Rumsfeld and flying

Subject: Rumsfeld and flying
From: "Jim Baker"
Date: 3/7/04 8:01 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Rumsfeld and flying
From: "Pete"
Date: 3/6/04 9:51 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: wLy2c.2040$iy.1385@fe2

You don't always get to choose/volunteer, and the needs of the military
outweigh...

The Marines who stormed the beaches of the pacific got what they
volunteered
for., The airborne that held Bastogne got what they volunteered for. The
Air
Corps that took devastating losses over Berlin and Ploesti got what they
volunteered for., The Suubmariners got what they volunteered for. Maybe
some
of those who didn't volunteer didn't try hard enough. Think that is a
possibility?


Arthur Kramer

Here's a thread within the thread that you may just be ill informed about
Art, since it's been 50+ years since you've been in the military. There's
no "volunteering" to go to war in the USAF. You go where your unit is
ordered to go. As a pilot, there's almost no chance to cross train into an
aircraft that is flying in a war from one that is not. Take this for the
truth it is from someone who served 20 years on active duty and missed DS
because his aircraft wasn't involved. There was no where I could go to
volunteer, no form I could fill out, to get into that war. Now, if the war
goes on for 5-6 years, you might have a chance...but we've not had one of
those in 30+ years, much longer than the normal AF career. So reevaluate
your thoughts on this concept you have that only slackers/cowards don't get
into a war...it's incorrect for 30+ years for all instances other than wars
lasting many years.

JB
Bomber Pilot (ret)




That is the first rational post on the subject yet. Thanks. What did you fly?


Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004 08:01:57 -0800, Jim Baker wrote:

Here's a thread within the thread that you may just be ill informed about
Art, since it's been 50+ years since you've been in the military. There's
no "volunteering" to go to war in the USAF. You go where your unit is
ordered to go. As a pilot, there's almost no chance to cross train into an
aircraft that is flying in a war from one that is not. Take this for the
truth it is from someone who served 20 years on active duty and missed DS
because his aircraft wasn't involved. There was no where I could go to
volunteer, no form I could fill out, to get into that war. Now, if the war
goes on for 5-6 years, you might have a chance...but we've not had one of
those in 30+ years, much longer than the normal AF career. So reevaluate
your thoughts on this concept you have that only slackers/cowards don't get
into a war...it's incorrect for 30+ years for all instances other than wars
lasting many years.

I was stationed at Clark AB in the PI when the Desert Shield deployments
started. I was working a swing one evening when we got a message that our
command (Electronic Security Command) was calling for volunteers in my
career field (Signals Intelligence Analyst).

I was newly married and had a baby but I *really* wanted to be part of what
was going on. I thought about it for awhile and finally told my
Surveillance & Warning Center Supervisor and my Flight Commander that I'd
be talking with my wife that evening but I was sure I would be volunteering
for the deployment. Neither of them had any objections and they both shook
my hand and wished me luck. That night I talked with my wife and she
didn't object.

The next day I came into work early to give myself time to talk to whomever
it was I needed to talk to about getting sent to Saudi. By then our unit
commander had seen the message asking for volunteers, had gotten a slew of
people asking to sign up, and had made a few phone calls. It turned out
that people in my unit were *forbidden* to volunteer for Desert Shield.

Here's what happened: When the Desert Shield deployments first started
there was a lot of talk in the news about how the personnel in Saudi would
be receiving Hostile Fire Pay. This made the Admiral at PACOM a bit upset
since all of his personnel in the Philippines were living under severe
restrictions because of the serious terrorist threat. He reportedly talked
to some Congressmen (that's the story - I don't know if it really happened)
who decided that we in the PI were getting killed off more often than the
people in Saudi Arabia (11 Americans were killed by the New Peoples Army
during my tour there) and that we deserved HFP also.

Once we started getting the money we were technically in a war zone, and
you aren't allowed to deploy from a war zone in one theater (PACOM) to a
war zone in another (CENTCOM).

