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Your point is not that important unless you think ~~Bush~~ Kerry has control of other peoples lives.

Thanks for seeing my point if not agreeing woth it by the way. You guys do know I am on your side on this fight. The thought that Clark will have a place in the Kerry admin - maybe even VP scares the hell out of me - just fight smart. Leave the emotional junk and smear stuff alone.

PS: I am also comming at this from someone who was born after the Vietnam war but thinks that fighting that war was wrong to begin with. I guess in that regard I represent millions of Americans. So I am sympathetic to those that wanted to get Americans out of Veitname but hate those protestors that waved communist flags and were more anti-American then anti-war. A great journalist Eric Severied died last week. He was conservative and was anti-war and anti-peace demonstrators who crossed that line into support of the communists.

great journalist Eric Severied died last week.

Huh? Sevaried died in 1992.

Hi, Destro,

After discussing this with you over the past few days it seems to me this is a key point at issue for you (snips from two of your posts):

> PS: I am also comming at this from someone who was born after the Vietnam war but thinks that fighting that war was wrong to begin with.
> Should we have helped any nation against the communists? Yes- I liked Ike's and JFK's approach of helping the South's armies with advisors and airforce. The same approach we used in Afghanistan which sadly is not the one we used in Iraq. Seeing how easily the Iraqi army gave up the ghost - that is even criminal we did not.

Two questions I'd pose for you:

1. What is your perspective on why we were in Vietnam and waged the war the way we did? Since I'm putting you on the spot by asking you the question, I'll put myself in the same spot by giving you my own answer first: From my perspective America's Vietnam involvement dates back to the Japanese invasion of SE Asia, which prompted a War Department study concluding that the Japanese war effort was economically dependent on SE Asian resources, and conversely, the Allied war effort could be crippled by the Axis cutting off the Singapore Straits and thus cutting off Allied supplies of SE Asian rubber, oil, etc. This perspective informed the Cold War approach to SE Asia, which is the background to the "domino theory". Also, the French were threatening to withdraw support from NATO if we didn't back them up in Vietnam--which they later did anyway in the 1960s after we were already in Vietnam (bastards), but I'm talking about way back at the end of WWII here. That's how it started, to my knowledge. At first we tried to restrict ourselves to supporting the French. Our concerns about Vietnam grew as the Korean War emerged and the Truman administration came to see Vietnam as another front in the Korean War, which is also how Eisenhower approached it. Eisenhower decided that in order to win both wars we would have to either escalate to full nuclear war with China (leaving Europe open to Russia) or settle for a draw which agreed on boundaries between N/S Korea and N/S Vietnam. Desiring to avoid nuclear war, he chose the latter option and negotiated truces in both Korea and Vietnam, to be backed up by the SEATO alliance and the threat of deterrence--in other words, SEATO would give the peace terms teeth to deter North Vietnam from taking advantage of the peace. The deterrent stratgy seemed to be working until about 1959 when the North Vietnamese shifted to a guerrilla warfare/terrorist strategy, prompting the US to develop a new counter-strategy. At the point JFK took over the Army was exploring counterinsurgency strategies rather than focused on ground war. As late as May 1965 the State Department was trying to persuade the South Vietnamese government to negotiate a cease-fire, but they would not accept this. At this point the LBJ administration faced the following dilemma: either escalate the war to 200,000+ ground troops (the Pentagon's initial request) to probably increase to 600,000 later (by LBJ's own estimate at that time), or withdraw and face the likelihood that the Russians and Chinese would interpret this as a sign of US weakness and an invitation to test the US elsewhere. Faced with this dilemma, LBJ asked Eisenhower for advice. In June-July 1965 Eisenhower advised him (to quote Stephen Ambrose's biography of Eisenhower), "we have now appealed to force in South Vietnam, and therefore we have got to win. For this purpose, simply holding on or sitting passively in static areas will not suffice. . .there is no use building bases if they are not put to full use. the only reason for creating them is to make it possible to take the offensive and clear the area. . .When you once appeal to force in an international situation involving military help for a nation, you have to go all out! This is war, and as long as the enemy are putting men down there, my advice is do what you have to do!" He advised Johnson to tell the Russians that if they did "not bring about some understanding we would have to go all out." LBJ asked if Eisenhower thought we could really win. Eisenhower answered that that would depend on how far the Chinese were willing to go. LBJ protested that if he escalated further, "we will lose the British and Canadians and be alone in the world." Eisenhower answered, "We would still have the Australians and the Koreans--and our own convictions." LBJ's own advisors likewise advised him to escalate. However as it turned out, LBJ escalated, but not to the decisive extent Eisenhower advised; Nixon came closer to following Eisenhower's advice. I believe--though cannot claim to know--that Nixon's strategy could have won the war or at least forced a truce that left South Vietnam intact if Watergate had not intervened. To compare that with Iraq, in Iraq Eisenhower's advice was followed and we did not engage in ground war until we had built up a force decisive enough to ensure victory (applying the Powell Doctrine). That's my perspective on it; what is yours?

2. My second question for you: In Iraq, how would you have applied the strategy you suggest of helping with advisors and airforce like in South Vietnam? I don't see how that would work, since in South Vietnam we had an ally on the ground, whereas in Iraq we didn't, due to Saddam's secret police being able to neutralize the political opposition.