Was: EU to ban Swastika, now US in Vietnam but still OT!

From: old hoodoo snipped-for-privacy@cox-internet.com
> >I think we can all agree that North Vietnam had a remarkable ability to >raise troops and maintain morale. The problem was we were fighting a >whole nation mobilized for war and therefore willing to absorb >significant losses in combat. They were actually committed to fighting a >total war to the finish. >US troops on the other hand were just trying to maintain SVN >sovereignty, fighting a defensive war.

I would not argue against that at all.

The NVA were feeding in just

enough troops to maintain the fight. Their losses were hideous compared >to ours but still not so bad that they couldn't replenish them, I mean >we were not killing them by the hundreds of thousands, maybe tens of >thousands, and we were not stopping their supplies, and to the folks at >home in NVN they were winning the war due to the fact that US troops >were not attacking the home front.

I can't argue this point since I've never read this in relation to NVN's strategic tactics but it seems logical, except for Tet of 68. They pulled out all the stops and poured as many troops and supplies as they could support into the strategic provinces of South Vietnam. We kicked their asses in every way except the press coverage.

We were winning battles, but our

battles were kept localized with no taking advantage of victory.

I would not argue with you on that point either. LBJ was an arrogant ass. In fact, I once spoke to the Air Force senior officer who was told by LBJ that he was not allowed to bomb a shithouse in north Vietnam without his (LBJs) approval. McNamara was in his own world and much too prone to believing all the good things that the press said about him early on. However, President Nixon's B-52 bombing campaign against NVN (partivcularly Hanoi) and the mining of Haiphong Harbor brought the war home to them and, arguably, is what brought them to the table to conduct serious peace negotiations.

folks in NVN, the NVA troops were preventing a US invasion, from their >perspective. I am sure the folks at home were given all kind of >propaganda about how the US was suffering when our casulties were easily >maintainable in the public mind...had we been fighting a real war rather >than a police action. Of course we were worn down at home. Our >government lost the war, not the military.

As I mentioned in my comment above, it was the liberal press (Morley Safer and many like him) that put the knife in the back of those of us fighting over there. LBJ, McNamara and their lot, through their arrogance, bungling, and restrictions on prossecution of the war made it unwinnable.

Nixon had the balls to prossecute the war more robustly (as evidenced by the bombong and mining mentioned above, and the invasion of Cambodia to root out sanctuaries and cut supply routes. However, by that time, the press had so distorted the war in the eyes of the puiblic that it ended up being too little too late.

It was the liberal press that betrayed the American servicemen and women to the American public and eventually made our sacrifices moot (and I will never forget that as long as I'm on the upper side of the lawn).

Had we attacked NVN, the war would have been over in a year except >for one scenario. All pressure would have gone off SVN, NVA forces would >have been forced to >return to NVN.

Iwouldn't argue against that either. The bombing campaign against Hanoi alone, without any ground invasion, was enough to drive Ho and company back to the table.

No one can say we were defeated militarily.

We certainly were not.

What can be said is that the tactics the >military used were ineffective in the >strategic sense, but they had to play >cards in a deck stacked against them by >their own Administration.

Our tactical level tactics worked quite well. In fact, the Combined Action Company concept (CAC). The program was quickly renamed Combined Action Platoons (CAP) when it was realized that the acronym CAC, stenceled on all the vehicles, was a profane Vietnamese term for a male appendage. In whatever name, it was exceptionally successful. The small unit tactics used against the NVA whenever they were encountered were also successful. It was, as you mention, the meddling in the warfighting by Washington during the mid-60s that constantly befuddled the efforts OCONUS

Lyndon Johnson, unfortunately, reminds >me a lot of Bush...(Reminder...no more >fellow Texan Presidents). He had lofty >ideals, and was determined to a fault to >see his ideals come to reality, but he >refused to look at the big picture.

Here is where we disagree. President Bush is nothing like LBJ. LBJ was a lying, conniving, self-absorbed, powermonger who would do anything, say anything, true or not, to get what he wanted (do some researche into the real basis for the WW-II award of the Silver Star Johnson wore so "proudly" on the lapel of his suit while in office. just for starters).

(rest enipped)

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