I don't know nor really care what started Vietnam. Whatever it was though, it must have been equivalent to a poke in the forehead. Why didn't we just stay out of it?
The answer is complicated. It is built on something called the "Domino Theory", which was a very compelling and critical part of the Cold War and influenced a lot of government policy. We surreptitiously helped overthrow governments in the hope that their replacements would be friendly to us, because we knew Russia and China were doing the same.
The Domino Theory assumed that the more countries adopted communism/socialism, the more powerful the enemies of the United States and the Free World would become. There is a certain logic to it, particularly because ostensibly socialism wants to eliminate nations entirely and bring everyone into a unified world order; the fact that the Russians and the Chinese were bickering over which of them would head that unified world order did not eliminate the fact that we were very nervous about the moment they would join forces to bring down Democracy here.
You have commented on the significance of Pearl Harbor, but it's true significance is less that it put us into World War Two and more that it was the first signal that isolationism had become an impossibility. Prior to Pearl Harbor, Americans by and large believed that everyone else was "on the other side of the world" in a sense that meant quite literally that they were too far away to impact us in any way. When the Japanese hit Pearl Harbor, it screamed in a voice heard around the world that the planet was too small for anyone to think himself protected by distance. What happens in China and Russia and the Middle East is a threat to us, and not some distant threat to us, but an immediate one.
North Vietnam, once a petty kingdom, had become a socialist "satellite"--a concept we developed to describe all the "Iron Curtain" countries of Eastern Europe, supposedly independent nations like Romania and Poland that were run by Russian puppet governments. If Russia attacked us, they would have the support and backing of all their "allies", which now theoretically included North Vietnam. North Vietnam was trying, by force, to bring South Vietnam into that alliance. We were certain that from there they would attack Cambodia, Thailand, then Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia--one by one the countries of the world would become socialist dictatorships allied with Russian and/or China against us, and then when The Entire Rest of the World decided it was time for these United States to join their socialist system, we would be unable to defend ourselves.
The answer was to draw a line in the sand, to say that South Vietnam would not become a socialist satellite, that Rwanda would not become a Russian puppet state, that Cuba would not join the alliance of communists plotting against freedom.
In one sense we lost. South Vietnam fell. Some say that the theory was wrong--Cambodia was not next, and the socialists never attacked New Zealand. On the other hand, it may be that we made them fight so hard for so insignificant a piece of real estate that they decided it was not worth the cost to go for the next stone.
The Domino theory said that the fall of each country would lead to the fall of the next in an inexorable flow, like knocking over lines of dominoes. I'm still not certain it would not have happened had we ignored South Vietnam.
Who appointed us the world's police force?
Franklin Roosevelt, I think. He made us the world's first superpower, and suggested that that gave us the responsibility to use our power wisely.
Being the superpower is problematic no matter what you do. If you get involved (as we do) in protecting small countries attacked by mid-sized countries, you get labeled a bully. If you let mid-sized countries pound small countries in submission, you get labeled uncaring and cruel. Simply being the superpower makes you the villain, no matter how you use or do not use your power. If you help the weak, you're being a bully; if you don't help the weak, you're withholding aid, hording your wealth and letting the rest of the world suffer. We choose to support the weak, preferring to be called a bully by those who want us to let them be the bullies, rather than to let the starving starve while we feast.
We were selling Iraq weapons. Well, didn't it ever occur to anyone that if we hadn't been selling them weapons, their war would Iran would have ended much, much sooner?
Lots of problems there. One is, any country that has money can buy weapons somewhere, and if they buy them from us it improves both our economy and our political influence with them, while if they don't buy them from us it will improve the economy and political influence of whichever of our enemies they do. Another is that we believe in a free market economy, and while we try to restrict it in keeping the most critical equipment in our own control and preventing at least some equipment from reaching some enemies, our weapons and systems are produced by independent companies who are in business to make a profit, so we need a good reason to quash their overseas sales. But you're right--the fact that both sides could continue to find suppliers to sell them weapons meant the war lasted longer. On the other hand, if we assume that one side was clearly our enemy, did we want to stop supplying the side that was fighting against them?
I say, unless they are a legitimate threat to the US, let them do their own thing.
And who defines a "legitimate threat"?
