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R
Ridgerunner
Guest
That’s it? All others were, in your opinion, aggression by the U.S.?I haven’t studied every war, but to answer your question, I believe WWII was not aggression.
E
Ed_Rand
Guest
Like I said, I don’t know enough about every other war since there are so many… Of course our eradication of Native Americans was aggression. From what I know about the Mexican-American war it could be called aggression. But like I said, I don’t know enough about these to discuss them at length.That’s it? All others were, in your opinion, aggression by the U.S.?
I appreciate your interest in this thread, but it seems you’ve gotten irritable and are assuming too much and understanding too little. There is nothing in my post to warrant your interpretation. Quite the opposite, in fact.
In your opinion, has the US ever conducted an aggressive war?
C
cynic
Guest
Isn’t it that the U.S couldn’t commit the kind of military power needed to fight communism in the region without risking conflict with China?
E
Ed_Rand
Guest
The US did commited everything it had short of Nuclear bombs, including 50,000 Americans.Isn’t it that the U.S couldn’t commit the kind of military power needed to fight communism in the region without risking conflict with China?
S
SoCalRC
Guest
???Isn’t it that the U.S couldn’t commit the kind of military power needed to fight communism in the region without risking conflict with China?
What didn’t we commit? Our footprint was about 5x that of Iraq. We instituted a draft, and sacrified 58,000 American lives (plus 2,000 ‘missing’). As noted, the only thing we did not do was create an atomic holocaust, probably only because we feared atomic retaliation.
This is just a myth from people who cannot seem to bring themselves to accept a huge and costly foreign policy mistake. Undoubtedly, the same myth will eventually propogate for Iraq, though it will be even more absurd in that case. Look at the current situation, even the government we have propped up there has indicated that it cannot accept an open ended US occupation, nor the continued exclussion of US occupying forces from the rule of law.
The entire point of the venture was permanent bases. Look at the architects and their PNAC writings dating back to '93 (PNAC officially formed in '97, but many of the signatories had already been writing about Iraq for years). Iraq was just a convenient opportunity to expand and project US military force in the region (don’t take my word for it, I’m just quoted the folks who thought up the whole disaster). But the darndest thing happened, the people had a will of their own. They wouldn’t accept our preferred puppet Chalabi, and no government that will accept a permanent US occupation can stand.
The irony is that in this miguided venture, the same folks who latch onto the myth of a lack of will in Vietnam and who will undoubtedly reuse the myth to explain their stupidity in Iraq have, in fact, made the myth a reality - in Afghanistan. History, locale, culture, were all aligned for a winnable conflict there, but the powers that be were not interested. They wanted Iraq, and fabricated a connection to 9/11 and stirred fears of mushroom clouds to get it.
Todays news:
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080714/ap_on_re_as/afghanistan;_ylt=AvuYJXu8dqG_rd1aOpGJrJOs0NUE
Won’t make much of an impression on the Koolaide crowd like Ridgerunner. After all, what are 9 lives in the all important global struggle for photo ops and the right to feel manly? It isn’t as if THEY will be risking their tiny cojones. But viewed in the context of the latest congressional reporting, internation force reports, etc. it tells us a lot. It tells us that war on the cheap, particularly at the expense of not providing basic security to the populace means losing.
So, for all those shaking their tiny fists in anger and fear about Islamic Extremism, how about a reality check on how we are doing on the enemies who actually attacked us on 9/11? Most were Sauds, which is hardly surprising since they’ve invested $70B in militant extremists and are the primary bankroll for AQ terrorism. Aside from record profits on oil, and the VP flying over to kiss butt, what exactly has changed there?
OBL and his version of AQ relocated to Pakistan, whom we can’t touch because we need them to have access to Iraq. There is also alarming implications that Pakistan is heavily involved in rogue nuclear proliferation.
And the Taliban, whom we ‘defeated’ in Afghanstan have, in the US military’s own estimation, have control over large sections of the country. They are also expanding their territory and are launching larger, coordinated attacks on our troops.
And, of course, we’ve created islamic extremists in Iraq, a place where they weren’t before because the country was under the control of a secular tyrant…
I’m not sure why people are so convinced that loud hyperbole about US history, Nazi sympathizers, and the fate of the Western world will alter the basic facts. We are failing to achieve meaningful strategic goals, and will continue to fail to do so short of a massive changes on a scale the US population is not willing to make. We’re not going to have another draft, and since the chickenhawks are, themselves, gutless wonders who won’t fight the wars they support, no one should be surprised.
The only question is, what poor sap will be the last US soldier to die just because a bunch of gutless self serving chickenhawks lack the capacity to accept responsibility for their own mistakes?
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Rules of engagement!!
Also known as pulling one’s punches.
We wasted a lot of our resources and the lives of our soldiers and wasted a tremendous amount of time by pussyfooting around instead of simply killing the enemy.
We didn’t have rules of engagement in WW2.
Also known as pulling one’s punches.
We wasted a lot of our resources and the lives of our soldiers and wasted a tremendous amount of time by pussyfooting around instead of simply killing the enemy.
We didn’t have rules of engagement in WW2.
E
Ed_Rand
Guest
I disagree more with Ridgerunner than almost anybody on this forum, but I think you should let this grudge go.Won’t make much of an impression on the Koolaide crowd like Ridgerunner. After all, what are 9 lives in the all important global struggle for photo ops and the right to feel manly? It isn’t as if THEY will be risking their tiny cojones.
The rest of the post was great. I totally agree with everything you said. And yes, its frustrating that so many can’t see these simple truths.
