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[woose1]

In 'merica, we don't lose unless we can't have at least 5 different country singers create some version of "America, Fuck Yeah" right after or during the war.

Also, watch out Portugal! Eyes on the prize!

[mainiac]

This topic is distressingly short of Coulibaly discussion.  Can I speak for the general consensus when I say that his children should be sent to the 7th level of hell so that they can spit down on him and cool his brow in the eternal torment he shall receive in the next life?

[woose1]

Coulibaly sounds like a kind of alchoholic beverage. Who is that?

[mainiac]

The referee who overturned USA's third goal on a still unspecified foul during the same play that two american players were literally tacked to the ground inside the crease.

[Grakelin]

Referee who gave Brazil a red card because a Cote d'Ivoire player ran into him while he was standing there minding his own business is a dick.

[mainiac]

Oh god, did he strike again?  Didn't they make him like the junior assistant ref?

[Siquo]

Bad referees are part of the game.

And what're you whining about, you still won with 2-2! 

*Siquo is happy as his team already has 6 points, while playing abominably*

[Leafsnail]

I suppose if you kept drafting people up, wasting money and lives, America might have eventually "won" Vietnam.  But the whole point is that it just wasn't worth it.

Anyway, England now need to beat Slovenia.

[Nikov]

I suppose if you kept drafting people up, wasting money and lives, America might have eventually "won" Vietnam.  But the whole point is that it just wasn't worth it.

Actually this is the point. After we crushed the Communists in the Tet offensive, Mao's "move a mule, move an army" guerilla warfare Asian revolution scheme hit a brick wall. We're told Hamburger Hill was a waste since we abandoned the hill the next night, yet taking the hill was never the point. Killing 630 encircled PAVN troops for 72 Americans was the point. Proving to the enemy we could beat them in an infantry assault and weren't reliant on our firepower was the point. Still, all people hear is Hamburger Hill, huge casualties, abandoned it. Same with Tet. We hear about Cronkite declaring the war unwinnable, but we forget the Communists had lost their entire guerilla force in failed attack. America was sick of ten years of war in a jungle, but the Chinese and Soviets realized they couldn't defeat us in a theater we really set to hold.

[mainiac]

All well and good except for the detail that the Vietnamese could sustain a 10-1 loss ratio indefinitely.  Killing 600 badly armed peasants a day for another 10 years wouldn't have won the war.

First rule of counter insurgency: There is no military solution.

[Jackrabbit]

Oh God guys, no, stop. This is not what the thread was about. I'm sorry I made the terrible joke, okay?

[Kogan Loloklam]

Wait a second, you think 600 peasants a DAY for 10 years wouldn't have won the war?
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=sp_pop_totl&idim=country:VNM&dl=en&hl=en&q=Vietnam+Population
http://www.indexmundi.com/vietnam/birth_rate.html
http://www.indexmundi.com/vietnam/death_rate.html

Let's talk population.
600 peasants A DAY represents 219000 a year.
This is over TWO MILLION people in 10 years.
we assume 20 births per 1000 people, and you are talking about 800000 people born a year.

So, you only have a growth of at best 600000 people a year. This isn't counting in the death rate. 240000 more people a year die at a 6 in 1000 rate. This puts them to a growth of ~350000 a year. For their entire nation. This is assuming only 600 peasants a day.

Those same losses on us would have been a pathetic joke, not absorbing a full HALF of our population growth. Yes, we'd have eventually "won" vietnam if we stayed in there, but Unlike Iraq and Afghanistan, there would have been no gain to such a victory. Vietnam wasn't a horrid dictatorship country whom was defying international law and thumbing their nose at no fly zones, while abusing programs that were supposed to be for the benefit of their people but only went to buy weapons and luxuries for the elite.
Vietnam also wasn't harboring training camps for individuals to launch attacks at the mainland of the continental United states.

Insurgencies aren't as hard to defeat as you think they are. Defeating an insurgency is no different than defeating a rebellion. They do take a mandate of the population who is supporting the effort to defeat it though. There is no honor or glory in defeating an insurgency, so it is generally difficult for people to stomach the day in, day out efforts and casualties required.

[RedKing]

Tell you what: invent a time machine, then go back and test your theories. We'll be waiting breathlessly for the results. Till then, kindly STFU about hypothetical alternate realities in a thread about the World Cup.


Now, as regards the World Cup: Soccer blows. Rarely do I fit the part of the "ugly American", but the worldwide obsession with what is, IMHO, a relatively dull sport is something I neither comprehend nor embrace. Give me American football or hockey or collegiate basketball any day. Hell, even cricket is more interesting.

[DJ]

It's only dull because you don't understand it at all. Football is a very tactical game, but to an untrained eye it looks like they're just running around randomly.

[RedKing]

No, I mostly understand it. And I get the tactical part. I watch basketball and hockey, after all. (And Aussie rules footy when I can find it).

It's just that as "team pass-the-ball-around-and-get-to-the-other-end-of-the-field" games go, soccer is just...vanilla. I mean, hockey has the tactical complexity of soccer PLUS it's on ice and you get to crush people into a wall.

I suppose the one point in favor of soccer is that it's highly portable. All you need is a ball and a large open field. (Although basketball is rapidly gaining in popularity in a lot of crowded world cities because it requires far less space, and you just need a ball and something to serve as a hoop).