[tw]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Having lived through the 1960s, I don't recall that Richard Nixon thought of it in quite this way. He seems instead to have possessed the Republican capacity for resolve in war. Even with all our too-polite strategy, the communists remained stalemated until we left in 1973.

Johnson finally conceded that his Generals, especially Westmoreland, were lying to him. The war was not winnable. So Generals (and Urbane Guerrilla) wanted to take the war into other nations. The same Curtis LeMay, who also claimed we would win a nuclear exchange, agrees with UG. How scary is UG's world?

From McNamara's own analysis,

[The Vietnam War] had been an American war almost from its beginning: at first French-American, eventually wholly American. In both cases it was a struggle of Vietnamese ... against American policy and American financing, proxies, technicians, firepower, and finally, troops and pilots. ...
In terms of the UN Charter and of our own avowed ideals, [The Vietnam War] was a war of foreign aggression, American aggression.

Ok Urbane Guerrilla. You tell me about a Nixon who had a resolve for war. Nixon literally sent every remaining conventional weapon we had against N Vietnam. Results were exactly as virtually every intellegence agency had predicted in the 1960s. There were no military significant targets in N Vietnam. Bombing would not deter a nation from its declaration of indpendence. But then winning the war was not a Nixon agenda.

Having lived through the 60s, you only learned what was convenient. By 1969, this was a fact from the field as even stated to Johnson by Gen Westmoreland when Westmoreland was asking for another 1/2 million troops. The Vietnamese would match our troop strength no matter how many troops we sent into Vietnam. How is that war winnable when we remain in the world of reality?

Nixon also would not commit additional troops we really did not have. The 'polite' war had severely tapped out most conventional weapon systems. There were no reserves to deploy. And winning the war was long proven not possible as Nixon's own actions proved. Nixon was only interested in 'withdrawing with honor'. Just as long as a unilateral withdrawl did not happen under Nixon's watch. This was Nixon's secret plan to end the war. Sacrifice good men from my generation for his greater glory.

Realizing how badly the war was going, Nixon even proposed mutual troop withdrawls - and N Vietnam rejected the offer. Obviously. Why would N Vietnam that was winning the war and fighting for independence instead withdrawl troops? Meanwhile Nixon felt that as long as he keep up the war, then a N Vietnam flag would not fly in Saigon until after 1972. Nixon was primarily worried about how a N Vietnam flag in Saigon would affect Nixon's reputation; America be damned. Some Democrats also had the same self serving agenda - to make it more of Nixon's war. Again, America be damned.

By 1967, no S Vietnam military units would patrol at night. S Vietnamese unit commanders could be punished if they lost material in a VC battle because their primary mission was to protect the government ... from whom? Even in 1965 as well as in 1970

Almost no one from the embassy traveled much outside the environs of Saigon alone in a car; everyone moved by chopper or sometimes in a convoy.

This was a war that UG claims America could win? Ironically, Americans are just as restricted from movement in Iraq. Deja Vue.

Richard Nixon's primary interest in that war was to not have a N Vietnamese flag in Saigon until after 1972. Just another fact from history that UG rewrote.

Lets see. Something like 10% of the US B-52 force was lost over N Vietnam. Was this to cause them to surrender? Of course not. Even Nixon had conceded that victory was not possible. The B-52s were deployed to force N Vietnam to negotiate (in earnest) in Paris. The B-52s were a last conventional military option - the war was going that badly. Nixon deployed it to force a stalemate. Knowing that, Nixon still sent tens of thousands of my generation to their death. You talk honorably about this man. Shame on you for rewriting history only because it suits your self serving opinions. Shame on you for having so much contempt for the American soldier.

UG still knows that war could have been won. He also rewrites history when it is convenient. His lying exposed earlier in this thread. He even tries to change history about a mythical Saddam / bin Laden alliance. How convenient when he can rewrite history at will.

Urbane Guerrilla probably thinks Iraq will eventually be conquered. "Mission Accomplished" or Deja Vue. It means the same thing when history is nothing more than pulp fiction.