Friendly Fire Notebook

Nope. The historical record categorically confirms the
fact that LB II won the VN war

That same "historical record" says the 8th Air Force bombing missions into
Germany destroyed the Germans war making capability. That "fact" has been
disproven countless times.

They had a choice: return
to the Paris talks with a fortright attitude toward peace,
or return completely to the stone age at home.

You sound like LeMay. You do realize they already were in the stone age right?
Tell me, what critical infastructure did we destroy during LB II that wasn't
already operating at less than 25%?

For the very first time, the N. Vietnamese approached the
talks with something other than deceit and delay in mind:
their continued survival.

Wrong. They had already agreed to the same document in October '72 that they
did in January '73. Linebacker I and the Freedom Porch missions proved to the
NVN that ARVN ground forces and U.S. Air power could, quite effectively,
prevent their conquest of SVN. The solution; sign a Peace Accord removing the
U.S. from the picture, which they agreed to in October '72 and had it not been
for SVN President Nguyen Van Thieu's refusal to publicly "ok" the deal (I don't
believe he had to sign anything as SVN was not a participant in Paris), LB II
would never have been required. NVN was not fighting for their survival *ever*
during that conflict. Their industrial base was barely existant in 1964, they
counted on imports from China and the Soviet Union for everything except rice
and since we never took real measures to cut off their imports (mining of
Haiphong harbor in 1972 was like closing the barn door after the horses got
out), their existance was never threatened...even during LB II.

Academics can revise history as much as they want

There's no doubt that this does occur, but not in this case. You could prove
your point simply by providing some sort of proof that the bombing during LB II
was causing such damage that the NVN government feared they would be defeated
if it did not stop.

Far too many direct
participants (and individuals extremely interested in
then-current events) survive to permit them to push their
"inspired by a true story" fiction on an unsuspecting public.

While I was only 4 at the time, you can consider me one of your; "individuals
extremely interested in then-current events". In fact, nearly every one in the
USAF should be interested in getting the real scoop on LB II, because learning
the wrong lesson is often worse then not learning a lesson at all....


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"