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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   27510 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 27, 2023

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What, the consequences of illegally and secretly invading or bombing neutral countries finally caught up to the President and Congress spat the dummy, demanding total withdrawal?

Not really, no. Cambodia was not particularly relevant to the American political opinion or actors involved at the time. This isn't exactly some social secret either- there still exists public opinion polling and records of remarks and interviews from the period that you could look at if you cared to.

This is more of a demonstration of your lack of awareness of relevant subject matter.

Nixon and Kissinger were playing their own game, haughtily excluding everyone else from their plans and then turn around with a shocked expression when they got the rug pulled out from under them.

Simply because you believe the framing you subscribe to should be the one others subscribe to does not make it so. It does, however, make you wrong when trying to characterize the reasons that actually held influence to those others.

Expanding the war into Cambodia was a direct cause of much of Nixon and Kissinger's political woes, it went squarely against his electoral promises to withdraw and scale down the war. It caused considerable public anger and distrust, including in Congress. The duo's loss-management skills were poor, especially since fighting in Cambodia didn't change the outcome.

This would be demonstration two...

And what was the fruit of the Paris Accords?

Exactly what was described in the answer you ignored but dismissed as they didn't seem relevant or important to you. Which would be demonstration three....

That's a big war, albeit not a world war.

Absolutes that seem big to people with smaller frames of reference are not the same as big things in absolute terms. A seventh is a considerable and non-trivial fraction, but it is not a big fraction.

America losing a big Vietnam war as opposed to a small Vietnam war surely helped the Soviets in the Cold War.

Since the Soviets subsequently lost the Cold War to the results of the post-drawdown reorientation of the US, that would surely be an uninformed conclusion, even without the fallacious attempt to assume a conclusion that doesn't even hold.

You completely misunderstood my point,

I understood your point, it was simply characteristic of you and unsubtly trying to ignore previous points to make a jab.

I don't see how I'm stupidly deriding American competence when they made the exact same mistake again in Afghanistan,

You are stupidly deriding because you are demonstrating a considerable lack of intelligence, awareness, or understanding of the things you deride.

Such as here. This line, and the paragraph that was clipped, is its own example. It does not take some sort of uncommon insight to identify multidues of differences- and things to critique- between Vietnam and Afghanistan from political, social, diplomatic, economic, military, opposition, local regional, and many other relevant factors. Breezing past them for a not-partiuclarly-well-constructed historical metaphor to force a commonality on topics you have stronger opinions than knowledge about is quite characteristic of you, but also a stupid form of derision.

What's the quote about repeating the same thing again and expecting a different outcome?

You never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

This isn't exactly some social secret either- there still exists public opinion polling and records of remarks and interviews from the period that you could look at if you cared to.

Oh, so there were no consequences from covering up bombing campaigns from Congress? What is the War Powers Act, amongst other things? Why do you think Congress passed it over Nixon's veto? Covering up military operations and losing the trust of Congress directly caused the massive loss of political support that doomed South Vietnam. This is basic, simple and straightforward stuff. Nixon and Kissinger chopped down the ladder they were standing on, trying to make it higher.

Demonstration 2...

There are such things as real facts, cause and effect. Your unconscious privileging of spin over reality is a really beautiful metaphor for the woes of US foreign policy. There simply isn't any way to work around this, even for a verbal magician like yourself. You are simply wrong when you try to mischaracterize the motivations of others. It's not even a very capable mischaracterization, everyone knows that expanding the war into Cambodia caused Nixon serious political problems! Do I seriously have to cite this?

Absolutes that seem big to people with smaller frames of reference are not the same as big things in absolute terms.

Sophist nonsense - the Vietnam war was a big war, albeit not a world war. I am using language to describe whilst you are using language to conceal and obfuscate. The size of a war has many factors more important than the percentage of a country's forces that are deployed. Regional effects, duration, political consequences... These are what should be considered, not a simplistic single-dimensional metric. Any reasonable person would agree that the Vietnam war was a big war, albeit not a world war. It is also the fourth most lethal US war after the world wars and civil war, squarely putting it in the 'big war' category.

Since the Soviets subsequently lost the Cold War to the results of the post-drawdown reorientation of the US

Many other and more important factors were involved. Aren't you the one who snubs others for dismissing non-US players as lacking agency? An economic system that simply didn't work was more fundamental to Soviet defeat than them (winning!) in Vietnam.

It does not take some sort of uncommon insight to identify multidues [sic] of differences- and things to critique- between Vietnam and Afghanistan from political, social, diplomatic, economic, military, opposition, local regional, and many other relevant factors.

Maybe they should've used some common sense then, to distinguish what's important from what's unimportant. I can just imagine all these Pentagon geniuses with their medals and credentials saying that of course mountains are different to jungle, the Soviet Union isn't around to send equipment, US ICT is better, firepower is more discriminate... They, like you, miss the forest for the trees. Differences in specifics don't matter when the general concept is the same. Launching these open-ended military-political commitments in poor, low-value countries without a clear plan for victory is a recipe for disaster and certain to be cost-inefficient.

Yawn. No improvement in your argument, or your approach to arguments already made, or your demonstrated understanding of arguments you are responding to.

And also no surprise for that. Never missing an opportunity, and all that.

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