"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
...
"David Looser" wrote in
message

But doesn't describe everyone having to speak German.

Right, but that is clearly implied.

In any case Hitler made up policy on the hoof.

During the war, yes. We'll never know for sure what he would have done had
he won the war. But the goal of establishing the "Thousand Year Reich"
suggests something well-organized and pervasive.

As you say we'll never know.


I've noticed this face-saving myth seems popular in
certain sections of American society, that the US only
lost the war in Vietnam because it was fighting "with one
hand tied behind it's back".

Two hands. We had to deal with the mess the French left behind.

No you didn't! The US could (and should) have stayed well out of it. There
was absolutely no reason for the US to go charging in when the French had
very sensibly decided to withdraw. The phrase "fools rush in where angels
fear to tread" comes to mind, it sums up the US decision to take over the
colonial role of the French extremely well. In the end, of course, it was
the poor old Vietnamese who had to sort out the mess when the Americans
finally left.


We came out of the Vietnam war with vast stocks of ordinance, some of
which we worked off in Kuwait. We never ever gave Vietnam our all.

Not in terms of US industrial production, no. But, with the exception of
nuclear weapons, there was no war-fighting tactic or technology left
untried.

What we actually see is a military, frustrated at
being unable to defeat a supposedly inferior enemy,
resorting to almost any tactic to try and "win".

No, we did not use *any tactic*.

Near enough.

It's understandable that some US troops, trained to
regard the Vietnamese as barely human, resented having any rules
imposed on them at all.

You're speculating wildly.

Am I? I don't think so.

But it's also understandable that
politicians, all too well aware of the devastating effect
news of each new massacre was having on both domestic and
international public opinion, wished to keep such
massacres to a minimum.

The fact is that massacres are not effective.

True, which is why rules of engagement are instituted to try and stop them
happening. But with the sort of conflict that the Vietnam war was, they
happen.

Since it was public opinion that eventually forced the US
government to throw in the towel it's arguable that had
those rules of engagement not been in place the US would
have been forced to concede defeat sooner.

Thanks for admitting that due to poltical considerations we never were
able to give the war our worst.

I don't know what you mean by "your worst". The US tried it's damndest to
win that war, and failed. It didn't lose because it wasn't trying, it lost
because it had the wrong troops and the wrong strategy. Not having rules of
engagement would not have made a difference to the final outcome.

Not using nukes serves our own purposes, because within
a week, fallout from anyplace falls on us.

And within a day the far more important fallout of
international opinion would have made a little matter of
radioactive fallout seem insignificant. Whether the US
likes it or not (and it frequently gives the impression
that it doesn't) it is, actually, just one nation amongst
many on this planet, and does have to co-exist with the
others.

World opinion does not kill.

If it resulted in military action being taken by another power?

Sticks and stones and all that. Fall out does kill. Worrying what happens
tomorrow is not as compelling as worrying about what happens for the rest
of your life, particularly when that means that you're dead in a month.

You claim to be a Christian, yet I haven't spotted a hint
of regret on your part at the considerable death,
destruction and suffering that the US inflicted on
Vietnam.

It happened against my will. I sacrificed to not be a direct part of it.
It clearly would have happened even if I burnt myself to death on the
steps of the White House.

I'm not asking you to burn yourself to death. I was just hoping that you'd
agree that the Vietnam war was as much the result of stupidity and arrogance
as Hitler's invasion of Russia was.

And before you accuse me again of "UK
chauvinism" I'd mention that I am every bit as critical
of much of British policy in acquiring and administering
the "British Empire", as I am of US foreign policy in the
post-WW2 era.

I'm not faulting that. I'm faulting the false idea that the US wasn't a
deciding factor in WW2. Note: "a deciding factor", not "the deciding
factor". We tried hard to keep WW2 from happening, but Europe had to go
its own way. We worked hard to pick up the pieces when it was all done,
and give them back to the Europeans. The Europeans did learn and did
better.


When did I say that the US wasn't a deciding factor? Clearly the US was
*the* deciding factor in the Pacific war, in Europe it was *a* deciding
factor. All I challenged was the idea that, without US involvement, "we'd
all be speaking German". Leaving aside the quaint idea that the inhabitants
of Europe would have all started speaking German simply because Hitler
wanted them to, I simply argued that, even without US involvement, the
Soviet Union could, and would, (eventually) have defeated Germany.

I'm not sure what you mean by "We tried hard to keep WW2 from happening".
There were a lot of Nazi sympathisers in the US before the war,
proportionately even more than there were in Britain, and the only American
efforts to stop WW2 from happening that I know of came from them.

And I regard your comment "The Europeans did learn and did better" as
patronising. How long did it take the Americans to learn that they should
never have gone to war in Vietnam?

David.