Posted on 01/28/2007 10:59:35 AM PST by quidnunc
Perhaps the most immoral decision ever made by any agent of our federal government was Congress’ decision to pull the rug out from under the government of South Vietnam.
The decision to abandon Saigon was actually taken in three steps. The first came in June 1973 when Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment prohibiting further U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. As Henry Kissinger has bitterly noted, that act decisively undercut the ability of the Nixon administration to enforce the provisions of the Paris Peace Accords that had been signed just a few months earlier.
The second step was Congress’ decision to cut its aid appropriations for South Vietnam by nearly half for fiscal 1974-75. That cut thoroughly demoralized the South Vietnamese government and military and, as archival records from North Vietnam later revealed, led Hanoi to begin preparing its final offensive.
The ugly story finally came to a close just a few months later, when the newly installed “Watergate” Congress refused desperate requests from the Ford administration for emergency American aid with which to resist Hanoi’s Soviet-supplied invasion.
-snip-
The security situation in the countryside of South Vietnam had improved dramatically by the early 1970s, with the Viet Cong having been effectively swept from the villages and rice paddies due to the losses suffered during the Tet offensive and the subsequent effectiveness of Creighton Abrams’ “clear and hold” tactics.
The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 gave the United States and South Vietnam virtually everything we had sought in five years of frustrating negotiations. Promised a generous level of American aid and swift American retaliation in response to communist violations of the peace accords, South Vietnam appeared to have been saved.
-snip-
BUMP
So Vietnam might have had a different ending if we didn't have Watergate?
Yes.
Unfortunately, our populace is very poorly educated, so even if they notice what Congress is doing (like giving Congressional voting rights to representatives of non-states like Guam), they are too ignorant to know it is unconstitional and dangerous.
The Cowardly Surrender Monkeys of the '60s return.
Yes they do. The Center-Left believes that the United States is evil and deserves to get its comeuppance.
That's what our Congress is trying to do now. How can they do this to America? Repeat their mistakes and put America, our troops in danger. Do these people love their country? No. It's all about winning politically. This time we will not give in. They can do their little speeches, postures, whatever, true Americans will not give in.
The tragedy is they do not want Iraqi's to be free. Freedom and the ability to think and solve your problems yourself is not what they want.
Too many don't know the truth. Rather than "Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it", we have the democrats who know history and vow to repeat it.
This is not about doing the right thing, or winning.
This is about a power grab. It's about a democrat congress imposing its will on the foreign policy which has always been the purview of the president. This is about the congress going abroad and trying to conduct foreign policy by undermining the president.
This is about the democrat congress undermining the Commander in Chief provision of the Constitution when the president is a republican - they don't do it when the president is a democrat - like Clinton in Kosovo or bombing in Yogoslavia.
Democrats never undermine a democrat president - republicans do undermine a republican president.
But the overriding intent is to cripple America's ability to wage war in defense of itself, its allies and interests.
They cripple the American spirit - and that's how we lose - not by losing on the battlefield. Doing it this way is even deadlier.
If you lose a battle you can hope to come back another day. But if the spirit is crippled - there is no coming back.
This is a direct descendant of what happened in Vietnam - the American spirit was crippled. For a couple of decades after that American soldiers were afraid to wear their uniforms. We owe this to the decadent American left and its running dogs the media, academia and Hollywood. What a team.
What happened to Jane Fonda's apology?
Obviously she didn't mean it.
I'm praying the Rats don't enable history to repeat itself. They looney left are spinless cowards.
Frank Forrester Church III (July 25, 1924 – April 7, 1984) was a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981. Church was a member of the Idaho Democratic Party.
What happened when Democrats in Congress cut off funding for the Vietnam War?
Yes. That is why you hear the liberal press still gloating about their success with creating the Watergate scandal. The libs were in their glory. It got rid of Nixon, allowed the advancement of their beloved communism in Southeast Asia, and, among other things, it eventually brought in the likes of their golden boy, Jimmy Carter who, in actuality, was - and is - a disaster for this country, not to mention Iran.
You might say it had a rippling effect, and not for the betterment of mankind. Don't forget that millions were slaughtered in SE Asia after the democrat congress pulled us out. And just look at what we are dealing with in Iran today because of Carter.
I think so.
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