Venezuela: la mierda hits el ventilador

[Loren Pechtel]

You're quite the one to speak about moral compasses. Yours is glued hard left.

I am opposed to massive acts of terrorism.

That is true.

The places you support tend to be the sponsors of terrorism. Thus you're in favor of them.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

So terrorism performed by the "correct" side is okay?

There is a moral distinction between people fighting for self determination and people fighting to oppress.

But war is war.

So complaining that it is ugly is handwaving.

The terrorism is almost always being committed by the side seeking to impose their will on those who don't want it.

This is inevitable as terrorism is the weapon of the minority. If they actually are in the majority armed conflict usually doesn't last long (witness the collapse of the Soviet Union and its satellites) and it's often almost bloodless. Terrorism, however, is because someone is funneling a lot of money into continuing the fight of a small group. (Note that you also have wars of independence where an outside group tries to stop them from leaving. Those can be protracted but generally don't involve too much terrorism.)

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Exactly. Millions and millions

One hundred and fifty thousand.

You're only counting the ones that left at the end of the war, not the ones that left when Ho Chi Min took power.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes it was a civil with the proxies in charge. But the support in the south for it wasn't very strong without the influence of the north and the backing of the Chinese and the Soviets. If the north had stayed out of it, the south would have been okay.

That makes NO SENSE AT ALL. As far as the Vietnamese were concerned, there was NO divide between the north and south, so there was nothing for the north to "stay out of."

They were supposed to have an election to unify the country under a central leader. That election was scheduled and planned, but ultimately canceled because the foreign governments mediating the election (and/or their proxies) would not allow it to go forward unless they could gaurantee victory. The war literally started because the unpopular sham government in Hanoi refused to unify the country and the NVA replied with "Fuck it, we'll do it ourselves."

No. The war was because of the standard Red tactics: Create a puppet government, back it to the point it can seize some territory and then openly intervene to support their puppet as if it was the legitimate government of the country.

 

[untermensche]

I am opposed to massive acts of terrorism.

That is true.

The places you support tend to be the sponsors of terrorism. Thus you're in favor of them.

Nonsense.

You are the supporter and lapdog of the biggest terrorist nation.

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There is a moral distinction between people fighting for self determination and people fighting to oppress.

But war is war.

So complaining that it is ugly is handwaving.

The terrorism is almost always being committed by the side seeking to impose their will on those who don't want it...

And in Vietnam and Iraq that was the US.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Unter, you have no problem with terrorism if it's done for a cause you believe in. And you never answered my question about your support for the south seceding from the north so they can carry out slavery.

 

[untermensche]

Unter, you have no problem with terrorism if it's done for a cause you believe in. And you never answered my question about your support for the south seceding from the north so they can carry out slavery.

Anybody who supports what the US did in Vietnam is a supporter of terrorism.

Fighting for slavery is not fighting for self-determination.

It is fighting for tyranny.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Unter, you have no problem with terrorism if it's done for a cause you believe in. And you never answered my question about your support for the south seceding from the north so they can carry out slavery.

Anybody who supports what the US did in Vietnam is a supporter of terrorism.

Fighting for slavery is not fighting for self-determination.

It is fighting for tyranny.

The people who believed in slavery didn't see it as tyrannical the same way people who believe communism isn't tyrannical while we did very much see communism as a tyrannical system. So if you are basing it on not allowing a tyrannical system to form, then fighting that system going to South Vietnam was a legitimate fight.

 

[untermensche]

Anybody who supports what the US did in Vietnam is a supporter of terrorism.

Fighting for slavery is not fighting for self-determination.

It is fighting for tyranny.

The people who believed in slavery didn't see it as tyrannical the same way people who believe communism isn't tyrannical while we did very much see communism as a tyrannical system. So if you are basing it on not allowing a tyrannical system to form, then fighting that system going to South Vietnam was a legitimate fight.

Communism is not one thing.

What the people of South Vietnam wanted was to determine their own way.

Not have some outside tyrant tell them which way they must go.