D
D_M
Guest
Yes, you’re correct… so was Martin Luther for that matter, although we nevertheless assume protestants to be true christians, even if they should have ignorantly adopted any number of heresies that were condemned by Peter’s voice in Rome, and if that is correct then I do not see why the same could not be assumed for these marxist christians in Latin America and other parts of the developing world on the basis of the teachings they believe… unless of course a clear case of excommunication could be shown for them as individuals.It was condemned by Rome.
Even if we forget about them…there were multitudes of practicing Orthodox laypeople who joined ranks with Lenin in Red October in 1917, and there were hundreds if not thousands of orthodox lower clergy who denounced the Czarist regime at the pulpits and gave support to the revolution… perhaps a somewhat terribly misguided support in retrospect of what the future leadership was going to do to the church in Russia, although they remained christians nonetheless.
I don’t agree with Liberation theology anymore than I agree with the teaching that the eucharist is not truly Christ’s body… I nevertheless still think that the ones who held these misguided ideas remained true christians
R
Ridgerunner
Guest
I didn’t think I was irritated at all, but I’ll reflect on it. I’ll readily admit that I am not as intelligent as you earlier alleged, though it was kind of you to say that.I appreciate your interest in this thread, but it seems you’ve gotten irritable and are assuming too much and understanding too little. There is nothing in my post to warrant your interpretation. Quite the opposite, in fact.
In your opinion, has the US ever conducted an aggressive war?
Yes, definitely. The Spanish American War was aggressive on the part of the U.S. No doubt in my mind about that. The “Maine” appears to have been blown from the inside. Whether by coal dust or something more nefarious, or even if it was blown from the outside, we didn’t know then who did it, the Spanish did everything they could to mollify the U.S., but we went to war anyway.
Before the thread returns to topic (and I would rather do that before the Moderator tells us to) do you believe the War in Afghanistan is an aggressive war on the part of the U.S.?
I’m sorry I seemed to be dancing around it, but I couldn’t think of a way to ask it and stay topical. So I’ll ask the following general question, which would also apply to Viet Nam. In considering whether a war is aggressive or not,do you feel any war is “aggressive” unless we are subjected to armed attack first?
D
D_M
Guest
I think both considered this, although probably moreso Lenin than Marx is my guess.You suggest it was to spread free market economies and democracy. This is only part of it. It was to spread freedom. That’s essentially what democracy and free market is. The free press, free speech, freedom of religion…
Was it Marx or Lenin who considered religion as a way those in power oppressed the people?
It’s true there is a tradition of atheism strongly interlinked with the tradition of Marxist-Leninism, and this is evil, although simply in terms of the larger part of Marx’s works about his critique of capital and the exploitation of labour… there is nothing essentially anti-christian about it…
I think it was Lenin who once said, “If I had just twelve St Francis of Assisi’s I could overthrow the world!”
The United States was not fighting atheism in Viet Nam in order to spread the true faith by which men are cleansed from sin and made truly free, but rather they were, as you correctly put it, fighting for any number of ‘freedoms’ that come in the form of temporal individual rights that have been considered almost sacred in the tradition of American democracy since 1776, but by which us sinners are certainly not made free.
If it were fighting against atheism in the name of Christ, I could then have less difficulty taking the argument that this was a war of good and evil, but otherwise it seems to be simply a clash of ideologies, and I don’t think that the United States is really any more justified, or less justified (however you prefer to see it) than the vietnamese guerrillas on that account.
S
SCALCO
Guest
In the United States, we have the freedom to worship as we choose without govt. control or persecution. Under communism, people may have the freedom to worship, but it is controlled and often persecuted by the govt. Right or wrong, that’s one of the things were were fighting against.I think both considered this, although probably moreso Lenin than Marx is my guess.
It’s true there is a tradition of atheism strongly interlinked with the tradition of Marxist-Leninism, and this is evil, although simply in terms of the larger part of Marx’s works about his critique of capital and the exploitation of labour… there is nothing essentially anti-christian about it…
I think it was Lenin who once said, “If I had just twelve St Francis of Assisi’s I could overthrow the world!”
The United States was not fighting atheism in Viet Nam in order to spread the true faith by which men are cleansed from sin and made truly free, but rather they were, as you correctly put it, fighting for any number of ‘freedoms’ that come in the form of temporal individual rights that have been considered almost sacred in the tradition of American democracy since 1776, but by which us sinners are certainly not made free.
If it were fighting against atheism in the name of Christ, I could then have less difficulty taking the argument that this was a war of good and evil, but otherwise it seems to be simply a clash of ideologies, and I don’t think that the United States is really any more justified, or less justified (however you prefer to see it) than the vietnamese guerrillas on that account.
state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf/2006/71363.htm
The 2004 Ordinance on Religion and Belief serves as the primary document governing religious practice in Vietnam. It reiterates citizens’ rights to freedom of belief, religion, and freedom not to follow a religion, and it states that violations of these freedoms are prohibited. However, it advises that “abuse” of freedom of belief or religion “to undermine the country’s peace, independence, and unity” is illegal and warns that religious activities must be suspended if they negatively affect the cultural traditions of the nation. The ordinance continues the practice of government control and oversight of religious organizations. Under its provisions, religious denominations must be officially recognized or registered, and the activities and leadership of individual religious congregations must be approved by the appropriate lower-level authorities. The establishment of seminaries and the organization of and enrollment in classes must also be approved by appropriate authorities. The naming of priests or other religious officials requires the approval of authorities only when a “foreign element,” such as the Vatican, is involved.