The United States was building up for a war on the Arabian Peninsula and
those of us stationed in the Philippines were forbidden from playing.

In Art's world I should have done something (anything) like being
cross-trained to a new career field to get to the war. In the real world
my AFSC was critically manned so none of us were allowed to cross-train.
Desert Storm came and I had to sit that one out.

-Jeff B.
yeff at erols dot com

On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 13:28:58 GMT, "Thomas Schoene"
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

And, yet you don't seem to respect the opinion of those of us who
served in SEA that the actions of Lt John F. Kerry after his
exceptionally brief service were to the detriment of half a million of
his brothers in arms who were still in harms way.

Ed, I have a concern here. It may be that I misunderstand you, so please
don't take this personally.

It's often been said that people who didn't fight in Vietnam didn't have the
credibility to criticize the war. Now you suggest that those who did fight
aren't supposed to be critical either because it's disloyal. How then is
anyone allowed to oppose a war that they believe to be unjust? Surely we
have to have some way to do that or we suffer badly as a democratic society.

A legitimate question. My problem is that once you don the uniform and
swear the oath, you forfeit your first amendment (and most other)
rights. A commissioned officer is obligate to obey the lawful orders
of those place over him. Once commissioned, even after leaving active
duty, you are still a commissioned officer subject to recall. You
still have the obligations.

When Kerry left his crew after only four months in theater, he
jeopardized them. When he testified before the US Senate (in that odd
combination of rumpled fatiques and battle ribbons) that atrocities
were the order of the day throughout the theater, he lied about it and
simultaneously indicated that he failed to fulfill his obligations as
an officer to terminate such activities if he had witnessed them. He
defamed all of us.

When he protested with his bearded friends on the Marine Memorial,
displaying the inverted US flag, he violated his loyalty to the Navy
and the Corps. When he provided aid and comfort to the North
Vietnamese by demeaning the American military deployed in combat
against them, he went way too far for a citizen, and reached the
unforgivable for a military officer.

The essential issue is that once you choose the course of military
service (which he claims he did as a patriot), you then are being a
hypocrite if you later reverse course quite clearly for political
gain. The sensationalist actions and inflammatory rhetoric which he
engaged in after his return from brief service is certainly not
effective political debate. It is demagogic posturing.


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

On Sat, 6 Mar 2004 18:32:43 -0500, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:


"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
.. .

So, S2F pilots are a critical resource and a Navy reservist who is
serving in Congress should resign his seat, request activation and go
drone around the boat. That simply doesn't make sense.

He resigned his Congressional seat in 1969, so amend my time span to read from
1969 through 1975. Did you mean to say "drone around the boat" or was that just
a figure of speech or slip of the tongue? Are you suggesting that our Senator
from Arizona ended up in the Hanoi Hilton, along with numerous other Navy
pilots, because they got lost shooting touch and go's off their carriers?
Characterizing their contributions as "droning around the boat" is a put down,
and I hope you didn't really intend it that way.

Can you make the distinction between an S2F and tactical aircraft?
Stoofs drone around for hours on end. They don't go to tactical
targets. No S2F aviator spent time in the Hilton. Six S2s were lost in
the war (2 in '66, 3 in '67 and 1 in '68), 16 fatalties, no POWs. From
'69 through '75 there were no losses.

John McCain is highly respected by the Nam-POWs for his service.


If you can serve in Congress and still meet Reserve qualifications you
are both contributing to the nation and helping the defense
establishment. Can't see how that's any sort of strike against the
man.

I concede that, so let's limit the discussion to when he was no longer a
Congressman.

I'm not saying it comes into play, but have you ever heard of "duty
and travel restsrictions"? Limitations on duty postings for folks who
have recent experience with certain levels of classified information
(the sort of thing a congressperson might have.

