Subj : Clandestine activity is a holy cow of democracy
To   : JOHN FITZGERALD
From : BOB KLAHN
Date : Sat Aug 17 2013 22:54:16


 Son of a gun! John, so good to hear from you.

 ->>  ...

->>  Actually, American history books do not describe Vietnam as a
->>  victory for America. And we know the US lost the war. Not all
->>  know it, but most of us do.

 JF> We could have won that war if we 'wanted to'. Do you really

 I agree. Only one major difference needed, we had to fight the
 war for the benefit of the South Vietnamese, instead of for out
 own purposes. If we weren't fighting it for them why were we
 there in the first place?

 JF> think we "lost" the war because the Viet Cong had  a more
 JF> formidable military the the U.S.? We could have wiped them

 The US military won every major engagement, and pretty much all
 the lesser ones.

 JF> out any time we pleased. Why didn't we? Do the math. It was
 JF> not economically feasible for the U.S. to pursue the war

 That is the cost of a 10 year war.

 JF> any further. The Viet Nam war was waged simply to gauge
 JF> Soviet response and to keep tabs on their military
 JF> capabilities.

 That I don't believe. The SU was not giving the NVs enough early
 enough to mean anything. By the time they did we had so far
 outpaced them they were primative by comparison.

 JF> During that war 100's of newly developed
 JF> weapons were beta tested. Esp as concerns the Air Force.

 And that is what scared the hell out of the Soviets. Not only
 did we put men and money into that war, developed tech and
 training and experience that put us far ahead, but we did it all
 the while keeping our home economy growing and even reduced the
 debt to GDP ratio. All a measure of the superiority of our
 system.

 JF> Same with the (then) U.S.S.R. What a wonderful world...

 The USSR had to spend a fortune to try to keep up with us.
 Before the war the Soviets were spending a lot more of their GDP
 on the military, and they doubled it through the war. They
 didn't spend it on weapons for the Nort Vietnamese, but on their
 own weapons as they realized how far ahead we were.

 Our military spending went up much less than double during the
 war, and after the war our spending went back down to near what
 it was before. The Soviet spending stayed up there, and didn't
 come down until the mid 80s. *THAT* is what broke the Soviet
 Union. Our economy was so much better than theirs that they went
 broke trying to do what we did, and not even coming close. It
 took a couple decades, but it destroyed the Soviet Union.

 And that is something to consider when thinking about the
 Vietnam War.


BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

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