Replying to a message of Adam Flinton to Bob.Ackley:

 AFadam{at}NOSPAMsoftfab.com>


 AFBob.Ackley{at}harborwebs.com> wrote in message
 AF> news:807472.25163a{at}harborwebs.com...
 >> Replying to a message of Adam Flinton to Jeff Shultz:
 >> 
 AF>>> Or the US at the end of WW2. Ho was in favour of the US until the US
 AF>>> decided he was a commie & then he had to turn to the SU.
 >> 
 >> Probably mostly true.  But it was Truman's decision not to recognize
 >> his functioning government that was perhaps our greatest mistake.  ---

 AF> Nah allowing us to liberate it & then turn it back to the French was
 AF> the greatest mistake.

Same song, different verse.

 AF> They hadn't just fought to be rid of the Japanese just to be subject
 AF> to some other "overseas power".

That's true.  Ho fought the French before the war, the Japanese during the
war and the French after the war.  And after he defeated the French he
rested and planned for a couple of years and tried to subvert the
government in South Vietnam (the generals came later).  I don't think he
expected us to intervene, and after we did, he didn't care and he adjusted
his strategy accordingly.

Note that the French forces in southeast Asia were not defeated by the Japanese.
After Germany defeated France, she had Japan take over the French colonies
in Southeast Asia (with the acquiescence of the surviving French
government).

Insofar as our involvement in the war is concerned, IMO we should have gone
in with overwhelming force on Day 1, destroyed the enemy's capability to
resist, and left.  Incremental pressure 'to send the enemy a message'
doesn't work, it gives the enemy time to adjust and take countermeasures. 
You'd think Johnson would've 
realized that by 1967.  'course, it took Nixon until late 1972 to finally
decide to take the war to the enemy seriously (I was working at SAC
headquarters during Linebacker and Linebacker II and, contrary to media
reports, we did not target hospitals or housing areas - that very famous
picture and caption of the bomb damage to Bach Mai Hospital (which was
empty at the time, BTW; and note that the sign in the picture has paint so
fresh that it's visibly running and, more to the point, it says "Bach
Mai Hospital" - in *English*) neglected to mention the factoid that
the hospital is right across the street from the Citadel, North Vietnam's
equivalent of our Pentagon).

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