S
SoCalRC
Guest
Like any human being, I carry baggage. Chickenhawkism in particular bothers me. If we do, in fact, treasure life as the most inviolate of rights, than playing fast and loose with the lives of others in ways in which one will not endanger one’s own is the antithesis. The most loathesome of attacks on the inalienable rights of the human person.I disagree more with Ridgerunner than almost anybody on this forum, but I think you should let this grudge go.
The rest of the post was great. I totally agree with everything you said. And yes, its frustrating that so many can’t see these simple truths.
But don’t confuse intentionally antogonizing with heatfelt animosity. Dig up the exchange I referenced. Howling that I was an agent of evil, intentionally misleading the faithful… Then to be confronted with the reality that my statement, and one’s own quote from the Church on the matter are virtually identical. Finally, lacking the strength of character to accept responsibility for one’s mistakes and simply slinking away to brood.
True story, quite a few years ago I received two calls at my office. The first was from my doctor calling me to tell me that I needed to come in and discuss a very serious form of cancer. The second was the principle at my son’s school. My son is disabled and you could say that my wife and I were on the cutting edge of community based care in what was still the ‘institutionalize’ age. Anyway, the principle called to tell me personally that my son’s one on one aide had been fired and arrested for physically assualting him. Suddenly, I wanted to go home. But there was a catch. I was supposed to attend a multinational telephone conference in the afternoon, which had taken weeks to setup.
I walked down the hall and asked my saint of a business partner if he could cover for me. No questions asked, other than if there was anything else he could do for me. As I thanked him, he did suggest that perhaps one of the project team should sit in with him for technical questions. A good idea, so I walked down the hall to ask a woman on the team to attend the call. She got a worried look and told me she had to leave work early. I must have made a face, because she hurriedly explained that it was about her dog.
She explained that her dog had been spending a lot of time with her boyfriend and “I can’t have him like him more than me”. I admit, I had a moment of pure rage, but then I looked and say dark circles under her eyes. We are talking about a well educated person, rougly half way through lifes journey, making an upper middle class income, who was losing sleep over doggy fidelity. It took great effort not to laugh out loud. After all, my dogs have all been devoted to me primarily because I feed them!
I went back to my office, closed the door, dropped to my knees and thanked God, literally. I had problems, certainly, but my son was now safe and releatively unharmed, I had the means to get the best treatment available for my own problems, and whatever had happened to that poor women to make her such an utter emotional trainwreck as a human being had not happened to me.
My attitude towards RR is similiar. Think of how out of kilter you would need to be emotionally to engage in the original behavior. Then to have the humiliation of being shown to be utterly uniformed and completely in the wrong. So, you wonder, why antogonize such a person? After all, think of the emotional demons such a person already carries…
The answer is, look at the subject at hand. The Church teaches us that, by its very nature, war incurs intrinsic evil. A scourge of man and an affront to God. The general level of disucssion here, with virtually no mastery of the basic facts, precious little knowledge of the realities of war, and no true grasp of the human cost, is precariously close to complicency with intrinsic evil. Chances are good that I cannot make those with a herd political mentality any better informed or improve their reasoning skills. But if I can take someone’s existing resentment and animosity towards me and use it to force them to confront war on a more human level - even if that is just forcing them to admit that they are talking about sacrifice and dying that they, themselves, are unwilling to do, it is worth doing.
Remember, dehumanization is the first step than societies always do to prepare the population for war.
S
SoCalRC
Guest
What, precisely, are you basing this on? Or, better yet, what exactly would you have changed?Rules of engagement!!
Also known as pulling one’s punches.
Should we have engaged in more torture? More indiscrimate killing of the population, nuclear aggression, what?
Yes, we wasted a lot of lives, but how, exactly did we “pussyfoot”? Before you answer, remember that I spent about 23 months in combat with a bat with a KIA ratio well over 90%. I’ve heard this moronic blather before, but no one seems to be able to explain exactly what manly acts would have changed the outcome, so I look forward to you enlightening us.We wasted a lot of our resources and the lives of our soldiers and wasted a tremendous amount of time by pussyfooting around instead of simply killing the enemy.
If you were too young to serve in Vietnam, how could you have had access to so much lead paint as a child? There was undoubtedly a lot of collateral damage in WW-II. Bombers would dump munitions on non military targets rather than carry them back, etc. But there was plenty of ‘collateral damage’ in Vietnam as well - as anyone who has been close enough to an airstrike on jungle to take cover and feel the heat can tell you.We didn’t have rules of engagement in WW2.
But we most certainly had rules of engagement in WW-II, particular with regards to surrendering forces and unarmed civilians. Were they always followed? No. As the Church notes, attrocities are an inherent outcome of war, which is why it is so grievously evil and so important to avoid. But even though horrific things occured, we kept enough of the moral high ground to make the subsequent war crimes tries possible.
If nothing else, look at Japan. Sneak attack without a declaration of war, attrocities in China, attrocities in the south pacific, US soldiers hauled back as slave labor in Japan, and we rebuilt the country.
The US has a long history of this. In the revolution, the British forces engaged in attrocities against the population. Washington issued specific orders on how prisoners were to be humanely treated.
Not to pick on you personally, but I always find statements like yours amazing. Why is there flag waving on a Catholic forum from people who seem to want to be Romans, not Christ, and who sneer at the humanity of everyone from Washington to Ike?
Kind of a mystery, actually.
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
A number of people have written about Rules of Engagement.
The notion of “Rules of Engagement” even appear in the news media today.
