(Even more) problems for Kerry...

OK, at this point I have to ask what you mean by during this war. Initially I assumed you meant the invasion of Iraq. But since you have yet to link Kerry to American casualties in Iraq, I am wondering if I misunderstood your statement.

 

I was not making a comment on the validity of the war, only on what it takes to win a war with respect to #1

A bit early to be calling liar on #2, time will prove this one right or wrong. Being wrong about it and having done nothing is a larger mistake than where we are now.

 

Nope, you did not, both Vietnam and Iraq

 

OK, I disagree about Vietnam but I understand how you get to that wrong conclusion. The link to Iraq, I don't get.

 

Peoples opinions belong to them right or wrong, your welcome to yours, I won't pass judgement on it.

With respect to Kerry, in either war, I am looking at his actions and judging them based on how I see him, his motives and actions. Some of what I feel about him is based on nothing more than personal experience and my personal opinion. When Kerry chose/chooses to say what he says and what charges he made have allot to do with it.

If Kerry were as learned and intelligent as he would have us believe there are ways he could present is position on the current war without undermining the position of our troops in the battlefield.

 

If the answer is in here somewhere, I guess I was not meant to understand it. Or maybe you don't want to share. Oh well, thanks anyway.

 

OK, your post was edited after I responded. I guess I see what you are trying to say now.

 

Thanks, no problem.. read my post and realized it did not really answer your question..... and that I could phrase it more completely

 

"embolden the enemy"
Now that's a catchy phrase: sounds like something dreamed up by a talk show host or the subversive liberal media

"embolden the enemy"
Is that something like giving them viagra AFTER they already have a hard-on?

 

You trivialize yourself with these childish snipes…..

 

What Johnson thought was irrelevant.

The issue is what the Vietnamese thought.

Until his broadcast, they didn't think they had a chance. They had been getting their asses kicked in every engagement with the US. There last, great hope was the Tet Offensive and Tet had been a resounding failure. They had shot their wad, militarily, and came up with a big donut. At that point, they had no hope of victory and were prepared to negotiate surrender.

Then they heard Cronkite's broadcast. It gave them hope and made them realize that winning a war of attrition was possible. At that point, they went from "prepared to surrender" to "if we just hold out a little longer, we'll win." That's a sea change of attitude.

And Mr. Mood got the dude's name. And I would imagine he IS a National Hero in Vietnam.

 

#4 is completely false. One thing the Vietnamese were consistently impressed by was the American's willingness to fight, paticularly over dirt that was not our own. And that was in regards to the common infantry soldier. The "chicken men" (Airborne units with the 'Screamin' Eagle' patch; there are no eagles in Vietnam) were universally feared for their ferocity in battle.

Also, a simple analysis of WWII would show that to be false. We kicked ass and took names, on other people's dirt, the whole time. Funny, we also had a campaign at home to help keep the morale of our troops high at the time. Coincidence? I don't think so.

You also completely fail to ackowledge a simple concept called "morale." If the other side sees no hope of victory, they lose hope. If nothing you do dampens the resolve of your enemy, your morale goes down. If you've hit them with everything you've got and they don't flinch, your morale goes down. If nothing you does results in any positive gain, your morale goes down. If the enemy thinks that the only thing continued fighting will get him is dead, maintaining the will for the fight is most difficult to do.

If, on the other hand, you see cracks in their resolve every time you kill one of them, you'll continue to fight as you keep seeing positive gains with every step.

 

I'll repeat Roger's "Lighten up Frances" yer way too fuckin serious.

Well, since you're already pissy... yer tellin me you came up with that embolden-the-enemy crap all on your own? If you did then you should be writing script for one of the angry radio boys

 

I'm no way near a historian, no do I care to be, but can you maybe give a source for that info in case some of us might want to study it further?

 

Lots and lots of time wasted watching the History Channel. Or Discovery Wings Channel. Or anything else that comes up on the subject.

Not to mention the huge collection of books on the subject.

Although, honestly the History Channel is some of the best, simply because we're now getting more and more input from the Vietnamese side of things. We've had access to the American perspective on things since it happened. But hearing it from their side is relatively new and really has only taken place since the normalization of relations with Vietnam.

 

Mike, I don't agree with your assessment of the facts, but more importantly, you didn't answer my questions:

The correct assessment that the war was unwinable was made by Johnson and his staff. So you are saying that Cronkite should have lied? That we would have been better off if we had believed our gov.'s lies?

 

Agreed about the History Channel. I have two kids - what is your excuse for watching so much TV?

 

It was MY choice of words, simple to the point. Did not mean to raise your ire, and I’ll try and lighten up,,,,,

 

Tell Yamaboob to read a dictionary. You said embolden, not engorged . Hence his mistaken comment "Is that something like giving them viagra AFTER they already have a hard-on?

 

EmptyK:

You missed the point. i was in no way impunging the bravery of our troops. I was thinking of the larger concept of the "will" of a nation to fight a war and sustain the cost in terms of $$, mutilation and death. Teh Vietnamesehad more will to win tht war and sustained probably more than a million casualties.

Would you or anyone here suggest that one million US dead would be an acceptable cost of winning that war? No, but to the Vietnamese it was.