Subj : Clandestine activity is a holy cow of democracy To : LEE LOFASO From : BOB KLAHN Date : Fri Aug 23 2013 00:47:56 ... JF>>> We could have won that war if we 'wanted to'. Do you really BK>>I agree. Only one major difference needed, we had to fight the BK>>war for the benefit of the South Vietnamese, instead of for out BK>>own purposes. If we weren't fighting it for them why were we BK>>there in the first place? LL> "Peace with honor" was the only way we could leave Vietnam, LL> according to Richard Nixon. That is why the war did not end Honor requires justice. Nixon did not seek that, so he could never have honor. ... LL> In summation, here is what happened - LL> Richard Nixon lost the war. Richard Nixon then resigned LL> from office in disgrace. Gerald Ford became our first LL> appointed President, announcing to the world, "Our long LL> national nightmare has ended." The world applauded. Then LL> Ford went and pardoned Nixon. What an idiot. The mistake that cost him the presidency. And Ford was a long experienced politician, he should have known better. 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 BK>>The US military won every major engagement, and pretty much all BK>>the lesser ones. LL> Richard Nixon lost the war. Not the US military. 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 BK>>That is the cost of a 10 year war. LL> It would have been a lot shorter, with more lives saved, had LL> Nixon agreed to end the war in 1969. Actually, since it began for the US in 1954, it was a 20 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. BK>>That I don't believe. The SU was not giving the NVs enough early BK>>enough to mean anything. By the time they did we had so far BK>>outpaced them they were primative by comparison. LL> We had air superiority throughout the war. We could have LL> bombed all their cities to smithereens had we chosen to do LL> so. We could have deforested the countryside, had we LL> chosen to do so. We could have made the whole place LL> totally unliveable, had we chosen to do so. But none of LL> that would have won the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese LL> people. And that is what we needed to do, if ever we LL> wanted to do business with them. True. However, it's more than doing business. Too many have forgotten what they chose not to remember when it comes to Korea. North and South are one people. When you kill the Northerners, you are killing the families of the Southerners. Doing that to soldiers can be justified, doing so indiscriminately cannot. JF>>> During that war 100's of newly developed JF>>> weapons were beta tested. Esp as concerns the Air Force. BK>>And that is what scared the hell out of the Soviets. Not only BK>>did we put men and money into that war, developed tech and BK>>training and experience that put us far ahead, but we did it all BK>>the while keeping our home economy growing and even reduced the BK>>debt to GDP ratio. All a measure of the superiority of our BK>>system. LL> During that time period in history, the US had its client LL> states, the former USSR had their client states. Each side LL> tried to hold on to its own, while stealing some from the LL> other side. Neither the US nor the former USSR wanted a LL> nuclear war, as both would have been destroyed (along with LL> their client states and the rest of the world). So the US LL> and the former USSR did the next best thing. Each side LL> tried to outspend the other building weapons and weapons LL> systems, etc. True, but the US did it so much better. ... BK>> Union. Our economy was so much better than theirs that they went BK>> broke trying to do what we did, and not even coming close. It BK>> took a couple decades, but it destroyed the Soviet Union. BK>> And that is something to consider when thinking about the BK>> Vietnam War. LL> Richard Nixon lost the war in Vietnam. But the Cold War LL> continued. Fortunately for us, the former USSR blinked LL> first, having bankrupted itself into oblivion before we did. Well, they did it on weapons. We are doing it on medical costs. Not govt medical costs, all medical costs. Our medical spending is pushing 20% of GDP, compared to 8% for much of the rest of the world, and 12% for the most expensive national health care system in the industrial world. On top of that, it has been revealed that it isn't spending on the old as they are dying that is so costly, but everyday medical costs. Typically the US patient pays several times more for almost anything than the average patient under national health care systems. That "spends more" includes all spending, including the govt spending for the national health care patients in other countries. We just get hit with higher bills for the same treatment. LL> You do realize our economy tanked, never having recovered LL> from the events of 9-11? I mean, where are those WTC 9-11 had pretty well nothing to do with the economy tanking. The cost to the economy was actually trivial. Those WTC are the least needed construction you can think of. LL> Towers? There is even talk of demolishing the WTC in New LL> Orleans, as nobody had or has the money to buy it ... Since the US sold out it's economy to foreign manufacturers with all the free trade agreements, esp the WTO and IMF and World Bank, why do we need trade centers? BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn .... 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