Re: A plague on both their houses

In article <Xvsif.41771$qw.15833@fed1read07>,
"The Chozen Few" <thechosenfew@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> "Phaedrine" <Phaedrine.Stonebridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> <mailto:Phaedrine.Stonebridge@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote in message
> news:Phaedrine.Stonebridge-90E86E.23550025112005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> In article <vUxhf.35061$qw.29355@fed1read07
> <vUxhf.35061$qw.29355@fed1read07">mailto:vUxhf.35061$qw.29355@fed1read07>>,
> > "The Chozen Few" <thechosenfew@xxxxxxxxxxx
> > <mailto:thechosenfew@xxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
> >
> >> "brickbat" <brickbat@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:brickbat@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote in
> >> message
> >> news:brickbat-00A282.14201824112005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > [...]
> >> > Does "Vietnamization" ring a bell? Worked like a charm, as I recall,
> >> > right up to the point that the South got annihilated.
> >>
> >> As I've pointed to you before here (e.g., http://tinyurl.com/cbo6g),
> >> there
> >> are significant differences between Iraq and Vietnam and the respective
> >> forces opposing us in those countries....
> >
> > There are also significant similarities with 'misguided operations'
> > topping the list. The differences are more superficial than substantive
> > relative to the present context.
>
>
> More superficial than substantive? One of our main goals in Vietnam was to
> see that country remain divided indefinitely, while one of our main goals in
> Iraq is to see it become reunited as soon as possible (in a more positive
> way than it was under Saddam, of course). The most dedicated forces opposing
> us in Vietnam were nationalists with no long-term ambitions beyond their
> country's border, while the most dedicated forces opposing us in Iraq are
> either remnants of a regime ruled by a man who modeled himself after
> Nebuchadnezzar and Stalin, or religious fanatics determined to convert
> and/or kill everyone else in the world. Vietnam's natural resources and
> those of its neighbors weren't sufficiently valuable that we needed to worry
> very much about their falling into enemy hands, while Iraq's and those of
> its neighbors certainly are. If you regard those differences as superficial,
> what would you regard as substantive?
>
By "enemy hands" do you mean France and Germany who were involved in a
lot of trade with Iraq?
>
> > Reading over this thread, it looks
> > like you'd have benefitted far more from Brickbat's experience than he
> > would from your verbiage--- either past or present.
>
>
> Whatever the shortcomings of my verbiage may be, at least it's rarely
> "partisan B.S.," which is more than I think can be said for either
> brickbat's verbiage or yours. As for his experience, whatever it may have
> been, it doesn't appear to me that he's benefitted all that much from it
> himself in an historical sense. As I pointed out to him in my response to
> him today in this thread, attributing the fall of South Vietnam primarily to
> America's lack of will to continue the fight isn't "revisionism," but rather
> a logical conclusion based on the terms of the 1973 Paris Peace Accords
> (link again given below), the subsequent violations of that treaty by the
> North and the Soviets, and our disinclination to respond to those
> violations. It has little or nothing to do with whether the South actually
> "should* have been a nation in its own right, or whether we ever *should*
> have gotten militarily involved there in the first place. It has everything
> to do with what the historical facts actually were at the time that treaty
> was signed and during the two years thereafter.
>
>

> http://www.aiipowmia.com/sea/ppa1973.html
>

>
> *If* the North and Soviets had abided by the terms of that treaty, which
> they almost certainly would've done for the most part *if* we'd had the
> political will to effectively respond to their violations of it, South
> Vietnam might still exist as a country today in somewhat the same way that
> South Korea does. Or alternatively, the North and South might eventually
> have achieved a peaceful reconciliation in somewhat the same way that East
> and West Germany have, and which the two Koreas may yet do. Or they might
> actually have achieved reunification "step by step through peaceful
> means," as provided for by Article 15 of the treaty. Whichever. The main
> point is, the most *un*likely outcome would've been a military conquest of
> the South by the North if we'd continued to have the will to fight to make
> sure that didn't happen.
>
> It probably wouldn't even have been necessary for us to sent ground troops
> back into South Vietnam to forestall such a military conquest. Even living
> up to our promises to provide air support to the South's forces as needed
> probably would've been enough to deter the North -- it certainly would've
> been enough to prevent the kind of open drive on the South's cities that
> took place in 1975. We still had enough readily available airpower in
> Thailand, the Philippines, and Guam to stop that kind of military operation
> in its tracks, and in fact there were many of us serving in those places at
> the time who believed we *should* have done just that. I wasn't among those
> who believed that at the time, and I'm still inclined to doubt we ever
> *should* have become militarily involved there in the first place (for
> reasons I've often expressed here before), but nowadays I'm also inclined to
> believe that our later betrayal of the South sent an even more unfortunate
> message to the rest of the world than our earlier excesses there and in the
> North.
>
Since you have a link, it must be correct.(not). What an academician!
The treaty was bull*** and no one thought it would hold. It was an
instrument to save some face on ourwithdrawl. I find the idea that we
would muster support to enforce commitment to the treaty pretty naive.
Maybe its better to see a few trees close up every once in a while.

