Over and Over The US Bombed Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos , Who "Won"?

[G_j]

nobody...

4 times the tonnage of bombs was dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos than that used by the US in all theaters of operation during World War II.

Did all the bombs and death "win" the war?

Here we go again..
Under the cover of US election news, in the coming weeks watch for more and more US bombing and ground offensives in Iraq.

It didn't work in Vietnam, it won't work in Iraq.
The end result? Atrocities
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From Vietnam to Fallujah

by Fran Schor


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=51&ItemID=6217


<snip>
For those who have studied the historical record of the US prosecution of the war in Southeast Asia, neither the Republicans nor Democrats have confronted the full measure of those atrocities and what their legacy is especially in the war on Iraq. While most studies of the war in Southeast Asia acknowledge that 4 times the tonnage of bombs was dropped on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos than that used by the US in all theaters of operation during World War II, only a few, such as James William Gibson's The Perfect War: Technowar in Vietnam, analyze the full extent of such bombing. Not only were thousands of villages in Vietnam totally destroyed, but massive civilian deaths, numbering close to 3 million, resulted in large part from such indiscriminate bombing. Integral to the bombing strategy was the use of weapons that violated international law, such as napalm and anti-personnel fragmentation bombs. As a result of establishing free-fire zones where anything and everything could be attacked, including hospitals, US military operations led to the deliberate murder of mostly civilians.

While Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have touted the "clean" weapons used in Iraq, the fact is that aerial cluster bombs and free-fire zones have continued to be part of present day military operations. Villages throughout Iraq, from Hilla to Fallujah, have borne and are bearing US attacks that take a heavy civilian toll. Occasionally, criticisms of the type of ordnance used in Iraq found its way into the mainstream press, especially when left-over cluster bomblets looking like yellow food packages blow up in children's hands or depleted uranium weapons are dropped inadvertently on British soldiers. However, questions about the immorality of "shock and awe" bombing strategy have been buried deeper than any of the cluster bomblets.


<snip>
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http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1004-02.htm

Published on Monday, October 4, 2004 by the lndependent/UK

Civilians Bear Brunt as Samarra 'Pacified'

by Kim Sengupta in Baghdad

Iraqi government and US forces declared yesterday that they had "pacified" the rebel stronghold of Samarra, and stated that other "no-go" enclaves such as Fallujah would be recaptured before national elections due in January.

The Americans insisted that the estimated 125 people killed in the storming of the city were all insurgents. Doctors and local people reported women, children and the elderly among the dead, and that bodies were still being brought into hospitals.

There also appeared to have been discord over the military action between members of the US-sponsored Iraqi interim government. The Interior Minister, Falah Naqib, echoed the American line that no civilians had been killed and only "bad guys and terrorists" had suffered. It was, he said, a "great day for Samarra". But the Human Rights Ministry, in a letter to the Iraqi Red Crescent, described what happened in the city as a "tragedy" and called for urgent emergency assistance.

Local people in Samarra claimed that many of the 1,000 insurgents the Americans were targeting had escaped before the attack, and civilians had borne the brunt of the casualties. Of 70 bodies brought into Samarra General Hospital, 23 were children and 18 women, said Abdul-Nasser Hamed Yassin, a hospital administrator. There were also 23 women among the 160 wounded.


..more..
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"Samarra Burning" by Riverbend

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2447557

Sunday, October 03, 2004

Samarra Burning...

The last few days have been tense and stressful. Watching the military attacks on Samarra and hearing the stories from displaced families or people from around the area is like reliving the frustration and anger of the war. It's like a nightmare within a nightmare, seeing the corpses pile up and watching people drag their loved ones from under the bricks and steel of what was once a home.
<snip>
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[knowbody0]

1. and the rocket's red glare the bombs bursting in air

im thinkin a new anthem is in order
i hate the fourth of july since vietnam
when will we evolve
lol

[Kanary]

6. I'm completely with you on that! Celebrating bombing is barbaric.

When peace becomes the *TRUE* goal, and not just campaign rhetoric for all concerned, the process will change.

Kanary

[G_j]

2. kick

:cry:

[hiphopnation]

3. Exactly.

This notion of "winning" a war. What's the bar? What's the standard? We have less casualties so we "won"? :puke:

There's a thread right now in GD posing the very question "Is the war winnable"? The question is incorrect on its face. And yet, there it is. *sigh*

[sweetheart]

4. They think that viet nam was being won by bombing until...

the impeachment took away all the power of the nixon administration
to wage war... and the whole war fell apart...

The BFEE figures that they will be able to avoid a catastrophic
loss by keeping up the bombing, as if this election were the same
as nixon's impeachment... and actually... it is.

[G_j]

13. interesting point

you may have something there regarding the Nixon impeachment. I do know that some fools think the VN war could have been 'won'. They also commonly blame their failure on the peace movement, thus the major hatred of Kerry and a good part of a whole generation of Americans who didn't buy the lie of Vietnam. Seems that the 'war' is still being fought.

[bobbieinok]

16. VN motto 'we had to bomb the village into the stone age to save it'

[Mandate My Ass]

5. The bombmakers won (n/t)

[G_j]

7. right, and once again it is the war profiteers who win ..n/t

[Mandate My Ass]

8. They don't even try to hide it anymore

Not content with simple war profiteering, the rape of the Iraqi economy for the benefit of American corporations will be built into any Constitution the US foists on the Iraqis. Read it and weep.

The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the US a Lock on Iraq's Economy
by Antonia Juhasz

Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy.

These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people.

The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life - from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39 alone does no less than "transition from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy" virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat.

Although many thought that the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders, on his last day in Iraq Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi - a 30-year exile with close ties to the CIA and British intelligence.

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0805-07.htm

[G_j]

14. and a puppet government

must maintain itself through force.
'Elections' will mean little or nothing without an end to the US privatization and occupation of Iraq.

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. My evangelical GOP BIL insists we won that war, and that was the

reason why the troops came home. :eyes:

[Jacobin]

11. Bwaahahahahaha...he's got a great sense of humor

[GreenPartyVoter]

12. If only *sigh*

[Jacobin]

10. Also we had 550,000 troops in Vietnam

Somehow, countries which have not formally surrendered after an all out war (Germany, Japan) do not tolerate being occupied and having their treasure looted.

This is one giant major clusterfuck of a disaster. Horrid and horrendous and doomed to get much much much worse.

Only Smirk could have pulled off such a dimwitted idiotic blunder.

[slojim240]

15. More importantly, how many people did we kill?

From the dropping of two atomic bombs on Japanese civilians (for the life of me, I don't know how they can even deal with us today) to Viet Nam, S. Korea, S. America and now Iraq...we are the worlds biggest terrorist nation.