thoughts on Afghanistan

[Napoleon Ier]

It says that the US indirectly backed by not recognizing their rivals after their fall, then directly backed them by providing humanitarian aid. Quite apart from the joke of an analysis that is, it at no point says that Washington openly backed them during their period of genocidal tyranny by funding them and training them.

Sorry, this is a period of history I know a little about. The bullshit won't fly.

[Juan_Bottom]

It says that the US indirectly backed by not recognizing their rivals after their fall,

Another way would be to say that they publically, and DIRECTLY BACKED (3of5) them by refusing to recognize any other government. Thus, only the Democratic Kapuchea could ask for, or receive anything for Cambodia. Like I don't know... help me out here.... what did the Democratic Kapuchea ever recieve from the UN?

P1-is contested (Etcheson, 1984), but certainly wouldn't amount to "open support"-they merely failed to win a war against him. Trying to bomb him and his allies is hardly "tacit support", eh?

I didn't say that.
I didn't say it was the plan, I said that it happened.

P3. The "Khumer" were Sino-aligned and hence supported to combat the Soviets

Domino theory. The US had courted Pol Pot well before he took over Cambodia. He was a political power years before that.

Pol Pot took power in 1975:

And Barack Obama took power in 2009... but he had power years before that...

It feels to me like you're reading the clean textbook version of this.

[joecoolfrog]

It says that the US indirectly backed by not recognizing their rivals after their fall,

Another way would be to say that they publically, and DIRECTLY BACKED (3of5) them by refusing to recognize any other government. Thus, only the Democratic Kapuchea could ask for, or receive anything for Cambodia. Like I don't know... help me out here.... what did the Democratic Kapuchea ever recieve from the UN?

P1-is contested (Etcheson, 1984), but certainly wouldn't amount to "open support"-they merely failed to win a war against him. Trying to bomb him and his allies is hardly "tacit support", eh?

I didn't say that.
I didn't say it was the plan, I said that it happened.

P3. The "Khumer" were Sino-aligned and hence supported to combat the Soviets

Domino theory. The US had courted Pol Pot well before he took over Cambodia. He was a political power years before that.

Pol Pot took power in 1975:

And Barack Obama took power in 2009... but he had power years before that...

It feels to me like you're reading the clean textbook version of this.

No this was not the case, the US supported the Khymer Rouge only once Pol Pot fell out with the Vietnamese, when the Americans started bombing in 1969 the Khymer Rouge were pretty insignificant and certainly not worth courting. Pol Pot only really became a major player because of 2 strokes of good fortune, the afore mentioned bombing which led to a huge increase in KR membership and the support of Prince Sihanoukeville who had been overthrown and replaced by a US puppet.

[Napoleon Ier]

You can tell this was not the case because they were bombing the shit out of him.

[joecoolfrog]

Well they pretty much just bombed anybody that had the misfortune to live near the border, the possible consequencies appeared not to concern them....maybe thats why they lied to Congress about it.

[mpjh]

Yes, and this made KR recruitment much easier.

[Napoleon Ier]

Yes, and this made KR recruitment much easier.

Right, potentially. But quite apart from the fact that had they sustained Operation Linebacker into 1973 they'd have beaten both KR and the VC by taking Hanoi out of the war, there's a clear difference between bombing someone and hence making people more sympathetic to his cause, and "openly supporting"him.

Or does Israel, by bombing Gaza, and facilitating Hamas recruitment, hence "openly support" Ahmadinejad?

[mpjh]

woulda, coulda, shoulda. I love the rewrites of history that put the entire Viet Nam experience in terms of our actions. These cretins just can't bring themselves to see that the Vietnamese people won the war because of their superior strategy and support in the country. No matter what tactical changes we had made, we would still have lost for that reason. the only strategic decision we could have made to avoid losing would have been not to take over from the failed French forces.

[Napoleon Ier]

woulda, coulda, shoulda. I love the rewrites of history that put the entire Viet Nam experience in terms of our actions. These cretins just can't bring themselves to see that the Vietnamese people won the war because of their superior strategy and support in the country. No matter what tactical changes we had made, we would still have lost for that reason. the only strategic decision we could have made to avoid losing would have been not to take over from the failed French forces.

