Bill Moyers Quote Comparing Vietnam to Afghanistan....

[debbierlus]

........................................................

"Now in a different world, at a different time, and with a different president, we face the prospect of enlarging a different war. But once again we're fighting in remote provinces against an enemy who can bleed us slowly and wait us out, because he will still be there when we are gone.

Once again, we are caught between warring factions in a country where other foreign powers fail before us. Once again, every setback brings a call for more troops, although no one can say how long they will be there or what it means to win. Once again, the government we are trying to help is hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.

And once again, a President pushing for critical change at home is being pressured to stop dithering, be tough, show he's got the guts, by sending young people seven thousand miles from home to fight and die, while their own country is coming apart.

And once again, the loudest case for enlarging the war is being made by those who will not have to fight it, who will be safely in their beds while the war grinds on. And once again, a small circle of advisers debates the course of action, but one man will make the decision.

We will never know what would have happened if Lyndon Johnson had said no to more war. We know what happened because he said yes."

.........Transcipt of entire Nov 20 show and video here: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11202009/watch.html ............

[tblue]

1. Does Obama know he's president? He doesn't have to obey the warmongers.

I could just cry.

[debbierlus]

3. Obama is no leader - he is a politician through and through

Obama was the PERFECT political candidate.

He was whatever you wanted him to be.

He was change without the change. The first African American President. A President with a new face to implement all the same corrupt policy.

The face of change.

But, the puppet of the status quo.

He isn't a leader.

[EnlightenedOne]

7. You should run

I'm sure you could get it all cleaned up nice and tidy in less than a year. Solve 2 wars, an economic depression, etc., etc., you seem to think you have what it takes to get things done and could do better - so I say - go for it.

[EnlightenedOne]

6. Maybe he does

if he wants to live - I'm sure its all about compromises with the power elite. Everyone knows what could and might happen if you refuse to play ball.

[mullard12ax7]

2. Best wishes for all the war criminals there in our illegal war

Let's just keep sending them and tell everyone else to shut up.

[Uncle Joe]

4. I would highly recommend for anyone to read the entire Moyers transcript on your link, particularly

those people not familiar with the thinking that led us in to the quagmire of Vietnam.

Three adverse dynamics jumped out at me from reading those transcripts; fear, nationalistic pride, and lack of faith in both humanity to chart it's own course and our own professed ideals.

Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, debbierlus.:thumbsup:

[debbierlus]

5. It was fascinating to listen to Johnson deliberate

[Uncle Joe]

9. I thought this exchange was noteworthy.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Assuming we do everything we can, to the extent of our resources, can we really have any assurance that we win? I mean, assuming we have all the big bombers and all the powerful payloads and everything else, can three Vietcong come in and tear us up and continue this thing indefinitely, and never really bring it to an end? That's one thing I want to look at. The second thing I want you to look at <...> can we really, without getting any further authority from the Congress, have all out support or sufficient, overwhelming support to work successfully, to fight successfully? <...> I don't know whether those men have ever thought, in making their calculations: One, whether we can win with the kind of training we have, the type of power. Ah, and two, I don't know whether they've taken into their calculations whether we can have united support here at home …

ROBERT MCNAMARA: I think Mr. President that, there are two thoughts on that. First, if we do go as far as my paper suggested, sending numbers of men out there, we ought to call up reserves. You have authority to do that without additional legislation. But I doubt that you would want to use it. Almost surely, if we called up reserves, you would want to go to the Congress to get additional authority. This would be a vehicle for joining together support. Now you would say, "Well, yes, but it also might lead to extended debate and divisive statements." I think we could avoid that. I really think if we were to go to the Clarks and the McGoverns and the Churches and say to them, "Now, this is our situation. We cannot win with our existing commitment. We must increase it if we're going to win, in this limited term that we define, in this limited way we define 'win,' it requires additional troops. Along with that approach, we are embarking upon or continuing this political initiative to probe for a willingness to negotiate a reasonable settlement here. And we ask your support under these circumstances." I think you'd get it from them under those circumstances. And that's a vehicle by which you both get the authority to call up the reserves and also tie them into the whole program.

I believe the above exchange implies even at that early date, McNamara never thought the Vietnam War was winnable except by using a very narrow definition of how winning could not be achieved, while he also proposed skirting critical debate.

My take on it is that McNamara is steering Johnson away from the American Peoples' best interests and toward those of the military industrial complex; of which former President Eisenhower warned against giving too much power whether "sought or unsought" in his farewell address.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=383219

[ieoeja]

8. "We know what happened because he said yes."

A couple decades of rapid communist expansion throughout the region slowed to a crawl. It took a handful of years for all of China to fall into communist hands, but a full decade for just Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Immediately after their success in Vietnam, Moscow ramped up supplies and training for communist rebels in Thailand. But Thailand used the decade the US spent fighting in Vietnam to build their own security forces (with US help). As a result this rebellion failed miserably.

Likewise, communist rebellions in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippinnes failed. Recently, Singapore leadership iterated their belief that US involvement in Vietnam saved them from communism.


We did fail the South Vietnamese. They still managed to fight the North Vietnam invasion for well over a year after we left. At any time during that year and a half, a single Marine Corps Amphibious Force could have pushed back the invaders then left. We could have done this repeatedly with little cost to us.

This is pretty much how the USN/USMC recommended fighting the Vietnam war from day one. That would be the same USN/USMC which had been fighting (and winning) these types of wars for a century. But McNamara/USA/USAF wanted to make a stupid point. And after grinding up our guys foolishly for a decade, the American public would no longer support even the smallish effort required by the USN/USMC strategy. So the millions of refugees who fled North Vietnam for the South (refugees whom many on here don't seem to give a fuck about) found themselves back in the grips of their enemy.