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A good analysis.I would like educators to remember Frances Trollope and indeed Trollope himself who focussed on the intellectual and political thinking and mores of the times.Frances Trollope's travels around America in Victorian times highlight how the English had an unparalleled grasp of of their times,which Americans seemed hostile to. READ HER!
This lecturer is the embodiment of snark! A horrible speaker and worse, totally void of real content. The truth is, under Nixon, the U.S. did in fact win the Vietnam War, much along the same model as South Korea. After THE DEMS overthrew Nixon, using law-fare, the Watergate soft coup, the Democrat controlled Congress refused to honor the terms of the peace treaty Nixon had negotiated to end the war. They cut off all arms supplies to both South Vietnam and Cambodia (which was part of the peace treaty). This practically invited the communists to resume the war, knowing that THE DEMS had stripped South Vietnam of all its defensive capabilities(they did not even have bullets), opening the door to a typical communist blood bath and the infamous Killing Fields. No wonder American students know nothing of history, listening to such lazy, incompetent “professors”.
I still believe that there is a moral and ethical argument that has to be considered alongside the technical legal argument of whether he would be convicted of treason. In more than one civil rights era legal case, juries have acquitted the accused and yet the judgment of history is that the jurors were wrong to do so and likely shared the same prejudices as the accused, who in fact committed the crime. In other words, one can be morally culpable, but legally acquitted. The more interesting question, to me, is whether Lee should be considered moral culpable for the acts that would have been the focus of such a trial.
Our intelligence was so poor we didn’t even realize Ho Chi Min wasn’t even in power in 1964 in many ways but because the experts in the state department were purged by Joe McCarthy
“The doctrines and miracles of our Savior have required nearly 2000 years to convert but a small portion of the human race, and even among Christian nations what gross errors still exist! I can only say that I am nothing but a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone for salvation.” -General Robert E. Lee
Vietnam or "American" war as they called it was never going to see an independent South Vietnam. The Americans where incredibly ignorant of the regions history. Tremendous and avoidable mistake that cost millions of lives. Failure was preordained.
Very good presentation. Unfortunately it shows why so many people have little respect for our legal system which consists of lawyers parsing language with their unique theories decided by other lawyers and force the rest of us to have to live with their theories.
Did Lee commit treason? If he didn't then the word is meaningless. He violated his oath to protect this country and then led armies that killed tens of thousands of patriotic Americans.
I completed the Special Forces Officer's Course in 1975. The speaker for my graduation was Col. Aaron Bank, the father of US Special Forces. Seeing all the Combat Infantryman Badges in the audience (we were in a classroom), he said, "Guys, I hate to tell you this, but you deserve to know. I knew Ho Chi Minh personally and we could have worked with him. He was more nationalist than Communist. Vietnam didn't need to happen. I wrote to President Truman that the US should support Vietnamese independence instead of the return of French colonialism. He didn't listen."
Strange this guy looks like Mitch McConnell or his brother. What he fails to mention is the opinion of those who were affected. For example, Lee Kuan Yew of Singapore, no lackey of the US, who stated that the Vietnam war gave the governments of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and in greater expanse India time to deal with their internal communist forces and win freedom. The lecture also fails to mention the treachery, some say treason, if Johnson, McNamara, and Rusk for giving combat plans (especially air) to the North Vietnamese. Often explained to keel the Chinese out of the war, and to keep Russia and China at each other’s throats. For my service brothers (USAF and USN avaiation 1972-1980), there was no expressed strategy to win or what the outcome was to be. If politicians and diplomats fail in their jobs, war is the outcome. If our military is expected to solve the problem, there can only be one outcome - total and unconditional surrender. WWII taught us that. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and every incident after WWII has been a failure and our services have paid the price in wasted blood. If we don’t intend to win and unconditionally, don’t get involved. But the world will be a much lesser and more brutal and violent place. We can never forget what was said by a victor in Vietnam; Pol Pot who said “To keep you is no benefit, to destroy you no loss”. The world is filled with Pol Pots and it is our politicians and diplomats who fail to deal with them properly.
I made it 24 minutes. No offense is taken here. But this man is shockingly ignorant of Civil War history for an educated Southerner. So far, he's done nothing but toe the line of the current, wildly dishonest and inaccurate, historical narrative.
This man, as a Lincoln admirer, gives a surprisingly balanced and fair summation of Lee's actions and the circumstances of the era. For this, he deserves credit. I find one logical flaw with his argument, asserting that by definition, Lee committed treason. Though the speaker understands the fact that state vs. national citizenship obligations were far from settled at the beginning of the Civil War. Despite this, he accuses Lee, by definition of treason. How can such a verdict be reached when the term's definition was unsettled? Perhaps he felt compelled to give a definite yes or no answer, so he had to come down somewhere. But which definition of treason is he using? The unsettled, debated, and ill-defined definition of 1861? Or the settled-by-military-force understanding of 1865? But, once again to his credit, he finishes the speech by saying no historian is qualified to settle the issue. To the speaker, well done, sir.
I feel like R.E. Lee was asked to be commander in chief of Virginia’s forces similar to George Washington another Virginian being asked to become commander in chief of the U.S. colonial forces during the revolution 😊
I completely agree with Stanley and I'm a rap fanatic , minority of black of grew up poor and became criminal have the same set of values of poor white , the most frustrated black is the majority who chose to do the right thing , while being connstantly discriminate by the dominant society and the criminal black class.
In light of that, would you say that the men who were from seceding states, but who remained loyal to the United States were traitors? Gen. Winfield Scott, Gen. George Thomas, Admiral Samuel Phillips Lee (Lee''s cousin), all were Virginians who remained loyal to the Union and fought against the Confederates. In fact much of Lee's family stayed loyal most of them refused to ever speak to R.E. Lee again (and a third of all Virginian West Point grads who were in in the U.S. Army stayed loyal to the United States during the conflict). Do they-or should anyone-bear some moral culpability for their allegiances and actions in support of those allegiances in that war?
@@Pandaemoni In light of that as you say, men fight for their country whatever the geo-political atmosphere. We see that with the Vietnam experience. In the middle and latter stages of the Vietnam Conflict it was the politics that destabilized the military effort and not the other way around. In the Civil War most soldiers North and South never ventured more than 20 miles from where they were born. So the sense of ones country was not then what we would perceive today. Why was the Civil War fought to begin with between North and South? Why is the issue of States Rights not emphasized? Black people the former enslaved were de-facto enslaved for a 100 years after the American Civil War on the same issue of States Rights. Robert E. Lee and the Southern Confederates fought the U.S. government for 4 years basically on the issue of States Rights, and in retrospect i, m not surprised at all that the Confederacy almost won that war against the U.S. government.
Why wasn't he or Jeff Davis charged? Because they didn't and taking it to court would show the crimes of the north, to make the answer fast and factual and not a long story full of feelings and personal opinions
