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| IL-2 Sturmovik The famous combat flight simulator. |
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#1
10-21-2010, 01:21 AM
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 . But our heart wasn't in it. We weren't willing to do what it would take to actually win politically....too many civilian deaths would be involved. The North Vietnamese knew this and exploited it very well...just put those AA installations next to a school.We used to give out t-shirts to our baseball players when I coached. They said "Go Hard or Go Home". Too bad politicians don't always understand such a simple concept. Damned hippies.... Splitter 
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#2
10-21-2010, 01:24 AM
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Last edited by swiss; 10-21-2010 at 02:54 AM.
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#3
10-21-2010, 01:48 AM
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You are right, you need boots on the ground to take and keep territory. But air power can make their job a LOT easier. But (another but), that's not why we lost. We fought a limited war. When the bombing was increased against the north, protesters at home went nuts so we stopped bombing. Ho understood this from the start. He knew the war would be won on the streets of America, not the jungles of Vietnam. He knew we did not have the stomach, would not make the sacrifices, necessary to win the war. We would not sacrifice enough of our boys but more importantly, we would not be willing to do to North Vietnam what was needed to win. He drew up the blue print for how to beat the US. NO single entity...no two countries even....are going to beat us militarily. You beat us by turning our morality against us. You beat us by dividing our people (pictures of dead women and children do the trick). You beat us by being willing to sacrifice more than we are willing to sacrifice. You beat us by exploiting your civilian casualties. Saddam miscalculated (he wasn't that tough a nut to crack). Our present opponents relearned the lesson of Minh and are gambling that we will not be willing to do what is needed to win (they may be right too). All they have to do is outlast us, not beat us. Just like Minh. We are leaving Iraq in July of 2011. The president said so. All the bad guys need to do is survive that long and move in to take over. That lesson was not lost on Pakistan who is negotiating with the terrorists (our enemy) in preparation for our future withdrawal from Afghanistan. We just don't have the staying power. Then or now. Splitter
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#4
10-21-2010, 02:13 AM
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Rolling Thunder was a dismal failure.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/readings/drew2.htm http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articl...rogram-failure https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...4a01p_0001.htm
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#5
10-21-2010, 02:24 AM
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#6
10-21-2010, 03:05 AM
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Rolling Thunder was a failure approved by a moral and physical coward: Lyndon Johnson. Johnson was a bully by all accounts....bullies are usually cowards and he typified the term. Linebacker was a success. Nixon knew we could win (for all his faults). But we stopped due to internal political pressure concerning the bombing of North Vietnam. North Vietnam agreed to talk, we stopped bombing. Linebacker II got the peace talks started again...North Vietnam agreed to talk again based on the previous talks and we stopped bombing. But political bungling ended the talks and there was a HUGE backlash directed at Nixon from the American left who believed that the U.S. had "carpet-bombed hospitals, schools, and residential areas, committing barbarous crimes against our people". That propaganda was put out by the North Vietnamese government and soaked up by the left in the US. Bombing worked but some civilians died and we as a nation were not willing to accept the collateral damage. No matter that the enemy put schools, hospitals, and religious institutions right next to ammo dumps, fuel depots, anti aircraft positions, and communications centers , right? Minh understood our limitations then. Terrorists understand it now. Militarily, we could not be beaten then or now. Reagan said, "We could pave the whole country and put parking strips on it, and still be home by Christmas.". He was right, we could have. That's just not our way no matter what the propagandists say. Bottom line lessons: Don't go to war piecemeal. Don't go to war thinking it is all going to be nice and clean. Don't go to war unless you are willing to accept collateral damage. Don't go to war unless you mean to win. Don't let a war drag on. If you go to war have an objective, conditions of victory, and an exit strategy. If you go to war, end it quick and save lives on all sides. Kennedy got us into the war by committing "advisors". Johnson threw men and resources into the war bit by bit without a plan to win until it became a huge behemoth. Nixon had the strategy and the means to win the war but let politics on the home front get in the way. I think that all qualifies as a major Charlie Foxtrot of a war in terms of execution. (Bless those that served though, they did their part and the loss was not their fault) Splitter
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#7
10-21-2010, 03:33 AM
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It's quite refreshing to see the US government still doesn't. Afghanistan is another success story... How tf did they think they win? If you're not fighting an army it's going to be though to win - they hide all over the planet. Btw, do you know "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"? No the movie, the poem by Goethe?
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#8
10-21-2010, 04:19 AM
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By the time the Iran-Iraq war kicked up, it was the Ayatollah vs. Saddam though and we backed Iraq. Reagan (or Carter for that matter) actually COULD have bombed Iran and gotten away with it domestically....the people were that angry. And I am not talking about taking out a few buildings, I am talking about wave upon wave of B-52's carpet bombing Tehran. A popular song at the time was "Bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boy's "Barbara Anne" lol. There is a way to win in Afghanistan, just not the one we are pursuing. "Eliminating" the poppy crops and sealing off the country would work as far as eliminating it as a resource for the terrorists. The key in Afghanistan is that the people are not willing to fight for their freedom. It's a cultural thing in that they change sides on a whim. Of course, if we cut the country off the people would suffer. So we won't. We won't throw enough troops in to seal off the borders either because that would further erode the US President's support amongst his own party. Like Johnson, Obama is fighting the war from the middle. He can't cut and run because it would ruin him in the eyes of the people and he can't fight to win because it would ruin him within his party. Earlier this year the military requested 70K additional troops, they got 40K I think. So there ya go. Our bombs are better now . But some still miss. Worse yet, sometimes the intel used to choose targets is faulty. Civilians still die, just not in anywhere near the numbers they have in the past. Now, though, cameras are everywhere. One death gets publicity. People hate seeing dead civilians on the evening news (ok, on Youtube because no one watches the news anymore lol). We are even less tolerant of collateral damage (dead civilians) than we have been in the past.I only remember the Sorcerer's Apprentice from school and I probably just skimmed it then . I just remember the moral being something like "don't bite off more than you can chew"...but hey, I was probably more worried about cheerleaders than literature so I could have gotten it all wrong . If I am remembering it correctly it does pertain to world politics and war. Don't mess around when you don't know what you are doing and be careful that your "fixes" don't cause even more damage. Close?Splitter
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#9
10-21-2010, 02:32 AM
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#10
10-21-2010, 01:11 PM
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BTW, sisnce we came to V War - I'm preparing an interview with Soviet aviation advisor in NV... Might be interesting to take a look from another side... Last edited by FPSOlkor; 10-21-2010 at 01:23 PM.
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