Posted on 05/02/2015 11:42:13 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
“Your devotion to protecting JFK, is extraordinary.”
Your dishonesty is extraordinary. Are you an alcoholic by any chance?
Your posts sure are getting nastier and nastier, this thing with the left’s great mythological hero, really is emotional with you.
“Your posts sure are getting nastier and nastier, “
I’ve been learning from you. Your repetitious lying has that effect.
Protecting the image of JFK is part of what it means today to be an American. Even Dan Quayle did it at his expense in the pitiful debate with Lloyd Millard Bentsen, Jr., of Houston.
Johnson, I can agree with you there (especially when he outright rejected his Joint Chiefs when they suggested exactly that). Nixon, not so much. Actually, when he took office, he did bombing raids on various key weapons centers and supply depots within North Vietnam, and even managed to mine the harbor. Nixon certainly did a lot more on that front that Johnson did, which acted as a black mark to the latter. In fact, what Nixon did was EXACTLY what the Joint Chiefs suggested that Johnson do. Though to be fair to Johnson, he also was worried about a potential nuclear war breaking out if they did that based on some of his (otherwise obscene) comments to the Joint Chiefs.
Besides, if we tried a direct invasion into North Vietnam, we’d probably be pushed back anyways, like what happened when MacArthur tried to make his push into North Vietnam and China.
“though to be fair to Johnson, he also was worried about a potential nuclear war breaking out”
Hardly. That was nothing more than an excuse designed to justify his half-measures. He knew there was zero chance that the Soviets were going to start a nuclear war over Southeast Asia. They weren’t even going to start a conventional war. LBJ was doing what he did best, lying. HR McMaster’s book is your source for Johnson and McNamara’s massive deceit.
LBJ’s #1 commitment was funding his Great Society, the War on Poverty and all the rest of his massive domestic programs. He wasn’t about to do anything that would distract from that. He wouldn’t mobilize the reserves, he wouldn’t increase the troop levels the JCS told him was necessary, he had lawyers and statistical analysts doing his war planning and that meant leaving North Vietnam off limits for the most part.
“. Nixon, not so much. Actually, when he took office, he did bombing raids on various key weapons centers and supply depots within North Vietnam, and even managed to mine the harbor.”
Nixon waited nearly four years to do this. Linebacker and Linebacker II were 1972. And no he didn’t do exactly what the JCS told Johnson that he needed to do, that ship had sailed. Nixon’s commitment was to Vietnamization, turning the fighting over to the ARVN and removing American combat troops. By 1972 the American role was winding down to a supporting role. And Nixon and Kissinger agreed to a “peace treaty” that left a huge NVA field army inside South Vietnam.
To win the war you would have seen a general mobilization in the States, a vastly larger Army committed to destroying the NVAs ability to fight and the conquest and occupation of the North. That wasn’t in the cards for LBJ or Nixon.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Vietnam certainly indicated that what Nixon did actually got us far closer to actually winning the war than what Johnson did. As far as the nuke bit, you DO realize we were threatened with a nuclear war when we invaded China during the Korean War and we were forced to withdraw from that, right?
Having lived through the Vietnam Era I don’t see it as a Noble Cause.
The reasons for going into Vietnam were never made very clear. I can remember reading David Halberstam’s book “The Best and the Brightest”, which tried to explain things. I read when it first came out and maybe I need to re-read now.
I look at Vietnam as a war were we sacrificed the Flower of our youth of my generation and after all was said and done there was really nothing to show for it.
I think in a large sense we were betrayed by the leaders of the time and sold a bill of goods. While the genus of our involvement started in the late 1950’s under Eisenhower,and then Kennedy, but more so under Johnson who expanded and enlarged our involvement past the point of any kind of logic.
It is and will continue to be a controversial episode in our countries history.
“You DO realize we were threatened with a nuclear war when we invaded China during the Korean War and we were forced to withdraw from that, right?”
No, actually that’s something I’ve never heard before. In fact I’m not sure many people have ever heard that one before.
Red China tested their first atomic bomb in 1964, eleven years after the Korean cease fire. President Eisenhower got Red China and North Korea to agree to that ceasefire by threatening to nuke them.
So yes, there was nuclear blackmail involved. It’s just that you have the players reversed.
There were only two powers who had nuclear weapons in 1953. The USA and the USSR. But the Soviets tested their bomb one month after the Korean armistice was signed. And unlike Red China they weren’t fighting in that war.
“The Politically Incorrect Guide to Vietnam certainly indicated that what Nixon did actually got us far closer to actually winning the war than what Johnson did.”
I’m sure Phillip Jennings did his best when he wrote The Politically Incorrect Guide to Vietnam. HR McMaster’s Dereliction of Duty is still the definitive account.
It was his PhD thesis at UNC when he was an Army major. He had access to LBJ and McNamara’s memos, to those of Rusk and McNaughton and the rest the McNamara Whiz Kids who through their arrogance and deceit set in motion a disaster. The book is regarded as important enough to be included on military reading lists.
Nixon’s goal was to extricate American combat troops from South Vietnam after building the ARVN into an army capable of fighting. By 1972 he had most American combat troops out of South Vietnam. The ARVN was still dependent upon American supplies and the threat of heavy American air power to keep North Vietnam at bay. If that’s what you mean by actually winning then he did it.
All of that came to naught when the post-Watergate Democrat Congress cut off ammunition and gasoline supplies to South Vietnam, and prohibited Gerald Ford from bombing the resulting massive NVA armored invasion of the South.
The only thing I do know for certain is that MacArthur, after driving out the North Koreans from South Korea, then proceeded to invade North Korea and even China, only to be forced out, thus resulting in North and South being split instead of our actually routing the Communists from the North and in China.
Did hippie scum. All of them.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.