In article . com, wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:


Doug Miller wrote:
...
Yes, and we were winning the war under Nixon, too, until the
Democrat-controlled Congress cut him off at the knees.


Nixon self-destructed.

True, but that had nothing to do with the war (except to the extent that his
political destruction enabled Congress to prevent us actually winning the
war,
as we were doing).

The (Democratically-controlled) Congress cut off support for South
Viet Nam under Ford.

Technically true, but misleading, and scarcely relevant, as the South was
already in deep s**t by that time. The Paris peace accords decreed a
cease-fire in January 1973. The position of the US at that time was that if
the North violated the cease-fire agreement, we would resume bombing of North
Viet Nam. In August 1973, Congress voted to require the President to obtain
their approval before resuming bombing; the North invaded the South a few
weeks later. That was a *year* before Ford took office. My statement stands:
the Democrat-controlled Congress cut Nixon off at the knees.


I'll agree that weakened Nixon's ablity to
threaten North Vietnam, but the absence of
US air support was not the deciding factor
that lost the war. It was the loss of US
funding to South Vietnam that led to the
collapse of their military.

Wrong. As noted above, the cutoff of US bombing raids against the North in
August '73 resulted in an invasion of the South only a few weeks later. That
invasion led to the collapse of the South. The funding cutoff was simply the
final nail in the coffin.

Perhaps more accurately, it was the gross
incompetence, abject irresponsibility and
rife corruption of the South Vietnamese
government that lost them the war. Though
at the time I still thought they were less
oppressive and bloodthirsty than the communists.
In retrospect, perhaps they were just not
as well organized.

In retrospect it's very clear that the communists were *far* more oppressive
and bloodthirsty than any of the governments of the South, corrupt as they
were.

--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.