But, we can certainly find a lot of SecDefs on both sides of the
political spectrum without ANY spit-shined brogans in their
closet--dare I mention Les Aspin, Robert Strange McNamara, Robert
Cohen, etc?

Talk about red herrings. I see you're not reluctant to toss a few around
when
it suits your purpose. By way of comparison, how many of those you just
mentioned were Reserve or ANG fliers on flying status during whatever wars
they
were involved in supervising? That would be a valid comparison.....what you
just did was toss our a bunch of apples and dared us to compare them with an
orange. Not the same thing, and you know it.

My point was that if we are setting criteria for SecDefs, we should
acknowledge that a lot of folks held the job with absolutely no
military experience at all. None of those I just mentioned were
Reserve or ANG fliers, which was precisely my point.

We are not setting criteria for SecDefs....we are talking about one in
particular who's quite hawkish these days but apparently was far from that in
those days. AAMOF, if you look into what others have reported of comments made
by Nixon and members of his staff about Rumsfeld, they apparently considered him
far too dovish in those days to suit their tastes.

So, are you having a problem with Rumsfeld because he is too hawkish
or too dovish?

It returns to the issue about whether there is a relationship between
active and reserve component service, between officer and enlisted
service, between peacetime and wartime service, between combat and
combat support service, between home base and deployed service, etc.
etc.

Well, maybe that's what you want to use as a basis for arguing, but I'm not in
the mood for fish tonight, so I guess I'll pass.

You need to read more slowly. Those are criteria that have been
popping up in the thread, they aren't mine.

Some people got to see the elephant and some didn't. I was there
involuntarily the first time and got to see more of it than many, but
not as much as some. I was voluntarily there the second time, but will
quite honestly tell you that it wasn't about patriotism.

I've got no problem with people who served but didn't get to go
downtown.

Am I out of line asking, then, how you feel about the criticism of Kerry over
his service in the theater, very often from people who weren't anywhere near
Viet Nam when the shooting was going on? Any defense for his contributions,
whatever they were? Or doesn't that count as downtown?

No defense for his contributions at all. Four months in theater of a
one year tour? Three PHs with no missed duty? Beaching his boat under
attack, thereby removing his mobility? Going ashore to dispatch a
wounded peasant already shot with a .50 cal? Then rushing home to tell
tales about the atrocities being committed wholesale by American
service men?

.....I do have a problem with people who aggressively avoided any
kind of service,

I could provide a list of people who fit that bill who come from both sides of
the aisle and, I, like you, have a problem with them. BTW, as a sub-category, I
gather that you don't have a problem with military people who one way or the
other avoided the possibility of serving in a combat theater? Mr. Rumsfeld
might find his name on my list there, not because he never got there, but rather
because he didn't try when he could have as opposed to how hawkish and war-like
he became subsequently when he was quite safely entrenched behind a desk in
Washington, D. C. or a Naval Reserve outfit in the Washington suburbs.

Let me suggest that in the period from the autumn of 2001 until the
present it is decidedly appropriate to be hawkish and war-like.
Turning the other cheek is not an option. We've seen the outcome of
dovish policies.

.....with people who undermined their brothers-in-arms,

I think we can admit to a difference of opinion there. I don't consider people
who attempted to shut down a war that apparently could not be won as undermining
their brothers-in-arm when, in fact, they were only attempting to save the lives
of those of their brethren still engaged in a losing war. I wasn't one of them
at the time, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see where I was wrong and
they were right.

A war that "could not be won" not because of lack of military
capability, but because of lack of political will--primarily as a
result of a confederation of draft dodging students, moralistic
professors, attention seeking movie stars and pandering politicians.

We could have won the war in '66 when we started to get serious and we
demonstrably DID end the war in eleven days at the end of '72.

.......and with people who claim to be something that they are not. (Those
aren't all the same person in any of my statements.)

And there's another category of people whose names would fill our list and who
come from both sides of the aisle. Is there any point in pursuing that?

