Hello Bob,

BK>Son of a gun! John, so good to hear from you.

I hope he sticks around for a while longer than last time.
Even if he does get the (occasional) better argument ...

 ->>>  ...

 ->>>  Actually, American history books do not describe Vietnam as a
 ->>>  victory for America. And we know the US lost the war. Not all
 ->>>  know it, but most of us do.

 JF>> We could have won that war if we 'wanted to'. Do you really

BK>I agree. Only one major difference needed, we had to fight the
BK>war for the benefit of the South Vietnamese, instead of for out
BK>own purposes. If we weren't fighting it for them why were we
BK>there in the first place?

"Peace with honor" was the only way we could leave Vietnam,
according to Richard Nixon.  That is why the war did not end
in 1969 when LBJ left office.  The deal LBJ had made with his
Vietnamese counterparts was all in place, the only thing
needed being Richard Nixon to sign on as President of the
United States.  But Nixon refused to go along, continuing the
war for five more years, including expanding military operations
to include illegal bombing of Laos and Cambodia.  The agreement
that was finally agreed upon (in Paris) was essentially the
very same agreement made in 1969 by LBJ.

In summation, here is what happened -

Richard Nixon lost the war.  Richard Nixon then resigned from
office in disgrace.  Gerald Ford became our first appointed President,
announcing to the world, "Our long national nightmare has ended."
The world applauded.  Then Ford went and pardoned Nixon.  What an
idiot.

 JF>> think we "lost" the war because the Viet Cong had  a more
 JF>> formidable military the the U.S.? We could have wiped them

BK>The US military won every major engagement, and pretty much all
BK>the lesser ones.

Richard Nixon lost the war.  Not the US military.

 JF>> out any time we pleased. Why didn't we? Do the math. It was
 JF>> not economically feasible for the U.S. to pursue the war

BK>That is the cost of a 10 year war.

It would have been a lot shorter, with more lives saved, had
Nixon agreed to end the war in 1969.

 JF>> any further. The Viet Nam war was waged simply to gauge
 JF>> Soviet response and to keep tabs on their military
 JF>> capabilities.

BK>That I don't believe. The SU was not giving the NVs enough early
BK>enough to mean anything. By the time they did we had so far
BK>outpaced them they were primative by comparison.

We had air superiority throughout the war.  We could have bombed
all their cities to smithereens had we chosen to do so.  We could
have deforested the countryside, had we chosen to do so.  We could
have made the whole place totally unliveable, had we chosen to do
so.  But none of that would have won the hearts and minds of the
Vietnamese people.  And that is what we needed to do, if ever we
wanted to do business with them.

 JF>> During that war 100's of newly developed
 JF>> weapons were beta tested. Esp as concerns the Air Force.

BK>And that is what scared the hell out of the Soviets. Not only
BK>did we put men and money into that war, developed tech and
BK>training and experience that put us far ahead, but we did it all
BK>the while keeping our home economy growing and even reduced the
BK>debt to GDP ratio. All a measure of the superiority of our
BK>system.

During that time period in history, the US had its client states,
the former USSR had their client states.  Each side tried to hold
on to its own, while stealing some from the other side.  Neither
the US nor the former USSR wanted a nuclear war, as both would have
been destroyed (along with their client states and the rest of the
world).  So the US and the former USSR did the next best thing.
Each side tried to outspend the other building weapons and weapons
systems, etc.

 JF>> Same with the (then) U.S.S.R. What a wonderful world...

 BK> The USSR had to spend a fortune to try to keep up with us.
 BK> Before the war the Soviets were spending a lot more of their GDP
 BK> on the military, and they doubled it through the war. They
 BK> didn't spend it on weapons for the Nort Vietnamese, but on their
 BK> own weapons as they realized how far ahead we were.

 BK> Our military spending went up much less than double during the
 BK> war, and after the war our spending went back down to near what
 BK> it was before. The Soviet spending stayed up there, and didn't
 BK> come down until the mid 80s. *THAT* is what broke the Soviet
 BK> Union. Our economy was so much better than theirs that they went
 BK> broke trying to do what we did, and not even coming close. It
 BK> took a couple decades, but it destroyed the Soviet Union.

 BK> And that is something to consider when thinking about the
 BK> Vietnam War.

Richard Nixon lost the war in Vietnam.  But the Cold War continued.
Fortunately for us, the former USSR blinked first, having bankrupted
itself into oblivion before we did.

You do realize our economy tanked, never having recovered from
the events of 9-11?  I mean, where are those WTC Towers?  There
is even talk of demolishing the WTC in New Orleans, as nobody
had or has the money to buy it ...

--Lee

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