Here is one Web site dedicated just to Rules of Engagement during the Vietnam War.
cc.gatech.edu/fac/Thomas.Pilsch/AirOps/cas-roe.html
BUT ANYWAY, herewith is a description of Col Jack Broughton’s experience with Rules of Engagement.
"Broughton, too, left the Air Force after his court-martial. During his retirement, he wrote Thud Ridge and Going Downtown, both books about his experiences as a Thud pilot in Vietnam. While his rehabilitation was not nearly so dramatic as Billy Mitchell’s, Broughton was returned to Air Force favor. In 1997, three decades after the Turkestan incident, Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald R. Fogleman directed the Air Force to buy 10,000 copies of Thud Ridge, which, along with 12 other books on the Air Force’s basic suggested reading list, were provided free of charge to all Air Force officers upon their promotion to captain.
"General Jack Lavelle was not so fortunate. Lavelle, who was serving as the commander of the Seventh Air Force in 1972, told his troops that they were fighting in a war and were to act and react accordingly. He urged them to shoot first, ask questions later, and destroy enemy military targets.
"As crazy as it may sound, those orders were in direct violation of Washington’s bureaucratic rules. As General William C. Westmoreland, the longtime U.S. military commander in Vietnam, related in his memoirs: ‘In 1965, we observed the construction of the first surface-to-air (SAM) sites in North Vietnam, and the military sought permission to attack them before they were completed to save American casualties. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs John McNaughton ridiculed the idea.
" 'You don’t think the North Vietnamese are going to use them!’ he scoffed [to Lavelle’s predecessor, Seventh Air Force Commander General Joseph H. Moore]. ‘Putting them in is just a political ploy by the Russians to appease Hanoi.’ It was all a matter of signals, said the clever civilian theorist in Washington. We won’t bomb the SAM sites, which signals to North Vietnam not to use them.’ But our enemies were not playing Washington’s silly games. A month later the United States lost its first aircraft to a SAM.
"By 1971, when General Lavelle assumed command of the Seventh Air Force, President Johnson, McNamara and McNaughton were long gone. Johnson had been replaced by Richard Nixon; Melvin Laird was secretary of defense; and Admiral Thomas Moorer, a naval aviator and World War II combat veteran, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. McNaughton had been killed in a plane crash in 1967. Nevertheless, many of the restrictions imposed by the Johnson-McNamara ‘ROE’ (rules of engagement) were still in effect in Vietnam.
"Absolutely forbidden targets included: any MiG base designated as a sanctuary, a MiG fighter that did not have its landing gear retracted, any MiG fighter not showing hostile intent (no fighter jock ever figured that one out), and any SAM site not in operation. A SAM had to be fired at a U.S. plane before the plane could fire back, a dicey situation at best. There were more restrictions, but the rules listed here were the ones that frustrated U.S. fighter pilots the most and formed the backdrop for the Lavelle affair.
"Until now, the details of Lavelle’s story have not been published. Lavelle fought in three wars, rose to the rank of four-star general, served as the commander of the Seventh Air Force in Vietnam and was concurrently appointed the deputy commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), the highest military headquarters in Vietnam.
"At his headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near Saigon, Lavelle’s first order of business each morning was to study the combat losses inflicted on ‘his boys’ the day before. He sent word to every fighter unit in the Seventh Air Force that if their planes were shot at, they were to shoot back. They shouldn’t wait for the SAMs to become operational and start shooting their ‘flying telephone poles.’ The fighter pilots were told to hit transporters and SAM sites under construction.
"Changes in North Vietnamese air defense tactics had made such pre-emptive actions essential. As a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee would later report: ‘In late 1971, the North Vietnamese took several actions which vastly improved and augmented their tracking capability. The most important was netting of their early warning and surveillance radar and their anti-aircraft artillery radar with SAM missiles. In that netted mode, the Fan Song (radars) which alerted U.S. pilots to the surveillance never came up, as the surveillance could all be conducted with the other radars. General Lavelle believed that, with those mutually supporting radar systems transmitting tracking data to the firing sites, the SAM missile system was activated at U.S. aircraft at any time they were over North Vietnam.’
"Even though in 1972 many in Washington knew that the 4-year-old Johnson-McNamara nonsensical rules of engagement were strategically, operationally and tactically counterproductive, no one, civilian or military, made any effort to change them. Therefore, when Jack Lavelle sent that’shoot back’ order to his troops, he got in very hot water. As the official U.S. Air Force history of the war laconically states, ‘General Lavelle was recalled from his post in April 1972, charged with having authorized certain ‘protective reaction’ strikes beyond those permitted by the rules of engagement.’
“While Broughton reported to military bureaucrats, Lavelle was answerable to both military and civilian officials, and it was primarily the bureaucratic politicians in the U.S. Senate, searching for a scapegoat to placate their anti-war constituents, who ultimately did him in.”
historynet.com/air-force-colonel-jacksel-jack-broughton-air-force-general-john-d-jack-lavelle-testing-the-rules-of-engagement-during-the-vietnam-war.htm
The notion of “Rules of Engagement” even appear in the news media today.
Here is one Web site dedicated just to Rules of Engagement during the Vietnam War.
cc.gatech.edu/fac/Thomas.Pilsch/AirOps/cas-roe.html
BUT ANYWAY, herewith is a description of Col Jack Broughton’s experience with Rules of Engagement.