Technically you could say the US won the war in 1973... the terms of the peace accord signed in January were basically a victory. If the threat of US air strikes had remained and pigheadedly been ruled out by Congress, the NVA would never have dared launch a ground offensive against the ARVN.

[mpjh]

Have you run out of koolaide yet? If not, drink some more.

[Juan_Bottom]

No this was not the case, the US supported the Khymer Rouge only once Pol Pot fell out with the Vietnamese, when the Americans started bombing in 1969 the Khymer Rouge were pretty insignificant and certainly not worth courting. Pol Pot only really became a major player because of 2 strokes of good fortune, the afore mentioned bombing which led to a huge increase in KR membership and the support of Prince Sihanoukeville who had been overthrown and replaced by a US puppet.

Nopers.
While Pol Pot did not have the power himself, his group had been a political power since the 50's.
The US supported the Khumer(even thought they were anti-American) because they were against their own government. And their government was supporting the North Vietnamese and VC.
In the early 70's the Khmer had somewhere over 1000 regular fighters. You can be pretty influential with 1000 armed men.

Technically you could say the US won the war in 1973... the terms of the peace accord signed in January were basically a victory. If the threat of US air strikes had remained and pigheadedly been ruled out by Congress, the NVA would never have dared launch a ground offensive against the ARVN.

Superier training, numbers, and weapons aren't what win wars. Neither are meaningless treaties and peace agreements. I'm with MPJH on this one. Maybe we could have forced them to stop, but we would have ended up with another North Korea.

[Napoleon Ier]

Have you run out of koolaide yet? If not, drink some more.

I'm sorry, you're trying to claim that the US was engaged in a vast bombing campaign against the KR, losing personnel in battle against them, and spending over $400.000 every day to kill them and their Vietnamese allies, in order to better aid their rise to power, as part of some vast right-wing conspiracy.

Then you tell me to drink koolaid for having an historical opinion which if not universally accepted, is at least perfectly legitimate.

My retinas are literally bleeding from having to read such hypocrisy.

[Napoleon Ier]

No this was not the case, the US supported the Khymer Rouge only once Pol Pot fell out with the Vietnamese, when the Americans started bombing in 1969 the Khymer Rouge were pretty insignificant and certainly not worth courting. Pol Pot only really became a major player because of 2 strokes of good fortune, the afore mentioned bombing which led to a huge increase in KR membership and the support of Prince Sihanoukeville who had been overthrown and replaced by a US puppet.

Nopers.
While Pol Pot did not have the power himself, his group had been a political power since the 50's.
The US supported the Khumer(even thought they were anti-American) because they were against their own government. And their government was supporting the North Vietnamese and VC.
In the early 70's the Khmer had somewhere over 1000 regular fighters. You can be pretty influential with 1000 armed men.

Clearly not, since at that time (the 50s through to the 70s) the US were spending vast amounts of money and indeed some manpower in assisting the French to fight communist insurgents like the Khmer.

If you have this wild theory about the Khmer and the US, feel free to provide evidence for it (since you can't regurgitate it as historical fact because there isn't a single historian who has anything remotely resembling your point of view), but basically, what you're saying is somewhere between that cavemen made the Dinosaurs extinct and that the US deliberately blew up the twin tours in terms of raw accuracy.

[Snorri1234]

woulda, coulda, shoulda. I love the rewrites of history that put the entire Viet Nam experience in terms of our actions. These cretins just can't bring themselves to see that the Vietnamese people won the war because of their superior strategy and support in the country. No matter what tactical changes we had made, we would still have lost for that reason. the only strategic decision we could have made to avoid losing would have been not to take over from the failed French forces.

Technically you could say the US won the war in 1973... the terms of the peace accord signed in January were basically a victory. If the threat of US air strikes had remained and pigheadedly been ruled out by Congress, the NVA would never have dared launch a ground offensive against the ARVN.

Ofcourse, history always works out exactly like you think it would.


