Posted on 08/10/2004 2:07:32 AM PDT by risk
I'll only briefly chime in on McNamara, seeing how you've gotten plenty of good comments already.
Being a tyke in front of the television during the Vietnam War and keeping my ears
open, about all I can tell you about McNamara is that he was an accomplished executive
(with Ford Motor Co.?) and a brilliant guy who, like a lot of America, got their
wires twisted by the Vietnam War...perhaps because it was an unconventional war,
fought out to a large degree in the press/media.
And that was a factor that the US leaders didn't have to worry about in WWII.
IIRC, he's also made some interesting comment about how close we (and our counterparts)
came to nuclear war during The Cold War. I think this was during some conference
that included Castro (maybe in Havana?).
Some other poster mentioned how the Communists used Cambodia as a strategic sanctuary
in the Vietnam War...IIRC, the movie "We Were Soldiers" shows how that was part
of the Vietnam War from the very start.
And Laos. Also, Thailand had an insurgency which threatened American forces there, as well.
Yes, it's too bad for me that we have to get our posts right the first time :)
If you recall, it was NORAD's strategem to use "incremental" responses to a Soviet nuclear attack that drove the French out from under the thumbs of the organization. There is a little-known patriotic streak in the French -- they were only satisfied by a strategy of complete and total destruction of the freedom-threatening enemy.
I was thinking how ironic it was to see this old man quaking in his boots at the table with Charlie Rose, telling us all what a threat nuclear missiles continue to be.
He's the one who set back our NMD/ABM efforts by two generations. And there are big brains in the Kerry administration who continue to believe the same illogical theories.
I won't dispute you there, and I'm sure President Bush feels the same way. By the way this is a good time to mention that State Department wonks decided not to purge all the communists from Japanese positions of leadership after the war. Furthermore, there were a number of Hirohito supporters who were allowed to remain in office. Some say that MacArthur failed to root them out because he was so attached to his idea of power transition. I think Japan has a long way to go before it has dealt with all of the problems created by the post war environment. Hopefully it will continue to do so as a strong ally. But we'll verify that every step of the way.
I in fact met some of them, before they passed away, including Shunichi Suzuki, former governor of Tokyo, who was in the horrid 771 unit of the Japanese imperial army in China. Many communists and fascists were kept on in power. Kichi was another one of them.
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