soubriquet 0 Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 Story here: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15980564-23109,00.html "GENERAL William Westmoreland, the highly decorated former commander of US forces in Vietnam whose name became synonymous with the US military debacle in South-East Asia, has died at a retirement home in Charleston, South Carolina. He was 91." My abiding memory is of him coming out in a TV interview with something like this ".... Asian people aren`t like you and me, they don`t have emotions........" I knew then, in 1966, that the US had picked a general to win battles, but not a war. Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 you cant win a war when the leaders dont want you too. Link to post Share on other sites
soubriquet 0 Posted July 20, 2005 Author Share Posted July 20, 2005 Westmoreland was a general from the the Sherman school "war is hell", and he made it so. Nightly on TV we had the several hundred dead body count, where every dead Asian was Vietcong. The Politician behind this was not Johnson or Nixon. His name is Kissinger, the grand strategic planner behind carpet bombing of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. I would like to see Kissinger in front of a truly independent War Crime tribunal. Link to post Share on other sites
Ocean11 0 Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 > My abiding memory is of him coming out in a TV interview with something like this ".... Asian people aren`t like you and me, they don`t have emotions........" Featured in the documentary "Hearts & Minds", followed by a little Asian boy crying after his family was killed. If Kissinger went before a WC tribunal, then you'd have to put every US president and Secretary of State up for trial too. It would just get awfully 'frivolous' as they like to say. It's rather timely for Westmoreland to die now, just as the lessons 'learned' in Vietnam are being 'learned' all over again in Iraq. I'm sure that will invite some comment over at www.antiwar.com. Link to post Share on other sites
Fattwins 0 Posted July 20, 2005 Share Posted July 20, 2005 The cold war wars, were fought for different reasons. Each side tried to use different ways to increase their value per say, or bankrupt the other side. the more countries on your side the better. It went both ways and both sides used certain countries as puppets in the game. In the end america never wanted to win Vietnam. If they wanted to win it they needed to march all the way to hoh chi min. Link to post Share on other sites
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