Indeed.  In fact, shortly before his death, Robert McNamara apologized for
his (very large) part in the failure of the Vietnam War (as I'm sure you
well know).  Arrogance on his part and LBJ's (another fine Texan...NOT!) put
damn near 60,000 young men in the ground.  Sure, he apologized, and said
that he knew the war was "wrong" as early as '65 ("we were sinking in
quicksand" were his thoughts at the time, or so he says in his '95 interview
with Dianne Sawyer).  Nixon, for all his other nastiness, at least had the
cajones to get us out--even if it did take until '73 (or '75, depending on
your point-of-view).  And yes, Hanoi Jane has unredeemed blood on her hands
still, along with a bunch of "entertainers".  Same crap's still going on
today out of the Hollywood elite, but would you expect anything different?

Stll, Ken, the point is that we're losing men in drips and draps and the
Administration had no game plan past the ouster of Baghdad.  In WWII,
Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin were making post-war plans in '42!  The
Marshall and MacArthur Plans were set up and ready to go long before the
bombs stopped. In Vietnam, all we had was some vague idea that if we didn't
stop Uncle Ho from taking over the South, all of Indo-China would fall to
the Reds like dominoes.  Look at the guys we had "running" South
Vietnam--Diem, a raving megalomaniac, was probably the best of the bunch!

I think current American foriegn policy tends to be a lot like American
culture:  We don't like the "long haul".  We're into instant gratification,
whether it's making war or buying a car.  All the media, and probably the
administration, can think about is how the Iraqi deal is going to play out
in next year's election.  Our economic policies are focused on getting the
economy in shape for the next quarter--not the next quarter century.

General Giap, military commander of North Vietnam, knew that he could not
beat the Americans in a conventional sense, but he knew that if he could
just keep us off-balance long enough, we'd get bored and go home.  I think
Sadaam and Bin Laden know the same thing:  If they can keep us just a few
inches from outright victory, it won't be long before the American people
will get tired and demand our troops return home.  You point to the second
World War.  Can you imagine what sort of uproar we'd have today if we were
faced with a two-front war where the casualty figures were going to be, at
least, in the hundreds of thousands?  The media is already fanning the
flames of soldiers' and their families' discontent by reporting that they
should've been home by now, and (perish the thought) they could be "in
country" for as long as a year!

-----Original Message-----
From: ken barber [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 3:02 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: History redux; was RE: Quiz About 9/11


  again your history is fine as far as it goes, but go
back to the big one too.
  what made nam turn out like it was probably was the
lack of a desire to win that was there in ww2 for the
politicos.
   just a bit about nam, should not have been there,
but, we were and i'd still hang the people who aided
the enemy, i will name names starting with the pretty
neck of hanoi jane being streched.
   i have neither forgot nor forgiven.