(08-15-2021 02:46 PM)solohawks Wrote:  I was born during the peak of the Reagan Administration so I only know Vietnam through what I have read.

Sitting here watching the Taliban retake Afghanistan I ask is this what Vietnam felt like? I have never been a proponent of being in. Afghanistan, but it is saddening to see a country fall after so much money and so many lives were invested in the country. It's incredibly tough to think about the lives of the women and children and the horrible future they know face

While it appears similar the two were wholly different. At the end of WWII Ho Chi Minh begged the US for help in moving the French out. We refused to anger an ally from the recently ended war so Ho sought help from the communists and it came at the terrible price he had feared. But the French left and we moved in believing, and partially correctly in the domino theory that SE Asia would fall one state at the time if we didn't stop them there, but the war wasn't prosecuted for a victory but with asinine rules of engagement that frustrated our military and protracted a conflict which was unwinnable because the objective was not the defeat of the enemy, but rather maintenance of a border and in that respect it was a reenactment of Korea but at least in Korea maintaining a border was achieved. Viet Nam would have dragged on had not the press and political movements back home pressured Washington and Nixon to honor his promise and get us out. In the last 55 days as it was known we did manage to get many of our Vietnamese friends out of harms way but in our lack of political resolve we abandoned all POW's we couldn't physically prove they had and that was disgraceful.

This tops it in disgraceful disregard for our troops' families who lost their lives there, the thousands of innocent Afghanis who are left behind to face death at the hands of the Taliban, and betrays legitimate strategic objectives and makes Iraq more difficult, emboldens Syria and gives China a plethora of rare earth minerals important to their military and space objectives.

Nixon ended a war that should never have been against a people who first asked for our help and his shame was the lack of resolve on the POW issue, one I might add we had in part at the conclusion of Korea. Hell we are still repatriating remains from both.

This is a mindless act of treason by a corrupt crime family who let China legitimize Taliban rule this evening. It makes the world more dangerous for all free people and emboldens an enemy whose racial purity codes were adopted from the SS and who is power and land hungry. I'm betting Putin is quietly dismayed at their encroachment into a former Soviet objective. And the criminal part was that all was in hand until this administration telegraphed the withdrawal with no plan for a peaceful transition to a stable and NATO backed regime.

(08-15-2021 06:31 PM)Was SoMs Eagle Wrote:  

(08-15-2021 05:14 PM)Claw Wrote:  This is similar to the end of Veitnam, but it will probably differ in one key way.

The communists tried to go about killing their enemies quietly.

I suspect the Taliban will make a public show of it.

The communist had some plan for an economy. These animals have no desire to join the world in any sane way. They are all about death and destruction.

Death and destruction and foreign invaders are all most of those guys have ever known. Foreign soldiers have killed millions of Afghan and they see themselves as the good guys.

Yeah, they rule like its 1500, but outside of the Kabul bubble of recent years, that's just what the country is. I'd excuse them for it before I would US allies the Saudis.

But yes, I see a lot of similarities between this and Vietnam. The knowledge the loss is real and that things are inevitable. Embassy staff evacuations seem similar, and then there is the rush for each nations' urban elites who helped the foreigners to flee to the West with their money.

Warning

I was 12 when Vietnam ended. I can remember the evening when the churches bells rang in celebration of the end of the war. While I don’t remember many of the details of the politics, I remember how divided the country was.

I vividly remember being 6 or 7 and flashing a peace sign to some hippies on a motorcycle at a red light and them flashing it back. My Dad promptly pulled over and gave me a good ass whipping.

(08-16-2021 05:22 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  I was 12 when Vietnam ended. I can remember the evening when the churches bells rang in celebration of the end of the war. While I don’t remember many of the details of the politics, I remember how divided the country was.

I vividly remember being 6 or 7 and flashing a peace sign to some hippies on a motorcycle at a red light and them flashing it back. My Dad promptly pulled over and gave me a good ass whipping.

Lol, sounds like my old man. He was an MP for 25 years.

(08-16-2021 05:22 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  I was 12 when Vietnam ended. I can remember the evening when the churches bells rang in celebration of the end of the war. While I don’t remember many of the details of the politics, I remember how divided the country was.

I vividly remember being 6 or 7 and flashing a peace sign to some hippies on a motorcycle at a red light and them flashing it back. My Dad promptly pulled over and gave me a good ass whipping.

Prog filth are the retarded descendants of hippies. Its settled science. Peer reviewed.

Responding to the OP: certainly there are some similarities. In both instances, the US military is slinking off the stage under extremely humiliating circumstances, and leaving our allies in a 3rd-World nation to face a horrible fate at the hands of people who both hate America, and hate our allies for helping America. This will have repercussions around the world for a long time. Countries like Russia and PRC will benefit, just as USSR and PRC benefited when America withdrew from Saigon in ’75.

But from the standpoint of internal American politics, I think there are some critical differences. The America that lost Vietnam had a population of about 200m, and about 60,000 were killed or went missing in that war. The America that is now losing Afghanistan has a population of over 300m and about 7,000 went killed or missing in that country. So the burden of death is much lighter this time around.

Also, I believe the sense of shock/humiliation is much lighter this time around, too, precisely because most Americans either witnessed this type of thing in Vietnam, or at least know about it from friends/parents and teachers. In other words, most Americans of 2021 have a historical template to process the fall of Kabul. Most Americans of 1975 did not have a template to process the fall of Saigon.

(08-16-2021 05:22 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  I was 12 when Vietnam ended. I can remember the evening when the churches bells rang in celebration of the end of the war. While I don’t remember many of the details of the politics, I remember how divided the country was.

I vividly remember being 6 or 7 and flashing a peace sign to some hippies on a motorcycle at a red light and them flashing it back. My Dad promptly pulled over and gave me a good ass whipping.

Good for him!

(08-16-2021 05:22 AM)CardinalJim Wrote:  I was 12 when Vietnam ended. I can remember the evening when the churches bells rang in celebration of the end of the war. While I don’t remember many of the details of the politics, I remember how divided the country was.

I vividly remember being 6 or 7 and flashing a peace sign to some hippies on a motorcycle at a red light and them flashing it back. My Dad promptly pulled over and gave me a good ass whipping.

We don't ring church bells in Alabama for a loss. Nobody celebrated on the Air Force Base or in the city. It was quiet and solemn and disgusting.

It was the same when my Uncle arrived home from Hanoi, only military ceremony made it somewhat festive. Families were excited and cautious at the same time and some men came home to find wives gone. That too was sad.

Didn't flash peace signs (the great footprint of the American Chicken). I did listen to Merle Haggard's, Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee.