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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: haqihana who wrote (118075)	6/4/2005 9:09:51 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 793717

Kennedy, and Johnson, lost the Viet Nam war. Nixon got us out of there. I disagree. We did not lose the Vietnam War. Kennedy started the whole thing by sending into Vietnam some advisors. It was Lyndon B Johnson's enormous ego that got us deeply involved in Vietnam. It was pure happenstance that Jonson became president. He was a real nasty person according to Robert Caro in his very highly regarded biography on the subject. Most biographers fall in love with the people they write about. In Robert Caro's case, he came close to accusing Johnson of plotting to assassinate John F. Kennedy. In any case, Johnson used the Presidency, patriotism, and his forceful personality in getting us into a war that we should not have gotten into in the first place. Once he got us into war, patriots came to his defense. In any case, Nixon got us out. We withdrew. We did not lose the war. If there is anyway to calculate who won or lost the war (in terms of pluses and minuses - in mathematical terms) - I would bet that it can be shown that we were the big winners for pulling out. We saved the lives of many of our own soldiers who would have been killed if we stayed in there. We save the lives of many more Vietnamese who would have been killed. We saved a lot of money by not wasting our resources on a war we should not have fought. We did not make permanent enemies out of the Vietnamese people. From what I hear and read from Americans visiting Vietnam, the Vietnamese people have no hatred for America or Americans. Nixon could have been a great President even though he did not have a terrific personality. However, the Presidency was getting too powerful and power corrupts. That is paramount in the founding fathers design of our government - that there are checks and balances against abuse. That is why we have to have a free press. President's are not exempt from the abuse of power. Our checks and balances worked - this time. But these things are fragile. The founding fathers knew this. They tried as best they could to design a system with check and balances - but people will always try to get around this. This is a never ending story.