A group of veterans from the US armed forces burnt their uniforms in a show of solidarity with the airman Aaron Bushnell, who died after setting himself on fire outside the Israeli embassy in Washington in a protest over the war in Gaza.Footage by Alissa Azar shows veterans lining up and taking turns to burn their military jackets at a vigil in Portland on February 28.A banner can be seen behind them, reading: “Veterans say: Free Palestine! Remember Aaron Bushnell.”The event was organized by the group About Face: Veterans Against the War, which told attendees to gather in front of the Wyatt Federal Building in Portland at 5 pm.Before setting himself on fire, Bushnell filmed himself saying he would “no longer be complicit in genocide". He then yelled “Free Palestine” several times as flames engulfed him. Credit: Alissa Azar via Storyful
What do you mean by “broke”? I’m quite literally in a class on the Vietnam War this semester, writing a paper about how ineffective our policy of bombing an agrarian society that only needed to supply its forces 50 tons of supplies a day.
Please, elaborate.
“Ineffective” at what? The indiscriminate carnage that the US visited on SE Asia from the air was possibly the most effective mass-slaughter campaign ever perpetrated by a colonialist power - it was even more effective than the colonialist slaughter Germany visited on eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during WW2.
So no… as far as the tenets of colonialist warfare is concerned, it was perfectly effective.
At stopping supplies and people from moving south?
So, our goal was genocide? I’m not saying we were the good guys, but clearly we weren’t comparable to the fucking Nazis eastern campaign.
You still didn’t answer what it meant to break the US military.
Actually, the US actions in SE Asia is very comparable to what Germany and it’s allies did in eastern Europe and Russia… not even the Nazis attempted to use chemical warfare to starve their victim population into submission - the US did.
What the Nazis did was nothing unique - it has been standard fare for colonialist powers long before WW2 happened, and it was stadard fare for the US both before and during the (so-called) “Cold War.” The only reason the Nazis became infamous for it was because they literally perpetrated it on the (so-called) “civilized” world’s doorstep on people that looked “white.”
That’s because I won’t - there is no need. Col. Robert D. Heinl answered this all the way back in 1971.
TLDR - “Our Army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous.”
Homie, I think you should learn some more about the eastern front. The United States wasn’t on an ethnic cleansing campaign in Indochina. The Nazi’s were on an ethnic cleansing campaign.
Which had had which major defeats associated with it?
We are not friends.
You mean like this? Oops, sorry… wrong war. It’s not my fault - when you get into the grisly details they all start looking the same.
Ooooh… you completely got me there. The millions dead in the Congo thanks to Belgium exploitation? Perfectly okay because it wasn’t a clear-cut case of “ethnic cleansing.” The millions starved to death in Bengal due to British colonialist policies during WW2? Perfectly fine because it wasn’t a clear-cut case of “ethnic cleansing.”
If only Hitler had you around to handle his PR for him, eh?
I’m just going to go ahead and assume it’s also a complete mystery to you why the vaunted US military failed so abysmally in Afghanistan, eh?
It’s only a mystery to you and your ilk - why do you think that is?
My Lai was not an ethnic cleansing campaign. It was not directed by the White House or the Pentagon. It was a massacre that had an attempted cover up.
Is it really that hard to understand that something can be illegal, unethical, and immoral, and not be ethnic cleansing?
This discussion is on vietnam, but cool.
Oh… you didn’t get this the first time around. Here… let me help you along and repost it for you because you sure look like this is going to take you a lot of effort to get.
Also, why bring up My Lai? There was nothing unique about My Lai - except for the fact that it ended up being reported in the US media because one chopper crew decided to grow a backbone and put a stop to it (for once). For the US military in Vietnam, My Lai was Tuesday.
So do tell… how does a military end up being completely broken by a (supposedly) “inferior” enemy without actually having lost any decisive battles?
I’d hate to think what would have actually happened if the US had lost a clear-cut battle in Vietnam - the entire US may just have imploded in on itself due to shock.
I could have worded that better, my apologies there. The fact that someone stopped it, I think really is a difference.
I never once said anything about the Vietcong being inferior.
I’m done here, but I do suggest you go and do some more reading. Maybe watch Ken Burns Vietnam documentary to get started with.