Yes, there is a point in pursuing it. I am demeaned by every dirty,
bearded, fatigue-jacketed, drug-addled wannabe who claims to be a
Vietnam vet and has become the stereotype of what happens to men who
experience war. The incredible majority of warriors are successful
people who have served their country and lived normal productive
lives. Failure to identify the liars and poseurs is abrogation of my
responsibility to tell the truth and stand up for what I believe in.


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

"Dave Kearton" wrote in
message ...

"D. Strang" wrote in message
news:bSx2c.10362$m4.4748@okepread03...
| "BUFDRVR" wrote
|
| It's hard for me to believe that you cannot conceptualize that not
everyone
| during times of combat operations sees action. I've got several good
friends
| who, through no fault of their own, have exactly *zero* combat hours.
|
| I used to fly with a navigator who had .5 combat hours. He got it on
the
way
| to Thailand in a C-141 during the Vietnam war.
|
| It's just phenomenal the amount of **** in Art's brain.
|
| Being an Instructor has very little to do with combat. Many combat vets
| take awhile before they can become effective teachers. They tend to be
| perfectionists, and are used to crews who are their peers. Once back at
| the training center, the pace and mistakes cause them to wash students
| out. We had one guy who washed his first three students out, and the
| board reinstated all of them with a new instructor. The bad instructor
| was sent packing.
|
|




OK guys, I've been following this discussion (and others) for a while
now.

I've noticed a fair amount of frustration in both sides of the argument
that's drifting into personal invective. Can we all remember that Art
is one of us, he's a regular here ?

Art has demonstrated a marked propensity for making outright false
statements. It would be one thing if he misspoke and then accepted the
corrections offered by others--instead he steamrolls along, repeating the
same falsehoods over and over again. That unwillingness to accept the truth
when it has been presented to him, and his continued spouting of that
incorrect information, is what draws the line between an innocent mistake
and willful lying. A few sycophants pop up out of the woodwork and give him
a misdirected pat on the back, and he's off again, creating new falsehoods.
First it was the Guard he denigrated, whose members had been on active duty
for over two years by the time Art entered the service, had already suffered
casualties, had already seen some of its members endure the Death march at
Bataan; even in the face of repeated proof being presented to him by
numerous posters, Art continued with his claims that the Guard during WWII
was the home of shirkers and a "laughingstock" for the *real* he-men such as
himself. Now his false statements have been expanded to include those men
who stayed behind and made sure the soldiers, airmen, and sailors had the
tools they needed to conduct the fight. Of course, his previous broad brush
approach has even included those servicememebers who did their duty yet did
not see direct combat during the war--Art is, after all, something of an
equal opportunity kind of fellow when it comes to denigration.



Whether you agree with him or not, perhaps we can all treat him with the
respect due to any senior citizen, any veteran and any gentleman that we
meet somewhere.

Funny thing about respect--it is a two-way street. Art has failed to give
respect to many more people than he has in return had demonstrated against
him. One of my first posts in this NG, a few years back, was offered up in
defense of Art; I can recall thinking at the time how a WWII veteran
deserved better respect than what the poster I responded to had shown him. A
bit more time observing Art's posts changed my mind--here we have a guy who
feels compelled to tear down others' accomplishments or contributions
because he feels it makes his own look somehow more vital. That trait in and
of itself is enough reason to deny Art any significant degree of
respect--that he also has a proven integrity problem is just icing on the
cake.



Don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to call a spade a spade when some
no-name coward chucks **** at someone here, for no real reason, but some
of the comments that have been flying around in this discussion, simply
show no respect.

