Re: VIRTUAL JFK: Vietnam Had Kennedy Lived

<billclarke@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:094843cf-0bfe-424a-8ddf-8efd45582651@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Apr 28, 7:32 pm, "Gerry Simone" <newdecent...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> "pin head" <longiislandh...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> > this is an almost stupid question.....of course it matters.....and
what
> > has history shown us ? to walk the middle is the path to sure
> > disaster......THE ONLY "successful" wars this country has ever fought 
> > are
> > the ones in which Overwhelming power was NOT held in reserve......The
> > nature of the American Militray is to emplore a quick and overwhelming

> > win
> > via it's 1st rate technology and fire power.
>
> Are you saying that VN could've been won had overwhelming power been
used?

I don’t know what Pinhead thinks but I think if we couldn’t do it with
half a million U.S. troops more troops wasn’t the answer, although
noting that the foolish restrictions placed on our combat units didn’t
help matters.

Yes, those restrictions didn't help.

> I'm Canadian so I'm not an expert on VN but wasn't it a guerilla war?

It was a guerilla war with a dose of politics thrown in.  The communist 
called this “revolutionary war”.  You don’t fight it with overwhelming 
power; you fight it by winning the hearts and minds so to speak.  You do 
this my giving them a stable and popular government, securing the villages

so the VC can’t come in at night and assassinate the chief, giving them 
medical care, land reform and so on. Overpowering force gets in the way of

this.  Westmoreland squandered the early years with his large unit search 
and destroy missions, Abrams made great progress after he got the command 
but it was much too late by then.

Did we learn anything from these lessons?

> How do you fight that with overwhelming power?

Sooner or later the guerilla has to come out of the mountains and take the

capital.  This is where overwhelming power comes into play. Examples are 
TET 68, the 1972 Easter Offensive that the SVN won with our advisors and 
air sup****t and again in 1975 when the communist had overwhelming force.

Bill Clarke