Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

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

To: Ilaine who wrote (20452)	4/4/1999 8:57:00 PM
From: Ish	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

<<After Kennedy was shot (some VietNamese say by VietNamese seeking revenge), Johnson, and his successor, Nixon, wanted to win because they couldn't imagine not winning.>> I was wearing army green then. Vietnam was lost. Johnson knew who was behin the JFK killing. It was a no win deal. I wish we had a rightoust statesman in the government now.

To: Ilaine who wrote (20452)	4/5/1999 3:49:00 AM
From: JF Quinnelly	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

Johnson, and his successor, Nixon, wanted to win because they couldn't imagine not winning. I'm no fan of either of these two, but that's a rather simplistic view. Johnson inherited the Presidency and a leaderless Vietnam at the same time. Diem and JFK were killed within weeks of each other. Kennedy may have blundered into getting Diem assassinated, but there's no evidence that he intended it. Kennedy merely wanted a more compliant leader to replace Diem. Johnson was at the very least stuck with finding some leader to replace Diem, while at the same time preventing South Vietnam's conquest by the communist insurgency. It wasn't easy finding someone who could lead South Vietnam. Johnson's great failure was first in lying to the public before the '64 election, saying that there was no war in SE Asia. And secondly in trying to run a limited war after he ordered American troops in. LBJ and McNamara dictated the strategy, or lack of it, forcing the military to fight on the defensive without a strategy for forcing North Vietnam to end the insurgency. It was their decision not to appoint a military commander to conduct the war. It was their decision not to destroy military targets in Haiphong and Hanoi. If we had treated Germany and Japan in a like manner they never would have surrendered either. As for Nixon, when he took office there were 500,000 American troops in South Viet Nam. It wouldn't be quick or easy to disengage a force this large today, with our much better logistics. It was certainly not an easy prospect in 1969. Nixon, however, had claimed in the '68 election that he had a secret plan to end the war. One could have hoped that this was going to be the immediate destruction of Hanoi's ability to wage war, by taking the battle to the north. But Nixon wouldn't even bomb Hanoi and Haiphong until Christmas of 1972. In the meantime he pursued his policy of "Vietnamization", the attempt to train and supply the ARVN well enough that they could do the fighting themselves, while another 25,000 Americans got killed in the field. I think Clinton's idea of using American military power to solve the problems of the Balkans is doomed to fail. You would need a very large army of occupation, and it would have to stay there forever. If we bomb their cities flat they will simply hide in the mountains and fight a guerilla war, like they did against the 35 German divisions that occupied Yugoslavia in WWII. At this point Clinton at least seems to be letting the military decide how to fight the war. But I suspect he's going to find that it was a lot easier to start this thing than it will be to end it, and God only knows what the unintended consequences are going to be.