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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (12224)	8/31/1998 3:04:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

<<Guerilla tactics didn't conquer South Vietnam.>> Correct. Guerilla tactics forced the withdrawal of US support, without which the fall of South Vietnam was inevitable. <<North didn't stand a chance against an American invasion.>> Correct. An invasion would have met minimal resistance. An occupation, with its attendant dispersal of forces, would have been resisted fiercely. <<The '74 "Watergate" Congress cut off all aid to South Vietnam, leaving them without ammunition or gasoline for their Army.>> Perhaps they were frustrated at the amount of ammunition and gasoline finding its way onto the black market. <<They could have played guerilla in the boondocks eating roots until they ran out of supplies>> Sorry, but about 98% of North Vietnam is boondocks. Without the boondocks you don't have the country. Rice, fish, and public support were sufficient to sustain for 10 years against the French. The North Vietnamese don't much care for invaders, as has been noted before. <<We had massive airpower, and massive armor if we had chosen to use it.>> Airpower is of questionable utility against dispersed assets, as repeatedly demonstrated in Vietnam, and later Afghanistan. Armor requires roads and bridges, meaning a massive and vulnerable engineering presence. <<Yeah, they would have been a real threat.>> Ask any vet what they remember of the booby trap, the land mine, the sniper, etc. The guerilla is a very real threat. Remember, they did not have to win battles, and they knew it. All they had to do was keep killing our people, and keep forcing us to spend money. This they could have done indefinitely. I still maintain that fighting a full scale war in pursuit of a non-critical objective is madness, especially when the other side knows that you have no overriding national interest at stake. Steve