On Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:59:37 -0600, "Gene Storey"
wrote:

"Kevin Brooks" wrote
"Gene Storey" wrote

Please provide some evidence that US military officers intended to lose the war

The war was lost, and officers are in charge of war.

You might want to review the relationship between the military and the
government established by the US Constitution.

It was lost in 1946 when we allowed the French to decolonize.

???? We? Who is we? And, why would the French need approval from
anyone other than the French people? And, if they "decolonized" in
1946, what was going on at Dien Bien Phu in 1954?

http://www.lexisnexis.com/academic/2...ietnamMACV.asp

What's the relevance of the link? It certainly doesn't offer any
support for US military officers intending to lose.

Basically, if you fly a B-52 down the same route as the previous three B-52, and do
it at the same altitude, and with the same waypoints, you and whoever drew-up the
operation are derelict.

You might refer to Marshall Michel's excellent work, "Eleven Days of
Christmas" for some insight into the relationship between SAC and the
rest of the US military. Pay close attention to the command
relationships. SAC was not under the operational control of MACV or
7th Air Force.

Then, you might also want to check the size of the target area, the
availability of offset or direct aim points for a weapons delivery,
and the need to avoid collateral damage in a target area. (I might
even offer you a first-person account by a POW who was moved to a cell
that was immediately across the street from the Hanoi Power Plant.)
Some times there are only so many ways you can approach a target. Why
come down Thud Ridge every day? It points at Hanoi, it doesn't have
much population and it provides radar screening from SAM sites. But,
that means you go the same way every day....Yep.

The fact that anyone survived is pure luck, and those that
died were very brave, but very wasted (much as going over the top in the great war
in the face of machine guns). The way to lose a war is to suffer casualties so great,
with such waste, the people back home won't want to go, and either burn their draft
cards, or joined the Reserves.

But, if we count casualties, then the 58,000 names on the Wall are
minor compared to the estimates of 2 to 3 million that the NVN and VC
lost in the war.

Whether we won or lost, suffered immense casualties or none at all,
the sniveling weak sisters who burned their draft cards would still
have been driven only by the desire to preserve their own worthless
hides.

And, you might also want to check out the number of Reserve and Guard
units that served in combat in SEA and how many casualties they
incurred.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8