6th January 2008, 5:52 PM
lazyfatbum Wrote:*runs through the thread nude while waving N-Man's pants*
Whathafuck, how much time do I have to devote to this. Just give me my pants back.
1) Are you joking? Comparisons between people like the Taliban and fascists make no sense? Whatever Bu$hitler has done to civil liberties pales in comparison to their acts, surely you'll agree. Show me the repression of free speech, the enslavement of women, the banning of communication media. At worst, it's easier to snoop - big deal. Did you know that Arab nationalist groups like the Ba'ath are directly inspired by and have their roots in 1930s European fascist parties? Furthermore: talking to Islamists is a waste of time, invading Iraq was a good idea if poorly executed, and you should indeed consider invading Iran - if only consider. IIRC even the (socialist) foreign minister of France agrees.
2) Yes, if you could have gotten Ho Chi Minh to be on your side and not a communist that would have been pretty smart. If you could have convinced Saddam Hussein to hold free elections, also. That is neither here nor there.
3) After Tet, the Viet-Cong were exhausted. Instead of finishing them off, you caved in to popular pressure and withdrew. That is the plain truth. North Vietnam would have eventually come to the peace table - no country, no army can sustain casualties like they did forever. It took 12 years for the British to win in Malaysia, and that's in an environment where their enemy was largely withheld supplies - but in the end they won. Kissinger himself described how the US later realized that North Vietnam was much closer to caving in completely in negotiations than they thought at the time.
4) So, you don't have an idea for solving Iraq either, yes? What exactly are you saying, beyond "get the UN involved"? How would getting the UN involved help? Oh - surely Shi'ite death squads and Islamist suicide bombers will have more respect for UN negotiators than US ones, everyone knows the stability that they brought to dangerous situations in the past, like Rwanda for example.
I LMAO at how Bush is "shredding civil liberties" but how North Vietnamese concentration camps and forced collectivization are just like "oh well, they did ok". What am I supposed to say to you?