They sided with the North, not the US.

That is why the US killed so many South Vietnamese and destroyed so many South Vietnamese farms.

As is the case in all imperial wars the invading imperial power had some friends. Bought friends.

They were like the Tories in the US Revolutionary War.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

One hundred and fifty thousand.

You're only counting the ones that left at the end of the war, not the ones that left when Ho Chi Min took power.

They didn't leave Vietnam when Ho Chi Minh took power. And "the ones that left at the end of the war" is literally what we were talking about.

Pay more attention, dude.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

That makes NO SENSE AT ALL. As far as the Vietnamese were concerned, there was NO divide between the north and south, so there was nothing for the north to "stay out of."

They were supposed to have an election to unify the country under a central leader. That election was scheduled and planned, but ultimately canceled because the foreign governments mediating the election (and/or their proxies) would not allow it to go forward unless they could gaurantee victory. The war literally started because the unpopular sham government in Hanoi refused to unify the country and the NVA replied with "Fuck it, we'll do it ourselves."

No. The war was because of the standard Red tactics: Create a puppet government, back it to the point it can seize some territory and then openly intervene to support their puppet as if it was the legitimate government of the country.

On the one hand, that is literally exactly what the United States did in Vietnam, so calling this a "standard red tactic" is amazingly ironic.

In the second place, the Vietnamese communists were not puppets of the soviets. Strictly speaking, they weren't even ALLIES of the Soviets. They were, if anything, closely aligned with the Chinese whom they at best TOLERATED by virtue of their having a mutual enemy. They had nothing but contempt for the Soviets and cooperated with them PRECISELY to the extent that the Soviets were willing to sell them weapons.

Calling North Vietnam a "puppet" of the Soviet Union is like calling the United States a puppet government installed by Napoleon (thereby claiming the war of 1812 was justified as it was just another front in the Napoleonic Wars).

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Anybody who supports what the US did in Vietnam is a supporter of terrorism.

Fighting for slavery is not fighting for self-determination.

It is fighting for tyranny.

The people who believed in slavery didn't see it as tyrannical the same way people who believe communism isn't tyrannical while we did very much see communism as a tyrannical system. So if you are basing it on not allowing a tyrannical system to form, then fighting that system going to South Vietnam was a legitimate fight.

Yes, FOR THE VIETNAMESE. They had every right to fight among themselves and decide the destiny of their own country and what shape it will take in the future. And they could and would (and should) be judged by how they conduct themselves in the war to determine their country's future. Same thing that happened in the Civil War: we, as Americans, can look at our own history and our own legacy and grapple with the moral dimensions of what the Confederacy was trying to do, because it was our fight, our shame, or victory, and OUR PROBLEM.

That has nothing at all to do with OUR involvement in that war. It wasn't our fight, and we have no business making moral judgements over the proper course of development for someone else's country. We sure as hell don't have the right to slaughter millions of their people in a massive military campaign just because we judge it is better for one side or the other to ultimately prevail.

Slavery wasn't something imposed on America by a foreign power seeking its own interests, it was a social evil we inflicted on ourselves and then collectively decided to rid ourselves of (a decision that was hotly and violently contested but ultimately prevailed). If some foreign power had come into the United States and massacred half the population of the Confederacy and a third of the Union just to preserve slavery -- and then ultimately failed to do so anyway -- it would be an absolute no-brainer what happened: some meddlesome foreign power decided to get involved, totally screwed the pooch, then got bored and went home.

 

[coloradoatheist]

Yes Eddie,
But that also ended when the world watched and then were stunned in the behavior when millions of people were sent to gas chambers or starved to death. And we didn't know to the extent but saw it later that the number of body bags with communism was even higher than the holocaust. The world wasn't going to be as complacent in the deaths as they were before.

 

[untermensche]

Yes Eddie,
But that also ended when the world watched and then were stunned in the behavior when millions of people were sent to gas chambers or starved to death. And we didn't know to the extent but saw it later that the number of body bags with communism was even higher than the holocaust. The world wasn't going to be as complacent in the deaths as they were before.