>
> > [...]
> >
> >> >> > As for the ugliness and acrimony of Washington, it reflects the
> >> >> > rage,
> >> >> > resentment and shame of men who know they made a horrible mistake,
> >> >> > thousands have suffered and died for it, and worse may be yet to
> >> >> > come.
> >> >> > The truth is both parties failed America. What the Greatest
> >> >> > Generation
> >> >> > won, the baby boomers are frittering away.
> >> >>
> >> > Amen to that. The cost of compromising science in our schools and
> >> > eliminating a woman's right to choose has a great cost. Not to mention
> >> > spending us into unbelievable debt. Thank your local religious fundie
> >> > for this administration. Fucking assholes.
> >>
> >> The problems in our schools stem far more from administrative
> >> inadequacies
> >> and parental lack of involvement than from any kind of religious or
> >> ideological bias.
> >
> > First of all, Brickbat wasn't indicting the schools in general so your
> > attempted argument merely (and conveniently) sidesteps the real issue
> > which is religious extremists using political power to inject their own
> > personal brand of religion into the schools and other public
> > institutions.
>
>
> Though I'm far from being a religionist myself (extremist or otherwise),
> that isn't the "real issue" as I see it WRT "compromising science in our
> schools" (brickbat's earlier complaint in this thread). What I see is that
> our school science programs typically aren't sophisticated enough
> to introduce students even to the concept (much less the practice) of
> examining fundamental assumptions as part of the process of learning
> science, and I blame *that* (as well as many other problems in our schools)
> on the larger problem of adminstrative inadequacies and lack of parental
> involvement.
>
> Taking "intelligent design" for example (since it's currently in fashion as
> a particular topic of debate in the context of religion in schools), while
> the mechanisms involved in natural selection have been empirically observed
> in abundance, whether those mechanisms are completely adequate to explain
> the presence of complex life (much less intelligent life) on this planet is
> another issue entirely. Some reputable scientists doubt that those
> mechanisms are completely adequate in that sense, or at least doubt that
> it's been satisfactorily proven that they're completely adequate, and their
> doubts don't necessarily indicate religious belief of any kind. An
> interesting debate on this subject may be found at the link below, and I
> think it's regrettable that many atheists are apparently even more eager to
> keep that kind of debate out of our classrooms than many theists would be.
> In *both* cases, I see dogmatism born of ignorance -- the very antithesis of
> science -- as being the "real issue."
>
When science doesn't hack it, its time for philosophy or religion. Just
don't dress it up like science. The incredible efforts involved in this
deception is totally absurd.
>
> http://www.actionbioscience.org/evolution/nhmag.html
>
>
> So how do I think administrative inadequacies and lack of parental
> involvement are responsible for this sad state of affairs? Not that I think
> you're really interested in reading what I think about that, but I'll answer
> my own question anyway just in case someone else here is.
>
> An inadequate administrator by my definition is someone who cares more
> about keeping a job as an administrator than in actually administrating, and
> I've observed that such people are usually highly averse to confronting
> and/or resisting whatever extremes of opinion become manifest among their
> employers (the school systems and ultimately the public). They bend
> whichever way the zeitgeist happens to blow most strongly and loudly at any
> given time, and where the lack of parental involvement comes in is that
> those parents who're *not* extremists of one sort of another -- which I
> suspect is most parents at most times -- tend not to do nearly as much of
> the blowing as those who are. Of course, it's possible to be an ignorant
> moderate as well as an ignorant extremist, but being moderate doesn't
> *necessarily* mean being either ignorant or indifferent, and hearing more
> from concerned and knowledgeable moderates would at least have the effect of
> stabilizing inadequate administrators and encouraging adequate ones.
>
>
> > (The schools have enough problems already and, to the
> > extent that parent involvement may be one of them, it exists mainly in
> > families where both parents or the only parent have to work full time
> > jobs to meet even basic necessities. More often than not, the "lack of
> > parent involvement" clichè is what teachers say when they mean that a
> > parent will not do what they want.)
>
>
> Much more often, I suspect, it's what teachers say when parents don't even
> notice that Junior or Juniorette hasn't brought home a report card in
> several months.
>
>
> >> Re the abortion issue, even pro-choicers like Justice Ginsburg have
> >> acknowledged the extent to which the judicial activism of Roe v.
> >> Wade's has "prolonged divisiveness and deferred stable settlement of
> >> the issue."
> >
> > I would only mention here that by Conservative measure and definition,
> > "judicial activism" has been practiced far more by Conservatives on the
> > High Court than by others. They just like to call it "strict
> > constructionism" is all.
>
>
> As commonly defined by conservatives, "judicial activism" happens when
> judges venture beyond their appropriate area of authority -- interpretation
> of laws -- into the area generally deemed (even by many liberals) as being
> *in*appropriate for them -- namely, legislation. I invite you to cite
> specific cases in which any judges (conservative or otherwise) have thus
> ventured further than even many liberal jurists say the SC did in Roe v.
> Wade. I know of a few cases in which nominally conservative judges have
> ruled in notably activist ways (e.g., Brown v. Board of Education), but I
> doubt that many jurists (conservative or otherwise) have ever called such
> decisions "strict constructionism."
>
>
> > The coming weakening of women's rights is going to get very ugly.
>
>
> I'm sure that's true, to whatever extent that prophesied weakening actually
> comes to pass. But strict constructionists, to whatever extent they actually
> are such, are at least as likely to tend toward preserving Roe v. Wade (for
> instance) on the basis of precedent and subsequent legal tradition as toward
> reversing it on the basis of its having been an inappropriately activist
> decision at the time.
>
>
> > --
> > Got a problem with CAIR and its dishonest tactics? Write your
> > representatives!
> > <http://capwiz.com/lwv/dbq/officials/directory/directory.dbq?command=congdir
> > >
.

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