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Author Topic: Mcnamara  (Read 1021 times)

Offline Die Hard

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #15 on: July 07, 2009, 12:27:40 PM »
Quote from: Patches1 on July 07, 2009, 11:24:50 AM
I don't know anything...

Obvious really. You shouldn't make this about personal politics.
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Offline Patches1

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #16 on: July 07, 2009, 01:21:43 PM »
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Offline Patches1

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #17 on: July 07, 2009, 01:27:27 PM »
Obviously you've no distinction between personal politics and personal observation.
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"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, General, USMC

Offline Die Hard

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #18 on: July 07, 2009, 01:43:33 PM »
How do you figure that?
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It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

-Gandhi

Offline Patches1

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #19 on: July 07, 2009, 01:45:27 PM »
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"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, General, USMC

Offline Patches1

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #20 on: July 07, 2009, 01:52:55 PM »
Ask Skuzzy, and Rule#14...


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"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, General, USMC

Offline Masherbrum

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #21 on: July 07, 2009, 01:54:13 PM »
Quote from: Shuffler on July 07, 2009, 10:48:35 AM
There are a lot of good men in the ground because they were sent into harms way with their hands tied. Anyone contributing to that does not warrant any respect in my book. Despite what they may have achieved earlier in life.

Amen.   
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Offline Patches1

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #22 on: July 07, 2009, 02:02:03 PM »
Simply put...RIP Robert McNamara...you rest in the company of tens of thousands of brave youths...who personally observed the politics...personally observed the times and personally died...believing in (Skuzzy Rule#14? delete me if necessary, again) America and Her beliefs, perhaps, not yours, Mr. McNamara, of Freedom in Viet Nam as touted by the American News Media and Politcos of the time...but not endorsed by the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines...who did die, locally, in Viet Nam, one-by-one...village-by-village...who did believe in Viet Namese Freedom...fought for it...and paid with their collective lives.

Robert McNamara may have been a brilliant mind planning bombing missions in WWII...but he failed in Viet Nam.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2009, 02:41:34 PM by Patches1 »
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"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, General, USMC

Offline Die Hard

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #23 on: July 07, 2009, 03:08:51 PM »
If you had to choose between losing the South to the communists or starting a full blown war with China and the Soviets, what would you have chosen?
« Last Edit: July 07, 2009, 03:11:11 PM by Die Hard »
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It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

-Gandhi

Offline Motherland

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #24 on: July 07, 2009, 03:21:55 PM »
Quote from: Die Hard on July 07, 2009, 03:08:51 PM
If you had to choose between losing the South to the communists or starting a full blown war with China and the Soviets, what would you have chosen?
I think he's already made it pretty clear that not wanting to open up a Third World War that would cost millions of lives makes you a Communist.
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Offline Die Hard

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #25 on: July 07, 2009, 03:23:30 PM »
Right.
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It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

-Gandhi

Offline Patches1

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #26 on: July 07, 2009, 04:02:55 PM »
Die Hard...I didn't have to chose winning the South...it's what I, my Brother (decorated Navy Seal and US Marine), and my Father (a Decorated WWII and Korean War Veteran)...DID...from 1965-1975.

It was McNamara, Johnson, and cronies who only saw maps, and not peoples, who feared China and the Soviets.
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"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, General, USMC

Offline Patches1

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #27 on: July 07, 2009, 04:08:17 PM »
If my previous post breaks rule #14...please delete, Skuzzy....

Heck! Nowadays I'm not sure that anything I say won't hurt someone's feelings...
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"We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem."- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller, General, USMC

Offline Die Hard

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #28 on: July 07, 2009, 04:45:46 PM »
Quote from: Patches1 on July 07, 2009, 04:02:55 PM
Die Hard...I didn't have to chose winning the South...it's what I, my Brother (decorated Navy Seal and US Marine), and my Father (a Decorated WWII and Korean War Veteran)...DID...from 1965-1975.

You defended the South. I'm afraid you didn't win the war, but that was not your fault. You were never meant to win the war, only prevent the South from losing. However, even that became an impossible goal; not militarily, but politically.



Quote from: Patches1 on July 07, 2009, 04:02:55 PM
It was McNamara, Johnson, and cronies who only saw maps, and not peoples, who feared China and the Soviets.

Anyone in their right mind would fear the Soviets at that time. McNamara and the others were staring down the barrel of 10,000 Soviet nuclear warheads at a time when Khrushchev had said his famous "we will bury you".

You're right. You didn't have to make that choice. McNamara, Johnson, and "cronies" had to. And they made the right one. South Vietnam wasn't worth starting WWIII over, and after several years of watching body bags coming home from Nam, public opinion in the U.S. no longer supported sacrificing American lives to simply hold the communists back in some backwater swampland in South-East Asia. The only viable option was to pull out.

It was never the intention to invade North Vietnam and defeat them. Just hold the South, bomb the North, and hope they would give up. You, as a soldier, was never given the option of winning.



Quote from: Patches1 on July 07, 2009, 04:08:17 PM
Heck! Nowadays I'm not sure that anything I say won't hurt someone's feelings...

Relax. I don't think you've hurt anyone's feelings. I can imagine this is a very emotional subject for you. I can understand your earlier outburst.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2009, 05:06:24 PM by Die Hard »
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It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence.

-Gandhi

Offline Stoney

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Re: Mcnamara
« Reply #29 on: July 07, 2009, 10:49:53 PM »
Quote from: Patches1 on July 07, 2009, 02:02:03 PM
Robert McNamara may have been a brilliant mind planning bombing missions in WWII...but he failed in Viet Nam.

I agree.  I was only trying to make the observation that it obviously weighed heavily on his mind until he died.  40 years is a long time for anyone to be second-guessed every day, publically, and with such fervor.  I can't imagine the stress that knowing you were wrong to the tune of 58,000 lives would create in a man's life.  That's all I'm trying to say.
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