tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5522083.post-1154898545580693422006-08-06T15:51:00.000-05:002006-08-06T16:10:58.926-05:00A quick aside while I work on a Vietnam essay for class.<br /><br />France had been in Vietnam for almost two centuries before the U.S. military set foot there. Occupation and control of the region was standard fare for the imperialists, but Vietnam had proved tricky for the French, both politically and militarily. An official war against Ho Chi Min's Vietminh fighters began in 1947 (46?). Here's what the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0140265473/002-6603458-6784052?v=glance&n=283155">book I'm currently reading</a> on the conflict says:<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(255, 102, 102);">By late 1952, the French dead, wounded, missing and captured totaled more than ninety thousand since the war had begun six years earlier, and France had spent twice the sume it had received in U.S. aid under the Marshall Plan (203) ... "Officers are being lost... at a faster rate than they are being graduated from officer schools in France" (193).</blockquote>In a war of liberation (ie. <span style="font-style: italic;">against</span> tyranny and imperialism), the U.S. has lost a little over two thousand troops. Sure, "war is hell." But anyone who thinks the conflicts the West is involved in today compare by any measure to the carnage inflicted in the wars of the last century is simply ignorant.<span style="font-size:78%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-size:78%;"><span class="Tags">Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/war" rel="tag">war</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Vietnam" rel="tag">Vietnam</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Asia" rel="tag">Asia</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/20th+century+wars" rel="tag">20th century wars</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/France" rel="tag">France</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/U.S." rel="tag">U.S.</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Iraq" rel="tag">Iraq</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/casualties" rel="tag">casualties</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Vietminh" rel="tag">Vietminh</a>, <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/imperialism" rel="tag">imperialism</a></span></span>Sethnoreply@blogger.com