Vito wrote:

...There was supposed to be an election to reunify Vietnam but polls
showed Ho's communists winning because the Diem dictatorship was so bad
Buddists (the majority) were burning themselves in protest.

That's only somewhat true, the results were mixed and in places where the Communists
were likely to lose, they stepped up their campaign of intimidation & propaganda.



...... Believing
they could save the situation by delaying the election, McNamara & Co
staged the Gulf of Tonkin Incident

Actually, the election was pretty much shelved by mutual consent long before the
Tonkin Gulf incident. But careful historical research has tended to support the view
that this incident was a frame-up.

The worst thing MacNamara did was to urge us into a war with no plan whatever for
winning or even a clue how to defeat the prospective enemy. The whole gang was as
blinded by the lustre of fighting Communism as today's gov't is blinded by lust for
the war on terrorism (I bet you thought I was going to say cheap oil).


.........100's of 1000s of young Americans
were drafted and fought just as well and just as bravely as any before
or since. But they were NEVER be allowed to win because by winning we'd
become another invader just like the French had been.

As far as most Vietnamese people were concerned, we *were* just another foreign
invader, like the French.


......Then came a day when LBJ balked at sending the next
increment of canon fodder and asked Westmoreland why Ho wouldn't match
it. "He will" said Westy. Then where will this end? Never, was the
answer. When I get the 500,000 combat troops McNamara promised me I'll
be able to contain the situation but the fighting will go on
indefinately, just like I told my boss Sec of Def McNamara.

Westmoreland's grand strategic vision was the kill ratio. He figured that if we
could kill 20 Vietnamese enemy combatants for every one of our soldiers they managed
to kill, we would eventually win. He may have been right if the war had dragged on
ten more years. But it was a very backwards-looking way of forming strategy, and
totally ignored the politics of the situation.


..... A few days
later LBJ announced he wouldn't seek reelection and after more years of
killing to get an "honorable" peace (and make a few more $$$ off the
war) Nixon & friends finally pulled out leaving the country to Ho's
communists.

Meanwhile we had protesters insulting their peers who had after all done
their duty bravely and others despising the protesters without whom the
war'd still be going on - and the real culprits went on to bigger and
better screwups. Yes,it was indeed a very dark day when a tiny group of
men were able to thwart our system of checks and balances, pull the wool
on Dem's & Republicans alike, and kill 1000s. But worst of all, few know
it even happened so it could easily happen again. Why do you think The
Shrub found it so easy?

Shucks, this cycle is repeated endlessly... sometimes the Speaker of the House wins
the tug-of-war for a while, and holds powers broadly undefined by the Constitution.
Sometimes the President gets away with mass murder. It's been happening in a merry
go round since 1783.

For the most part I agree with your statements here, and have similar conclusions
about the results.

DSK