Movies and TV shows Thread

[Pokerbrat2000]

A very different situation. And if not for Vietnam, we'd probably have boots on the ground as well.

Not much of a different situation at all, at least as to why the U.S. attacked both Vietnam and Iran. Simply put, America wanting to instill its beliefs and values on other regimes.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

War comes about because of conflict. And the hardest part becomes when do we engage and how long do we avoid. Woodrow Wilson tried hard to stay out of WWI but could not. Eisenhower knew that lives would be lost on DDay. But just how many. We wish we could live peacefully in our own sphere without having to deal with what happens in the rest of the world. War is hell as they say. Ironically, we must remember that as we are about to celebrate 250 years as a nation that it was due to war that we became just that.

The big difference between WW1, unlike Vietnam and Iran, we did not start WW1 in an attempt to change another countries regime.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

And it was tough to watch as good as it was.

I had a classmate die via Russian Roulette. That is one F'd Up way to go.

 

[milani]

The big difference between WW1, unlike Vietnam and Iran, we did not start WW1 in an attempt to change another countries regime.

There was and still is a thinking that says maybe you change theirs before they change yours. And it goes under the title of " liberation. " That was the Cold War mentality on both sides. Not that we were the ones to cause it, but
if you look back at WWI it was the failure to change those regimes that precipitated WWII. Vietnam started long before we jumped into the fray. It was a product of the Cold War. China was the battle between Mao and Chiang Kai Shek. Cuba, we know how that turned out.
Unlike Vietnam, however, Iran does have an impact on the rest of the globe. It holds a powerful commodity. And after its last regime change in 1979 it did not go dormant and leave the rest of the world alone.

 

[Voyageur]

The words "creeping communism" was a reality following WWII. Russia created the Soviet Union, and China was undermining governments throughout Southeast Asia. Even Cuba ended up sliding into communism under Castro. It was real, and it wasn't an imaginary threat, it was real. It was real down to the point of Kruschev pounding a shoe on the table at the UN saying he was going to bury America.

It's what triggered us going into Korea and continued with what happened in Vietnam.

For those of you who didn't live under the threat of nuclear war, which was always on the table from the Soviets, you'd never understand. The drills, in schools, to get under your desk as the only protection against bombs and possible survival, and the countries slowly turning to communism. Then growing up, joining the military, and facing things like the Berlin air crisis, threats out of Cuba by the Soviets, and near war when Kennedy was almost ready to pull the trigger, and eventually Vietnam.

Reading a textbook and thinking you understand the history of the time, or that it was all a foolish war is really not understanding history at all. It's like going to war. You can talk about it, how you'd do this or that if you were in combat, and you can talk about mistakes people make during them, but until you're actually part of it you'll never understand what it really is or was.

I lived through it, and I learned from it. If I said I came out a better person for it, that's not really true. What I did was come out as a different person who has seen things differently since then. I went from an 18-year-old kid to a 24-year-old man who never had the opportunity to enjoy campus life at some university, where I could rail against something because it seemed like the "in thing to do" at the time. Instead, I came back bitter against so many young Americans who made it impossible for me to take a commercial flight from San Francisco to Minneapolis in a uniform I'd earned the right to wear, because they were too busy railing against something they didn't even understand because it was the "in thing to do at the time."

Sorry! If this sounds a little bitter, it has been for me now for 60 years. People need to do a deep dive into the era, not read bullet points and think they understand an era. I found that even professors in college who were supposed to be well versed on the subject were nothing more than anti-war protestors of the era whose whole existence was self-serving and lacked any real understanding of what was happening. They too lived in their own little cocoon of self-righteous beliefs that totally missed the scope of what was happening in the world. To make it worse, many of them taught Political Science.

 

[rmontro]

Not much of a different situation at all, at least as to why the U.S. attacked both Vietnam and Iran. Simply put, America wanting to instill its beliefs and values on other regimes.

I really don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but I don't see them as similar at all. Vietnam was about controlling the spread of communism in the world, and Iran is about denying nuclear weapons to a country who has been attacking us directly and indirectly for decades.

 

[Poppa San]

I really don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but I don't see them as similar at all. Vietnam was about controlling the spread of communism in the world, and Iran is about denying nuclear weapons to a country who has been attacking us directly and indirectly for decades.

Yeah politics is a no-no in the rules so maybe we can just STOP.

 

[Pokerbrat2000]

I really don't want to turn this into a political discussion, but I don't see them as similar at all. Vietnam was about controlling the spread of communism in the world, and Iran is about denying nuclear weapons to a country who has been attacking us directly and indirectly for decades.

Agree. Without making it a discussion, I would highly recommend a book, as well as listening to a discussion with one of its authors.

Book: The Myth of American Idealism Noam Chomsky, Nathan Robinson

Discussion:

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[Voyageur]

Agree. Without making it a discussion, I would highly recommend a book, as well as listening to a discussion with one of its authors.

Book: The Myth of American Idealism Noam Chomsky, Nathan Robinson

Discussion:

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Excellent perspective.

 

[Voyageur]

A short book by General Smedley Butler named War Is a Racket is an excellent read as well. General Butler's bio will also tell you how industrialists tried to get him to overthrow the government for them and how he made sure it never happened.