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"The question of the draft is, perhaps, the most important single issue debated today. But the terms in which it is being debated are a sorry manifestation of our anti-ideological 'mainstream'.
"Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man's fundamental right—the right to life—and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man's life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time.
"If the state may force a man to risk death or hideous maiming and crippling, in a war declared at the state's discretion, for a cause he may neither approve of nor even understand, if his consent is not required to send him into unspeakable martyrdom—then, in principle, all rights are negated in that state, and its government is not man's protector any longer. What else is there left to protect?"
That was just one part of Ayn Rand's analysis of the Vietnam war in her April 1967 Boston Ford Hall Forum lecture, before the nation ultimately rose up in fervor against the war and the draft. Her lecture is well worth reading or re-reading for its typical philosophical, principled approach, before the major national turmoil that was yet to come over a war which the country never should have been in.
American's involvement in the Vietnam war was never in the country's interest or necessary for defense. It was an incompetent foreign policy adventure initiated by the incompetent president John F Kennedy and escalated by Kennedy and Johnson refusing to check their false premises. Kennedy also characteristically botched his Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba when he amateurishly rewrote and neutered Eisenhower's invasion plans (see Victor Lasky's J.F.K.: The Man and the Myth) -- with disastrous long term results of permanent communist dictatorship in Cuba and the Cuban missile crisis with the Soviets.
As Ayn Rand showed at Ford Hall in 1967, the Kennedy-Johnson foreign policy in Vietnam was hopelessly botched on principle from the beginning -- including the insane military strategy of 'fight with one hand tied behind our back'. The war escalated into a major national crisis before Nixon's Pragmatism made it worse, pointlessly disrupting the lives of and killing increasing numbers of American conscripts -- later under the name of a random lottery claimed to be "fair" and evading government responsibility -- and then causing increased suffering and injustice to the abandoned allies in Vietnam when Nixon abruptly "declared victory by withdrawing". The government under three presidents managed to do the worst of everything.
The later and growing media opposition to the war didn't cause the national debacle, the media merely reacted to the popular opposition to the war stemming from the draft, which is what eventually stopped the war -- and rhetorically pandered to the propaganda of the left, making the whole crisis worse. Consequences we still suffer from today came from the rise of the New Left, which exploited opposition to the war and the draft as a platform on which to propagandize and elevate it's own influence and methods -- now inside of and running the government. That is the philosophical trend anyway, but exploitation of the Vietnam crisis accelerated it.
If you remember, under Johnson there was a domestic strategy that was put in play by the Kennedy/Johnson "best and brightest" brain trust (I.e., McNamara, etc.) that embraced the "Guns and Butter" fallacy that provided a false prosperity back home. Hundreds of billions of dollars went into the war however the cynical "Great Society" was forced upon us as well.
There was also a great recession that was starting and even taking hold in the mid to late 60's that had to be addressed. Thanks to the leading edge of the "Baby Boomer" generation, there was a growing concern about unemployment, disaster after disaster in the racially charged areas of the country and of course, the need for fighting men (and women) for Vietnam. This set the stage for the draft because in the eyes of Washington, (the Johnson administration specifically) both left, right and the economy were addressed. Guns and butter! Also, let's get all of those raging young men off the streets. It became a sociological medicine for what was ailing an out of touch nation now run against any and all of the founders brilliant legacy. Ayn Rand understood what was going on much better than even she was given credit for!
I believe the draft was little more than a cynical tool of an irresponsible, growing statist government hunkered down within the Beltway!
The 'guns and butter' fiasco was the attempt to finance destruction through inflation, which in turn was supposed to supply the "butter". That, too, failed miserably, as always. The result was the run-away inflation, unemployment and wage and price controls of Nixon and Carter -- while the "best and brightest" scratched their academic heads over how "stagflation" could be possible.
The draft was there because of the altruist-collectivist ideology demanding servitude. They used it for Vietnam because it was there, then tried to parlay it into universal servitude for both military and non-military national service -- that would have been the next level of failure of FDR's massive alphabet soup make-work bureaucracy for the statism.
The American sense of life rose up against all of it, eventually resulting in the Reagan campaign, but it took 15-20 years to bury the New Frontier and Great Society. in name, while they remained entrenched but not popularly embraced. Even George McGovern and Hubert Humphrey were thoroughly trounced without even having to say that they were socialist. The people saw through it.
But the philosophical principles of reason and individualism were never explicitly understood on the scale needed, and so we have Obama and the Clinton dynasty. But how many today know the history?