"Broughton, too, left the Air Force after his court-martial. During his retirement, he wrote Thud Ridge and Going Downtown, both books about his experiences as a Thud pilot in Vietnam. While his rehabilitation was not nearly so dramatic as Billy Mitchell’s, Broughton was returned to Air Force favor. In 1997, three decades after the Turkestan incident, Air Force Chief of Staff General Ronald R. Fogleman directed the Air Force to buy 10,000 copies of Thud Ridge, which, along with 12 other books on the Air Force’s basic suggested reading list, were provided free of charge to all Air Force officers upon their promotion to captain.
"General Jack Lavelle was not so fortunate. Lavelle, who was serving as the commander of the Seventh Air Force in 1972, told his troops that they were fighting in a war and were to act and react accordingly. He urged them to shoot first, ask questions later, and destroy enemy military targets.
"As crazy as it may sound, those orders were in direct violation of Washington’s bureaucratic rules. As General William C. Westmoreland, the longtime U.S. military commander in Vietnam, related in his memoirs: ‘In 1965, we observed the construction of the first surface-to-air (SAM) sites in North Vietnam, and the military sought permission to attack them before they were completed to save American casualties. Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Affairs John McNaughton ridiculed the idea.
" 'You don’t think the North Vietnamese are going to use them!’ he scoffed [to Lavelle’s predecessor, Seventh Air Force Commander General Joseph H. Moore]. ‘Putting them in is just a political ploy by the Russians to appease Hanoi.’ It was all a matter of signals, said the clever civilian theorist in Washington. We won’t bomb the SAM sites, which signals to North Vietnam not to use them.’ But our enemies were not playing Washington’s silly games. A month later the United States lost its first aircraft to a SAM.
"By 1971, when General Lavelle assumed command of the Seventh Air Force, President Johnson, McNamara and McNaughton were long gone. Johnson had been replaced by Richard Nixon; Melvin Laird was secretary of defense; and Admiral Thomas Moorer, a naval aviator and World War II combat veteran, was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. McNaughton had been killed in a plane crash in 1967. Nevertheless, many of the restrictions imposed by the Johnson-McNamara ‘ROE’ (rules of engagement) were still in effect in Vietnam.
"Absolutely forbidden targets included: any MiG base designated as a sanctuary, a MiG fighter that did not have its landing gear retracted, any MiG fighter not showing hostile intent (no fighter jock ever figured that one out), and any SAM site not in operation. A SAM had to be fired at a U.S. plane before the plane could fire back, a dicey situation at best. There were more restrictions, but the rules listed here were the ones that frustrated U.S. fighter pilots the most and formed the backdrop for the Lavelle affair.
"Until now, the details of Lavelle’s story have not been published. Lavelle fought in three wars, rose to the rank of four-star general, served as the commander of the Seventh Air Force in Vietnam and was concurrently appointed the deputy commander of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV), the highest military headquarters in Vietnam.
"At his headquarters at Tan Son Nhut Air Base, near Saigon, Lavelle’s first order of business each morning was to study the combat losses inflicted on ‘his boys’ the day before. He sent word to every fighter unit in the Seventh Air Force that if their planes were shot at, they were to shoot back. They shouldn’t wait for the SAMs to become operational and start shooting their ‘flying telephone poles.’ The fighter pilots were told to hit transporters and SAM sites under construction.
"Changes in North Vietnamese air defense tactics had made such pre-emptive actions essential. As a subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee would later report: ‘In late 1971, the North Vietnamese took several actions which vastly improved and augmented their tracking capability. The most important was netting of their early warning and surveillance radar and their anti-aircraft artillery radar with SAM missiles. In that netted mode, the Fan Song (radars) which alerted U.S. pilots to the surveillance never came up, as the surveillance could all be conducted with the other radars. General Lavelle believed that, with those mutually supporting radar systems transmitting tracking data to the firing sites, the SAM missile system was activated at U.S. aircraft at any time they were over North Vietnam.’
"Even though in 1972 many in Washington knew that the 4-year-old Johnson-McNamara nonsensical rules of engagement were strategically, operationally and tactically counterproductive, no one, civilian or military, made any effort to change them. Therefore, when Jack Lavelle sent that’shoot back’ order to his troops, he got in very hot water. As the official U.S. Air Force history of the war laconically states, ‘General Lavelle was recalled from his post in April 1972, charged with having authorized certain ‘protective reaction’ strikes beyond those permitted by the rules of engagement.’
“While Broughton reported to military bureaucrats, Lavelle was answerable to both military and civilian officials, and it was primarily the bureaucratic politicians in the U.S. Senate, searching for a scapegoat to placate their anti-war constituents, who ultimately did him in.”
historynet.com/air-force-colonel-jacksel-jack-broughton-air-force-general-john-d-jack-lavelle-testing-the-rules-of-engagement-during-the-vietnam-war.htm
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Here are more written essays and memoranda on the Vietnam War Rules of Engagement:
globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/DM.htm
airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj92/fall92/hump.htm
jcs-group.com/military/war1964/testing.html
stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA425601
handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA425601
talkingproud.us/HistoryLavelle.html
globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1995/DM.htm
airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj92/fall92/hump.htm
jcs-group.com/military/war1964/testing.html
stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA425601
handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA425601
talkingproud.us/HistoryLavelle.html
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
This is a long one:
What I have copied and pasted is just the section on the detrimental effects of the Rules of Engagement during the Vietnam War.
The full essay discusses in great detail seven myths of the Vietnam War. Excellent reading, a lot of detail.
freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1021097/posts
Myth #2: The impact of the Pentagon’s Rules of Engagement on our military capabilities in Vietnam has been greatly exaggerated.
