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The American Menace (war on "Terror," Iraq, rotating Others)

Started by kylie, June 29, 2006, 06:20:06 AM

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Zakharra

 I think Nixon, Regan and Clinton all cut and ran. The Vietman war was unwinnable as long as the politicals tried to run it, and there are affirmed reports by the leaders of the Viet Cong, that they were loosing until the anti war people got going in the US. Once that happened, then they could win. Because some people over here could not stomach a war. They thought and still think that wars are unneccessary and everything can be solved by talking.

QuoteYou didn't answer my other question, though: when is it acknowledging failure and moving on, and when is it 'cut-and-run'?  Explain that one to me, please.

Vietman had only two ways it could have been ended. 1, the way it did, by cutting and running, or 2, ignoring the politicals and let the generals in the field fight the war.

QuoteAnd even though the House and Senate were preparing resolutions demanding the troops be withdrawn?  AND would have flayed him alive if he'd ignored them?
Congress can't do a damned thing about war. They can pass all the resolutions they want and the President can and should ignore every single one of them. The President, not the Congress is in charge of the military. The only thing the Congress can do is to not fund the war. They can not order the troops withdrawn or anything, but to cut funding.

QuoteThe middle class bears the bulk of the burden...not individually, perhaps, but in circumstance, placement, and timing.

Not in income taxes. The middle class bears a ever lowering burden of it. The rich, bear a far higher share of the income taxes. Other taxes do get more poeple, like sales tax and such.

QuoteSooner or later, your lovely little tax cut will have to be repealed.  It's a simple matter of when.

Hopefully never. The tax cut is working. That's fact. What is the problem is governmental spending. Even if the taxes were high, there would still be high spending. The US Treasury has reported that the deficit is lower than expected because of unusually high tax reciepts from capital gains and such. If the people get to keep their money, they spend it. Improving the economy and giving government a larger share due to volume of sales.

If the tax cut was repealed, resulting in a tax increase then revenue would rise, then fall as people took their money out of the market and put it in places that it can't be taxed. Like out of cocuntry. Places that people like George Soros has his hundreds of millions...

Swedish Steel

If they ponied up, your tax rate would likely go down...so long as nobody kept racking up expenditures by, say, starting a war (they're expensive!).

But they're fun! And you get to call yourself a War President, how cool is that!

Well, let's ask the Europeans around...  Would you prefer to adopt the American economic model?

Uhm, no. I'll keep mine, thank you very much.
"Ah, no, not bukkake chef! Secret ingredient always same."

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MadPanda

That's my point: tax cut plus increased spending equals major problem.  The tax cut won't help in the long run.  It's a band-aid over a sucking chest wound, if you'll pardon the gruesome expression.  And the economy isn't doing as well as you want to believe it is.

But didn't you just claim that Nixon and Reagan didn't cut and run?  I thought that's what you said.  Only now they did cut and run?  But you aren't angry at them for doing it?  It's cutting and running!  And in spite of what Congress may or may not do, what would the PR cost have been to Bill Clinton?  The Republicans and more than a few Democrats would have gleefully torched him in effigy for daring to defy such a resolution--Somalia wasn't a declared war, as I said.  Clinton was between a rock and a hard place, and staying in was no guarantee of success.  If he had, you'd be cursing him for doing that, too.  Do make up your mind.

Your analysis of Vietnam is sadly incomplete.  Very, very sadly incomplete.  Not even a free hand on the part of the military could have 'won' that war, short of igniting total war with China and the Soviet Union...and that would have defeated the purpose.  As it is, the war was not lost militarily...  It was a policy failure, and the only way to correct those is to "cut and run"--acknowledge the error and adjust accordingly.  This is harder to do that you think it is.
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Zakharra

 You like high unemployment? Over or near 10%? High intenest and such?


Vietman was winnable. It could have been won by taking out the bases the NV used and bombing the places that supplied arms and such to the Viet Cong. There are officers in the VC that have said that they were loosing until the antiwar people sounded off.

QuoteThat's my point: tax cut plus increased spending equals major problem.  The tax cut won't help in the long run.  It's a band-aid over a sucking chest wound, if you'll pardon the gruesome expression.  And the economy isn't doing as well as you want to believe it is.[q/uote]

Control and lower spending and it will get better. Tax cuts help because people spending their own money is better for the economy than government doing it. And the economy is doing very well. In all aspects. Name one where it is bab? Employment? Equal to or better than what was in the Clinton years (oddly enough there was little mention of unemployment in those years), interest is still very low, Inflation is low. the stock market is rising. The Houseing market has not popped, it's easing, but still very strong.

Swedish Steel

That's just them rubbing it in, I think. The only way to win that war would be to comit atrocoties far worse than anything previously seen, and that would have pissed off more than the USSR and China. People weren't crazy about that war in the first place.
"Ah, no, not bukkake chef! Secret ingredient always same."

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Zakharra

 It was winnable, if it had been fought properly in the beginning. Getting politicians out of the war running will increase it's chances of being won by a huge margin. When they are actively running and planning the military actions, then they mess it up. 

MadPanda

Wrong again.  Our phase of the war was not winnable at all, except on the battlefield.  The core policy behind our involvement in the war was flawed and never corrected in spite of evidence to the contrary.  Johnson in particular handled matters poorly in this regard, no doubt, but Nixon did little better.

The Republic of VietNam was neither stable, nor sustainable, nor viable absent powerful international support...and all the bombs and flag waving in the world would not change that.  It could have been otherwise, but that would have required Truman and Eisenhower to have made different decisions than they did regarding Indochina.

Military victory, while necessary, is in and of itself insufficient.  The NVA could have simply accepted a negotiated end to the war and then returned later...which is what they did.  Defeating a people willing to wage war on a generational basis is a lot more difficult than you think, short of outright genocide.
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Zakharra

 I don't agree with you. I think it was a winnable war, but it's long past and done.   It's the now and future that have to concern us.