Then go find your civics teacher and jack slap whom ever.
However the comment on 'is there a WE' did pinpoint the current sate of affairs exactly. No there is not. There is US the Constiutional Republic of the USA there is no U in the Peoples Autocracy of Obama. Nor an Us its a subjective collective..
You shouldn't have had to ask the question. Which is the right question for me to to ask.
However all is not lost given your command of the language. You probably have seen the Hillsdale courses for which they charge nothing but some of your time. (The support book of references is available inexpensively from Amazon.) With those tools yu can correct your first question quite easily. Don't forget to jack slap that civics teacher.
I'll leave you with this. We is divided into two parts. One is Government Over Citizens (known as the left) and the other is Citizens over Government. The center is the Constitution. It is not the center of the left which begins with Republicans and ends with Communists.
Using the definitions of the opposition tend to immediately cause you too lose and yet they are quite meaningless. The Trump people prove that daily but then they are 'of the left'.
" ,,, but America’s fighting forces did not fail us. ‘You know, you never beat us on the battlefield,’ I told my North Vietnamese counterpart during negotiations in Hanoi a week before the fall of Saigon. He pondered that remark a moment and then replied, ‘That may be so, but it is also irrelevant.’"
We violated ever principle in Sun Tsu's "Art of War," and paid the price/
As I said, I didn't get there until '92 but, I found the communists just as dedicated then as they apparently were in '75.
Transgender, women in the foxholes and a whole raft of stupidity is making us the laughing stock and that is not good! Our enemies (current and future) are salivating at the gross incompetence now running the US military into the ground where it will not be able to meet even its most rudimentary mission requirements
If this were a time of "declared" war, Obama would probably be impeached on the grounds of Treason.
Incompetence, ignorance and malice aforethought are the marching orders of; Obama, his administration and now the Clinton candidacy! For what its worth!
Which frightens me in our current military actions when we try to win the hearts of the people and don't try to do everything to win simply because it will make us look bad at the end of the day. To quote George S Patton "The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his". We have seemed to have moved away from this sentiment, and maybe why we seemed to have this never-ending series of wars and 'police actions'.
We were not there to win. We didn't try to win. We knew what it would take to win and we were not willing to do those things.
Contrast this to Gulf War 1. We on the ground had authority to call in some truly devastating support: tactical nukes. Obviously we didn't. But the mere fact we were authorized and provided with the means to do so gives you an indication of the willingness and resolve to win. Observe the results. Regardless of what happens after, we easily won that war.
For Vietnam we didn't have that resolve. We started to get it with the bomber runs, so they were called off. I've been on the ground when a low altitude mock B52 bombing run occurred and I can tell you the sound alone was absolutely terrifying - even after the first one and knowing it was coming. It was primal.
High altitude bombing runs are less primal but more mentally terrifying. Things. Just. Go. Boom. Indeed this was a key factor in the mass surrender of Iraqi tank commanders. To quote one "...out of nowhere one of my tanks exploded. Then another. And again. Yet we could see and hear nothing. We knew it was the Americans. I've never been so frightened in my life."
A primary favor in winning a battle, and thus a war, is terror. Not fear, but primal terror. Fear can be overcome and provides for courage. Terror not so easily. In Vietnam we were unwilling to do the things that would induce that level or terror and fear. The enemy had no such compunction.
War should be terrible, as much as we can make it. The more terrible it is, the less likely war is to occur. Even the socialist Gene Roddenberry knew this. The reason we haven't had WWIII is because of the extreme terror nuclear weapons are.
Just as Rand says in regards to hide who are willing to compromise principles will always fall to those who are not, the side willing to sacrifice victory for pleasantly will fall to the side committed to destroying the enemy.
We have had approximately 25 years (or so) of an intelligently built and utilized military however now, under the incompetent gaze of the Obama (and yes, Bush) administrations, the military is back to its Vietnam era use (armed social workers without a military mission).
Again, as in Vietnam, we are in "conflicts" that we are not even trying to win, run by a "politicized" military leadership with incompetent, political hacks calling the shots on behalf of an administration that hates the military.
Witness the 300 flag officers that refused to become "hacks" of the administration that were all but cashiered out of the military.
Harry Summer's book has all but been discarded by this administration hence our adversaries now have little fear and no respect for our men and women in uniform.
