The Vietnam War was the second (after Korea) full-bore war that benefited the modern US military-industrial complex that Eisenhower had warned against. Neither war was 'won' in the traditional sense. Massive amount of public debt was used to pay for the war supplies which in turn enriched the private company suppliers. "Communists" were an ill-defined nebulous boogeyman that was used to scare the public and justify the expense in blood and treasure.

But we learned our lesson! No way we'd go to undeclared 'war' against ill-defined boogeymen like "Al Queda" in places on the planet that we don't understand just so a bunch of companies can make a bunch of money! Right?

The 'Vietnam War' by 1967 or so was no longer about 'Vietnam' for the Americans....the same way the war in 'Iraq' was no longer about 'Iraq' after the first year. It was about American domestic politics.

The motive was no longer winning for any particular reason in that country but rather looking over one's shoulder at the electorate. Say the word 'Vietnam' to many older Americans and the image isn't one of Vietnam but rather of issues over the draft, protests on college campuses...etc. when it is actually about Vietnam it's a couple of images that stand out...like the fellow being shot point blank by a South vietnamese officer...or the little girl screaming, fleeing from the American napalm attack on her village.

'Winning' wasn't the motivator. No real imperative. No need to beat the North vietnamese like we defeated the Germans in WW2. The western way of life wasn't threatened...democracy wasn't under seige.

I heard a thought provoking comment about the current 'wars' in. A journalist stopped people on the street and asked them to point out Iraq on a map...'almost' nobody could. He asked the same of Afghanistan and NOBODY could. the point he was making was that these wars just didn't touch most people's lives. Vietnam was only an issue because you or your son might go...it didn't impact your day to day life an iota. Win, lose or 'just go home'....it didn't matter in Vietnam and doesn't matter in Iraq or Afghanistan. whatever happens in 'those' places, in the USA, Mcdonalds will serve Happy meals, Walmart shelves will be full and guys will watch Sunday afternoon football.

The_Metatron wrote:

amused wrote:But we learned our lesson! No way we'd go to undeclared 'war' against ill-defined boogeymen like "Al Queda" in places on the planet that we don't understand just so a bunch of companies can make a bunch of money! Right?

I think you've got the right analogy here, but may have chosen the wrong example. Al Queda (or however the fuck it's spelled today) isn't terribly nebulous or ill defined.

I think his point is that al-Qaeda - as a massive global network of terrorists - is a bit of a fantasy. In his BBC documentary "The Power of Nightmares," Adam Curtis examines the roots of the organization (and the coeval development of neoconservatism in the US), and his conclusion was that the organization was pretty thin - more bluster and image than substance. (For example, in one al-Qaeda propaganda film they had to hire a bunch of extras toting AK47s to increase their numbers.) In response to the terrorist acts in Africa in the 90s, former Bin Laden minion Jamal al-Fadl testified against his former boss and his organization:

In January 2001, the trial began in New York of four men accused of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in east Africa . The U.S also wanted to prosecute Osama bin Laden in his absence under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). To be able to do this under American law, the prosecutors needed evidence of a criminal organization, which would then allow them to prosecute the leader, even if he could not be linked directly to the crime.
Jamal al-Fadl was taken on as a key prosecution witness, who along with a number of other sources claimed that Osama bin Laden was the leader of a large international terrorist organization which was called "al-Qaeda". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamal_al-Fadl

The prosecutors needed evidence of a criminal organization, and al-Fadl gave it to them by identifying this organization as al-Qaeda ["the Base"]. But large was a bit of an exaggeration. This is not to say that al-Qaeda doesn't exist: it is more of a loose association of militant Islamists, a terrorist clearing house, providing funds to terrorists and some training, but its real function is largely symbolic, as an inspiration to a variety of radical Islamist militant groups.

This is not to derail the Vietnam topic - it does have some significant overlaps: the Soviet Union and the monolithic bogeyman of International Communism was a useful tool in the 1950s through the 1980s - a reification that served the rising neoconservatives well. Ho Chi Minh was interpreted under this lens as a mere puppet of Kremlin mischief, and gave rise to many of the misconceptions which led us down a fool's path in Vietnam.

With the fall of the Soviet Union, the neocons needed a new monolithic bogeyman, and got it in al-Qaeda.

"Terrorism", as the bogeyman would probably be a more apt analogy.

True. (But for the folks at home, it's much easier aiming at a single shadowy conspiracy than it is trying to aim at all the disparate militant Islamists around the world.)

because Sun Tzu said so
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LR4PZExLyv0[/youtube][/url]