Because we have none for him. Because someone should also be willing to
speak up in memory of those who Art has falsely labled, and who can no
longer defend themselves (like all of those Guardsmen who died at Buna,
Bataan, Normandy, Guadalcanal, the Ardennes, and the Rapido River in Italy).
Because some folks actually take Art's rants as being historically correct,
when the record all too often proves otherwise (even when it comes to his
own specialty, B-26 operations in the ETO; he has repeatedly claimed his
group never missed its target, yet the B-26 bomb group that was recognized
as having the best record for operational bombing accuracy itself missed at
least six of its assigned targets according to one of their bombadiers who
kept a record of their performance). As others have also noted, when a man
is caught lying, it is hard to know whether anything he says afterwards is
true or not. Often Art's lies start out with him merely spouting off about
things he himself has not ever bothered to actually find the truth
regarding, such as this latest claim that old men and women made up the
majority of the civilian work force during the war--he has been presented
evidence that proves this was not the case (far from it, in actuality), but
you'll note he has not changed his story.


I guess I'd like us to seperate what he's saying from who is sayng it and
treat Art with a little more courtesy, as is his due.

Not when he sees fit to treat countless others as he has, and continues to
do. Note the wide range of posters who have taken Art to task for his posts
of late--many are generally responsible and respectful posters in most
circumstances. You'll note that most have avoided dropping into name
calling, etc., but finally pointing out after repeated corrections have been
offered that Art is indeed a proven liar is not so much a personal attack as
a statement of fact.



In turn, Art can take a deeper breath and do the same.

To do that, Art would have to humble himself by admitting that his
characterizations of the Guard and the civilian workforce during WWII have
been wrong, and he'd have to acknowledge that all of those men and women who
have honorably served, in whatever capacity, deserve the same level of
respect for their service that he expects to be given himself; I wouldn't
hold my breath waiting for that if i were you.

Brooks





Thank you gentlemen



Dave Kearton

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004 08:01:57 -0800, "Jim Baker"
wrote:


"ArtKramr" wrote in message
...
Subject: Rumsfeld and flying
From: "Pete"
Date: 3/6/04 9:51 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id: wLy2c.2040$iy.1385@fe2

You don't always get to choose/volunteer, and the needs of the military
outweigh...

The Marines who stormed the beaches of the pacific got what they
volunteered
for., The airborne that held Bastogne got what they volunteered for. The
Air
Corps that took devastating losses over Berlin and Ploesti got what they
volunteered for., The Suubmariners got what they volunteered for. Maybe
some
of those who didn't volunteer didn't try hard enough. Think that is a
possibility?


Arthur Kramer

Here's a thread within the thread that you may just be ill informed about
Art, since it's been 50+ years since you've been in the military. There's
no "volunteering" to go to war in the USAF. You go where your unit is
ordered to go. As a pilot, there's almost no chance to cross train into an
aircraft that is flying in a war from one that is not. Take this for the
truth it is from someone who served 20 years on active duty and missed DS
because his aircraft wasn't involved. There was no where I could go to
volunteer, no form I could fill out, to get into that war. Now, if the war
goes on for 5-6 years, you might have a chance...but we've not had one of
those in 30+ years, much longer than the normal AF career. So reevaluate
your thoughts on this concept you have that only slackers/cowards don't get
into a war...it's incorrect for 30+ years for all instances other than wars
lasting many years.

Ubon early 1967 they were asking for enlisted volunteers to kick
flares out of the C-130s stationed on base. I was going to volunteer
and discussed it with the shop chief. No problem. You fly at night and
pull your regular shift during the day. And when do I sleep? That's
your problem. I figured driving an MJ-1 up close and personal with
loaded aircraft with no sleep was not exactly a wise thing to do...
But I had the chance...

"Ed Rasimus" wrote

A war that "could not be won" not because of lack of military
capability, but because of lack of political will--primarily as a
result of a confederation of draft dodging students, moralistic
professors, attention seeking movie stars and pandering politicians.

We could have won the war in '66 when we started to get serious and we
demonstrably DID end the war in eleven days at the end of '72.

I have a little bit different historical perspective.

The purpose of the countries division in half, was to let the people
cool down after having just dispatched the French colonists, who
attempted to return to the pre-Japanese world order.

