Reply #23: Iraqnam and the hardliners [View All]

Mayberry Machiavelli

You sound like you lived through the Vietnam fiasco. I was between ten and twenty when the war was going on (1H student deferrment) but guy in my dorm was drafted in 1972. The war ended mainly because we refused to fund it anymore. The picture above is from an Evergreen air helicopter and I believe from the CIA station, not the embassy. Read "Decent Interval" by Frank Snepp and also David Butler's excellent "Fall of Saigon". The real wackjob was a Democrat, Ambassador Graham A. Martin, at the time in S.Vietnam. In 1965 while he was ambassador to Thailand his adopted son Glenn Dill Mann was KIA in Vietnam immediately after the Ia Drang battle. Mann was a helicopter copilot. This deeply affected the ambassador (JFK appointed him to Thailand Nov 1, 1963 oddly enough...BTW, Wm. 'Wild Bill' Donovan was Thailand ambassador in the 50's). Later Nixon appointed Martin ambassador to Italy (the Golden Triangle was really taking off by now '69) and funding for the war was starting to get more and more difficult. By '73-74 Martin is installed in Saigon as ambassador and is pushing for around $500million at the end. The first oil crisis had hit and Pentagon people were worried more about how they would get gas enought to get to work !

Anyhow, Iraqnam as you put it will end the same. A long occupation that cannot win hearts and minds followed by a cutoff of funding. Congress will ignore public dissent; too much oil money and war profits to be made.