Quote of the Day by Faraday

58,000 Americans are dead because Johnson would not listen to his inner voice

58,000 Americans are dead because Johnson did listen to his "inner voice", the one telling him to fear the Red Chinese. If he had direceted those B-52s North, well before the NVA had a chance to build up their Air Defense network, the war would have been over in 1965 or maybe '66. Even Trickey Dickey didn't find his cajones until he finally got personally PO'd at the NVA, but by that time the war really was lost, in Washington DC, and the rest of what we now call "the Blue Zone" at any rate.

someone must have pinched cal's nuts.

In 1961, JFK, chose to ignore the voice that screamed "Red Chinese" --- and the rest is history.

JFK not only ignored the CIA in Laos, but he also cut-off their funds and left them on their own to make their way back to the US embassy in Japan.

In one of his most famous utterances, Johnson said he wasn't going to be the first American president to lose a war.

I give Cal a lot of credit for risking his conservative credentials by reminding us to be wary of big government problem solving even when there's a lot of rallying around the flag going on.

I've known all about Lyndon Johnson's insanity since I took a course on post-war foreign policy that McGovern taught at Northwestern circa 1980. McGovern never understood basic economics and I would have never voted for him, but he was a pretty sharp observer of international affairs and a good speaker. (It was also great taking his course because his notoriety resulted in his lectures being rebroadcast on radio so that I could listen to them without even leaving my girlfriend's bed on Sunday mornings.)

I hope Cal didn't write what I see here.

At he end of the Eisenhower administration there were approximately 330 American military in all of Viet Nam in the form of MAGs, Military advisory groups. JFK was sening men over there in earnest when I was drafted in 1961.

One of the reasons we lost was because JFK had Diem assassinated. There were excerpts from the tape recordins declassified from the Kennedy Library recording his planning it, posted on this forum about three years ago.

Th McNamara carpte bombing hit non-critical areas and marched slowly northward giving the enemy a chance to evacuate. It essentially did no damage.

That's for starters. This article is completely ignorant.

What defeated America was Kennedy, Johnson, and McNamara. By 1968 there were riots in the American streets, leftist infiltration everywhere, and the situation was being undermined and becoming unsalvagable here.

"If he had direceted those B-52s North, well before the NVA had a chance to build up their Air Defense network, the war would have been over in 1965 or maybe '66"

this was the really stupid policy of 'graduated response'..

we were forced to allow them to finish their air defenses and wait for them to become operational before we were allowed to hit them - that is the truth - no joke. I was there.

George McGovern is nothing but Jane Fonda with a Schlong. If you look at Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer, Hillary Clinton, Henry Waxman and Shiela Jackson Lee today, you'll see the mirror image of George McGovern in the 60s and 70s.

That son of a B carped on Nixon constantly. He made John McCain look like a choir boy by comparison. He was the darling of the media. They couldn't get enough of the guy.

Johnson brought our troop levels up the 550,000 and McGovern and his ilk never forgave Nixon for it. Laugh? That's no joke. Nixon would bomb the hell out of the supply lines. He'd start to make headway and McGovern and his crew would demand that he stop. Our boys would get relief when the supply lines were bombed. McGoven couldn't have cared less that bombing halts would let the enemy resupply. That happened a number of times.

His claim was that we were hurting the poor average Vietnamese family. But for all his bleading heart caring for the people of the region, he never uttered a peep when Pol Pot killed upwards of half the population of Cambodia subsequent to our withdrawel from the region. Neither did that caring Jane Fonda.

Imagine we're trying to run the war in Afghanistan right now. Then imagine that Bush ran supplies through Tagikistan or Uzbechistan. Then imagine that Henry Waxman would stand up on the floor of Congress and charge him with malfeasance for doing so. That's what McGovern and his ilk were doing to Nixon for bombing supply lines in Cambodia. It was disgusting.

The NVC wouldn't even come to the peace table. Nixon bombed the crap out of the ports of Hanoi. After a few weeks of that the NVC were begging us to come to the peace table. And McGovern and his ilk demanded that Nixon stop the bombing immediately.

George McGovern and those who supported the likes of Jane Fonda, the peace protesters and the likes of Bill Clinton prolonged the war by years. They impaired the President's ability to wage war. They hamstrung Nixon at every opportunity. The truth was, they were terrified that Nixon could wage war when it was clear as day that their party didn't know a bayonet from a garter belt.

