Jeff Danziger for October 18, 2023

I was there in 1967-68, and as I recall, we lost.

They both have people willing to die for the least of reasons.

Hollywood will not make so many Israel war films.

Second verse, same as the first. Alas, the history of the world.

It’s a parallel but not the critical one.

Israel does not want to invade Gaza and fight house-to-house.

In every war we have been in those in charge overestimate our strengths and underestimate the enemy; guess they never read the Art of War by Sun Tzu or just ignored what has worked for 7 centuries. My personal take on his writings on this subject (he had 13 areas covered in his book) is when you feel you’re invincible and your enemy is incompetent and weak; go back to bed until you have sobered up and look again

Gaza 2023 is not Viet-Nam 1968.

The Viet-Namese had somewhere to run to where we would not, could not follow.

HAMAS has nowhere to run that Israel will not follow. Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, all had better learn this and get on board.

Yeah, but Israel has 3 things the US did not have in Vietnam: a close proximity to the war zone, good leadership and the absolute determination to win.

As I’ve said elsewhere, history doesn’t necessarily repeat, but it often rhymes.

Plus then nd now, it’s a case of defending your homes vs political will.

Only a fool would think Israel will fight this war like we fought in Vietnam.

In Vietnam the military tried to fight a conventional war against an unconventional enemy. Israel is making a similar mistake. You can’t fight people who strap bombs to children and blow them up with tanks or planes. You fight them by ruthlessly hunting down their leaders, eliminating them, then when the next batch steps up do the same until nobody wants to be the next guy on the list. You make it to costly for those who support them to keep doing so. You will get your hands dirty and there will be a lot of blood but what they’re doing now only strengthens hamas’s position. Even now the evening news spends more time on the damage Israel is doing to Gaza than on what hamas has and will do.

How did it work out? Let’s ask Lt. Dangerous. He might have an opinion.

purepaul less than a minute agoIsrael will never find peace on their chosen pathway. Those who ignore history repeat it.

In Vietnam,the enemy didn’t use women,children,and the elderly as human shields in cities.

How can Israel “win” when most likely “winning” will end with Gaza reduced to rubble with 2 million homeless? For every Hamas fighter Israel kills they will have to deal with their 12 year old younger brother in 5 years. 50% of Gaza is under 18 so the potential pool of future Hamas is deep.

The main problem with Vietnam, and all wars since then, is that the US had no vision of what peace should look like.

One of the problems with the Middle East is that the people with the guns do not know what peace is.

Americans finally admitted meddling was no longer politically viable, admitted defeat and left.. (much like Afghanistan) some ~80 years later Vietnam is a relatively prosperous place. If.. America was to stop meddling in Israel no doubt the locals would sort it out. BUT.. there are too many Jewish voters in America that control the politics.

I suspect that the Israelis are sick and tired of Jews being the choice scapegoat of just about everybody. And what would you have them do? Crawl back into the concentration camps?

Devil’s Advocate: The US didn’t want to just blow the whole country off the map. Israel will have no such qualms.

And in both cases, a foreign invader tried to conquer an indigenous population on their own land.

In 1776 the newly formed United States of America fought a war against the then world’s super power. The Brits were shocked and appalled by the methods used by some of what they called ‘terrorists’. Revolutions have a way of winning out against tall odds.

situations are not the same in Vietnam we were lied to by the government mostly Mr McNamara Johnson was smart enough to get out of politics realizing that his generals didn’t have a clue fighting a war with a decade of tactics not good

Gaza has little clean water. Their water supply is cut off. Chemical treatments to make dirty water drinkable are not allowed into the territory. All the Israelis need to do is keep the borders closed and wait a few weeks. As to whether anyone, anywhere, should accept this as morally justified, that is another matter. Likewise as to Israel’s (and the U.S.’s) standing in world opinion and respect.

As memory serves, the Viet Namese also had unlimited cannon fodder thanks to China. Not so in this case.

Speaking of history, if I recall, the US supported the Khmer Rouge who “Pol Pot oversaw the deaths of an estimated one to two million people from starvation, overwork or execution.”, all because the Soviet Union was supporting Vietnam. One has to wonder if this had anything to do with it, "The largest oil-producing countries in Asia are Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam. "

I really, really wish I didn’t have to agree with a lot of what I’m seeing here. I don’t know about the true long run here, but in the short run nobody will win and a lot of people who don’t deserve it are going to lose everything.

We tried twice to impose our values on two third world nations about which we knew little. We reached out 8000 miles in opposite directions, while our own democracy was being undermined from within by a Party which now threatens to inflict an obvious sociopathic narcissist “President” on us all for 4 more years. The Congress is trying to make (can you imagine?!) JimJordan Speaker. I don’t want either Ukraine or Israel destroyed, but we may be in greater danger than either. And if WE go, they both go. I fear for my children, and for the future of this nation. I’m afraid too many of us are too stupid to salvage our democracy.

And the innocent people, on both sides, suffer from the war waged by their leaders.