Friendly Fire Notebook

You are
putting a lot of energy into trying to convince me of something and I am not
sure of exactly what.

That Linebacker II didn't "win the war".

You made earlier statements that I challenged that NVN
only had 100 old French trucks left over from WW II.

No, I said they only had a hundred or so old French trucks being used to supply
forces in SVN, working the Ho Chi Mihn trail. I specifically stated I was not
refering to trucks operating in NVN.

You also stated that the
BUFFS were sent north for political reasons.

When the President directs it without knowing details about specific targets,
what would you call it?

You have contradicted yourself
several times on that 100 truck statement including below.

No, you have confused the issue. If you care (which I'm not sure I do anymore)
read through my original posts on the truck subject. I have reiterated several
times that I was *not* saying NVN had "a hundred or so old French trucks" *in
total*.

Most of the rest of
what you wrote is telling me about how the BUFFS went after military targets,
not politcal targets

The fact that BUFFs were going "down town" was political, the guys at 13th AF
and the JCS targeting board took a purely political objective and developed a
sound military campaign. The only thing lost in that conversion is the fact
that it really didn't matter for Nixon's ultimate objective if the Kihn No
vehicle repair yard was destoyed or not, just that bombs went off close enough
and didn't cause any large collateral damage issues. I've asked you twice and
now I'll try a third time. If the NVN returned to Paris because of the damage
inflicted from the bombing, what was hit and how was the damage effecting them?

Dikes and dams are legit military targets

Not always.

Hospitals are not

Not true, put a AAA piece on the roof or store arms there and its a legal
military target.

just to differentiate between what is legit and what is not.

You can't really do that with absolutes, the specific situation dictates
legality. If it were a case of absolutes, we wouldn't need lawyers in the Air
Operations Centers.

We certainly did enough dam busting in WWII and Korea.

We also bombed city centers for very small military gains, doesn't mean it
would pass the legality test. In the case of WWII the allies could claim
reciprocity since the Luftwaffe began striking city area targets first. The dam
busting in Korea was only legal because we claimed we were not targeting food
production but using the water to flood airfields and destroy bridges. In
Vietnam the dikes and dams would have been debateable legal military targets.

I am trying not to be emotional here but it seems to me that under your
logic,
every flight in VN was ultimately for political reasons starting long before
Rolling Thunder.

On several occasions Johnson attempted to let the military develop a bombing
campaign to achieve specific military objectives (with restrictions on bombing
targets in Hanoi or even NVN itself), during one period Johnson gave the JCS
the go to try to interdict supplies on the Ho Chi Mihn trail. Lots of luck,
like I stated earlier, until the Easter offensive the VC and NVA forces in SVN
required a mere 35 tons of supplies a day. This could be hauled in seven 2 1/2
trucks. How in the world are you going to shutdown over 80% of the trucking
along a route like the Ho Chi Mihn trail? During Johnson's years the military
attempted to go after NVN POL. The problem was it was so dispersed as to make
targeting it nearly impossible. Johnson grew frustrated with failure and went
back to his "target luncheons" and political bombing.



BUFDRVR

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