On Oct 21, 2:57 pm, "ScottW" wrote:
"Shhhh! I'm Listening to Reason!" wrote in
snip He authorized US combat air force operations.
Not true.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam...y.27s_escalati...
"Kennedy had introduced helicopters to the war and created a joint U.S.-South
Vietnamese Air Force, staffed with American pilots."
What often precedes "full-scale" military operations?
An "attack" like the one on the Gulf of Tonkin.
_Dereliction of Duty_. It's a good book, 2pid. You should read it.
Here are some comments by the author:
"McNamara [in his book] said, 'We were wrong, terribly wrong'[about
Vietnam] but that he and others were prisoners of the Cold War
ideology of containment. So they had no flexibility. It didn't matter
who the President was, who the Secretary of Defense was, who the
members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff were, because they were compelled
by the ideology of the time.
"What this new evidence shows dramatically is that these were men who
not only should have known better but who did know better. It also
shows that the war, far from being inevitable, was only made possible
by the deliberate deceit and manipulation of the American public, the
Congress, and members of Johnson's own administration."
http://www.afa.org/magazine/perspect...m/0198duty.asp
Of course, your "opnion" and "beliefs" outweigh the evidence of those
who have done the "research".
Kennedy did send Army Aviation to Vietnam. These were transportation,
medical lift, and search-and-rescue assets.
He increased military aid.
So what?
So that is not a de-escalation.
Do you even understand what is being said to you? Find the point where
I said "Kennedy de-escalated prior to his death."
2pid, the reason people get frustrated with you is you can never,
ever, stay on topic during a 'discussion'.
He approved the use of defoliants, authorized destruction of rice crops
and then approved a coup of Diem.
And, ironically, Admiral Elmo Zumwalt killed his own son with Agent
Orange.
Yeah...that's relevant. (sarcasm intended)
It is exactly as relevant as your bringing up defoliants as an
"escalation" or as a "combat operation". (No sarcasm intended.)