DescentBB

Watching the anniversary of the fall of vietnam, a very interesting supposition was posited. That is that certain people in or connected to our govt. didn't want the war to be won (there you thought I was going to harp on the hippies and socialists). In essance huge amounts of money was paid to govt. contractors such as Air America and Hughs aircraft Company (for supply of helicopter)that to have the war come to an end would have meant losing these contrats.
Case in point was the rules of engagement for helicopter pilots. In certain instances copter pilots could not fire on the enemy even though they may be under fire themselves. Neither could we send ground troops into NV so a decisive victory could be obtained.
Kinda makes you wonder eh?

The point that the VN war's objective was lost and turned into a cash cow for many companys is well known and documented. What is important is that it never happens again. Sometimes war is unavoidable such as the Afgan war. After the fall of the towers a clear message needed to be sent to the world and I support that choice. But Iraq appears to be another story, to me anyway, that perhaps we are doing this for the economy because war makes money and pushes the economy into the black. I got some bad memory flash backs over this one.

wow, I can't believe I'm reading this. Good discussion

I thought at least one of the reasons for not sending the army into North Vietnam was so that the Chinese would not use this as a pretext to get their land army involved. For their communist brothers, you know (even though there was no love lost between the Vietnamese and the Chinese).

Cuda, I think the main difference between the the viet. war and Iraq is with Iraq we went in with the clear objective to win and not pussyfoot around with holding a line at some incomplete juncture. I am more comfortable with the Iraq war than with Vietnam. The amount of material being lost and replaced in Iraq is a pittance to that lost in Vietnam.
The premis for the Iraq war is another matter. If keeping a mad dictator from WMD's was foremost than why are we not doing likewise with N.Korea and Iran? I realise the U.S. may not want to do anything to alienate the large pro-american under 30 population of Iran (though I see indications of fomenting rebellion there), Korea is another matter. Unfortunately N.Korea may already have the bomb and handling the situation may be much more delicate. In shades of Vietnam it would seem that we do not want to go too far in forcing our prescence on a country whose boarder abuts China.

I agree, Iran and especially N. Korea are huge threats. Iran will keep to themselves so long as they don't percieve a threat, the problem is they see threats everywhere kinda like we did in the 50's. They will outgrow that in time I think, I hope.
North Korea to me is the big concern. they have insane ways of seeking assitance and I see them as a terrable threat where pre-emptive measures will be needed sooner or later due to a lack of options. I also believe the rest of the world should ask us this time to do it, or at least take the lead in the matter. We cannot be the world cops at this time because we have lost to much credibility over Iraq or let N. Korea shoot first, maybe they will hit France

Trying to keep the topic on subject, I think most of the wars have clear beneficiaries. Was it not Lyndon Johnson's family that had major stock in one of those helicopter companies that was awarded huge contracts in Vietnam? As much as the right fights it, does Cheney's former employment and current compensation from Halliburton lend itself to the same idea? Perhaps, war IS supposed to stimulate the economy. But unlike WW2, the entire country now does not enter the military machine and pull up the straps. The companies that stand to profit are solely the defense contractors. I'm not sure what most of you people do, but have your jobs flourished because of the war? I doubt it unless you make bullets or Humvee armor. I don't think it's bad for companies to make money off of war, it's their business, I think it's bad for politicians to prolong something to bring money to their or their friends pockets.

Woodrow, firstly, Air America was the CIA so that's apples/oranges to Hughes. Secondly, what significance does restrictive helicopter RoE have to your theme of war profiteering? Are you suggesting that the US wanted damaged helicopters (and dead pilots that took alot of time/money to train) so that new helicopters would have to be purchased? Or are you saying the war was intentionally prolonged through restrictive RoE to keep the gravy train running as long as possible? The only folks with the authority to prolong it were politicians and IIRC alot of pols were losing their jobs at that time over the length of the war. Illogical. As far as not sending ground troops into NV, as was mentioned, that was the line beyond which the US believed that China would enter and enlarge the war.

Bash, while Air America was a CIA front...it was still a private contractor that ran the airway. You know, deniable plausibility:

"The story of the real Air America begins in 1950, when the CIA decided that it required an air transport capability to conduct covert operations in Asia in support of US policy objectives. In August 1950, the Agency secretly purchased the assets of Civil Air Transport (CAT)"

http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/winter99-00/art7.html

Wood, have you seen Fog of War yet?

No.

interesting stuff

bash wrote:...The only folks with the authority to prolong it were politicians and IIRC alot of pols were losing their jobs at that time over the length of the war. Illogical...

i guess the theory is that the companys pull the politicians strings, not the other way around. and they considered a few political careers (ie: lackeys) to be an acceptable loss.

Wood, check it out. It probably won't change (or reinforce) any of your opinions, but if this subject is interesting to you, it'll probably be 2 hours well spent.

The only comment I have on topic is that people usually have different motivations for the things they do. One person may take action for nefarious reasons, while another may take the same action for somewhat legitimate reasons. It is sometimes too easy to judge one's actions by the reasons of another.

Vander, I'll see if I can rent the movie.

Bash, as to the ROE, there are many others who questioned the "Why". Can I catagorically say "Yes?"...that I cannot do as I am not privy to the decision making process. Was there a huge for profit military/industrial complex? A statement in Eisenhowers 1961 speech shows there was:

"we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations."

http://tinyurl.com/c69yk

From Col. David Hackworth we have this (BTW read the whole link as it is a real eye opener):

The weapons acquisition, which brings us equipment we don't need, is brought about by senators, congressmen, and congresswomen who are into pork, and people who make those weapons who are into greed. Many of them have nothing to do with national security. Most of these weapons are high tech, extremely expensive, and do not work, despite the film you saw during Desert Storm.


http://www.lawac.org/speech/hackworth96.html

This whole discussion makes me think the "nuclear option" in the senate we keep hearing about isn't quite the right use of 'nukeage'.
I'm thinking, call a full session of congress and give us a real nuclear event in the halls of congress! Turn Washington D.C. into a glowing glass monument to the extermination of corruption!

Oh, and further on ROE

"Several incidents of ROE violations led to court-martial charges; one that led to charges against the commander and the aircrew was the strafing of the Soviet ship Turkestan in 1967 near Haiphong.14 Fear of ROE violations and the consequences of them led to a dilemma; many aircrews felt as if they could not accomplish their mission
without either getting killed by the enemy or brought up on court-martial charges by their own governrnent.15
American air losses over North Vietnam rose continuously with over 500 aircraft lost during 1966 and 1967. Crews began to see that it was highly unlikely they would survive a 100-mission tour in Southeast Asia.16 Many of these losses resulted from restrictions against attacking SAM sites or other significant targets in or around populated areas."

http://tinyurl.com/boxyc

Fact of the matter is, especially concerning air operations, the ROE were getting aircraft destroyed. Perhaps the politicians who framed these rules had good intentions the questions will always have the shadow of "were the rules set up for prevention of escalation of the war...or were they established with the goal of generating income for certain favored constituent based industries"

Zuruck, I'm not sure Halliburton is a good analogy. They act as a construction mgt. entity subing out contracts to various subcontractors. Generally in construction construction mgt type contractors may operate on a 3% margin. Of course 3% of a billion dollars is not chump change either. We are not talking about deliberatly setting up scenarios where equipment is destroyed and mens lives lost in regards to Halliburton.