So! As you said in your statement, "We didn't try to win" then (I.e., Vietnam) and we are not really trying now with these pin-prick drone strikes and soldiers being sent out on missions without proper support, credible missions deemed more dangerous now than at any other time. Stupid is as stupid does and Americans are being put in harm's way needlessly and for all of the wrong reasons.
Welcome to Obama's "Political" war run by his faux "Best and Brightest" academic hacks......
If you are not "in it to win it", it is time to get out and not waste American lives and wealth in sheer stupidity! This will be Obama's legacy.....
I believe that we were never really in the war in order to win it (I.e., conquering North Vietnam) but rather just to stabilize the south. The argument at the time was still that Vietnam was a critical domino and that if it fell, the rest of Southeast asia would end up being vassal states of the Soviet Union and China.
Militarily, we never had a plan for going in and defeating the north on their own territory. All we thought we had to do was bomb them into submission. That assumption was grossly wrong!
In part, the problem stemmed later in the "war" or more accurately, "police action" that the intelligence that was being used was faulty! Johnson listened to the military and the intel that was coming out of MACV regarding critical tactical and intel based info. On the other hand, the CIA was probably providing much more accurate information that was for all intents and purposes being ignored.
These are two major reasons that I believe we were kept from victory! It was not for a lack of physical resources or the bravery and commitment of the American soldier and the allies that were there with us. It was a totally flawed war plan prosecuted by the political class in this country. Politicians should have little if any control of military operations! That was a lesson learned and has been taught going forward.
For what its worth!
Because it was run by politicians.
he and my other instructors (all survived 100 missions over the North...their reward was to be instructor pilots stateside)...they told all of us not to go...that they were slaughtering everyone over there...that is was insane...so i stayed as an instructor stateside...the 10 in my class who went to Nam were all killed...
years later i am deadheading in uniform as a pilot for American Airlines L.A. to NYC...sitting next to me is Henry Kissenger...we had quite the conversation...he explained that we did not fight the war to win it...just to prove to the communists that the U.S. was willing to sacrifice as many Americans as necessary to stalemate them, but the demonstraters stateside caused us to withdraw for political reasons only....i was very proud i didn't beat the crap out of him...
Reminds me I ran into a trumper down here. RABID but had no reason to support him except keep Hillary out. And he thought i was naive for asking him what was the difference between International and National Socialismand what evidence he could produce to show Trump was not left wing - just like Hillary. These people are so ashamed of themselves their brains no longer work. They don't play stupid they are stupid.
my Air Force participation was free pilot training for 6 years of payback, then onto the airlines...i was a poor boy out of west virginia and the first on either side of the family to go to college...worked a 40 hour week while taking a full load of classes...finished in 4 years..
It appears to me if one won't engage in a war of annihilation, one must change the minds of the enemy.
Wars used to be fought to annihilation or exhaustion. That's when they'd end, when one side was completely vanquished or no longer had the will to fight.
Now we seem not to have the stomach for that but, that means we can't be successful unless we change the minds of our enemies.
To me, although it seems we did many things badly in Vietnam and in Washington, our failure there was an example of the failure to understand this metatruth about war itself: every successful war will be fought to annihilation, exhaustion or, until the enemy changes his mind.
I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
Groups form for the common good under agreed terms. If one doesn't agree with the terms, one must leave the group.
The group of the United States of America formed with its terms, including potential mandatory military service. It's there, take it or leave it but, don't say it's not fair if you stay.
We were born here -- as individuals; we didn't "form a group for the common good under agreed terms". "Agreed terms" and conscription are opposites.
You have no right to impose conscription on anyone for the sake of any "common good" of a group. That is collectivism, which is not only "not useful", but destructive. This country was founded on the rights of the individual, not collectivism and not mandatory military service -- which abomination came to this country later from the European counter-Enlightenment, including Prussian conservatives in Germany.
You don't get to tell anyone to "take it or leave". The national crisis that arose over Vietnam and the draft did in fact result in the American people overwhelmingly rejecting the imposition of the draft. They didn't have to "leave", they told the politicians to get rid of the draft or leave. That is why we have an all volunteer army today despite those conservatives and leftists trying to impose collectivist duties of mandatory service.
For those who are on this forum because they understand the value of Ayn Rand's philosophy and sense of life as more than the conservative denigrations of useless "dancing on the head of a pin", here is more from her Ford Hall Forum lecture on the "Wreckage of the Consensus" during the rising crisis of the early Vietnam era in 1967:
"Of all the statist violations of individual rights in a mixed economy, the military draft is the worst. It is an abrogation of rights. It negates man's fundamental right—the right to life—and establishes the fundamental principle of statism: that a man's life belongs to the state, and the state may claim it by compelling him to sacrifice it in battle. Once that principle is accepted, the rest is only a matter of time.
