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Originally Posted by Mani-1
No need to dissect that argument. Iraq and Vietnam may be in two different parts of the word but our fight is very very similar. We fought the Vietcong there and we fight the 'insurgents' here. At the end of the day you're fighting the citizens of that country. So the fight is very similar and it's a never ending one.
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Again, the fight is not at all similar. Stop listening to the mainstream media. In Vietnam, we fought against well-armed, well-trained, well-disciplined "soldiers" (there's a better word than this but it escapes me). Our opposition in Vietnam was directly aided by the Soviet Union, which includes intelligence in addition to arms. The opposition also had a chain of command which they followed, and the opposition had superiors that they reported back to. In Iraq, we are fighting radicals, fanaticals, etc. who all operate on individual, independent "cells". There is no chain of command and there is no outside aid from a superpower. Iraq is far from the disciplined military we faced in Vietnam.
The only thing that Vietnam and Iraq have in common (aside from trivial things) is that the media is hellbent on doing everything they can to make us lose the war.
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Originally Posted by Mani-1
If we decide to stay there until that place stabilizes, then you're looking at a long long occupation and yes more American deaths.
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The fact that Iraq would not be over in a day was explicitly mentioned by Bush back in 2003. He said that we would be there for a long time, and that this war will be a long one. War inevitably means death on both sides. The bleeding hearts don't understand this for some reason. Yes, it sucks when an American dies, but it's a war, and that's what happens.
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Originally Posted by Mani-1
We should have addressed Afghanistan issue much more forcefully than we have thus far. We needed to catch and kill Ben Laden and company in such a manner that will make people's nose bleed when they think about attacking us. If we showed so much force and completed our mission in capturing Bin Laden, we would've had so much more convincing power to many other rogue nations, including Iraq. When you realize that you'll be annihilated if you attack us, people will think twice about doing it.
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I agree with you. I have always held this viewpoint. We need to make attacking the United States unthinkable. I believe John Travolta said it best in Swordfish when he said "They hijack a plane, we take out an airport. They execute American tourist, we tactically nuke an entire city." I can only dream of a world where this is a reality. But, unfortunately, it is not realistic because humans are easily corrupted by power - legalizing these sort of attacks make it easy for a corrupt leader to kill. That's why I believe this stuff needs to happen under the radar. (and for the record, I believe in torture; but, like this ideology, there should be no law protecting or banning it because of how easy it would be for a corrupt individual to exploit it)