There was to be an election.

It wasn't until the United States cancelled the elections, that all hell
broke loose. While I'll admit the North was very active in
convincing the south to follow their lead (a few assassinations,
here and there), the South wasn't made up of just idiots.

The failure of Democracy, ended in Communism. Which for
Vietnam may be a better form of government, as they are
mostly peasants outside the major cities.

The war could never have been won, without an invasion of
the North, and the resulting Chinese and Soviet retaliation
would have resulted in the loss of SE Asia, Germany, and
Turkey. Most of the planet would be still working through
the contaminated zones of the nuclear fallout problems.

To win Vietnam, would mean we would have to win WW#3.
To win China, meant we would have to go nuclear, as the
technology we have today wasn't invented then, or would
work reliably enough.

"T3" wrote in message
. com...

"Ed Rasimus" wrote in message
...
On 06 Mar 2004 18:38:56 GMT, (ArtKramr) wrote:

This is a very emotional issue for me. I think of absent friends who
still lie
in foreign graves. Then I think of those who could have gone and
didn't.
And
no amount of discussion will convince me that these two calibers of men
were
equal

Arthur Kramer

And, yet you don't seem to respect the opinion of those of us who
served in SEA that the actions of Lt John F. Kerry after his
exceptionally brief service were to the detriment of half a million of
his brothers in arms who were still in harms way. Which doesn't even
begin to address the several hundred who were languishing in NVN
prison camps while he gave aid and comfort to the enemy.

Don't play the lost comrades card with me.


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


Not that I'm a big fan of Kerry, I don't believe voicing one's opinion
against and unjust war where over 50,000 of our brothers died is giving
"aid
and comfort to the enemy" Jane Fonda he "ain't"Not even close...........

He did not just voice his opinion. He presented testimony to congress
(written not by him but by a former speechwriter for RFK named Adam
Walinski) which parroted the since-discredited offal that came form the
"Winter Soldier Investigation", which he had attended and which was indeed
sponsored by Ms. Fonda. Suggest you read the pertinent passages from B.G.
Burkett's "Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of its Heroes
and its History" regarding Mr. Kerry and his committment to the antiwar
cause. Burkett wrote this book in 1998, long before Mr. Kerry became a
presidential candidate, and he only discusses him in passing (the book
concentrates more on revealing those who created fake Vietnam war records
for themselves and dispelling a lot of popular myths about Vietnam
veterans). He notes that friends of Mr. Kerry did not notice him as being
particularly disturbed by his (short) combat tour, or that he was
particularly anti-war--but one did note that he was "a very charismatic
fellow looking for a good issue." How much of his anti-Vietnam sentiment was
heartfelt and how much was a product of his desire to gain publicity to
support his political ambitions is the question for which we have no answer.

Brooks



T3

"Thomas Schoene" wrote in message
k.net...
Ed Rasimus wrote:

And, yet you don't seem to respect the opinion of those of us who
served in SEA that the actions of Lt John F. Kerry after his
exceptionally brief service were to the detriment of half a million of
his brothers in arms who were still in harms way.

Ed, I have a concern here. It may be that I misunderstand you, so please
don't take this personally.

It's often been said that people who didn't fight in Vietnam didn't have
the
credibility to criticize the war. Now you suggest that those who did
fight
aren't supposed to be critical either because it's disloyal. How then is
anyone allowed to oppose a war that they believe to be unjust? Surely we
have to have some way to do that or we suffer badly as a democratic
society.

