Absolute knowledge is absolute power

You shouldn't make policy decisions based on how you feel. However, you should make policy decisions based on how people feel. The former is something that can cloud our judgment. The latter is rationally reacting to a natural phenomenon that exists in the population.

Designing security policy in a way that ignores the fact that people fear, and have their lives disrupted by, sudden random death in a way they do not fear natural, predictable death, is a luxury akin to that of designing an airplane in a world where gravity does not exist. Yeah, it would be easy to design airplanes in a world where gravity was not a thing, but that's not the world we live in. You can't ignore natural phenomena just because you don't agree with the reasons they exist.

For me the answer is yes to both. Communism was not a made up threat. Nor did it just impact a few rich people. The Soviets took control of hundreds of millions of people, and maintained control with tanks and guns. For instance ask any Czech who was around in 1968 how fun that was.

As for 9/11, someone flew those planes. (If you're one of the morons who thinks that missiles were used, then go talk to one of the millions of eyewitnesses who watched the second plane fly low and slow over Manhattan - half my workplace at the time was on a balcony and watched it.) Osama bin Laden took public credit. Al Qaeda was both real, and had appeared in lots of stuff before that. After 9/11 they had great branding.

This is not to say that the threats were considered realistically. The domino theory under which we fought in Vietnam was invalid. Supporting every anti-communist power we could just because they were anti-communist lead to our supporting everything from genocide in Cambodia to military coups in Chile.

Likewise this time around, Al Qaeda was not a force in Iraq. (Well, not until we invaded, and then people who wanted to freak us out began calling themselves Al Qaeda.) I do not believe that our response has been proportionate to the threat.

But do try to keep facts in mind. In the Cold War we did face communist countries. We do face terrorist organizations today. Those are not made up.

You're referring to the 1978-79 invasion of Khmer-Rouge-governed "Democratic Kampuchea" by (the by-then unified) Vietnam, about which you're absolutely correct.

In contrast, I was referring to the 1970 North Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, which led to the U.S. incursion there, which in turn touched off protests in the U.S., including the one at Kent State.

> [Referring to South Vietnam:] a military dictatorship that was only able to maintain power because we supported it really wasn't a legitimate government no matter how you slice it.

A lot of Vietnamese immigrants to the U.S. would strongly disagree with you. Drive around the Little Saigon area in Houston (or numerous other cities). You'll see plenty of South Vietnamese flags flying. This, even though it's been nearly 40 years since North Vietnam completed its conquest in April 1975.

There's a selection bias at work here, of course; the people who fled South Vietnam and came to the U.S. were, by and large, people who were aligned with, and benefited from, the South Vietnamese government.

Still, it speaks volumes that so many South Vietnamese fled -- by small boat, and who knows how many of them drowned at sea or were killed by pirates.

The North Vietnamese had heavy logistical support from the USSR and China. After Watergate and Nixon's 1974 resignation, the U.S. Congress -- controlled by the Democratic Party, whose base by then was heavily influenced by left-wing "peaceniks" -- cut off logistical support for the Saigon government. (Foreign policy wise, the Democratic Party of today is very, very different from that of the 1970s.) The cut-off of U.S. support was pretty much game over for South Vietnam.

Some argue that the quick collapse of the Saigon government suggests that the government didn't enjoy broad popular support among the South Vietnamese people. Another possible explanation is that the South Vietnamese were tired of war and saw no point in sacrificing their lives in the face of overwhelming military force.

I do think there's considerable room for argument that, after the Japanese surrender and evacuation from Vietnam in 1945, the U.S. should have backed Ho Chi Minh and his Vietnamese nationalists, instead of supporting a return of the French colonial rulers (who were booted out after losing the French-Indochina War 1950-1954). There's also no question that the Saigon government was far from ideal.

But I don't think there's any dispute that --- on the whole --- the (Communist) North Vietnamese government was far more systematically brutal than was the South. Indeed, systematic brutality seems to be a common and recurring theme among Communist governments. Which goes to my original point.