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There was a major administration change in the middle of the Vietnam War, which led to an early withdrawl of American presence.

The Viet Cong were fighting in blatant violation of all existing legislation regarding the "rules" of combat...attaching bombs to children, false surrenders, etc, just to name a few.  And because they were a legitimate military force, the US was obligated to abide by said rules, despite getting our tails handed to us because the VC was violating the same.

That said, no one can predict what the future might have held had the US not withdrawn from Vietnam when we did.  We may have won, we may have lost.  We'll never know, so it's really a moot debate.

Assuming the Viet Cong won, which isn't a stretch considering the above, then it's safe to say that the VC were in fact a stronger force, albeit illegitimately, because they won.

By knowing the land, and how to use it to our advantage.  We were stronger.

You can give me examples all night.  The fact remains that the stronger force - that is the force that knows how to use things to their advantage, that is the force that knows how to exploit the weaknesses of the enemy - will ALWAYS win.

Perhaps the philisophical aspect of this is too much for some to accept, but the truth is that the team that wins will ALWAYS be the stronger team.

They may not have as many airplanes, as many people, or an arsenal as advanced as the other side.  But in some capacity, they are the strongest, or they would have lost.

If this is above your head, I apologize.  But I'm not going to sit here and say the same thing over and over and over and over just because some do not get it.  (Not that there's anything to get.  You've got two teams.  One wins.  One loses.  Which is the stronger team?)

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Mistakes can, and always will be made in war. All you're saying is that the stronger side wins.

At the battle of Cannae, Hannibal had a force of about 2,300 men. Facing them was a force of 10,000 Roman legions.

Who would you consider to be the stronger side? Hannibals rabble of troops or 10,000 of Romes finest?

The result of that battle was nearly 10,000 romans dead. And one of the greatest military victories in history for Hannibal.

What you have been saying is that America will win the war on terror because America is strongest. You assume America will win because America seems stronger and you make this assumption before any major confrontation. You cannot use Iraq as an example because Al Quaeda and the Islamic fundamentalists were not in Iraq then. You can hardly use Afganistan as an example either as I don't believe either Al Quaeda or the Taliban made any full confrontation with the Americans. If they had then the campaign would have been bloody. Remember the Taliban, lead by Bin Laden drove the Russains out of Afghanistan in the 1980's and Russia then was not a country to be stopped by casualty figures as America was stopped in Vietnam.

My point is, do not assume that you are the stronger force. You have little or no idea what you are facing and to make assumptions is a grave mistake.

I see no point in continuing this discussion. Your original comment seems to imply that by the strongest you mean in a physical sense (sheer numbers & the latest technology) which is not necessarily true. You changed this later to mean that it's the side that uses its resources to the best advantage.

As to who is winning, what are you referring to? The situation in Iraq or the broader issue of global terrorism? Much as I would like to agree with you I think only the most optimistic amongst us would believe that. Now it's reared its ugly head I'm afraid this will be with us for the foreseeable future & the world will never be the same again. The irony is that we taught them these tactics in the first place.

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"extensive use of chemical weapons"  such as "Agent Orange"?  which was a defoilant, with, tragically, harmful side effects.  Quite unlike using mustard gas, ZyklonB, and more recently, Sarin<?> in a subway station.

napalm ?  Deadly, of course, but a tactical weapon nonetheless.

Events like My Lai, regrettable, are not the norm (although you can find similar events throughout the history of the civilized world.  For that matter, why not bring out how "Black Jack" Pershing got his reputation?  My Lai pales in comparison to Lidice (and a few other towns in France), and what the VC would do to villagers even hinted of "collaboration" ...

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I would suggest that one of the reasons negotiations fail/have failed in the Middle East is that there is no central authority with whom to engage in binding negotiations. 



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I agree, to a point, but given that the Hitlerites "lost"  they were, in the long run, the weaker.

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Ahh yes, I forget - if it's bad, the "US" knows about it and willingly goes ahead ...


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An incident, not government ordered, is as bad as a state-ordered mass execution?  My Word!  Who in the SS was even chastized for any village-mass executino (other than for not carrying it out)?

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In the US, at least there is a central authority willing to engage in reasonable conversations.  Whether a past administration was "successful" or not depends on many things, including whether negotions with one of the parties weas effectively binding on the party that was purportedly represented.

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On that, I agree with you.  " Might makes Right"  is not necessarily so, in the long run.

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The SS in France, on leave from the Russian front simply brought their methods with them. The methods they used to suppress the french in the last year of the war was how they were trained and usually, what they were ordered to do. Basically the SS were more trained killing machines than any other military unit in history.

The Americans at My Lai would certainly have not been ordered or trained to carry out such massacres and the fact that they did it out of their own initiative makes it at least equal to anything the SS pulled off.

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If both sides wanted peace then there would be no need for any single authority to bind negotiations. But the fact that the Isreali's arn't prepared to back down means that the Palistinians arn't going to back down so single authority or not no progress is ever going to be made.