When I hear people sing the praises of McGovern it makes me sick to my stomach. That man cost us many lives.

We have made many advances in the years since Vietnam. But our air power over the North was massive. We could have won that war if we had waged it. And I'll never forgive McGovern and his panty waste bastard friends who kept Nixon from waging the war in such as manner as to win it.

Johnson and McNamara were utter failures. McNamara was so inept that I seriously think the man should have been brought up on charges for even pretending to lead out. Johnson should have been impeached for his abysmal performance. These two men probably rotated through in excess of 750,000 men before Johnson left. There were 550,000 on the ground when Nixon took over. And Johnson did this knowing full well he had no plan to win or extract. He was an utter failure as a President. He gave us the great society and the debacle of Vietnam. Need I say more.

This is the worst article I've read by Cal Thomas. It's an embarassment to him. The anti-war protesters in the 70s were not so much anti-war as they were anti-US. The trips to North Vietnam, the marxist idiology that was endorced and the funding that found it's way into the peace movement revealed far more than the protesters chants alone did.

Many joined these protests out of good will. But most of them were unwitting dups for the NVC war machine. They were for our boys. Bring them home. Let the poor Asians live in peace. But when the boys did come home they spit on them. And when Cambodia imploded these jackasses were nowhere to be found.

Cal Thomas forgets a hell of a lot to make the comment that McGovern was right. McGovern has never been right in his life.

Yep, Cal just lost me utterly. He is now on my " THOSE WHO KNOW NOTHING / SHILL " list. I wonder what bit him.

Speaking of the failures, did you ever read Lewis Sorley's, A BETTER WAR ?? While your criticisms are absolutely correct, I'd just add that Westmoreland pretty much was a moron in planning the attrition strategy.

Creighton Abrams was on his way to winning that war(along with help from JP Vann.) Too bad that the Commie agitprop team had already won the war for the murderous thugs of the Khmer Rouge, Pathet Lao, and NVC.

Oh he was probably tired and didn't think things through. I think he focused on the Johnson tapes and wanted to make some comments, but got on a line of thought without looking back to what really went on. I think that can happen once in a while. Usually he's fairly descent.

I have to admit I am rather rabid on this topic. I watched those a.h. protesters on my television screen. I did nothing. I was around when our boys came home from the war and I didn't go out of my way to welcome them. To be honest, I'm not sure what I could have done. But as I grew older I told myself I'd never let it happen again. And I'll tell you, when someone starts singing the praises of George McGovern, I'm gonna chomp on em like a rhotwiler!

Thanks for the comments. I remember Westmorland, but not the nitty gritty concerning him. I know there was plenty of blame to go around. I'd have to say that Johnson laid a very poor staffing foundation, then failed to develop a clear strategy. If he didn't have one, and didn't know the right men to install, he should have pulled our men out and conceded. Once you put your men in you wage the worst m.f'n campaign you can until the enemy begs for terms.

The left-wing U.S. media lost the war in Vietnam. That and a lack of commitment by the President (Johnson, mainly).

Primarily the Pulitzer Prize winning story of the My Lai massacre by Seymour Hersh. But it didn't work the third time he tried it this month in Afghanistan. And he tried the same thing in the Gulf War accusing the 24th Division of another "massacre."

All I can say is Cal Thomas (who I normally like and respect) must have been on a college deferment during the Vietnam War, because he's got his head up his a#% on this article.

Funny how the 4,000 massacred as part of OFFICIAL POLICY by the NVA in Hue(many with their celebratory Tet costumes still on) were ignored by the media, eh? Or the fact that, as a rule for the entire insurgency, the VC/NVA cadres used terror and assassination of ANYONE affiliated with the US/RVN, even teachers and infrastructure workers. These killings numbered in the tens of thousands before the Commies even took the South in 75.

What's most telling is that the Left doesn't listen to the people who FLED these regimes. Very few Vietnamese or Cambodian refugees speak fondly for the Communists. In fact, many(rightly so) view Ho Chi Minh as a Stalin/Hitler like figure, not even a misguided nationalist.

Bump for the truth!

Meanwhile Johnson was advocating more trade with the commies we knew were financing the Viet Cong!

Click here to learn the truth about the treasonist Johnson.

At he end of the Eisenhower administration there were approximately 330 American military in all of Viet Nam in the form of MAGs, Military advisory groups. JFK was sening men over there in earnest when I was drafted in 1961. See my post #4. The man I married was that CIA voice screaming "Red Chinese."