Response: It is hardly possible to exaggerate the deleterious impact that the politically imposed Rules of Engagement (ROE) exerted, both on the actual military performance and on the morale of our forces. In fact, the political powers that be - in both Democrat and Republican administrations - understood well that the restrictions imposed on our forces were so clearly unreasonable and immoral that the American public would be totally outraged if they found out about them. So the rules were classified, and our troops and commanders were ordered not to mention them. It was 1985, ten years after the Communist takeover of Vietnam, before Senator Barry Goldwater succeeded in obtaining their declassification. The Rules of Engagement consumed 26 pages of the Congressional Record (March 6, 14, and 18, 1985). Summarizing some of the most outrageous curbs on our military, Goldwater said:
These layers of restrictions, which were constantly changing and were almost impossible to memorize or understand, although it was required of our pilots, granted huge sanctuary areas to the enemy. When certain limits would at last be removed after repeated appeals by the Joint Chiefs, the reductions were made only in gradual steps and seldom were strong enough to serve our strategic ends. Numerous partial and total bombing halts interrupted the effectiveness of earlier bombing campaigns. Often, when limited extensions of target areas were granted, they were unexpectedly canceled and withdrawn shortly afterward. What were some of the rules?
SAM missile sites could not be bombed while they were under construction, but only after they became operational.
Pilots were not permitted to attack a Communist MiG sitting on the runway. The only time it could be attacked was after it was in the air, had been identified, and had showed hostile intentions. Even then, its base could not be bombed.
Military truck depots located just over 200 yards from a road could not be destroyed. Enemy trucks on a road could be attacked, but if they drove off the road they were safe from bombing.
If a South Vietnamese forward air controller was not on an aircraft, it was forbidden to bomb enemy troops during a fire fight even though the Reds were clearly visible and were being pointed at by an officer on the ground. The aircraft’s bombs were dumped in the ocean.(20)
In 1972, Major General John D. Lavelle was relieved of his command of the 7th Air Force in Vietnam for protecting his men against imminent attack from Soviet jets being positioned in sanctuaries just across the border in North Vietnam. News accounts reported that General Lavelle ordered strikes against the enemy bases “after his pilots saw and photographed a five-month buildup of Soviet-built MIG jet fighters at three airfields just across the demilitarized zone, along with SAM missile sites, heavy 133-mm artillery guns, anti-aircraft guns and tanks.”(21)
General Lavelle stated:
At that time, as commander on the spot concerned with the safety of my men and at the same time trying to stop the buildup that was being made for Hanoi’s invasion of the South, I felt that these were justifiable actions.(22)
In his testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee, General Lavelle said of his actions: “If I had it to do over I would do the same thing again.”(23) Incredibly, during the same week that Lavelle was recalled, the North Vietnamese launched a major offensive against South Vietnam, prompting President Nixon to suspend the rules Lavelle had been accused of violating. Nixon then ordered tactical air strikes against some of the same targets Lavelle had singled out.(24)
Major General Frederick C. “Boots” Blesse, a flying ace of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, said of the ROE in Vietnam:
We had a lot of restrictions under which we fought the war. One week you could hit a target, the next week it was on the no-no list. If you were on a mission to Hanoi and saw a train or other target of opportunity, you had to let it go – no authorization. We had to watch the first SAM sites being built, and couldn’t strike them because there might be some Russians helping to build the site. Our feeling was if you kill the site early, you’ll never have to take on more than one at a time. If you wait, they will build a ring of them, and while you are attacking one, another will be firing at you. If there was Russians there, it was because they chose to be. They should have to take the same chances we take for helping another country.(25)
“I was always taught as an officer that in a pursuit situation you continue to pursue until you either kill the enemy or he surrenders,” said General Harry W.O. Kinnard, commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, echoing the frustration of virtually every American officer in Vietnam. “Not to follow them into Cambodia violated every principle of warfare… It became perfectly clear to the North Vietnamese that they then had sanctuary; they could come when they were ready to fight and leave when they were ready to quit.”(26) Kinnard continued:
When [Communist North Vietnamese] General Giap says he learned how to fight Americans and our helicopters at the Ia Drang, that’s bulls***! What he learned was that we were not going to be allowed to chase him across a mythical line in the dirt. From that point forward, he was grinning. He can bring us to battle when he wants and where he wants, and where’s that? Always within a few miles of the border where his supply lines were the shortest, where the preponderance of forces is his, where he has scouted the terrain intensely and knows it better than we do.(27)
“The Ia Drang had plenty of water for drinking and for cooking rice,” recalls Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore in his Vietnam War bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once … and Young. “Best of all, for the PAVN [People’s Army of Vietnam], was its location on the border with Cambodia. The Vietnamese Communists came and went across the border at will; we were prohibited from crossing it.”(28) “We knew for a fact,” says Moore, “that the three North Vietnamese regiments that we had fought in the Ia Drang had withdrawn into Cambodia. We wanted to follow them in hot pursuit, on the ground and in the air, but we could not do so under the rules of engagement. Washington had just answered one very important question in the minds of Hanoi’s leaders.”(29)
What I have copied and pasted is just the section on the detrimental effects of the Rules of Engagement during the Vietnam War.
The full essay discusses in great detail seven myths of the Vietnam War. Excellent reading, a lot of detail.
freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1021097/posts
Myth #2: The impact of the Pentagon’s Rules of Engagement on our military capabilities in Vietnam has been greatly exaggerated.
