At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them
answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in
answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you
will be able to:
Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+
topics.
With the exception of escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War, which was lost not due to the additional troops, but because of the rules of engagement, I think Lyndon Baines Johnson was perhaps one of the forgotten, yet more active presidents in the last 50 years. He had a previous long career in the U.S. Congress. After the nation was emotionally torn following President Kennedy's assassination, he then put forth legislation including civil rights laws, Medicare (health care for the elderly), Medicaid (health care for the poor), and aid to education.
Honorable mention: Jimmy Carter for his humanitarian efforts that continued long after his Presidency. Ronald Reagan for his charisma, yet straight forwardness in handling the cold war with the former USSR.
Bobby
"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? "
Anti-war slogan
"Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today? "
Anti-war slogan
Yup, I remember. I prefaced his accomplishments by the one glaring miscalculation and horrible advisement. My grandmother and LBJ went to college together. However LBJ was an average student and my grandmother was the salutatorian.
I skipped over LBJ automatically because of the Viet Nam War. A reflex.
"Hey Hey LBJ, Who ya gonna kill today?" -- Crow remembers. Very very emotional times, and we anti-war folks were RIGHT ABOUT THAT WAR...
AND ARE RIGHT ABOUT THE WAR IN IRAQ.
That war aside, he had the most sweeping domestic legislation passed for the benefit of the vast majority of average Americans under his program "The Great Society". I was a social worker at the time, and the goal was to *end poverty in America* through various programs. I remember when my clients got their Medicare cards, all were dated 7-1-66; poor seniors could go to the hospital and get treatment; they were so happy.
What a life! I've had such a full and interesting life.
I skipped over LBJ automatically because of the Viet Nam War. A reflex.
"Hey Hey LBJ, Who ya gonna kill today?" -- Crow remembers. Very very emotional times, and we anti-war folks were RIGHT ABOUT THAT WAR...
AND ARE RIGHT ABOUT THE WAR IN IRAQ.
That war aside, he had the most sweeping domestic legislation passed for the benefit of the vast majority of average Americans under his program "The Great Society". I was a social worker at the time, and the goal was to *end poverty in America* through various programs. I remember when my clients got their Medicare cards, all were dated 7-1-66; poor seniors could go to the hospital and get treatment; they were so happy.
What a life! I've had such a full and interesting life.
You're right Choux, we left our Nation Friends and went to Viet Nam , again we left our Nation Friends and went to Iraq...
You're right Choux, we left our Nation Friends and went to Viet Nam , again we left our Nation Friends and went to Iraq...
The problem with this war is how we are going about it. Not the principle matter of the war. Hussein was a dictator in an Islamic regime. Gone! Bye-bye! Ahmadinejad is basically the same deceitful person and deserves the noose as well. Ironically they both wanted to be king of the world via political and Islamic persuasion. Ahmadinejad is still kicking, unfortunately.
The rules of engagement hurt us in Vietnam. Iraq has had tactical errors considering the history of that region. My family has served in both wars.
But we are not the world's policeman and eradicator of evil regimes!!!
"Tactical errors"????--like not understanding the Mideastern mind before bashing our way in there, like not securing the country as we marched to Baghdad, like dispersing the entire Iraqi army and then wondering why we don't have enough of our own soldiers to keep the peace, like not having an exit plan?????????? Should I go on????
But we are not the world's policeman and eradicator of evil regimes!!!
"Tactical errors"????--like not understanding the Mideastern mind before bashing our way in there, like not securing the country as we marched to Baghdad, like dispersing the entire Iraqi army and then wondering why we don't have enough of our own soldiers to keep the peace, like not having an exit plan?????????? Should I go on????
My family has served in both wars too. So what!!!
Woe! Maybe there is a difference. My family served our country PROUDLY in both wars. I can't make it any plainer. I would not had gone about this war the same way as our President. I'm not making any excuses for Bush. He was either stubborn and/or badly misinformed for taking on such a task.
But we are not the world's policeman and eradicator of evil regimes!!!
Aren't we, though?
When there is genocide in Darfur, who is called?
When Slobodan Milosovich starts an ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe, who does the world look to to solve it?
When North Korea starts testing nukes, who is called in to manage the situation?
When the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinians heats up, who does the rest of the region call to put pressure on the principals to cool things down?
When Africa suffers another war of the warlords, whe gets pulled into the situation?
The USA.
We are indeed the policeman and eradicator if evil regimes, not because we want to be, but because the rest of the world puts us in that role. To believe anything less is naive and simplistic. We ARE the world's policemen. And in Iraq, we laid down the law against Saddam. That role became ours because the UN, who's role it SHOULD have been, didn't do its job properly.
Quote:
"Tactical errors"????--like not understanding the Mideastern mind before bashing our way in there, like not securing the country as we marched to Baghdad, like dispersing the entire Iraqi army and then wondering why we don't have enough of our own soldiers to keep the peace, like not having an exit plan?????????? Should I go on????
Oh, there were pleanty of tactical errors. Most of them can be boiled down to the same one that we made in Vietnam... the rules of engagement. If we had used rules of engagement that are based on fighting a war instead of "winning the hearts and minds of the people" most of those tactical errors would never have occured. There would have been no issue with "securing the country" because we simply would have bombed anything that caused us any trouble rather than trying to keep the neighborhood safe. There would have been no issue with dispersing the Iraqi army, because we would simply have destroyed anything that Iraq would have needed an army to fight against. And we wouldn't have needed to worry about an "exit plan" because the war would already have been over. But these stupid rules of engagement that are designed to keep civilians safe and win hearts and minds actually accomplish neither of those two goals, as has been demonstrated. So, if we had avoided using those stupid ROE, (which were created by politicians and armchair generals with no combat experience and no practical knowledge of how to fight a war, and thus do not take the realities of war and combat into account), the result would have been a very different engagement in Iraq.
As for understanding the Middle Eastern mindset: that's easy. Very simple, in fact. Mercy is seen as weakness. Weakness is to be exploited. The rules of engagement are a form of mercy, and are therefore a sign of weakness. Ergo, the US troops are weak and should be attacked, and the Iraqi civilians are weak and should be attacked. Therefore, the rules of engagement are a detriment to the war effort. And the proof is in the pudding: since we changed the ROE with the troops surge, the number of attacks have been halved, the number of casualties have been cut by at least 1/3, and we have captured or killed hundreds of top-level bad guys in Iraq. Ergo, with stronger rules of engagement that do not exhibit the weakness of the original ones, we make more progress, the results are fewer friendly casualties (military and civilian) and higher enemy casualties and captures. A show of strength changes the entire equation in Middle Eastern relations. THAT is the Middle Eastern mindset.
Quote:
My family has served in both wars too. So what!!!
That's a stupid kind of pissin' contest that I refuse to get involved in. I did my time in uniform, and I have nothing to prove to anyone.
When North Korea starts testing nukes, who is called in to manage the situation?
When the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinians heats up, who does the rest of the region call to put pressure on the principals to cool things down?
When Africa suffers another war of the warlords, whe gets pulled into the situation?
Elliot
You guys arent doing a very good job if you claim to be policing these things!
Linear Mode
