US needs to beef up its Air Force. Thoughts?

[Gandalf]

Tito, my post was a measured and considered one. The US elite themselves knew the war was pointless and Johnson didn't want to lose face so he EXPANDED the genocide of freedom fighters and sacrificed more innocent American people. It was something that should have been learned from. But no war after war after to just waste money and let the Taliban return meanwhile Bin Laden is allegedly in Pakistan. Allegedly.

My stance is not biased. I apply the same to the indiscriminate killing of civilians in any war. Using nukes to 'teach the Russians' was deprorable. It was a gross experiment. Can you imagine what that is like? You are lucky to be vaporised. Those not covered in burns, vomiting white gunk, dying of cancers. No, it is degenerate and cowardly.

You might have noticed a pattern but I oppose all of these wars. Brock is right on that point. Anyone now signing up has no excuse of naivety. Viernam was a monstrosity. Rolling Heavy Thunder was described as one of the most self defeating strategies of all time. It also broke America economically. After Vietnam completely abandoning dollar and gold. Now all these years later 20 trillion in debt and the solution is to 'build airplanes' and 'build more nukes'.

Who's in a "tizzy" now?

My post wasn't even directed at you and merely made the distinction between hating wars, and hating those young boys who get/got drafted to go over and fight in Vietnam. You seem to have gone off on some tangent rant, to the point of declaring your point unbiased. WTF? What exactly did you read in my post that made it necessary to defend yourself?

Not in a tizzy at all, but making a series of observations and points backed up by the historical record. Is there anything you disagree with?

[walrus]

Miles all you look at was a bomb dropped on Japan and how the people felt. How did the victims of Nanking feel. How about the victims of every country Japan occupied since the 30’s. How about Pearl Harbor, remember the US was neutral until the Japanese attacked. Others here were calling for the nukes to be dropped on North Korea. One crazy warmongering white guy.

[Gandalf]

Miles all you look at was a bomb dropped on Japan and how the people felt. How did the victims of Nanking feel. How about the victims of every country Japan occupied since the 30’s. How about Pearl Harbor, remember the US was neutral until the Japanese attacked. Others here were calling for the nukes to be dropped on North Korea. One crazy warmongering white guy.

I know and Donald Trump needs to calm down with that Twitter. Fighters fighting fighters is totally cool. Killing innocent people is not. In Japan you crossed the line. In Vietnam you chaps lost the plot. Surely you can see that. In Vietnam the Japanese were kicked out and Ho Chi Minh requested his independence. Totally snubbed. The Nazi's had to be beaten, as did the Japanese, but like I say you don't carry out genocide to prove a political point. That is known as evil too.

[walrus]

Miles all you look at was a bomb dropped on Japan and how the people felt. How did the victims of Nanking feel. How about the victims of every country Japan occupied since the 30’s. How about Pearl Harbor, remember the US was neutral until the Japanese attacked. Others here were calling for the nukes to be dropped on North Korea. One crazy warmongering white guy.

I know and Donald Trump needs to calm down with that Twitter. Fighters fighting fighters is totally cool. Killing innocent people is not. In Japan you crossed the line. In Vietnam you chaps lost the plot. Surely you can see that. In Vietnam the Japanese were kicked out and Ho Chi Minh requested his independence. Totally snubbed. The Nazi's had to be beaten, as did the Japanese, but like I say you don't carry out genocide to prove a political point. That is known as evil too.

That’s all the Nazis and Japan did was genocide

[Gandalf]

Miles all you look at was a bomb dropped on Japan and how the people felt. How did the victims of Nanking feel. How about the victims of every country Japan occupied since the 30’s. How about Pearl Harbor, remember the US was neutral until the Japanese attacked. Others here were calling for the nukes to be dropped on North Korea. One crazy warmongering white guy.

I know and Donald Trump needs to calm down with that Twitter. Fighters fighting fighters is totally cool. Killing innocent people is not. In Japan you crossed the line. In Vietnam you chaps lost the plot. Surely you can see that. In Vietnam the Japanese were kicked out and Ho Chi Minh requested his independence. Totally snubbed. The Nazi's had to be beaten, as did the Japanese, but like I say you don't carry out genocide to prove a political point. That is known as evil too.

That’s all the Nazis and Japan did was genocide

That does not make it okay for you to do the same. You lead by example, not terror. In Vietnam all that needed to happen was for elections to take place as soon as possible. It was agreed by all that 2 years would be enough. Minh would likely have dominated and that's all she wrote in Vietnam. American involvement by pretty much all accounts made everything worse. Even US troops were saying things like 'We don't know why we are here'. France said stop. The UK said stop. Johnson would not listen. His ego had taken over. He was sacrificing children on the other side of the world for no better reason than to fight the 'bogeyman'. Would he go and fight? Would Trump? Would Bush? Would Clinton? No, they would sooner send working class and white and black kids. People who have no voice.

[Gandalf]

Anyways, I am not holding you personally responsible or anything Walrus, just expressing my opinion based on my own research and readings. I just think it was a very bad situation and I am sure you understand my position. Vietnam today remains a market based Communist country. Nothing was gained or achieved by any of it. I think the same way about Afghanistan where the Taliban refuses to go away. I think the same about Iraq which was based on lies and failed to consider just how divided a country Iraq was already. It just did not need to happen. There was no reason it could not have been managed peacefully. There were no WMD. This does not look good and I am sure like with the chaps in Vietnam you end up questioning 'What is this for?' and more so when the truth finally comes out like The Gulf of Tonkin, or no WMD, or what have you.

[TitoFan]

Not my argument, but I don't think walrus is defending Vietnam, nor has anyone on this thread as far as I can tell. Personally I think it was a huge waste of time, resources, and human lives. It's the soldiers that went over there I mostly feel sorry for. Most of them were drafted, and were teenagers or just past teenage stage. The party line on the war was to keep Communism from spreading to South Vietnam. Flimsy excuse... the U.S. should've left well enough alone. One of those wars that stick out as not having a legitimate purpose. It also dragged and dragged and dragged. Finally the U.S. ended up withdrawing and you're right..... nothing was gained. A lot of deaths for nothing.

Your real point of contention is with the nukes dropped in Japan. I see both your points on that one, but if pushed I would probably side with Miles. The argument that a conventional war would've been drawn out and bloody is a good argument, but still fails to fully consider all possible scenarios. And why Japan and not Germany? 'Cause Germany is surrounded by other European countries? That would be a weak argument. Why didn't the U.S. just fly over and drop a big Fat Man on Germany to make the Nazis surrender quicker and avoid more life losses? I don't know...... the whole Atomic Bomb thing is just a bit much for me. Two entire cities incinerated. I think the U.S. was capable of a huge push against Japan that would've eventually defeated them. At the very least, why was Nagasaki bombed? I've read up on it and seen a lot of BS answers, but none of them seem to justify that second act of carnage. Don't get me wrong, I know the U.S. had to go to war with Japan after Pearl Harbor. I just have to ask whether it was really necessary to obliterate two cities.

[Gandalf]

Ah, it is a misunderstanding. You probably see my entire post as calling you out, but only the first part was that. The rest was other things in the thread such as what I saw from Walrus. Don't take it so personally Tito, I agree with some of your post.