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Politics : Proof that John Kerry is Unfit for Command -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Captain Jack who wrote (14792)	10/4/2004 9:17:46 AM
From: cirrus	Respond to of 27181

We were close? Every time General Westmoreland requested another 20,000 troops there was "light at the end of the tunnel". From 10,000 "advisors" to 550,000 troops, we were always "close". Someone mentioned the infamous Tet offensive as a victory for the US. It was. The problem was that after years of fighting and being told by our politicians that we were killing thousands of enemy every week, that the enemy was on the run and that victory was just around the corner, America woke up one morning to find tens of thousands of enemy troops in downtown Hue - as well as dozens of other cities across South Viet Nam. That told America that something was wrong. The enemy was a hell of a lot stronger than we we being told. Then we were told Tet was a military victory and the enemy suffered crushing blow. Uh huh. We heard THAT so many times... LBJ practiced a war of escalation, thinking he could just rachet up the pressure, drop more bombs and the enemy would fold. Never happened. LBJ never blocked the Ho Chi Minh trail, never destroyed the Hiphong harbors, never took the ground war to North Viet Nam. I was not in favor of the war, but if you're going to war, fight it the right way. LBJ should have taken heed to Eisenhower's warning about avoiding a ground war in Asia. Failing to do that, he should have hit hard and fast - which he declined to do because it risked bringing Chinese troops into Viet Nam - and a repeat of Korea. To blame a so-so actress and an unknown aspiring politician for America's defeat in Viet Nam ignores so many other factors that it's... beyond illogical. LBJ was fighting their efforts in an attempt to win, knowing we were close