4/2 Total number of US military deaths in Vietnam: 58,135
Present total US deaths in current gulf conflict(*): 44
The current conflict has been running for about 1 week.
Extrapolating in a completely ridiculous fashion, we can conclude
that the current conflict may continue for another 1321 weeks
(25 years) before we see Vietnam's level of casualties.
(*) Let's be honest here, Vietnam wasn't a war, it was a police
action, so we'd be hard pressed to call the current conflict a 'war'
\_ You could really not run a war worse than Vietnam. The civilians
in charge at the time were complete morons.
\_ Agree with the first part, but you seem to imply that our current
civilians in charge are not, in fact, morons.
\_ Maybe they're not morons, but morAns.
http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/morans.jpgmf3937.jpg
\_ Notice that his T-shirt says "Cardinals"? That explains
why.
\_ What do you have against people from St. Louis?
\_ It could always be the Arizona Cardinals...
\_ St. Louis? Arizona? I was referring to Stanfurd.
\_ And that would be Cardinal, sans 's'
\_ So are we Cal Bears or Cal Bear?
\_ Vietnam was a war. You degrade the men who served and the people
who died by mincing words like that. Police action is when a cop
pulls you over. Soldiers, platoons, mines, ambushes... that's war.
\_ I meant no slight to the fine men and women who served and
gave their boides and lives in Vietnam. I was, however taking
a shot at the gub'mint of de good ole US of A. Vietnam was not
a war. No decleration of war ratified by Congress was ever
made. -op
\_ That's hardly a worthy definition. Wasn't the war powers
clause (prez can wage war for 90 days etc...) passed in 1974
in response to the war? It does not take congressional action
to wage war, just generals and soldiers.
\_ Actually, the war powers act was written to LIMIT the powers
of the president. It didn't give him more power to wage war,
it said that instead of being able to do whatever he wanted,
he had to consult congress after at most 90 days.
\_ Agreed, I meant that it was the result of Congress not
liking the fact that a president can wage war without any
official support. The relevant part was the fact that
they considered what the executive branch had done was
a war.
\_ Depending on how one looks at it, Congress did give permission
to make war with Vietnam with the passing of the Gulf of
Tonkin resolution. Similarily GWII has been argued as a
continuation of GWI (ie. the war never ended) or as an
extension of the War Against Terrorism resolution (it made
Afghanistan possible too).
\_ But the Tonkin incident never happened. Still, you can
only call Vietnam a war.
\_ Yep and yep. Saddam wasn't part of Al-Queda and you
see how well that worked out for Iraq.
\_ Except the War Powers Act is clearly unconstitutional to
begin with.
\_ True, but then you have to get the courts to kill it.
\_ Good god, it wasn't mean to be a discussion of the fucking war
powers act you morons. It was meant to be a moderately interesting,
albeit wholly unscientific factoid. -op
\_ you're the moron who said it wasn't a war. |
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