[AmericanInTokyo]

Yes, but how many American troops died because of American inaction on the HCM trail, in Cambodia, Svay Reng, Parrot's Beak, Prey Veng regions, you name it? That is what I am getting at.

Our surgical action was way too late to save the lives of all those American kids hit when the VC would come over into the RVN and get their kills and lickety split back to 'neutral' Sihanouk's safe territory (I'm talkin' pre-Lon Nol of course).

[SJackson]

Our "surgical" action here could start with of little more than issuing a warning, following up with a raid or too on the training camps along with a fly over of Assad's compound. But we're not even up to that. Iran is far more problematical, but we're allowing these people to attack our troops with impunity.

[AmericanVictory]

Well, exactly, that's part of the price we paid for LBJ's cowardice in not taking out North Vietnam at the outset, when the Joint Chiefs urged him to do so, and for Kennedy's choice of Westmoreland because "he looked like a general." The deaths of so many uselessly are attributable to his infatuation with McNamara and the Bundies. But Abrams was brilliant as a boots on the ground general and we had the thing won but we lost on logistics and public relations in the end, even with all the mistakes you mention.