Current Events > Rank Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq in terms of worst/dumbest American wars

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Explain what you mean by greater than. This poll was poorly thought out.

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Orlando_Jordan posted...

Explain what you mean by greater than. This poll was poorly thought out.

literally in the poll title

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I don't really have the nuanced understanding to answer this accurately. Pretty much every hostile foreign military engagement the US has had since WW2 has been bullshit anyway. I think Iraq and Afghanistan may be worse than Vietnam because that's a big turning point when it went from just pointless wars to pointless forever wars. There have been a lot more proxy conflicts as a result of these than I'm aware of happening from Vietnam. Congressional checks and balances against war have eroded in the 21st century, though it's not like congress doesn't generally love war too. There's been more emphasis on airstrikes and stuff like that which is abhorrent but is used to try to sell the American people that it isn't war/it's not a huge human cost when it's not American lives

I went with Vietnam, Iraq then Afghanistan. There were a lot more American deaths in the Vietnam war so it was first. Then Iraq since the WMD's weren't real so it was pointless.

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RenescoStCewl posted...

There were a lot more American deaths in the Vietnam war so it was first.

Man this really was right on cue with my post

CoorsLight posted...

I don't really have the nuanced understanding to answer this accurately. Pretty much every hostile foreign military engagement the US has had since WW2 has been bullshit anyway. I think Iraq and Afghanistan may be worse than Vietnam because that's a big turning point when it went from just pointless wars to pointless forever wars. There have been a lot more proxy conflicts as a result of these than I'm aware of happening from Vietnam. Congressional checks and balances against war have eroded in the 21st century, though it's not like congress doesn't generally love war too. There's been more emphasis on airstrikes and stuff like that which is abhorrent but is used to try to sell the American people that it isn't war/it's not a huge human cost when it's not American lives

Yea it's all been policing or flexing after WW2.

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Vietnam was probably the worst war for a soldier to ever fight in

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Vietnam had the stupider start

are Iraq and Afhganistan still ongoing?

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Vietnam gotta be the top of the list. The reason was really just dumb as hell

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CoorsLight posted...

Pretty much every hostile foreign military engagement the US has had since WW2 has been bullshit anyway.

Feel free to explain why the gulf war, NATO intervention in Bosnia and destroying ISIS were "bullshit".

Broseph_Stalin posted...

Feel free to explain why the gulf war, NATO intervention in Bosnia and destroying ISIS were "bullshit".

Because ISIS and the types aren't completely eliminated.

We just got too silk gloved with the way we fight wars after WW2.

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Vietnam > Iraq 2 > Iraq 1 > Afghanistan

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Vietnam wasnt dumb if you take the time to understand it

Vietnam was the most stupid and pointless.

Then Afganistan. Which was just dumb flexing

Iraq actually had a case to be made for it. Still dumb tho.

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coh posted...

Vietnam wasnt dumb if you take the time to understand it

It kind if was
The opening salvo that started the whole thing was cause of bad radar showing targets that didn't even exist

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Vietnam was bad but Iraq and Afghanistan were based on lies.

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ROBANN_88 posted...

It kind if was
The opening salvo that started the whole thing was cause of bad radar showing targets that didn't even exist

?

gulf of tonkin incident didn't 'start the whole thing' it just expanded it

the second iraq war was fought on entirely fabricated causes so it's definitely a dumber war, but vietnam went on so much longer than it should have.

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Sackgurl posted...

?

gulf of tonkin incident didn't 'start the whole thing' it just expanded it

I was under the impression that was the clear event that made the US go "okay, we're going to war now"
Is that incorrect?

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RenescoStCewl posted...

I went with Vietnam, Iraq then Afghanistan. There were a lot more American deaths in the Vietnam war so it was first. Then Iraq since the WMD's weren't real so it was pointless.

At least bin Laden was actually in Afghanistan we we first went. That was the objective. Get bin Laden and disrupt what was then a terrorist haven. Unfortunately he was slipped into Pakistan when Bush needlessly opened a second front in Iraq.

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ROBANN_88 posted...

I was under the impression that was the clear event that made the US go "okay, we're going to war now"
Is that incorrect?

that is incorrect yeah, it was the event that got congress to expand johnson's authority, but we were already there before the incident, with 23,000 military "advisers"

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Sackgurl posted...