We killed millions to save imaginary millions.

Because we are special.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

Yes Eddie,
But that also ended when the world watched and then were stunned in the behavior when millions of people were sent to gas chambers or starved to death.

No, it really didn't. We didn't intervene in World War II because Hitler was doing such terrible things to his own people; we didn't actually care at the time, and arguably we didn't care all that much for many years after. We didn't really care that much what Japan was doing to China, and we didn't care AT ALL what Mussolini was doing in Italy (for the most part, we still don't).

The United States got involved in World War II initially because Germany was invading our allies and trying to muscle us out of our position in international trade, and we only entered the war fully when Japan -- one of Germany's allies -- attacked Pearl Harbor. If Germany hadn't aligned with Japan, we never would have entered the war in Europe at all.

Which fits the pattern, since just ten years later we totally stopped giving a shit what Stalin was doing to his own people in Russia. In the mean time, we didn't give a damn what the Duvalliers were doing in Haiti, what Saddam was doing in Iraq, or what the Shah was doing to his people in Iran. Quite the opposite, in fact: we SUPPORTED those governments, because they were friendly to use and cooperated with our objectives.

And that's all there is to it, really. The United States didn't give half a shit about what the communists were doing to their own people. What they cared about was that the communists were not about to give U.S. politicians access to Vietnam's internal planning. Since they wouldn't cooperate with U.S. strategic or economic interests, the U.S. would not tolerate their having control of the government.

And we didn't know to the extent but saw it later that the number of body bags with communism was even higher than the holocaust.

Under Stalin, yes. But Stalin wasn't the president of Vietnam; the high death toll in THAT case rests squarely on the shoulders of the United States, whose only interest in Vietnam was imperialist in nature.

The world wasn't going to be as complacent in the deaths as they were before.

That makes no sense. We not only failed to prevent those deaths, we actually CAUSED more deaths than the Vietnamese were even capable of. More than that, it was that same Vietnamese government that we tried to destroy that eventually jumped over and put a stop to Pol Pot.

In fact, looking at the history of all the tin-plated dictators we've supported over the years -- yes, that includes Stalin -- it seems like the death toll caused by our allies far exceeds that caused by our enemies.

 

[Jayjay]

No, it really didn't. We didn't intervene in World War II because Hitler was doing such terrible things to his own people; we didn't actually care at the time, and arguably we didn't care all that much for many years after. We didn't really care that much what Japan was doing to China, and we didn't care AT ALL what Mussolini was doing in Italy (for the most part, we still don't).

The United States got involved in World War II initially because Germany was invading our allies and trying to muscle us out of our position in international trade, and we only entered the war fully when Japan -- one of Germany's allies -- attacked Pearl Harbor. If Germany hadn't aligned with Japan, we never would have entered the war in Europe at all.

Which fits the pattern, since just ten years later we totally stopped giving a shit what Stalin was doing to his own people in Russia. In the mean time, we didn't give a damn what the Duvalliers were doing in Haiti, what Saddam was doing in Iraq, or what the Shah was doing to his people in Iran. Quite the opposite, in fact: we SUPPORTED those governments, because they were friendly to use and cooperated with our objectives.

And that's all there is to it, really. The United States didn't give half a shit about what the communists were doing to their own people. What they cared about was that the communists were not about to give U.S. politicians access to Vietnam's internal planning. Since they wouldn't cooperate with U.S. strategic or economic interests, the U.S. would not tolerate their having control of the government.

And we didn't know to the extent but saw it later that the number of body bags with communism was even higher than the holocaust.

Under Stalin, yes. But Stalin wasn't the president of Vietnam; the high death toll in THAT case rests squarely on the shoulders of the United States, whose only interest in Vietnam was imperialist in nature.

The world wasn't going to be as complacent in the deaths as they were before.

That makes no sense. We not only failed to prevent those deaths, we actually CAUSED more deaths than the Vietnamese were even capable of. More than that, it was that same Vietnamese government that we tried to destroy that eventually jumped over and put a stop to Pol Pot.

