Tom the exterminator

joanna bujes joanna.bujes at ebay.sun.com
Mon Apr 8 12:28:40 PDT 2002


At 02:11 PM 04/07/2002 -0400, you wrote:
>Did the U.S. really lose the Vietnam war? The only revolution of
>consequence after the U.S. withdrawal was in Nicaragua, and that
>didn't end very well. Vietnam itself was ruined - impoverished and
>poisoned. From that experience, the U.S. learned never to use a draft
>army again.

Oh boy, did it ever lose Vietnam. Not only that, it also lost Korea: when you're that powerful, a draw is a loss.

If it had not lost Vietname (both ideologically and materially) how do you explain the fact that "warfare" was restricted to covert, terrorist operations against pitifully weak targets from then on?


>Of course, the empire management may not always do the smart thing.
>But I'm skeptical of such arguments. They have, after all, run the
>most successful empire the world has ever known for over 50 years. It
>will end someday, and maybe Bush's unilateralism and overreach will
>be its undoing, or at least do it some damage. But I think the
>presumption should be that the people who sometimes look like wackos
>really know what they're doing.

50 whole years!!! Oh wow!!! I'm so impressed!!! I mean we're just so HUGE and POWERFUL!!!

Ugh. Don't mean to overreact. I think they're fools! The fact that the U.S. can exact so much destruction and suffering does not speak to their power, but just the opposite.

Joanna B



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