Tom, read what BG Burkett had to say about Kerry's antiwar activities in
"Stolen Valor" (written way back in 1998, and discussing Kerry only in
passing). And remember that his testimony before Congress was largely
nothing more than a second-hand repeat of the detrius resulting from the
discredited "Winter Soldier Investigation", fancied up by former RFK
speechwriter Adam Walinski. Add in the fact that Kerry has flip-flopped on
the "I tossed my medals over the wall" issue to his present, "Gee, aren't my
framed medals really nice". had Kerry come back and offered a heartflet, and
more importantly accurate, depiction of why he opposed the war, and left out
the baseless accusations of widespread attrocities, etc., I have little
doubt Ed would bear him little concern; but Kerry went well beyond that. He
even went so far as to defend his fellow VVAW "combat veteran" Al Hubbard
(who IIRC was his partner when he appeared on "Meet the Press" in 1971 to
speak out against the war)--Hubbard was later discovered to have created his
own "combat history", as did another VVAW leader, Michael Harbert. Read
Burkett's book (it was recommended by folks like Joseph Galloway and James
Webb) before you start accepting much of the old VVAW line.

Brooks


--
Tom Schoene

On Sun, 7 Mar 2004 11:22:18 -0600, "D. Strang"
wrote:

"Ed Rasimus" wrote

A war that "could not be won" not because of lack of military
capability, but because of lack of political will--primarily as a
result of a confederation of draft dodging students, moralistic
professors, attention seeking movie stars and pandering politicians.

We could have won the war in '66 when we started to get serious and we
demonstrably DID end the war in eleven days at the end of '72.

I have a little bit different historical perspective.

The purpose of the countries division in half, was to let the people
cool down after having just dispatched the French colonists, who
attempted to return to the pre-Japanese world order.

The "country" was divided in four by the Geneva Accords--Laos,
Cambodia, N & S Vietnam. It recognized tribal and cultural differences
in the post-colonial period. It certainly wasn't a return to a
pre-Japanese order.


There was to be an election.

Very good. Provided of course that the elections could be guaranteed
by the ICC observers as fair and accurate.

It wasn't until the United States cancelled the elections, that all hell
broke loose. While I'll admit the North was very active in
convincing the south to follow their lead (a few assassinations,
here and there), the South wasn't made up of just idiots.

Adminstration of the elections was an ICC responsibility--Canadians,
Indians and Poles. The delay of the elections was a result of the
emergence of a full blown insurgency, AKA "a few assassinations here
and there."

Bringing elections to a region which has been a colonial subject for
fifteen years, an occupied territory for fifteen more years, and a
corrupt monarchy before--one without a history of democratic
traditions and without political parties, doesn't come easy. Witness
Iraq.

The failure of Democracy, ended in Communism. Which for
Vietnam may be a better form of government, as they are
mostly peasants outside the major cities.

You might want to read about the COMINTERN and the training of
revolutionaries in Moscow to facilitate the revolutions of the workers
of the world. Communism didn't follow the "failure of democracy"--it
was brought to the North by Ho Chi Minh (COMINTERN graduate and
revolutionary) and then infiltrated into the South to compete and
undermine the attempts at democracy.

Marx certainly didn't think of Communism as agrarian--it was a product
of industrialization.

You might also take a look at the preponderance of free market
capitalism in Vietnam today. There really is a "Hanoi Hilton" now--and
they feature an "American breakfast" in the price of the room!

The war could never have been won, without an invasion of
the North, and the resulting Chinese and Soviet retaliation
would have resulted in the loss of SE Asia, Germany, and
Turkey. Most of the planet would be still working through
the contaminated zones of the nuclear fallout problems.

That is very much the thinking of the period. We were still grappling
with the questions of how to keep wars from escalating into nuclear
conflict. Invasion of the North might have been necessary, but had we
not employed the gradualism of Rolling Thunder, we might very well
have achieved capitulation of the NVN much earlier.

In retrospect (although we had no way of knowing it at the time), the
Chinese were not at all eager to confront the US and the Soviets had
little interest other than maintenance of a client state.

To win Vietnam, would mean we would have to win WW#3.
To win China, meant we would have to go nuclear, as the
technology we have today wasn't invented then, or would
work reliably enough.

A lot of counters to that argument have been written in the ensuing
thirty plus years.



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