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#62
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Fred the Red Shirt wrote:
Your friends might have been home for Christmas 1972 had the SVN agreed to the accords in October 1972. The SVN continued to hold out foir awhile even AFTER the NVN returned to the table. The seminal event that brought them home was the agreement to the accords by the SVN. Had the SVN relented befor Linbacker II AND the NVN reneged then the efficacy of Linbacker II would be pretty well established. As it is, we can only speculate. ....or, propagandize and spin. If I had been making those decisions for SVN I would have agreed to the accords only with extreme reluctance. Do you think they did not know what would happen when the US pulled out its forces? Everyone understood it was only a matter of time without direct US support on the ground until SVN was overrun. Survival is the name of the game, and as has too often been the case, the piece of mind of the US Left is more important than the commitments to support the survival of some of our allies -- even when those commitments were the product of Democratic administrations. The US has much to be proud of and much to be ashamed of with regard to VN, but not necessarily what those of your political persuasion might claim. Jack |
#63
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Ed Rasimus wrote:
In late November, the agreement had not been signed by the North and they walked out of Paris. Ed, that is a misleading description of events. When the NVN walked out in November, they had nothing to sign. Kissenger had recently submitted changes to the October agreement, but even if NVN found them acceptable it would have been weeks before a final signing. Bottom line; NVN walked out because we were changing an already agreed upon accord AND (more importantly) the anti-war movement in congress was threatening to give them much more than the Paris Peace Accord. You can speculate, I was a participant, and the POWs were on-scene observers. You and I have been over this before Ed, but I don't believe participation in history makes someone an expert in anything other then your own part in that event. In this discusion, aircrew perspective doesn't provide much. I can find a direct causative relationship between getting the crap kicked out of them for eleven days and crying "uncle", then signing and in very short order releasing the guys. Without a doubt, however LBII would have lasted until the dollars ran out if congress had returned and voted to suspend funding for the war. The bombing and, as equally important, the silence from congress convinced NVN to return to Paris and sign *the original October agreeement*. BUFDRVR "Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips everyone on Bear Creek" |
#64
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On 04 Sep 2004 00:42:19 GMT, (BUFDRVR) wrote:
Ed Rasimus wrote: In late November, the agreement had not been signed by the North and they walked out of Paris. Ed, that is a misleading description of events. When the NVN walked out in November, they had nothing to sign. Kissenger had recently submitted changes to the October agreement, but even if NVN found them acceptable it would have been weeks before a final signing. Bottom line; NVN walked out because we were changing an already agreed upon accord AND (more importantly) the anti-war movement in congress was threatening to give them much more than the Paris Peace Accord. You fail to add one important link to the events: There was an election on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. And, you also fail to acknowledge my qualification that causative relationships in issues like this are not simple. You can speculate, I was a participant, and the POWs were on-scene observers. You and I have been over this before Ed, but I don't believe participation in history makes someone an expert in anything other then your own part in that event. In this discusion, aircrew perspective doesn't provide much. I'm not going to descend to the level of others who discount anyone who wasn't there. That's why I added reference to Eschmann, Clodfelter and Michel as well. When we take on-scene observers (the POWs who were interacting with the NVN military on a daily basis and had seen considerable shifts in attitudes, goals, and political positions in the camp leadership in response to events), participants (lots of them who had been through multiple tours), senior military leaders who were in-the-loop on classified and back-channel traffic, and the historians you should be able to get a much better interpretation of events than simple archivist reviewer historians (and many with a political ax to grind.) I can find a direct causative relationship between getting the crap kicked out of them for eleven days and crying "uncle", then signing and in very short order releasing the guys. Without a doubt, however LBII would have lasted until the dollars ran out if congress had returned and voted to suspend funding for the war. The bombing and, as equally important, the silence from congress convinced NVN to return to Paris and sign *the original October agreeement*. And, the "silence from Congress" can very clearly be linked to the '68 election and the need to wrap things up without political campaign positions interfering. To suggest that LBII would have gone on until the budget tightened is to be unaware of the initial alerting order for the campaign which said "three days" of maximum effort. That doesn't sound like an open-ended campaign to me. Ed Rasimus Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret) "When Thunder Rolled" "Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights" Both from Smithsonian Books ***www.thunderchief.org |
#65
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Ed Rasimus wrote in message . ..
On 3 Sep 2004 09:13:45 -0700, (Fred the Red Shirt) wrote: Ed Rasimus wrote in message . .. On 2 Sep 2004 10:59:49 -0700, (Fred the Red Shirt) wrote: Does this not imply that Linebacker II accomplished nothing worthwhile? I've got several hundred POW friends that might like to discuss that with you. Your friends might have been home for Christmas 1972 had the SVN agreed to the accords in October 1972. The SVN continued to hold out foir awhile even AFTER the NVN returned to the table. The seminal event that brought them home was the agreement to the accords by the SVN. That's a pretty selective interpretation of history. The fact is that bombing north of 20 degrees was halted in late October when there was agreement to sign. In late November, the agreement had not been signed by the North and they walked out of Paris. Which stil makes it seem rather obvious that it was the SVN resistance to the Accords that prevented them from being signed in October 1972. Offhand, I can't say as I blame them. Had the SVN relented befor Linbacker II AND the NVN reneged then the efficacy of Linbacker II would be pretty well established. As it is, we can only speculate. You can speculate, I was a participant, and the POWs were on-scene observers. I can find a direct causative relationship between getting the crap kicked out of them for eleven days and crying "uncle", then signing and in very short order releasing the guys. Respectfully, you were not a participant in the negotiations in Paris. However you have convinced me that that Linbacker II brought the NVN back to the table. Clearly that was necessary for the Accord to be signed and that the SVN held out longer (we weren't bombing them) doesn't change that. |
#66
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On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 10:45:24 -0600, Ed Rasimus
wrote: Various historians have viewed Linebacker II and reached different conclusions. Eschmann seemed to see the campaign as very effective. From the military point of view, yes, bombing was effective. Clodfelter drew more subtle conclusions and leaned toward the classic "bombing alone doesn't win wars" answer. Michel, doing the most recent work and being the first with major participation with the NVN in his research, ascribed losses to bureaucratic infighting, ascribed victory to both sides by their own interpretation, and agreed with most that there was a direct linkage between the bombing campaign and the conclusion of the war. I don't get that. Is the current opinion that North Vietnamese conquest of South Vietnam was some other, different war from the one that was "concluded" by Treaty in Paris? It seems to me that Linebacker II had virtually no strategic effect as far as South Vietnamese were concerned, they were wiped out from the map. Drax |
#67
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OK guys, I've been following this and i have to admit that I'm not on all the
missions you have listed in this thread but it seems to me that there is one that is very aparent by it's absense. Since we're talking about strategic missions, how about the mission of the Strategic Air Command? For nearly 50 years their mission was to insure that we maintained a viable nuclear deterence, maintain 2/3 of the US's nuke strike capability and train for and conduct strategic bombing missions, both conventional and nuke. While they were never called upon to conduct the nuke missions, they were called upon at several times to conduct conventional missions. And since there was never a nuke exchange while SAC was in operation, I'd venture a guess at saying they were very succesful at the deterence side of their mission. just my 2 cents Jim SAC Cop 78-88 " PEACE WAS OUR PROFESSION AND WE WON " |
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