"If the state may force a man to risk death or hideous maiming and crippling, in a war declared at the state's discretion, for a cause he may neither approve of nor even understand, if his consent is not required to send him into unspeakable martyrdom—then, in principle, all rights are negated in that state, and its government is not man's protector any longer. What else is there left to protect?
"The most immoral contradiction—in the chaos of today's anti-ideological groups—is that of the so-called 'conservatives', who posture as defenders of individual rights, particularly property rights, but uphold and advocate the draft. By what infernal evasion can they hope to justify the proposition that creatures who have no right to life, have the right to a bank account?..."
Your issue, or your version of Rand is outside truth and usefulness.
You were born here but, you don't have to stay. The rules are stated. If you don't want to abide by those rules, you are free to go. Thus, your association with this group and acceptance of its rules are voluntary.
Goodbye.
Our lives are not subject to your authoritarian collectivist decrees of "the rules are stated", do as you're told or "get out of the country". Our lives do not belong to your collective and are not yours to sacrifice. You do not tell anyone where we can't live in order to be free of your impositions. This is fundamental. We will not sacrificially serve you and will not leave.
There is no polite way to put it. Get lost. We stay, free of your statist conscription, and you had damn well not try to interfere through your authoritarian impositions of human sacrifice in the arrogant mentality of stuffy European conservative collectivism. The American people made that clear enough when they demanded and got abolition of military conscription decades ago despite conservative demands for oppression under their "our country love it or leave it" nonsense for servitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqYG...
Behavior betrays intent. It isn't that the military men were unwilling or even too unwitting to accomplish the task. When orders come from the very top to cease and desist or to leave accomplished goals it is clear there never was intent to win. What the intent was can be speculated upon and I have my ideas but there is no evidence I am aware of that gives any information as to why the war was fought except the first intent was to protect access to an important commodity.
An aside from the story, I was in China this spring and met a woman who asked if I had been in the service during the Viet Nam War. I told her that I had been a Marine. She said that in China it was known as 'the secret war' because other than the military that was directly involved (and the country's leadership) no one in the country knew about the war. Then she asked me a question (I find it interesting that only women ask this question) that I have not been asked in a long time. "Did you ever kill anyone? What was it like?"
That seems to be a fascinating question especially for the anti war people. The proper answer is go find out for yourself.
WWI had less bombing because aircraft were the newest big deal weapon but they did have bombing. WWII was different. The frame of mind in Europe was left over from the years before. Attitudes change BUT you can NEVER judge any event except in the context of it's time. Your Next Century Quarterbacking means squat with out that significant feature. And don't go by medals. There's a sequence dealing heavily with rank and quotas things having nothing to do with any actions.
Sad part is it automatically calls into question the ones who did deserve a medal, and calls into question those who didn't get one. By and large it has nothing to do with truth and honor.
So if you want to know what it was like,anyone out there?Look in the green pages for Military, Recruitijng Office. Go find out for yourself.
The other side had one major factor working for them and only one. The will to win nor matter what it took and how long it took.
The US does not have that from that day to this. as a nation. War to the general great unwashed is a video game with a reset button. They have yet to experience war other than some of their military and are for the most part not worth fighting for anyway.
Which is why I repeat quite often I am glad I took my oath which was and is to the Constitution and ....nothing....else.
Without the will to win which the country will never have with our political system there is only one more war and one more defeat snatched from the jaws of victory. Soldiers need more than that and a suspect quality pay check and retirement. Loyalty to that which is loyal to us provides that moral fibre needed. The Constiutional Republic and the Constitution.
The rest is frijoles.
There is a book out on the subject, wish I could remember the name...but it explains that America Was winning this battle for the South but was hampered by liberal demoncraps...read: Communist sympathizers.
Vietnam to kill innocent people. The New Left was not against the draft and war, they wanted communists to win. "Baby killers" had nothing to do with abortion. All abortion was still illegal in the US, and so were contraceptives under the influence of the Church.
It was never the intent of the gov't to win that war(?). It was a reason to: 1.Spend money to defense industries. 2.Grow the military. 3.Distract American attention off of the Race War.
Were you in country 4 years? Long time in a place like that.
I went back in '92. The communists won but, the people lost. Those not high in the government were dirt poor and hopeless. The cops ran the brothels and put all the village girls to work.
