The Only American General to Lose a War Dead at 91

[Tingkai]

No, the warhawks were complaining about impressment in general, not about the Royal Navy searching for sailors in American ports.

Besides, it would have been an easy thing to stop.

The wikipedia entry about searches in American cities is likely false.

[lord of the mark]

yes we went to war about impressment in general - that would include impressment in ports if it was happening.

would it have been easy to stop? I think you overestimate the degree of orderliness in an 1810 US port city. You go into a tavern in the seedy part of Manhattan, near 5 points, where the sailors hung out, get a guy dead drunk, and drag him aboard a ship.

As to impressment at sea, they took ANY british citizen. And considered anyone born in Britain to be british.

My wife was born in Hungary. Can the Hungarian govt stop her on the high seas, on a US flag vessel or airplane, for no particular crime, and draft her into the service of Hungary?

[lord of the mark]

actually i think impressment was done at sea and in neutral ports. So youre a brit, who goes off to America, becomes a sailor on a US flag merchantman, and youre sitting in a bar in say, Canton, and the Brits come in and grab you.

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
As to impressment at sea, they took ANY british citizen. And considered anyone born in Britain to be british.

At the time all countries considered citizenship to be based on country of birth, no?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
My wife was born in Hungary. Can the Hungarian govt stop her on the high seas, on a US flag vessel or airplane, for no particular crime, and draft her into the service of Hungary?

What is illegal today may not have been illegal 200 years ago.

As far as I know, the Royal Navy did not board ships unless the ship was in international or British waters.

The British had been searching ships for deserters for decades. The warhawks decided to use it as an excuse when the time was convenient for the US to invade Canada, namely when Britain was tied up in the Napoleanic wars.

[TheStinger]

Wen't both sides just itching for an excuse to tie up the oustanding issues follwoing the earlier revolutionary wars.

[Dis]

Originally posted by Geronimo


US 'lost' vietnam because we fought a huge war which didn't achieved any of it's objectives. This was probably inevitable since the US failed to actually define any objectives that could be achieved through such a limited war.

No question there was a war and we didn't win it, so trying to argue we didn't lose it is basically pointless regardless of the lopsided endless series of (ultimately irrelevant) total military victories on the battlefield.

If we didn't have any objectives how could we have not achieved those objectives.

[Dis]

In any case, I'm man enough to admit we lost the war politically. But there is no way in hell our military lost the war. They won nearly every battle. The war just wasn't winnable.

But we did lose the war overall. Just like we are going to lose the Iraq war. Eventually we will pull out, and things will turn to ****.

Yes this is another endless Iraq/Vietnam comparison. But it's very easy to see. When we start pulling out (I've heard even as soon as next year), the country will not survive in it's present form of goverment.

I feel so bad for supporting the Iraq war. . I want to kill myself. All those lives lost. It's people such as myself which allowed the president to do what he did. If congress had only stood up to the president and didn't allow him to do what he did. And congress would have stood up if people such as myself had put pressure on our representatives to not go to war. . I'll never support another war ever again. I don't even support the war on terrorism anymore.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Actually, the South started an offensive after the U.S. pulled out, despite the fact there was supposed to be a cease fire. They did well enough for a while, but they overstretched themselves (considering the corruption and lack of American air support).

In '75, the South decided to pull back to better defend itself in the face of a minor NVA offesnive, but due to total incompetence on its part, the orderly retreat fell apart into a total collapse on the part of ARVN, and the NVA just moved forward and picked up the pieces.

It wasn't "radicals in the U.S. Congress" who caused the South to fall. They, along with pretty much everyone but the reactionaries, felt that the South was a lost cause, even with all the help that we could have given them. Even the Ford Administration considered it hopeless, though they were willing to send supplies anyway.

The cut off of ammunition and fuel by congress in early 1975 (by the class of '74) and the realization that U.S. forces would never again intervene played a huge part in Thieu's appalling decision to abandon the central highlands and refuse to listen to the pleas of his American advisors. We lost all of our leverage there. The South was certainly demoralized by their defeat in their Cambodia offensive, but morale can renew itself rather quickly. The NVA on the other hand had lost a lot more combat power in the preceding years and they knew that they might never recover to their previous levels while the war continued.

Had ARVN held their positions in 1975 they would have been able to hold them in 1976 as well. They were the stronger force in South Vietnam than the NVA, but they got rolled.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Tingkai


I supposed you still believe that there were WMD in Iraq, eh.

I don't think any serious person doesn't think that there were WMD in Iraq, their presence there and the million or so casualties caused by them are very well documented.

[DeathByTheSword]

here we go again with the WMD debate...

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Yeah, General Hull and his crew were just going for a hike... before they turned and ran without a fight.

The fact that we invaded Canada doesn't mean that it was a primary war aim. Anyway, not to have done so would have been idiotic in the extreme, since anyone with at least half a brain would understand that Britain would be able to invade the U.S. from Canada. Even if Canada wasn't a war aim, we still would have invaded. You don't let the enemy (Great Britain) have an unmolested base from which to attack you.

Yes, we wanted Canada, but guess what, we wanted Canada before that. We didn't invade. We didn't invade until relations with the Brits fell, because they were occupying our territory and seizing our citizens.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Tingkai
At the time all countries considered citizenship to be based on country of birth, no?

Not us

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ben Kenobi
Right, like American policy towards the Indians was intended to pacify them,

This has what to do with the price of tea in China?

When the Americans became independent, the British no longer had to pay to defend both sides from each other.

See above comment.

If the Indians are allies to the British, then they have every right to sell and trade weapons to help them defend themselves against the Americans.

So if we were allies with the Irish while they were part of the British Empire, it would have been perfectly acceptable for the U.S. to establish forts there and arm the Irish against the British. Don't you think the British Empire might have decalred war on us for doing something which so flagrantly violated their sovreignty?

Which justifies burning forts on the other side of the border how?

Because we were at war.

The idea that the War of 1812 was soley or even mostly just an excuse to grab Canada is a joke.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker


Not us

Hell, in the U.S., you didn't even have to be a citizen to vote until 1853.