?

gulf of tonkin incident didn't 'start the whole thing' it just expanded it

This. It started in the late 20s to the late 30s when Ho Chi Minh was amassing power in then French Indochina.

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DirkDiggles posted...

This. It started in the late 20s to the late 30s when Ho Chi Minh was amassing power in then French Indochina.

Hey, someone who actually knows a thing or two about the Vietnam war. Once the Viet Minh pushed the French out, the US was already stepping in trying to take their place. For all the hullabaloo that was made over stopping the advance of Communism, it was really about American neocolonialism during the Cold War period. What they failed to achieve in Vietnam, they successfully did to lots of other underdeveloped countries during that same era. They mounted dozens of campaigns in other countries, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly through funding various insurgent groups.

The Mujahideen in Afghanistan were one such insurgent group. The existing Afghan government at the time were quite friendly with the Soviets, which made sense as they were neighbours, but the US wanted to disrupt their relationship through a proxy war. After a very bitter war, the Soviets were pushed out of the country, and the leadership of the insurgency became the new government there, the Taliban. Many of the other insurgents went on to form Al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden infamously received his training from the CIA.

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Afghanistan at least made sense
Vietnam made a little sense
Iraq made 0 sense

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UnfairRepresent posted...

Vietnam was the most stupid and pointless.

Then Afganistan. Which was just dumb flexing

Iraq actually had a case to be made for it. Still dumb tho.

Absolutely nothing we were told about Iraq was true. No WMD. No 9-11 link. No imminent threat. Even the "gassing his own people" thing was bullshit. Reagan gave Hussein the gas to use against Iran and anyone else who gave him problems. Know who delivered the gas?


Rumsfeld.

Again, bin Laden was in Afghanistan when we went there, we let him slip away because of Iraq. We went to Afghanistan to get bin Laden and to disrupt a safe haven. Bin Laden's been dead for years.

As for Vietnam, it was over-adherence to NSC-68, in which the U.S. pledged to combat communism "anywhere and everywhere" and "at any level". NSC-68 got us into Korea and it got us into Vietnam (first "advisors" sent by Eisenhower)

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RenescoStCewl posted...

I went with Vietnam, Iraq then Afghanistan. There were a lot more American deaths in the Vietnam war so it was first. Then Iraq since the WMD's weren't real so it was pointless.

my reasoning as well. plus, the Iraq war combined with tax cuts for those who have the most money ruined the budget surplus we had going.

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Giant_Aspirin posted...

the Iraq war combined with tax cuts for those who have the most money ruined the budget surplus we had going.

Boy that's so sad

They are all equally dumb.

brestugo posted...

Absolutely nothing we were told about Iraq was true. N

Any statement which starts with this kinda fails at the first hurdle

You're seriously going to sit there and deny the Saddam Hussein human riots violations that at the time where second to pretty much only North Korea and Saudi Arabia and deny that he was trying to get WMDs and being dodgy and dishonest as hell to the international community?

I was against the war too but you've been duped if you think there was no reasons people were calling for it

synth_real posted...

Hey, someone who actually knows a thing or two about the Vietnam war. Once the Viet Minh pushed the French out, the US was already stepping in trying to take their place. For all the hullabaloo that was made over stopping the advance of Communism, it was really about American neocolonialism during the Cold War period. What they failed to achieve in Vietnam, they successfully did to lots of other underdeveloped countries during that same era. They mounted dozens of campaigns in other countries, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly through funding various insurgent groups.

The Mujahideen in Afghanistan were one such insurgent group. The existing Afghan government at the time were quite friendly with the Soviets, which made sense as they were neighbours, but the US wanted to disrupt their relationship through a proxy war. After a very bitter war, the Soviets were pushed out of the country, and the leadership of the insurgency became the new government there, the Taliban. Many of the other insurgents went on to form Al-Qaeda. Osama Bin Laden infamously received his training from the CIA.

I think you're taking his statement that the gulf of tonkin "started" the war hyperliterally

Like when people say Pearl Harbor brought the US into WW2.

