Shall we move this to a newsgroup where it is on-topic?

Doug Miller wrote:
In article . com, wrote:
anus detector on

Shall we move this to a newsgroup where it is on-topic?

Doug Miller wrote:
In article . com,
wrote:

Doug Miller wrote:
In article .com,
wrote:
...
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.


First of all, there already were communist troops in
South Vietnam. The Cease-fire allowed parts of South
Vietnam to remain under their control. At the time
hostilities were renewed both sides accused the other
of violating the cease-fire. By then the Viet Cong
had nearly been obliterated by the US miltary, US
bombing had taken its toll on the North, South Vietnam
stil have about twice the population of the North and
the US had been 'Vietnamizing' the war for a number of
years. The idea that South Veitnam could not fend off
an invasion simply because it did not have US air support
oesn't hold up.

Obviously that idea *does* "hold up", as the tide of the war shifted shortly
thereafter.

The tide of the war shifted because American GROUND forces were
withdrawn Vietnam and despite the fact that South Vietnam was
capable of defending itself. South Vietnam failed to defend itself
because of the incompetence and corruption of its government.

North Vietnam didn't have any signficant air support for their
troops in South Vietnam, and they were outnumbered in South
Vietnam. So why couldn't South Vietnam hold its own without
American air support.


This is also reflected by the fact that it took two more
years of fighting before the North Vietnamese were
able to take Saigon to end the war.

Prior to that point, they had been losing.
After that, they began winning. And
that makes your point how?


How were they losing prior to the cease fire? They
had held onto the 'Parrot's Beak' even WITH American
ground forces in country and with the North being bombed.
If South Vietnam had a competant, effective, and honest
government the communists would never have won.

--

FF