In fact, looking at the history of all the tin-plated dictators we've supported over the years -- yes, that includes Stalin -- it seems like the death toll caused by our allies far exceeds that caused by our enemies.

If you count Stalin as an ally, who do you count as an enemy?

 

[coloradoatheist]

No, it really didn't. We didn't intervene in World War II because Hitler was doing such terrible things to his own people; we didn't actually care at the time, and arguably we didn't care all that much for many years after. We didn't really care that much what Japan was doing to China, and we didn't care AT ALL what Mussolini was doing in Italy (for the most part, we still don't).


The United States got involved in World War II initially because Germany was invading our allies and trying to muscle us out of our position in international trade, and we only entered the war fully when Japan -- one of Germany's allies -- attacked Pearl Harbor. If Germany hadn't aligned with Japan, we never would have entered the war in Europe at all.

Which fits the pattern, since just ten years later we totally stopped giving a shit what Stalin was doing to his own people in Russia. In the mean time, we didn't give a damn what the Duvalliers were doing in Haiti, what Saddam was doing in Iraq, or what the Shah was doing to his people in Iran. Quite the opposite, in fact: we SUPPORTED those governments, because they were friendly to use and cooperated with our objectives.

And that's all there is to it, really. The United States didn't give half a shit about what the communists were doing to their own people. What they cared about was that the communists were not about to give U.S. politicians access to Vietnam's internal planning. Since they wouldn't cooperate with U.S. strategic or economic interests, the U.S. would not tolerate their having control of the government.

Now we didn't stop Germany from it, and there was a little guilt. But the leaders of the time like Truman certainly saw and believed that Communism was on par or even a further evil than Nazi Germany so they wanted to find ways to prevent it spread. It came partially in the form of dropping the A bomb in Japan to end the war and send a message to Russia that we were serious. We spent a lot of money in Europe to prevent the spread. We were forced to support the French in Vietnam because they said they would look at becoming friends with Russia if we didn't support them. We fought in Korea to stop the spread and eventually fought it Vietnam to stop the spread. It was certainly to stop the spread of communism in that part of the world. The death toll for the spread of communism was twice that of Nazi Germany.

Under Stalin, yes. But Stalin wasn't the president of Vietnam; the high death toll in THAT case rests squarely on the shoulders of the United States, whose only interest in Vietnam was imperialist in nature.

We had the millions of death in Russia, the millions in china, the millions in Cambodia when they tried to implement a form of communism there. There was some things on the south Vietnam after they took over, though not as big. The only way to know is build that time machine and see what happened.

That makes no sense. We not only failed to prevent those deaths, we actually CAUSED more deaths than the Vietnamese were even capable of. More than that, it was that same Vietnamese government that we tried to destroy that eventually jumped over and put a stop to Pol Pot.

We don't know what the north would have had to do to get the south in line with communism. They weren't above creating their own atrocities to gain compliance.

In fact, looking at the history of all the tin-plated dictators we've supported over the years -- yes, that includes Stalin -- it seems like the death toll caused by our allies far exceeds that caused by our enemies.

It's not only the deaths, but also the tyranny that was under those systems. The support for the north against the south in the US Civil war wasn't just about body count either.

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Yes Eddie,
But that also ended when the world watched and then were stunned in the behavior when millions of people were sent to gas chambers or starved to death. And we didn't know to the extent but saw it later that the number of body bags with communism was even higher than the holocaust. The world wasn't going to be as complacent in the deaths as they were before.

We killed millions to save imaginary millions.

Because we are special.

So in the US Civil war, 400K died. That war wasn't about body count and saving lives per say, but getting rid of a tyrannical system. So how many lives would you have said it was worth it to get rid of slavery? If the north had lost the war, would you have considered it a valiant effort?