I've read a number of analyses that suggest that Israel is the stopgap against radical Islamic incursion. If the West allows Israel to fall, it will lead to a stronger Islamic power that will attempt to rebuild and expand its empire, sweeping around the world to put everyone under Sharia. What I've heard of Sharia does not encourage me.
The balance of power in the world is a genuine threat to everyone in the world. If it shifts against us, we are at greater risk. The Domino Theory might have been flawed, but the essential point is still present, and very much apart of modern fears about Islam: if our enemy controls the Entire Rest of the World, we will fall. We cannot defeat them all.
That's what the second amendment was for. To empower the people to fight if their own country is invaded.
Actually, It's not entirely clear that that is the point of the second amendment. Rather, it seems that Jefferson and his Democrats believed that it was very important for citizens to have weapons equal to those of the government, so that if the government overstepped its authority the citizens would be able to bring it down. Credit the Confederate States of America for trying to exercise that right; credit General U. S. Grant for not stripping them of it when they lost (he allowed the southern soldiers to keep their weapons). The Confederacy's problem, as its own President Jefferson Davis recognized, was that without a strong central government the United States could not do anything as a union, and was little better than the United Nations is today, a treaty organization in which each member is free to ignore whatever the majority decides. The Civil War decided that wasn't how it was going to be, but the second amendment still exists to allow citizens to unite against their own government if necessary. (Although come to think of it, not even the Whiskey Rebellion had any success in that regard.)
Fact remains. Switzerland (most likely) did none of that to help anyone, and no one flew planes into their buildings.
Yes, but if you're planning to conquer the entire world, you don't start by making enemies of the ones who have a history of letting mad dictators go about conquering other countries, because they'll probably let you and be fairly easy to take later.
I've always been an isolationist. If there's no one else around, then there's no one who can hurt you. That's certainly an incorrect attitude to have, but I'm hardly in a position to change anything.
It's incorrect because it's not true--it's not true because the planet is now small enough that there's no such thing as "no one else around". You might be able to ignore whatever is happening on the Martian colonies, but since there aren't any Martian colonies, everyone else is close enough that they're a potential problem or a potential ally, and it's better to take steps to make them the latter than the former.
I'm allowed to have an opinion, right or wrong, based in fact or in speculation. Opinions are like rectums. Everyone has one, and most of them are full of crap. So my opinions are full of crap. I accept that. I'm still allowed to have the opinion.
Yes, but if your opinion is full of crap and you express it, then you have to accept that people are going to tell you that it's full of crap; and if you then argue in its defense, you have to expect that they're going to show you just how full of crap your opinion is.
I don't agree with all of Eric's opinions, but I recognize that they are educated opinions. That significantly reduces the "crap factor" in them, and earns them, and him, a great deal of respect from me, and probably from most posters on the board, even those who most strongly but intelligently disagree with him (I think probably Graeme, who also has educated opinions, can be included in that). But if you try to defend opinions you yourself know are unsupportable crap, you make yourself look like a fool.
That's not to say you shouldn't express your opinions. What you shouldn't do is argue that they're valid simply because you believe them. If someone shows you why your opinion is crap, you should either check the facts and find an intelligent response, or you should say, "I didn't know that; obviously I was mistaken."
I mean, you can be of the opinion that there never was a Nazi Holocaust (there are people in the Middle East who hold that opinion, that it is just Jewish propaganda to prop up support for Israel), but that opinion is crap because the evidence is quite substantial. If when shown the evidence you admit that you were mistaken and revise your opinion, you demonstrate that you were merely ignorant and can become educated. If in the face of the evidence you repeat that you don't care about the facts, it is still your opinion that it never happened, you're displaying not mere ignorance but obstinance and willful stupidity, and you deserve to be treated as a jerk.
So if your opinions are crap, admit that they are and replace them with sound ones.
Mike, I've been trying for years to write a story about a guy who wakes up one morning, and he is the only person on the entire planet. No rhyme, no reason, just POOF everyone is gone. That would be my utopia. Everything else is still there, of course. The stores still have the food sitting, the cars are still there, just all the people are gone. That's my utopia.
I suppose so, until the utilities run out and the food goes bad and you wind up trying to survive with your primitive survival skills. You're pretty good at that, so you might last even a few years, but (trust me on this on my birthday) as you get older it will become harder, and you won't live nearly as long, nor as healthily, nor as happily as you would have if there were other people providing that network of support that brings you modern conveniences such as fresh food deliveries at grocery stores.
--M. J. Young