Response: It is hardly possible to exaggerate the deleterious impact that the politically imposed Rules of Engagement (ROE) exerted, both on the actual military performance and on the morale of our forces. In fact, the political powers that be - in both Democrat and Republican administrations - understood well that the restrictions imposed on our forces were so clearly unreasonable and immoral that the American public would be totally outraged if they found out about them. So the rules were classified, and our troops and commanders were ordered not to mention them. It was 1985, ten years after the Communist takeover of Vietnam, before Senator Barry Goldwater succeeded in obtaining their declassification. The Rules of Engagement consumed 26 pages of the Congressional Record (March 6, 14, and 18, 1985). Summarizing some of the most outrageous curbs on our military, Goldwater said:
These layers of restrictions, which were constantly changing and were almost impossible to memorize or understand, although it was required of our pilots, granted huge sanctuary areas to the enemy. When certain limits would at last be removed after repeated appeals by the Joint Chiefs, the reductions were made only in gradual steps and seldom were strong enough to serve our strategic ends. Numerous partial and total bombing halts interrupted the effectiveness of earlier bombing campaigns. Often, when limited extensions of target areas were granted, they were unexpectedly canceled and withdrawn shortly afterward. What were some of the rules?
SAM missile sites could not be bombed while they were under construction, but only after they became operational.
Pilots were not permitted to attack a Communist MiG sitting on the runway. The only time it could be attacked was after it was in the air, had been identified, and had showed hostile intentions. Even then, its base could not be bombed.
Military truck depots located just over 200 yards from a road could not be destroyed. Enemy trucks on a road could be attacked, but if they drove off the road they were safe from bombing.
If a South Vietnamese forward air controller was not on an aircraft, it was forbidden to bomb enemy troops during a fire fight even though the Reds were clearly visible and were being pointed at by an officer on the ground. The aircraft’s bombs were dumped in the ocean.(20)
In 1972, Major General John D. Lavelle was relieved of his command of the 7th Air Force in Vietnam for protecting his men against imminent attack from Soviet jets being positioned in sanctuaries just across the border in North Vietnam. News accounts reported that General Lavelle ordered strikes against the enemy bases “after his pilots saw and photographed a five-month buildup of Soviet-built MIG jet fighters at three airfields just across the demilitarized zone, along with SAM missile sites, heavy 133-mm artillery guns, anti-aircraft guns and tanks.”(21)
General Lavelle stated:
At that time, as commander on the spot concerned with the safety of my men and at the same time trying to stop the buildup that was being made for Hanoi’s invasion of the South, I felt that these were justifiable actions.(22)
In his testimony before the House Armed Services Subcommittee, General Lavelle said of his actions: “If I had it to do over I would do the same thing again.”(23) Incredibly, during the same week that Lavelle was recalled, the North Vietnamese launched a major offensive against South Vietnam, prompting President Nixon to suspend the rules Lavelle had been accused of violating. Nixon then ordered tactical air strikes against some of the same targets Lavelle had singled out.(24)
Major General Frederick C. “Boots” Blesse, a flying ace of both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, said of the ROE in Vietnam:
We had a lot of restrictions under which we fought the war. One week you could hit a target, the next week it was on the no-no list. If you were on a mission to Hanoi and saw a train or other target of opportunity, you had to let it go – no authorization. We had to watch the first SAM sites being built, and couldn’t strike them because there might be some Russians helping to build the site. Our feeling was if you kill the site early, you’ll never have to take on more than one at a time. If you wait, they will build a ring of them, and while you are attacking one, another will be firing at you. If there was Russians there, it was because they chose to be. They should have to take the same chances we take for helping another country.(25)
“I was always taught as an officer that in a pursuit situation you continue to pursue until you either kill the enemy or he surrenders,” said General Harry W.O. Kinnard, commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, echoing the frustration of virtually every American officer in Vietnam. “Not to follow them into Cambodia violated every principle of warfare… It became perfectly clear to the North Vietnamese that they then had sanctuary; they could come when they were ready to fight and leave when they were ready to quit.”(26) Kinnard continued:
When [Communist North Vietnamese] General Giap says he learned how to fight Americans and our helicopters at the Ia Drang, that’s bulls***! What he learned was that we were not going to be allowed to chase him across a mythical line in the dirt. From that point forward, he was grinning. He can bring us to battle when he wants and where he wants, and where’s that? Always within a few miles of the border where his supply lines were the shortest, where the preponderance of forces is his, where he has scouted the terrain intensely and knows it better than we do.(27)
“The Ia Drang had plenty of water for drinking and for cooking rice,” recalls Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore in his Vietnam War bestseller, We Were Soldiers Once … and Young. “Best of all, for the PAVN [People’s Army of Vietnam], was its location on the border with Cambodia. The Vietnamese Communists came and went across the border at will; we were prohibited from crossing it.”(28) “We knew for a fact,” says Moore, “that the three North Vietnamese regiments that we had fought in the Ia Drang had withdrawn into Cambodia. We wanted to follow them in hot pursuit, on the ground and in the air, but we could not do so under the rules of engagement. Washington had just answered one very important question in the minds of Hanoi’s leaders.”(29)
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
This book review mentions the restrictive nature of the Rules of Engagement but has some other interesting things about the Tet Offensive:
newsweekly.com.au/articles/2000jun3_books1.html
The article below discusses a large number of books and memoirs of the Vietnam War. The article also summarizes the effects of the Rules of Engagement as recounted by some of the fellows who became Prisoners of War in North Vietnam:
theatlantic.com/doc/200708u/kaplan-vietnam
You’ll need to get the referred books to get all of the gory details of the problems caused by the Rules of Engagement.