 

[LordKiran]

Now we didn't stop Germany from it, and there was a little guilt. But the leaders of the time like Truman certainly saw and believed that Communism was on par or even a further evil than Nazi Germany so they wanted to find ways to prevent it spread. It came partially in the form of dropping the A bomb in Japan to end the war and send a message to Russia that we were serious. We spent a lot of money in Europe to prevent the spread. We were forced to support the French in Vietnam because they said they would look at becoming friends with Russia if we didn't support them. We fought in Korea to stop the spread and eventually fought it Vietnam to stop the spread. It was certainly to stop the spread of communism in that part of the world. The death toll for the spread of communism was twice that of Nazi Germany.

Under Stalin, yes. But Stalin wasn't the president of Vietnam; the high death toll in THAT case rests squarely on the shoulders of the United States, whose only interest in Vietnam was imperialist in nature.

We had the millions of death in Russia, the millions in china, the millions in Cambodia when they tried to implement a form of communism there. There was some things on the south Vietnam after they took over, though not as big. The only way to know is build that time machine and see what happened.

That makes no sense. We not only failed to prevent those deaths, we actually CAUSED more deaths than the Vietnamese were even capable of. More than that, it was that same Vietnamese government that we tried to destroy that eventually jumped over and put a stop to Pol Pot.

We don't know what the north would have had to do to get the south in line with communism. They weren't above creating their own atrocities to gain compliance.

In fact, looking at the history of all the tin-plated dictators we've supported over the years -- yes, that includes Stalin -- it seems like the death toll caused by our allies far exceeds that caused by our enemies.

It's not only the deaths, but also the tyranny that was under those systems. The support for the north against the south in the US Civil war wasn't just about body count either.

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Yes Eddie,
But that also ended when the world watched and then were stunned in the behavior when millions of people were sent to gas chambers or starved to death. And we didn't know to the extent but saw it later that the number of body bags with communism was even higher than the holocaust. The world wasn't going to be as complacent in the deaths as they were before.

We killed millions to save imaginary millions.

Because we are special.

So in the US Civil war, 400K died. That war wasn't about body count and saving lives per say, but getting rid of a tyrannical system. So how many lives would you have said it was worth it to get rid of slavery? If the north had lost the war, would you have considered it a valiant effort?

I don't understand how this relates to US involvement in Vietnam? I mean is the justification to save people? Because I know that wasn't the justification at the time. The justification at the time was to keep communist influences out of indo-china. The funny thing is that Ho Chi Mihn didn't even want communism initially. At the end of WW2 he actually approached allied leaders to try and have them bring democracy to his nation and they flatly rejected him on account of French Indochina being a French holding.

The more you know, eh?

 

[untermensche]

So in the US Civil war, 400K died. That war wasn't about body count and saving lives per say, but getting rid of a tyrannical system. So how many lives would you have said it was worth it to get rid of slavery? If the north had lost the war, would you have considered it a valiant effort?

The US Civil War was about two sides deciding the future of their own nation through war.

The US invasion of South Vietnam was an imperial power using force to try to maintain imperial control over people that wanted no part of that imperial power.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The places you support tend to be the sponsors of terrorism. Thus you're in favor of them.

Nonsense.

You are the supporter and lapdog of the biggest terrorist nation.

Please speak English, not untermensche.

"Terrorist" has a specific meaning. It's not "what untermensche doesn't like".

There is a moral distinction between people fighting for self determination and people fighting to oppress.

But war is war.

So complaining that it is ugly is handwaving.

The terrorism is almost always being committed by the side seeking to impose their will on those who don't want it...

And in Vietnam and Iraq that was the US.

Vietnam: The north wanted to impose it's will on the south.

Iraq: Iranian-backed Shia engaged in ethnic cleansing of the Sunni. Of course they shot back. That fight killed far more than we did.

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Unter, you have no problem with terrorism if it's done for a cause you believe in. And you never answered my question about your support for the south seceding from the north so they can carry out slavery.

Anybody who supports what the US did in Vietnam is a supporter of terrorism.

Fighting for slavery is not fighting for self-determination.

It is fighting for tyranny.

You are supporting the terrorism of the Viet Cong. You just don't think evil is evil if done in the name of the left.