vietnam war syndrome - ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

sharonk.bsky.social • 7 days ago

vietnam war syndrome

a foundational belief for millions of Americans is that the US military could accomplish any mission if the Damn Politicians Didn't Get in the Way.

Comments

dslakter.bsky.social•7 days ago

We're just gonna repeat it every 25 years now.

verboseminimalist.gay•7 days ago

Strikingly similar to the way German militants felt after WWI

nichhills.bsky.social•6 days ago

The Dolchstoßlegende (Stab-in-the-back theory). 'The army cannot fail, therefore it was failed by others.' In this instance, not betrayed by the government but by Communists and Jews.

This theory led to some dark places.

verboseminimalist.gay•6 days ago

Exactly

wildgorillaman.bsky.social•7 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/wildgorillaman.bsky.social/post/3lrg3du3sxc2c

arandomguy641.bsky.social•6 days ago

Vietnam is like the confluence of dumb military-civil takes.

1. It was the dang politicians that lost the war.

2. The NVA and NLF were a bunch of rice farmers with AKs (and MiG-21s and SA-2s).

3. Protests almost single handedly got us out of Vietnam because of their popularity.

historianmike.bsky.social•6 days ago

The last one is true, to an extent. Nixon was a pro-peace candidate (peace with honor is still peace). The problem is the '68er street movement refused to accept his kind of peace, so when they wrote the first cut of the history of the war they twisted themselves into saying he wasnt.

historianmike.bsky.social•6 days ago

Nixon implemented a basically coherent exit to Vietnam in the winter and spring of 1969 and followed through with that to try and end the war by Oct 1972 (an election year). He only missed that target because SVN through a fit when his October agreement was release (they werent consulted lol)

howarddalton.bsky.social•7 days ago

WW2 syndrome - it perfected and sealed the idea

timothystamm101.bsky.social•6 days ago

That isn't even a correct characterization of that war. Roosevelt was intimately involved with war planning.

oldhoundderby.bsky.social•7 days ago

That’s kind of like a re-warmed version of the German Dolchstoßlegende concerning their loss in the First World War. 😬

whiskeynachos.bsky.social•7 days ago

my high school's teacher's words were, and I quote, :"We could have paved Hanoi and turned it into a parking lot if the polititians had let us."

tft.io•7 days ago

... AND STILL LOST THE FUCKING WAR!

whiskeynachos.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yeah that's what that generation never really "Got."

tft.io•7 days ago

It's not like the Vietnamese saw off the Chinese and the French in short order first

whiskeynachos.bsky.social•7 days ago

They wasted a decade trying to sweep us off their shores as they had the French in Dien Bien Phu, only after Tet failed did they start to negotiate!

whiskeynachos.bsky.social•7 days ago

Johnson and Nixon deserve their places in hell for sending conscripts to die in a war they couldn't win but Lê Duẩn surely deserves the same for pissing away Vietnamese lives for nothing in the late 60's.

sharonk.bsky.social•7 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/sharonk.bsky.social/post/3lroq6s55yc2e

dnlmsstch.bsky.social•7 days ago

Every military when its time to conquer someone who hates you: let me do unlimited war crimes and we can win

Civilian government: this is a political problem and unlimited war crimes never help political problems.

Voters: can we at least try the unlimited war crimes strategy? I hate looking weak.

conjurial.bsky.social•7 days ago

(thankfully!) nobody actually has the stomach for the level of “unlimited war crimes” that could make a political problem go away

Killing everyone in the territory and then salting the earth is a thing best left to Roman history books

dnlmsstch.bsky.social•7 days ago

The generals always think that they will limit the unlimited war crimes.
The MAGA freaks never understand that no one has the stomach for unlimited war crimes and think everyone will like it once they start murdering because they are sociopath trying to make the world more like them

publicuniversal.bsky.social•7 days ago

It would also entail destroying 90% of what you are trying to get out of said conquest

conjurial.bsky.social•7 days ago

Land no longer being the most valuable thing and/or war no longer making economic sense is good

historyned.bsky.social•6 days ago

May explain why a noted war crime enthusiast was appointed to secdef

sharonk.bsky.social•7 days ago

tbh this problem probably goes back to Korea, in that MacArthur thought nuking his way to victory was plausible

numbcat9.bsky.social•6 days ago

That’s what I was thinking. That whole thing started when Truman fired MacArthur and they blamed everything that happened in China afterwards on the dirty liberals. I doubt the conservatives have forgotten it or gotten over it.

whiskeynachos.bsky.social•7 days ago

Macarthur was a 1000 IQ idiot, Westmoreland was just an idiot simpliciter.

migas1.bsky.social•6 days ago

https://youtu.be/sNWlpJaclrA?feature=shared

publicuniversal.bsky.social•7 days ago

What parts of “war is a continuation of politics by other means” and “you can’t airpower or bomb your way to territorial control” do people not understand

pwnallthethings.bsky.social•7 days ago

"The belief that you can use overwhelming force to achieve political ends that are boring or slow to achieve peacefully, and which would be bloodless and so politically cheap to achieve" is where the airpower thing comes from

apearlma.bsky.social•7 days ago

And big booms with camera going down to the target effects

publicuniversal.bsky.social•7 days ago

Gulf war didn’t happen etc

conjurial.bsky.social•7 days ago

It actually worked like that maybe one time ever, which is the atomic bombings of Japan.

And I know the belief in “strategic bombing” as a miracle weapon preceded that but unless you’re nuking something with total surprise about even the existence of nukes, maybe psychologically not gonna work?

hurricanexyz.bsky.social•7 days ago

You can hypothetically induce unconditional surrender with nukes, especially if you're the only one in the world who has them. But it's a pretty blunt instrument.

davec3.bsky.social•7 days ago

Disagree. A-bombs were an important factor in Japan's surrender, but the Russians declaring war was also a huge factor.

dnlmsstch.bsky.social•7 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/dnlmsstch.bsky.social/post/3lrrejzppqc2u

conjurial.bsky.social•7 days ago

The average person doesn’t commit 8 war crimes a day. Unlimited War Crimes Georg, who commits 17 war crimes a minute, is an outlier and should not have been counted

pwnallthethings.bsky.social•7 days ago

Hence why we invented LOAC. Tho the past few years have not been kind to the public belief that they matter

publicuniversal.bsky.social•7 days ago

Yea that was a rethorical question

tft.io•7 days ago

All of it, pretty much?

akahige.bsky.social•7 days ago

All of it, by the evidence

publicuniversal.bsky.social•7 days ago

Ok that was a rethorical question

thebadcode.com•7 days ago

ok but what if i really *wanted* those things to be true

publicuniversal.bsky.social•7 days ago

You are required to explain what will happen if the enemy does not respond in a way that validates your claims

publicuniversal.bsky.social•7 days ago

You can’t say “well the politicians stopped us from winning the war” when your job is to do what the politicians want and need you to do

glitterdork.bsky.social•7 days ago

It's so funny. Wars are apparently just things that happen independent of politicians, whose only job is apparently to ruin our fun with lame shit like "foriegn relations" and "domestic war fatigue."

glitterdork.bsky.social•7 days ago

Mr. President, just give me more men and resources, I promise that my brilliant victory will happen just in time to win you the next election.

tylerharris75.bsky.social•7 days ago

They’re right in the sense that we would have “won” the Vietnam War if the dirty politicians didn’t stop us from… *checks notes*… dropping 130 tactical nukes on Vietnamese soil.