? Alternative fact.

Kuwait was liberated and Hussein in Iraq was vanquished.

How is Iraq nowadays?

Terrorist camps no longer generate attacks from Afghanistan.

Have you not been to Afghanistan lately?

It hasn't all been perfect, but I make the case that we won them all.

I have not seen a US victory parade in my lifetime, plenty of old newsreels though.

I have always wanted the particular type of self satisfied, delusion drug that BenThere takes. Perhaps it is the soma they mentioned in Huxley's A Brave New World.

[Undried Plum]

I'm interested in learning more about your perception of the huge cost in lives, reputation, and material losses.

I'll chip in a little factoid.

Most of us have visited the memorial to the US lives lost during The American War in Vietnam. I found it very moving.

It's 492' long.

An equivalent memorial to the Vietnamese lives lost during The American War would be nine miles long.

That's before you consider the direct consequential effect on Cambodia which resulted in and from Year Zero. Millions more died there as an, only slightly indirect, effect of The American War across the border.

[AtomKraft]

To be fair the US certainly won the war in Vietnam .....

in the movies.

[BenThere]

Millions more died there as an, only slightly indirect, effect of The American War across the border.

Are you suggesting Pol Pot was an American stooge?

[John Hill]

Are you suggesting Pol Pot was an American stooge?

More than a suggestion Ben...

Pol Pot was leader of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Vietnamese were enemies of the Khmer Rouge, the Communist Vietnamese were enemies of America therefore Pol Pot was an American friend.

In late 1975, former National Security Advisor and United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told the Thai foreign minister: "You should tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs but we won't let that stand in our way."

[ Stone, Oliver and Kuznick, Peter, "The Untold History of the United States" (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2012), p. 389 citing Ben Kiernan, "The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide under the Khmer Rouge (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), xi, note 3]




For more info:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegatio ... 20Thailand.

[Dushan]

I'll chip in a little factoid.

Most of us have visited the memorial to the US lives lost during The American War in Vietnam. I found it very moving.

It's 492' long.

An equivalent memorial to the Vietnamese lives lost during The American War would be nine miles long.

That's before you consider the direct consequential effect on Cambodia which resulted in and from Year Zero. Millions more died there as an, only slightly indirect, effect of The American War across the border.

Does that include those killed by the communists? And while we are at that all the people killed by communists and socialists, in the last 100 years would need a wall circling the Earth a few times over, I think.

[Dushan]

[ Stone, Oliver and Kuznick, Peter, "The Untold History of the United States" (New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2012), p. 389 citing Ben Kiernan, "The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power and Genocide under the Khmer Rouge (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), xi, note 3]




For more info:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegatio ... 20Thailand.

LOL, this is rich. Oliver Stone being quoted as an authority on things historical...

[John Hill]

Always attack the messenger! But if you read the attribution you may realise that the source was Ben Kiernan not Oliver Stone.

[Undried Plum]

For the Vietnamese, The American War wasn't about "communism". The Vietnamese were fighting for their lives and for their country.

Communism was a rather twitty and characteristically anal American obsession.

When Uncle Sam turned against Uncle Ho after the end of The Japanese War, the Vietnamese had to try to find a more reliable ally. As the Prime Minister of Iceland said in 2009, when Gordon Brown imposed the Terrorism Act against Iceland, "When our friends let us down, we have to find new friends".

Being let down by The Empire put the Vietnamese between a rock and a hard place. They couldn't turn to the Japanese. They couldn't turn to the perfidious British, as the British had taken temporary control of Vietnam at the end of The Japanese War and the first thing the Brits did was to release all Japanese POWs and rearm them and use them to police Vietnam until the broken ffrench had got their act together and could resume colonial control.

Turning to the Chinese for help was an act of very extreme desperation, not a political statement. The Vietnamese had won the 900 year long Chinese War within living memory and certainly had no love for the Chinese or for their anti-Buddhist creed. They couldn't turn to the ffrench whom they'd so recently beaten in The French War.

They were desperate, that's all.

In the context of the fascist atrocities against the people of Cambodia, the American Imperial position was nuts and quite incredibly genocidal, even by American standards.

[Undried Plum]

Are you suggesting Pol Pot was an American stooge?

No. I won't use your word "stooge", Ben.

America's subsequent ally emerged from the ashes of America's bombing of Cambodia.

Instead, I'll try educate you with five educational videos, even though I despair that you may have the attention span of a sparrow.

Others, hereabouts, will learn a lot:


First: Year Ten, the film which first brought the world's attention to the consequences of The Empire's attention to Cambodia.




Then: a follow-up



Much later: Another folowup

[Undried Plum]

And others





It's a ghastly education, I know.

Nevertheless when the more than a decade long series of documentaries were made on the subject is viewed in its entirety, it does teach us all a lot, most for of all of us who can learn, anyway.

[BenThere]

The carnage in Cambodia happened after the US Congress cut off Southeast Asia military funding in the aftermath of Watergate, 1974-5. The US had nothing to do with that genocide. I knew a few USAF who trained Cambodians in the US before the fall. They were quite distraught at the turn of events back then, as they liked their Cambodian students and rightfully worried about them. I've always found Cambodians and Thais to be bright and friendly, smiling people. Chinese and Vietnamese tend to be a bit more gruff, Chinese more so.

[Undried Plum]

The US had nothing to do with that genocide.

Have you actually watched those documentaries, Ben?

You show no comprehension at all.