" … Captain Sijan, injured worse than Bud Day during ejection, evaded the North Vietnamese for six weeks. After he was captured, he escaped again, then was recaptured, and died of torture and pneumonia. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
"This occurred while the pilots were operating under extremely restrictive ROEs (rules of engagement). Stockdale describes bombing runs over Hanoi in which each plane had to follow the other in exactly the same path, with almost no unscheduled maneuvering permitted—significantly increasing the chance of a plane being shot down, in order to reduce the chances of errant bombs hitting civilians. He and other pilots rage over how restrictive rather than wanton were the so-called Christmas bombings (which, incidentally, were called off on Christmas Day). Few other air campaigns in history were fought under such limited ROEs, and yet achieved such an immediate and desired political impact: the return of the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, the release of the POWs, and the end of America’s military involvement in the war. The equivalent would have been if the p(name removed by moderator)rick bombings ordered by President Bill Clinton on Iraq in 1998 had led to a regime change in Baghdad; or a change of heart by Saddam Hussein that opened the country unambiguously to United Nations weapons inspections.
" ‘Bury Us Upside Down’ documents the lives of men who, like Bud Day, served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam—a fact that inspires envy among professional warriors I know. … "
newsweekly.com.au/articles/2000jun3_books1.html
The article below discusses a large number of books and memoirs of the Vietnam War. The article also summarizes the effects of the Rules of Engagement as recounted by some of the fellows who became Prisoners of War in North Vietnam:
theatlantic.com/doc/200708u/kaplan-vietnam
You’ll need to get the referred books to get all of the gory details of the problems caused by the Rules of Engagement.
" … Captain Sijan, injured worse than Bud Day during ejection, evaded the North Vietnamese for six weeks. After he was captured, he escaped again, then was recaptured, and died of torture and pneumonia. He was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously.
"This occurred while the pilots were operating under extremely restrictive ROEs (rules of engagement). Stockdale describes bombing runs over Hanoi in which each plane had to follow the other in exactly the same path, with almost no unscheduled maneuvering permitted—significantly increasing the chance of a plane being shot down, in order to reduce the chances of errant bombs hitting civilians. He and other pilots rage over how restrictive rather than wanton were the so-called Christmas bombings (which, incidentally, were called off on Christmas Day). Few other air campaigns in history were fought under such limited ROEs, and yet achieved such an immediate and desired political impact: the return of the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, the release of the POWs, and the end of America’s military involvement in the war. The equivalent would have been if the p(name removed by moderator)rick bombings ordered by President Bill Clinton on Iraq in 1998 had led to a regime change in Baghdad; or a change of heart by Saddam Hussein that opened the country unambiguously to United Nations weapons inspections.
" ‘Bury Us Upside Down’ documents the lives of men who, like Bud Day, served in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam—a fact that inspires envy among professional warriors I know. … "
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Previously I posted mostly Rules of Engagement that adversely affected the Air Force and the Navy during the Vietnam War.
Here is something written about Rules of Engagement during the Vietnam War that adversely affected the U.S. Army:
e-thepeople.org/article/15520/view
“Capt. David Christian, Fox News Analyst, Brookes’ opponent tonight on the O’Reilley Factor said that in the Viet Nam War, if they went into Cambodia to pursue North Vietnamese who were using the Ho Chi Minh Trail, they had to get themselves out, and had to carry the wounded out on their backs. Following the Think Tanks’ Rules of Engagement, ultimately led to our defeat in that war. The big difference will be the number of casaulties we suffer.”
Some other interesting bits and pieces on Rules of Engagement as they adversely impacted U.S. ground troops:
www2.ku.edu/~kunrotc/academics/380/vietnam.doc.
Hue
Feb 1968
5th Marines + RVN troops vs four NVA regiments.
Had to cross Perfume River, then deal with 16’ citadel walls to retake city.
Weather and rules of engagement caused friction, limiting effectiveness of fire support.
Marines used to fighting in jungle and rice paddies had to adapt to MOUT.
House to house fighting left over 100k homeless.
Decentralized command.
Regimental CO to Battalion CO: “You do it any way you want”.
Bloodiest single battle of the war.
Here is something written about Rules of Engagement during the Vietnam War that adversely affected the U.S. Army:
e-thepeople.org/article/15520/view
“Capt. David Christian, Fox News Analyst, Brookes’ opponent tonight on the O’Reilley Factor said that in the Viet Nam War, if they went into Cambodia to pursue North Vietnamese who were using the Ho Chi Minh Trail, they had to get themselves out, and had to carry the wounded out on their backs. Following the Think Tanks’ Rules of Engagement, ultimately led to our defeat in that war. The big difference will be the number of casaulties we suffer.”
Some other interesting bits and pieces on Rules of Engagement as they adversely impacted U.S. ground troops:
www2.ku.edu/~kunrotc/academics/380/vietnam.doc.
Hue
Feb 1968
5th Marines + RVN troops vs four NVA regiments.
Had to cross Perfume River, then deal with 16’ citadel walls to retake city.
Weather and rules of engagement caused friction, limiting effectiveness of fire support.
Marines used to fighting in jungle and rice paddies had to adapt to MOUT.
House to house fighting left over 100k homeless.
Decentralized command.
Regimental CO to Battalion CO: “You do it any way you want”.
Bloodiest single battle of the war.
NVA/VC round up and execute leaders and suspected US/RVN sympathizers during initial occupation of city.5k NVA/VC KIA; 1k USMC, 600 USA casualties.
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