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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   18023 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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If the US won this war, then it has to go down as the first war in history that required Op-eds to convince anyone that we had won.

I have at least read op-eds attempting to convince me that Vietnam and Iraq were, in hindsight, successful (or at least not complete failures). Vietnam is, despite the ultimate victory of the North in its civil war, today a closer ally of the US than of nominally-communist China (somehow a win for Domino theory stans?). Iraq is, while imperfect, a much more stable and Western-aligned nation than under the Hussein regime. I'm not sure I really agree with either, but I don't think they're completely false. The "what if" of the Arab Spring on a non-Iraq-war hypothetical seems difficult, but the current timeline is at least plausibly better than a Syria-like alternate timeline.

I don't find the others a very persuasive argument, but it might at least not be the first. This one is maybe a bit early to call, but isn't screaming great success.

Technically speaking, the USA did win in Vietnam- it withdrew in exchange for a promise by north Vietnam to respect the south's independence(our actual war goal). The first time it reneged on this promise the ARVN repelled them. The second time the ARVN collapsed in a fit of coup-proofing paranoia at around the same time and commie tanks took Saigon.

Pinkos like LBJ and Nixon were unwilling to invade the north after the liberal Eisenhower overthrew the Ngo family's regime and that made the US position impossible in the long run, but we achieved our actual war goal before withdrawing.

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