The Wow I Can't Believe That News Story Thread

[Frownland]

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

^ Yes, sadly, I'm sure they did, but that doesn't make it the "express purpose", according to my understanding of that phrase.

Strategic attacks aimed to weaken Vietnam's military=making the Vietnamese easier to kill/sending the message that supporting the Viet Cong is worthy of death

Would the attacks be meaningful if they had no casualties?

People actually died

Bonus question: would John McCain have complied with the draft if the public opinion was that it inherently made him a war criminal?

Hint: the answer is yes. That's why Johnny boy is worth decrying.

[Lisnaholic]

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

Maybe you should go dig up the corpses and see if they give a f uck?

^ Well of course they don't, but arguing about correct use of language is par for the course on MB. I'm calling out Frownland's post as being inaccurate. Photos from My Lai and talk of corpses doesn't alter that inaccuracy.

Also, my original point is failing to understand Anteater's comment about Trump.

I'm not fetishizing soldiers, or endorsing America's involvement in Vietnam or suggesting that civilian deaths are ok. I'm just suggesting that Trump should show some respect for a US soldier who has endured five horrific years of a kind that Trump can prob not imagine.

Originally Posted by Anteater

Trump is right about McCain though.

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

Trump on McCain:-



It doesn't matter when or where the fighting is, there is one common theme among soldiers returning from war and that is that the civilian population have no idea what a soldier in battle really goes through. Most civilians accept this and give due respect to war vets.
Not so civilian Trump who says of John McCain, " He's not a war hero.....he's a war hero because he was captured. I like people that weren't captured, ok?" In one assinine sentence Trump belittles McCain's courage during years of imprisonment and torture. Also, by implication, he belittles every soldier who had the misfortune to become a POW by implying that being captured is the fault of the individual soldier. Anyone with a passing knowledge of military history knows that this is not necessarily the case. The problema is that Trump has all the intuition about war of a ten-year-old watching a movie,bouncing up and down in his seat shouting bam-bam. This is borne out by his comments about the security guard who failed to go into the Parkland school: "I don't know, but if it was me, I think I would've gone in..." Dream on, you pathetic draft-dodging coward.

Me on Anteater:-

[DwnWthVwls]

Why do you think it's important for people to show respect to people they don't respect? I think that's a terrible way to live.

Fuck social conformity without good reason.

[Janszoon]

Originally Posted by Chula Vista

OK. My bad. You happy now?

We owned it, we governed it, we pretty much controlled its economy. How do to you think Pearl Harbor got there in the first place.

Plus, Spam.

Yes, we owned it and governed it. It was like what Guam is now: not a state.

[OccultHawk]

The bombing missions were straight up mass murder. Dead is dead. McCain is a war criminal and it’s too bad he won’t be executed for his crimes before he dies. Dodging the draft was heroic. If everyone had done it this horrible massacre wouldn’t have happened. I spit on the grave of every American piece of **** that died over there. ****ing worthless cowards. **** all of them.

[Maajo]

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

^ Actually, [MERIT], as a general rule they do work, but obviously they don't eliminate the problem completely. You might as well expect that there'll never ever be another drunk-driving accident because of the drunk-driving laws.

To be fair, it's more like expecting 0 drunk driving incidents in a state where it's illegal to buy, sell or consume alcohol. Numbers would drop significantly, but there would still be the odd one. So, yes the laws are effective if they're enforced on a large scale and not just in certain counties or regions of a state/nation.

As far as war and murder goes, I have to somewhat agree that you're basically going in with the knowledge that you're going to be killing someone else, and that's why it absolutely has to be a last resort and not a step before. If people's safety and your own safety is at risk, then that's when it's time and the problem with Vietnam is that there were so many lies told about our involvement. Until years after, the lie was that Vietnam sunk one of our ships until it was proven that the Johnson Administration lied. Also, we were bombing all of Southeast Asia for the most part which the public had no idea of, so it wasn't just Vietnam but Laos, Cambodia, Burma, etc.

[Anteater]

Lisna, the whole reason I shared that Tokyo Rose vid was to illustrate that McCain embellished his time as a POW. It throws that whole narrative you cited on Wikipedia into question. What he told officials in government privately and the story that was sold to the American people don't completely line up. As far as I'm concerned, he and the government puffed up the story to distract from his war crimes + the fact he likely sang like a bird to his captors before any torture was actually done to him (assuming we take his own account at face value, which I don't).

Trump is fundamentally right about him even if you don't align with that sentiment.

[Lisnaholic]

Originally Posted by Frownland

Strategic attacks aimed to weaken Vietnam's military=making the Vietnamese easier to kill/sending the message that supporting the Viet Cong is worthy of death

^ That's prob true, but isn't this equation true too:-

Strategic attacks to weaken N Vietnam's military=reducing their ability to attack S Vietnamese and US soldiers

Would the attacks be meaningful if they had no casualties?

I would've thought so, yes. The main object of destroying a bridge is to reduce troop movements, for example.

People actually died

As I say, sadly, that's true.

Bonus question: would John McCain have complied with the draft if the public opinion was that it inherently made him a war criminal?

Hint: the answer is yes. That's why Johnny boy is worth decrying.

^ Not sure what this question is about. Are you suggesting that any US soldier serving in Vietnam was ipso facto a war criminal?

[Frownland]

Originally Posted by Lisnaholic

^ That's prob true, but isn't this equation true too:-

Strategic attacks to weaken N Vietnam's military=reducing their ability to attack S Vietnamese and US soldiers

By killing them.

Poll: how many wrongs make a right?

^ Not sure what this question is about. Are you suggesting that any US soldier serving in Vietnam was ipso facto a war criminal?

No. I'm suggesting that any soldier serving in any war is a war criminal.

[Lisnaholic]

Originally Posted by DwnWthVwls

Why do you think it's important for people to show respect to people they don't respect? I think that's a terrible way to live.

^ I guess my reasoning is this; being a soldier is a horrible job that can involve risking your life, but when you sign up to be a soldier you accept that you will follow orders. In ways difficult to measure, in Britain and the US, we enjoy the benefits of having a standing army, even if it's only for when they are flying in hurricane relief supplies. Because it's a hard, lousy dangerous job, I'm prepared to accord them some respect even if they've been sent to fight in a war of dubious morality.

I'm surprised that Trump doesn't appreciate his armed forces more: it's a very unusual leader who denigrates the people who, in the worst of cases, would die to defend the country he leads.

Originally Posted by OccultHawk

The bombing missions were straight up mass murder. Dead is dead. McCain is a war criminal and it’s too bad he won’t be executed for his crimes before he dies. Dodging the draft was heroic. If everyone had done it this horrible massacre wouldn’t have happened. I spit on the grave of every American piece of **** that died over there. ****ing worthless cowards. **** all of them.

^ Carpet bombing of cities could be described as mass murder - strategic bombing of bridges and arms depots, not so much.
Completely failing to understand McCain's role at My Lai. Sorry.

Originally Posted by Anteater

Lisna, the whole reason I shared that Tokyo Rose vid was to illustrate that McCain embellished his time as a POW. It throws that whole narrative you cited on Wikipedia into question. What he told officials in government privately and the story that was sold to the American people don't completely line up. As far as I'm concerned, he and the government puffed up the story to distract from his war crimes + the fact he likely sang like a bird to his captors before any torture was actually done to him (assuming we take his own account at face value, which I don't).

Trump is fundamentally right about him even if you don't align with that sentiment.

^ Well, thank you for that explanation Anteater.