At 6800 dong to the dollar, I carried a knapsack full of dong around to pay for a $2 steak (of unknown origin) and a six pack of Saigon beer (25 cents at the Rex).
"We walked by the US Consulate last night in Saigon. It's located on the same patch of ground where the Embassy once stood. There wasn't much to see since the walls are high and the communist government had the original building demolished in 1975. The US has built a new consulate building to process visa applications. Everyday there are several hundred people lined up all day long to apply for a US visa. So even 40 years after the end of the war people who were not born understand what the US means.
I nodded to the Vietnamese guard who smiled back with his MP5 at his side. It's interesting that even the guard had a friendly smile."
In '92 I was one of very few Americans in Ho Chi Minh City. Most westerners were Russian. Russians kept trying to talk to me. My Russian was poor and my accent was American. They'd stare at me stunned, then turn and walk away.
I always smiled. I could sense their confusion - the Americans are back???
I'd appreciate it if you'd read the first comment under "Thanks Nam vets". It's my answer to why we didn't win. I'd appreciate any comments about my thesis.
Looking at it from the home front, we lost the war because the press said we did. It was like the Soviet Union in Reverse. They say they came in second and we (the US) came in next to last is what was a dual track and field contest. both statements are true but hardly convey what the rea situation was. The political leaders at the time (bot Rep and Dem) wouldn't have known the truth if it bit them in the butt.
All of that taken together equals winning the war militarily and loosing it politically and socially.
Just my non-server POV.
As for PTSD the ones I've run into were for the most part rear echelon types. That has held true from the late sixties until as late as yesterday. I'm of the opinion REMFs are perhaps not born but made but it could be both. Have I ever had my moments? Sure. But that was from surviving a marriage and divorce and let me see Carter as President. Not so sure about this one. For w hile I was waking up as if a child again and scared of finding a n Obama under my bed or in the closet. THAT was humor. .
The Obamamonster!
Ahhhhhhhhh!
"Would you like to hear a true bed time story?"
If you have time, please read my comment under the new thread, "Nam vets, thanks for your answers" and let me know what you think, am I right, wrong, or somewhere in between?
Ray Glab
92nd Field Hospital
(1) At least when we first went in, South Vietnam was so badly governed that communism probably wouldn't make things much worse.
(2) For the communists, South Vietnam would not be an asset worth owning. It would not help them win the Cold War. It would be a burden, costing them money and effort -- and if they didn't bear that burden, those considering Communist uprisings in other poor countries would find out about it and think twice.
In short, US leadership should have known better than to pay any attention to the domino theory or the people who asserted it.
2. Huh?
3.. you could have cut it to 'the US leadership should have known better. "
I won't assume but your contention is South Vietnam was badly governed by the French since they were in charge when any of our militry arrived.
So what? I don't know it's your rant So What?
At least as opposed to at most? probably? based on what information and comparative data?
(2) is absolute frijoles which is latino for BS.
South Vietnam was a part of Vietnam until the fall of the French and somehow it got divided into two halves by the Geneva Accords. The goal since the days of Chinese occupiers was heir country intact under their government intact.
Why did Uncle Ho turn to the Communists when they were so anti Chinese? Because their offer to help the Allied forces fight the Japanese was rebuffed due to the French. To some that is something worth pursuing It took them some hundreds of years.
World Communism you mean couldn't afford supporting a communist led effort like that? Why you capitalist roader. The last part is not only subjective but suspect in application of thinking but nonetheless has no practical meaning.
Which leaves us with US Leadership should have known better etc. Let's see Truman suspected it. Eisenhower agreed but they only monitored the French, JFK examined it and fully agreed ordering the rather small advisory effort out which brings us to LBJ who didn't think twice but saw a chance to make a lot of money i guess or else felt personally insulted no one really knows but he reversed the order. Then came the manufactured Tonkin Gulf situation, a willing, money sniffing congress, and the the 1st Air Cav Division went in with leaders who wanted to test the idea of using helicopters instead of trucks. Should ahave known better? Are you nuts. It worked out perfectly for those in charge.
Eisenhower started the Domino Theory and the idea was to support nations fighting against communist take over. Back then Communist Take over was a big deal. Now it's just next door to actual fact. They forgot to protect home base and are themselves currently one of the better strategies to solidify the gain Marighella's Cycle or Circle of Repression. The theory was based largely on the Korean War and the efforts to re-establish colonialism.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-hi...
How much in country time did you have?
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