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In article <C5ydnZAfKMuPDRzfRVn-3g@comcast.com>, "Bear"
<bigbear1wh@native.web.net> wrote:
> "Howard Berkowitz" wrote
> : "Bear" wrote:
> :
> : > "John" wrote
> : > : Bear, it probably did seem to you that the protesters were living a
> : > : sheltered life back in the US while you were taking all the risks
> : > : in
> : > : the SE Asian jungles. I can't blame you for being angry.
> : > :
> : > : But do you think your Vietnamese enemies would have given up and
> : > : let
> : > : the US win that conflict, the way it was going in the 1960s?
> : >
> : > One cannot really know, but I do know that the protesters boosted the
> : > moral
> : > of the enemy because everytime ther were big headlines of
> : > confrontations
> : > back home we would pay for it.
> :
> : To what extent have you studied the politics of the various Vietnamese
> : factions? Remember that many considered the war simply a continuation
> : of anticolonial activity from WWII -- the Viet Minh was anti-Japanese
> : before it fought the French, and Viet Minh were prominent both in the
> : north and south.
> :
> : Remember that under the French, there was no unified Viet Nam, or
> : south/north. French Indo-China was made up of three regions that did
> : not match the line of partition.
>
> What does this have to do with what you are supposedly replying to?
You spoke below of the North Vietnamese, _and_ the VC "being asked to
live peacefully and to stay north of the DMZ." They had no desire to
stay north of the DMZ. Going back to about 1954, it was rather clear
that the Lao Dong party, as well as southern sympathizers, had
unification as a basic objective.
>
> : > : Do you really think that the North Vietnamese and the VC would have
> : > : surrendered, ever?
> : >
> : > They weren't being asked to surrender. They were being asked to live
> : > peacefully and to stay north of the DMZ
> :
> : With all due respect, first, while the VC was attrited even more than
> : the NVA, the VC were not northerners and did not want to live there.
> : There was considerable resistance to an unresponsive southern
> : government, and the US was not reforming that regime. Even if the US
> : killed every NVA trooper, without radical changes in the RVN
> : government,
> : a new resistance would have arisen.
> :
> : In other words, the fundamental problem was Vietnamese politics, not
> : major combat operations and not US politics. The US military, under
> : micromanagement, was being asked to solve a nonmilitary problem.
> :
> : The North was quite willing to lose millions of men. Given the effect
> : of
> : the long-withheld intense bombing operation, LINEBACKER II, there are
> : fair arguments that a very hard bombing campaign, the 94-target list
> : originally defined by the Joint Chiefs, taken at the very start, might
> : have had a much greater effect. The slow escalation and "signalling"
> : grand strategy of the Johnson Administration, coupled with a basic
> : military strategy of attrition against a force willing to take losses,
> : hurt far more than domestic protests.
>
> Again, they weren't being asked to surrender. They were being asked to
> live
> peacefully and to stay north of the DMZ
Again, their policy was to unify North and South, and they considered
living peacefully and staying north of the DMZ to be against their
policy. I don't have to support it to recognize their commitment to
that objective.
There were missed opportunities. The JCS list (it's also known as the 93
target list, because while it's numbered 1 to 94, they skipped a
number), hit hard and soon, might have had a real effect. LINEBACKER II
did.
Also, the Son Tay raid fell into an odd category, much as did the
Doolittle raid on Tokyo. Neither did much damage, although it's
generally recognized the Son Tay raiders would have rescued the POWs if
they hadn't been moved.
Both, however, caused massive national security action. The Japanese
were shocked and embarrassed, moved needed air defense units back to the
Home Islands, and wound up "overreaching" trying to extend their
perimeter at Midway.
The North Vietnamese government, besides consolidating the prisoners for
security and indirectly improving their morale, was scared to death of
special operations force raids. They assigned significant numbers of
ground troops to guard hydroelectric and other power stations, their
limited manufacturing, etc. In a police state, even small enemy raids
have a tremendous psychological effect.
Of course, the 94 target list had on it targets that were never hit
(possibly in LINEBACKER II), such as the Party and Defense Ministry
headquarters. The North Vietnamese never had a spokesman on the order
of Baghdad Bob. Admittedly, the only replacement for Bob would probably
have to be Marxist -- a follower of Groucho, not Karl.
🙂
>
> : >
> : > I didn't accuse anybody of being a puke and I challenge you to
> : > provide
> : > evidence that I did..
I don't think you did, although it probably would have helped to change
the thread title.
> And they are welcome to their opinion as long
> : > as
> : > they
> : > understand that others have a right to differ with their opinion. All
> : > I
> : > am
> : > saying is don't divide our country again and give the enemy
> : > ammunition
> : > that
> : > will boost their moral and make it more difficult on our troops.
> :
> : I can get along with this, if it also goes along with responsible
> : actions on the part of the National Command Authority. The
> : Weinberger-Powell doctrine on getting involved in wars reflected many
> : of
> : the lessons of Viet Nam. The national civilian leadership got the US
> : involved in a situation that was not winnable by military means alone,
> : with the double whammy that the civilian leadership would not let
> : military professionals pick the most effective means of operations.
>
> That's all I care about. Protesters shouldn't be a spectacle that the
> enemy
> can use for propaganda and a boost to their morale. People can change
> things
> by writing to their representatives, voting them out of office, etc.
Absolute agreement. For the record, I've lived in the DC area nearly 40
years. I've seen lots of demonstrations, and I've also seen lots of
systematic lobbying/letterwriting/electoral politics. The latter is FAR
more effective than mass demonstrations.
I will say there were a few demonstrations, some before my time, that
did have an effect. They tended to be peaceful, unifying, and positive,
such as the civil rights march featuring King's "I have a dream" speech.
In fairness, demonstrations tend to have an effect in unifying those
that participate in them. The demonstrators feel better about
themselves. Personally, if I have a problem with government policy, I'm
less concerned with personal feelings than changing the policy.
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