Yeah that's not hyperliterally true but you know exactly what they mean

Gulf of tonkin was a false flag media manipulation that expedited all US interactions in Vietnam and brought it to public attention


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Human rights violations happening in other countries aren't a good excuse to go to war. We don't live in a magical fairytale land where the West is the pure good guys who have the perfect strategy to set the bad guys right. In reality we go into these countries and have no idea what we're doing but destroying and destabilizing, which unsurprisingly usually does not make for a net improvement in the end. And we do this while killing tons of civilians in those countries, the same bad stuff that we're supposedly there to put an end to. Not to mention how much our human rights and quality of life at home suffer because of how much is spent on the military

CoorsLight posted...

Human rights violations happening in other countries aren't a good excuse to go to war.

Yeah that's what most Americans said when Germans where genociding Jews, gays, the mentally ill and anyone "undesirable." while the Japanese where massacring the Chinese.

I'm not sure I agree. I mean yeah in this case the war was a bad idea due to political reasons and the indifference towards suffering from people like you. But as a blanket statement "Who cares about human rights violations? If it's not happening outside my window then it doesn't matter." is not civilization.

And we're seeing the side effect of that attitude with China and Russia running wild right now. Doing whatever they like with 0 fear of consequences.

We don't live in a magical fairytale land where the West is the pure good guys who have the perfect strategy to set the bad guys right.

I like how in attempting to be woke, you just accidentally admitted that you think of "The West" as the good guys. I never said it, that was your wording.

I don't care where on the planet it is. If you have people burying others alive, executing civilians for speaking out against the government and forcing the family of the victim to watch and applaud the execution while living over a mass grave of their countrymen in an ongoing effort to enduce control via fear. Then yes the other nations of the world have an obligation to stop that. What's the point in even having any form of globalization, trade, UN etc if we don't? We're going back to barbarism.

China's defense of north Korea is sickening. The US and everyone's defense of Saudi Arabia is sickening.

You being utterly sheltered doesn't change that

In reality we go into these countries and have no idea what we're doing but destroying and destabilizing, which unsurprisingly usually does not make for a net improvement in the end.

This is true and I agree. The war was a mistake, it was very poorly planned out. It quickly became a clusterfuck and the US' decision to just wipe out every power structure in Iraq and leave no infastructure behind was.... shortsighted isn't even the word.

Not to mention how much our human rights and quality of life at home suffer because of how much is spent on the military

The fact you think paying more for gas or a raise in taxes is on par with the human rights abuses in Iraq, Suadi Arabia and North Korea says it all frankly.

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You still have enough hay for all those strawmen you're gonna build?

I never said I don't care about human rights, just that these wars don't really help anyone in the long run. I don't believe that's really the real reason for them anyway. It just makes them an easier sell to the public and even if there are grains of truth there, it's heavily skewed.

At best we're extremely incompetent at nation building, because it never works, but I think in reality we aren't even trying to make it work. It's all just about flexing power. I thought that everyone stopped believing the "heroes spreading democracy" shit by like 2010 lol

Considering the draft and the death total, along with the meaning of the war, Vietnam and it's not even close.

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On any given day, the Saudis are probably doing as many human rights violations as Hussein's Iraq. So are Tajikistan and about a dozen other places. I have met UN inspectors for Iraq (William Scott Ritter among them). The WMD claim was bullshit. Colin Powell has addressed the rest of the flaws in the Iraq case.

Absolutely nothing we were told about Iraq was true. Full stop. This was known as early as 2004 when I was lecturing Majors at a military college. The information was classified at the time.

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Orlando_Jordan posted...

Explain what you mean by greater than. This poll was poorly thought out.

"I can't read. Please explain in writing."

sLaCkEr408___RJ posted...

"I can't read. Please explain in writing."

He's too rich and successful to read, the person he pays to read for him called out sick today.

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UnfairRepresent posted...

Like when people say Pearl Harbor brought the US into WW2.

Yeah that's not hyperliterally true but you know exactly what they mean

That part is true though. We didn't get into the war until December of 1941 when we declared war on Japan and the Nazis. We had a lend/lease agreement with Great Brittan starting in 1940 though. Japan bought it's own demise once they attacked Pearl Harbor.

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