Re: Westmoreland, MSM refers to Vietnam as "the only war America lost"...

[Hobarticus]

Does that strike anyone else as odd, that they'd feel the need to point that out?

[xray s]

1. pretty soon he'll have company

thanks to Bush

[CottonBear]

2. Is Korea considered a draw? n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. yes

and it is the forgotten war anyway... korea, what korea?

[spuddonna]

5. no, no... that was a 'police action' n/t

[Maple]

4. 1812 folks

Vietnam was neither the first, nor the only, war the US lost

[Hobarticus]

6. See....ain't this odd? n/t

[spuddonna]

7. Hey, be careful! Speading the truth like that ...

You're bound to be called unpatriotic... :)

It's all about the 'framing' - "Korea's not a war we 'lost', it was only a police action! 1812? That was a long time ago... Of course, now that we have 'the bomb', things are different!"

Yeah... our dear leaders have no need to read history to learn from it... I believe someone in this administration said, "While you think, we act, and we're creating history as we speak..."

I wonder if Caesar and Nero had advisors that said that kinda crap...

[Karmakaze]

8. Wasnt 1812 a draw?

Or has my memory and wikipedia put me wrong?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_of_1812

[NoPasaran]

10. I'd call it a draw

Our efforts to conquer Canada failed but we retained all of our national territory.

[tocqueville]

17. not bad regarding the balance of forces

United States

Regular army: 57,000
Volunteers: 10,000*
Rangers: 3,000
Militia: 458,000**
Naval and marine: 20,000
Native Americans
New York Iroquois: 600

Great Britain

Regular army: 10,000+
Naval and marine: ?
Canadian militia: 86,000+
First Nations: 3,500

*Volunteers were semi-professional troops
**Most militia did not participate in fighting or campaigning

[tocqueville]

9. depends how you define victory or defeat

I know that I am provocative (must be trauma from French bashing) but :

Have the US really won a war after WW II ?

Korea was a "tie"

Vietnam, Lebanon, Iran, Somalia were defeats

Iraq is turning into one and Afghanistan far from being "solved"

The "victories" have been against

ridiculously small states, that couldn't stand a chance (Panama, Grenada, even Lybia...)

or reduced to air campaigns together with allies. The US plays the major role in the air war, but the troops on the ground are NATO allies and the US comes in only after the ground is secured by others (Bosnia, Kosovo)

and Gulf War ? for me the most striking feature of this war is that the Iraquis didn't fight, which they were able to do against Iran for example...

OK you could say that it is better to be the strongest and too bad if the others are weak...

But what if you have to wage a war against a relatively well armed AND determined enemy...?

[ChiDem]

11. What happened in Iran ?

certainly not counting 53 or 79..?

[tocqueville]

12. I mean the SNAFU with the recovering of the hostages

[ChiDem]

13. Now you are...

getting into operations, not wars or battles

But keep Iran on your list, I am sure Bush will invade and screw it all up till we have to retreat...:crazy:

[tocqueville]

14. yes it's a thin line

but a successfull recovery operation deep into enemy territory has a tremendous effect both a home and abroad, not only for propaganda.

I recently saw a documentary where seven British commando soldiers were sent to blow up ships in the heavily guarded harbour of Bordeaux during WWII (1943, I think). They blew them and only two of them made it home aided by the French resistance (the others went astray and were captured). One of them is still alive.

Militarily the destuction was insignificant. But the Germans went ballistic and moved 3 divisions to the Atlantic Front in the French South West, divisions that were badly needed on the Eastern Front....

[Selatius]

15. History has taught us that occupation almost certainly means defeat

Occupations of territory belonging to other peoples almost always ends in failure unless the occupier is willing to resort to any means necessary to kill off the resistance up to and including mass genocide of the occupied population to dry up the pool of resistance. Usually, it means only going so far that the only ones left are the ones who don't want to fight anymore. Then it becomes easier to administer the territory.

Victory at any cost? Are people willing to see mass genocide, torture, and the intentional targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure on the invoice when the bill comes to be paid?

[tocqueville]

16. I just checked the Philipine American war on Wikipedia

Even if it was militarily a "victory" (mostly civilians were killed),
independence was granted to the Philipines after 13 years of a meaningless war.