If the threat of US air strikes had remained noone can say with any certainty that anything would have changed. You just can't predict waht the NVA would have done if something was different. Your entire point and this discussion is ridiculous because you make huge extrapolations from a single thing. You claim with certainty that that single thing would have made a difference without admitting that possibly the NVA wouldn't have given a rat's arse and still launched a ground offensive, and then you basically state "END RESULTS: WAR WON". That's just ridiculous.

[Napoleon Ier]

Well, no, counterfactual history can't "prove" anything. Nor can any discipline, really. I think you'll find that even mathematics can't strictly "prove" anything within a consistent and complete framework of axiomatic formulations. At the most basic level reality breaks down as you approach the planck scale.

Nonetheless, looking at the aggregate of evidence, and based on the uniformity observed at the macroscopic level, I can postulate theorems which should be formulating translationally symmetric laws.

It seems to me rational, on that basis, to say that since Hanoi had agreed to a series of peace terms by which South Vietnam would essentially be governed under a system of multi-party Democracy, reneged on these agreements in 1972, then, after Nixon ordered Linebacker II, decided to re-agree to them under the Paris Peace Accords in 1973, and only resumed hostilities after Congress essentially refused the RVN any further military aid.

[Snorri1234]

Well, no, counterfactual history can't "prove" anything. Nor can any discipline, really. I think you'll find that even mathematics can't strictly "prove" anything within a consistent and complete framework of axiomatic formulations. At the most basic level reality breaks down as you approach the planck scale.

Yeah yeah, slap me with your infinite knowledge of everything.

Pointing out that "proof" is something which doesn't really exist is just ignoring the point.

Nonetheless, looking at the aggregate of evidence, and based on the uniformity observed at the macroscopic level, I can postulate theorems which should be formulating translationally symmetric laws.

You can certainly make a reasonable case for alternative history-endings. But you throw too much "this certainly would have happened" in your posts that any history-proffessor would ban you from their class.

Sure, things could have gone another way, but you are postulating that as a certainty instead of a possibility. If you knew more about history you would also know that logical outcomes aren't that common. People do the stupidest things often in spite of the most rational option.



I am not saying that I think things wouldn't have gone partly like you say they would've. But to argue those things when the subject isn't "Alternative history" is silly because it only makes your points less valid. Stick to debating the actual topic. (And I must add that that goes for all other people here too.)

[Napoleon Ier]

Well yes, snorri, I could caveat every single statement I make with "in my humble opinion...", or "it's a possibility that...", "I may be so bold as to suggest that maybe...", and end up like tonkaed, or we can just assume that I don't in fact pertain to be the ultimate incarnation of the sum of all truths.

A good counterfactual analysis should account for irrationality in human beings as best it can. I believe mine has. If you see a way in which it hasn't, do point it out, it's a controversial viewpoint, I'll admit.

Oh, and all of the above statements are only probabilities that exist in my opinion.

[got tonkaed]

Well yes, snorri, I could caveat every single statement I make with "in my humble opinion...", or "it's a possibility that...", "I may be so bold as to suggest that maybe...", and end up like tonkaed, or we can just assume that I don't in fact pertain to be the ultimate incarnation of the sum of all truths.

A good counterfactual analysis should account for irrationality in human beings as best it can. I believe mine has. If you see a way in which it hasn't, do point it out, it's a controversial viewpoint, I'll admit.

Oh, and all of the above statements are only probabilities that exist in my opinion.

hero of the forum?

[Napoleon Ier]

Well yes, snorri, I could caveat every single statement I make with "in my humble opinion...", or "it's a possibility that...", "I may be so bold as to suggest that maybe...", and end up like tonkaed, or we can just assume that I don't in fact pertain to be the ultimate incarnation of the sum of all truths.

A good counterfactual analysis should account for irrationality in human beings as best it can. I believe mine has. If you see a way in which it hasn't, do point it out, it's a controversial viewpoint, I'll admit.

Oh, and all of the above statements are only probabilities that exist in my opinion.

hero of the forum?

Probably possibly based on a variety of factors in your opinion.