From: john@anasazi.com (John R. Moore)
Subject: Re: The draft and Vietnam
Reply-To: john@anasazi.com
Organization: Anasazi Inc, Phoenix AZ USA
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 17:25:32 GMT

Keywords: 

In article <84000@bcsaic.boeing.com> rwojcik@atc.boeing.com writes:
]In article 7975@anasazi.com, john@anasazi.com (John R. Moore) writes:
]>Vietnam did not drain our country of youth.... we had plenty of youth.
]
]John, we both had good friends who died in that war.  How many generations
]were lost to that war?  How many talented minds snuffed out?  In the end,
]we were experiencing manpower shortages.  We were barely able to field the
]half million that we worked up to, and by that time it was too few to
]suppress the Vietnamese.  Every American family had felt the war.  It was
]not that we lacked more fodder for the cannons, but that the fodder had
]a disturbing tendency to aspire to greater things in life.

Look, I don't think it is wonderful that a lot of people died, but
let's face it... the more of young people died in car accidents
during the same period. We did NOT drain our country of youth, but
we did unfortunately lose a lot of lives.

]
]>It cost us wealth, and it confused our views... a confusion that we have
]>yet to shake. It was a battle that we fought against the international
]>communists. It resulted in internal struggles in the US, which were
]>used (and encouraged) by our enemy - probably not because the war
]>was such a bad idea but because our leaders lied about it so badly.
]>Yes, it was lunacy to go into it with the attitudes that Johnson
]>had and the behavior he exhibitted.
]
]Let's not leave any love in there for Nixon, who stimulated a new era of
]violent anti-war protests with his senseless escalations.  Johnson was

Let's look more closely at what Nixon did. Nixon wanted to end the war,
but not by surrendering. He escalated (in the North, NOT the south)
in order to get the North to agree to a peace plan that would
force a return of all POW's and leave the South alone. It was ultimately
that escalation that worked... the Christmas bombing of Hanoi
caused the North to start serious negotiations immediately, after years
of delaying negotiations by arguing about the size of the table, etc.
The agreement that was signed guaranteed return of all POW's, and guaranteed
that the South could choose their own destiny.

Unfortunately, when the North violated the treaty by sending huge numbers
of troops south, and by failing to return all POW's, the US was unable
to enforce the truce. Henry Kissinger reports that Le Duc Tho would
respond to requests for more POW information or to return the troops
to the north by reading to him US News reports of anti-war demonstrations
and congressional actions prohibiting him from doing anything to encforce
the agreement. The result is that a number of POW's were left behind
to the tender mercies of the communists (mostly in Laos), and South Vietnam
was invaded and conquered by a conquering army with more armour than
was fielded by General Patton in WW-II.

]crazy, meeting with his advisors to handpick bombing targets.  But Nixon
]had to go through a new round of mutual slaughter before he understood the
]futility.  And he took the war into new areas:  Cambodia and Laos, the 
]dominos that we were going to keep from falling... 

The war had always been fought in Cambodia and Laos. Nixon was the first
one to do it openly. The NVA had huge operations in both countries and
controlled large amounts of territory there. Nixon showed the north
that he had the will to hurt them badly, and when they got the message,
they quit. When the US Congress sent the message that the US would not
enforce the peace agreement, the communists reneged on the whole thing.

-- 
John Moore NJ7E, 7525 Clearwater Pkwy, Scottsdale, AZ 85253  (602-951-9326)
john@anasazi.com ncar!noao!asuvax!anasaz!john anasaz!john@asuvax.eas.asu.edu
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