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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (146056)	9/20/2004 10:42:29 PM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Hi jlallen; Re: "In the late seventies...I had the pleasure of working with Cambodian, Vietnamese and Laotian refugees. ... what could have been won and weighing of the costs has arguably left me with perhaps a different outlook on the matter." We sent far more arms and materiel into Vietnam than the Commies did. We supplied direct military assistance in US blood and bombs far in excess of what China or Russia provided to their side. If our Vietnamese allies had had the will to fight, they had all the guns needed to march to the Chinese border. They didn't. As to why, I do not know. Maybe their population was unaware of just what the communist takeovers would be. Maybe they were all looking out for themselves and didn't want to risk their lives in combat. Maybe they thought their own government was too corrupt to support. Maybe they were paragons of moral virtue who couldn't sink to the level of fighting effectively. I don't know why they didn't fight harder, but it damn sure wasn't because we failed to support them. Yeah, I know that we cut them off in 1975, but the indisputable fact is that if they had had the inclination, they had the weapons to invade and occupy North Vietnam at any time prior to our cutting them off. The fact is they did not. In 20 years of fighting the South didn't even foment a rebellion up there, as far as I know. From 1964 to around 1974, they had the big thumb of the USA on their side of the scales and it wasn't enough. -- Carl