Badtux the Snarky Penguin

In a time of chimpanzees, I was a penguin.

Religious fundamentalists are motivated by the sneaking suspicion that someone, somewhere, is having fun -- and that this must be stopped.

Saturday, April 30, 2005

We coulda won Vietnam

Coulda, shoulda, woulda... 30 years ago, Saigon fell. The South Vietnamese Army ran out of bullets after the funds to buy them were embezeled by corrupt generals who then fled to Switzerland or America, and the defense of South Vietnam collapsed. The vast majority of South Vietnamese merely shrugged their shoulders, believing that it was nothing to do with them, after all they'd seen many governments come and go over the decades and it all pretty much was the same to them. They were soon to find out differently, as over a hundred thousand South Vietnamese were slaughtered for "counter-revolutionary activities" and as even small businessmen were rounded up and sent to "re-education camps" as punishment for daring to run a business.

The question then becomes, "how could the United States have won the Vietnam War?" and the answer is simple: "By starting WWIII." The borders of South Vietnam were indefensible, unlike Korea, which is a peninsula. The only way to "win" would have been to invade North Vietnam and destroy the source of the weapons and guerillas that were infiltrating the borders of South Vietnam. Neither LBJ nor Richard Nixon dared do that, because both the Soviets and the Chinese had stated that if the U.S. sent troops into North Vietnam, they would send troops to defend the North Vietnamese in exactly the same manner that the U.S. had sent troops to defend the South Vietnamese. And what gain would the U.S. have gotten from invading North Vietnam? North Vietnam had no resources that would benefit the United States. The people of the U.S. would have gotten nothing out of invading North Vietnam. There just wasn't any gain for America, and both LBJ and Nixon gave it a pass. At that point, it was impossible for the U.S. to win the Vietnam War, all that could be done was a bloody stalemate that killed probably five million Vietnamese people during the course of our involvement there.

In the end, South Vietnam fell because the majority of the South Vietnamese people weren't interested in fighting for their own liberty. There is a delusion amongst armchair "patriots" that the majority of people, if their nation were invaded, would engage in armed resistance. But the lesson of France under Nazi occupation is less than reassuring there. The French Resistance had a few thousand members at best. The vast majority of the French people cooperated with the Germans, supported the Vichy puppet government, cooperated with the Vichy policemen, served in the Vichy government, sold goods to the Vichy government. Similarly, the vast majority of South Vietnamese did not resist the North Vietnamese invasion. They figured that there was no difference between a French-Catholic dictatorship and a Communist dictatorship, so they stayed home. They didn't care.

Fast forwarding 35 years: Saddam Hussein stayed in power because the majority of Iraqis either supported him or were apathetic toward his rule. No ruler can stay in power if the majority of the people oppose him. If the majority of Iraqis had refused to serve in his military and instead had sacked the security headquarters, ransacked Saddam's palaces, and hung Saddam by his heels from a bridge until he died, Saddam would have been gone. But the majority of people are sheep. They don't care. I mean, we're talking about a nation where AK-47's and RPG launchers are ordinary household utensils. It's not as if five million people descending upon Baghdad armed with AK-47's and RPG launchers could not have overthrown Saddam. But they didn't bother. They didn't care.

Fast forwarding to 2004: Less than 25% of the voting-age populated of the United States voted to remove George W. Bush from office. In the aftermath of that election, the Republican Party has issued death threats to judges that do not rule the way that they wish the judges to rule, is about to change the rules in Congress so that nobody except Republicans can decide who new judges will be, re-instituted slavery in the guise of "bankruptcy reform", and is destroying the value of the American dollar by printing government bonds (dollar bills) by the bushel-load, leading to the majority of Americans seeing their relative purchasing power sink towards third-world levels. But the majority of people are sheep. They don't care. Less than 25% of us care.

Question: If the majority don't care, why should I care? The majority in South Vietnam welcomed the North Vietnamese. The majority in Iraq didn't care about Saddam. The majority of Americans don't have any objection to George W. Bush. People talk about not running to Canada or elsewhere because "you have to stay and fight." But why stay and fight when the majority don't care?

And this ventured far away from where I was going to go, which was a snarky tale of Agent Orange, lawsuits, crippled children, and love of untermenschen on the part of the American people, but more on that in another post... I guess my point is a good Libertarian point: if a people wants freedom, they need to be willing to fight for it. If they're not... (shrug). Then they deserve all the woes and tyrannies that will befall them.

Once there was a land called the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. Now it's called the Land of the Groped-In-Airports and Home of the Scared Security Mom. If at least 75% of the United States has voted, in the last election, to be part of a nation of cowards, who am I to tell them different? In the end, we get the government we deserve -- alas. Just ask the South Vietnamese. The ones who weren't exterminated, that is.

- Badtux the Newly-Apathetic Penguin

Posted by: BadTux / 4/30/2005 09:04:00 PM

Comments:

My mind swirls with comments. But I think I'll just hit the last item right now. I'm reminded of Lewis Black's bit on "Democracy in Iraq":

"It's really phenomenal, I think, that we're bringing democracy to Iraq. I can't wait to see how we do it. What do we do, give them our civics books? 'Read this, it's crackerjack material. We'll be back next Thursday, we'll give you a test you little f***s.' Apparently Florida sent them voting machines. It's just amazing. I think thirty percent of us vote and we're going to teach the world about democracy? The other seventy percent of us just go 'F*** it'. How does a group of people in which thirty percent of us actually spend the time enjoying the democratic process f***ing tell another country about democracy? Like, 'Boy, it's great because you don't have to f***ing do it!'"
# posted by CmdrSue : 1/5/05 10:32 PM

Well good afternoon everyone. Is this on? Yes, yes, I can see it is. Okay. My you have amuch nicer sound system here than I do.

I am waiting for the Republicans to announce the draft. They're afraid of it. It is the third rail to them. But when they do, all these kids are gonna start howling, and every time I run into one who complains, the first thing I am going to ask is, "Did you vote?" I'm going to tell any of them who says "no" to go into the Army and shut the H E double toothpicks up.

That's what it costs, you see. That's the price of apathy. The price of liberty is eternal vigilence. The price of apathy is the military draft.

God bless you and have a sweet day.
# posted by Reverend Jason Shankshaw, God Bless You : 2/5/05 4:45 AM

*SIGH* You're right. We coulda won Dade County, too. If only we paid enough money - I mean, attention!
# posted by Tannish : 2/5/05 6:52 PM

Demonstrates that "giving democracy" was less the agenda (as we certainly are not experts in using it well) than giving Halliburton contracts and giving the Right a cause for the ignorant to rally around while their Wall street allies fleeced the nation more aggressively than before. Among other heinous crimes against freedom and the masses. Pfah! Gonna start calling you Badtux the depressing Penguin. :-/
# posted by mycroftdavis : 3/5/05 10:39 AM

Honor Roll

Technorati embed?

Liberated Iraqis

Children celebrate liberation of parents
More pics of children celebrating
Liberated baby
Liberated women and children
More liberation, yessiree
More to follow, after I finish cursing SOB chickenhawks and get my breath back...

"Keep fighting for freedom and justice, beloveds, but don't forget to have fun doin' it. Lord, let your laughter ring forth. Be outrageous, ridicule the fraidy-cats, rejoice in all the oddities that freedom can produce." -- Molly Ivins, 1944-2007

"The penalty good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men."

-- Plato

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