Quote Originally Posted by AlexTX ret View Post
The sad part to all this is that in the end, the Communists won the hearts and minds in Vietnam. And even to this day, Russia and China know to develope the country's infrastructure first then it will become more receptive to their policies. They're doing it all over the world and we stumble around in Iraq. Kind of sad.
The only sad thing is that we are hamstrung by domestic political constraints -- China and Russia do not have that problem. I wouldn't trade...

Not to mention they are not doing as well as you seem to imply.
And we weren't the good guys.
You and I obviously went to different wars there...

We weren't great and we -- the Army -- made many mistakes but we were the good guys. we were dumb -- Clyde was mean. There's a difference.
So we can talk so eloquently about this group and that not doing its job. This party and that party will do such and such. But in the end it's the people impoverished by our actions that suffer and learn to distrust us if not worse.
I've been wandering here and there in the world since 1947 and we were distrusted then and have been ever since. Nobody trusts the big guy -- until they need him -- they'll take all he'll give and then go back to rampant distrust. Way of the world. We are distrusted because we do what all Nations do, look out for our own interests. We are fortunate now to be big enough to do that better than most; that breeds resentment. That's okay. We are no more disliked now than we were in 1955 or 1975 -- probably more liked now than iin '75.
...There were the British all the way ro the Romans. Though I have to say that the British and SAS did a bettter job in Malaysia than we've been able to do anywhere.
Not at all. You cannot compare Malaya to any of our little forays -- The British WERE the Government there; we're always the uninvited guest. Totally different deal. Nor did the SAS accomplish all that much in Malaya. They did great in the later Confrontation but that wasn't the Malayan Emergency.