What if there had been no Vietnam?

[Malone LaVeigh]

An entire generation of the best and brightest and most altruistic young people of a poor struggling nation wouldn't have been decimated. The same generation would now be in the leadership positions, as well as populating the middle class, and the country might be more effectively heading toward a system that recognizes market realities and human rights. We'll never know.

What if the Eisenhower admin hadn't overthrown the last (and only) democratic government of Iran?

 

[KC]

We did not overthow any democratic government in Iran. We did support a counter-coup againt the former Premier/PM Mussadegh who had managed to throw out the (then) new Shah, who was very grateful for the help. It is very possible that Ba'athists would have taken over in Iran in 1970's (instead of the disenfranchised religious authorities) like they did elsewhere in the Middle East had the the National Front remained in power. We all know how much fun the Ba'ath Party has been to deal with, and how democratic they are.

 

[HBK]

"An entire generation of the best and brightest and most altruistic young people of a poor struggling nation wouldn't have been decimated. The same generation would now be in the leadership positions, as well as populating the middle class, and the country might be more effectively heading toward a system that recognizes market realities and human rights. We'll never know."

Of course, they would not have had the chance to develop because they would have become a communist nation. Communist nations aren't known for allowing free thought or free enterprise.

 

[Blackhawk]

Then I wouldn't be a Vietnam Veteran....

 

[SodaPop]

I think most people seriously underestimate the impact that the Kennedy assassination had.

I personally don't think Kennedy would have let things get as out of hand in Vietnam.

Liberals wouldn't be what they are today if Kennedy wasn't killed. Most of the older Liberal Anti's I know all talk about JFK and RFK.

 

[hops]

Then Barry Goldwater may have won the '64 election. People were scared when he said "I'll turn vietnam in to a parking lot' or some thing like that. Johnson said "I'll not sent a single american to vietnam'. Johnson won and kept his promise, he did not send one american, but 500K of them.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

An entire generation of the best and brightest and most altruistic young people of a poor struggling nation wouldn't have been decimated.

Tell that to the intelligentsia of Cambodia comrade.

Oh! That's right, I forgot. The pathetically stupid and brutal were used by the "enlightened" Marxists in that pig-hole to anihilate "the best and brightest and most altruistic young people of a poor struggling nation". Guess you won't be able to tell them; they're all dead, or wish they were.

There go the facts getting in the way of the worker's Utopia thing again.

 

[KC]

"I personally don't think Kennedy would have let things get as out of hand in Vietnam."

Maybe, but given that everything else the Kennedy's touched (so far as fpreign policy went) turned to crud, I would want to bet on happiness comeing from that one.

Remember, if Kennedy hadn't been assassinated, we never would have gotten to the moon, either. (Those of you wearing the tinfoil hats, just ignore that last part.)

 

[Leatherneck]

I think it's pretty clear that Vietnam would have been forcefully reunited under Marxism a good decade earlier than it was. You have to consider then: what would the Communists, emboldened by a quick takeover of THAT peninsula, have turned their eyes toward next? Can you say "Korea?"

And I think we would have responded to a Korean invasion ferociously, and the clock would go right back to 1957.

TC
TFL Survivor

 

[Gmac]

Then I wouldn't be a disabled vet with paranoid/schizophrenic tendencies;maybe.