Ray McGovern (TomPaine): Helicopter Down

[Dudley_DUright]

Ray McGovern, a 27-year veteran of the CIA, regularly briefed George H. W. Bush as vice president and, earlier, worked with him closely when he was director of CIA. Mr. McGovern is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. He is now co-director of the Servant Leadership School, an outreach ministry in the inner city of Washington.

The killing of 18 U.S. troops and the wounding of 21 others in Iraq on Nov. 2 brings to mind the successful attack by Viet Cong guerrillas on U.S. forces in Pleiku, Vietnam on February 7, 1965.

The Johnson administration immediately seized on that attack, in which nine U.S. troops were killed and 128 wounded, to start bombing North Vietnam and to send 3,500 Marines to South Vietnam. Unlike the U.S. advisory forces already in country, the Marines had orders to engage in combat, marking the beginning of the Americanization of the war. By 1968 U.S. forces had grown to over 536,000.

From the outset, my colleagues in CIA were highly skeptical that even with a half-million troops the United States could prevail in Vietnam. They were quick to remind anyone who would listen of the candid observation made by General Philippe LeClerc, dispatched to Vietnam shortly after World War II. The French general reported that, mainly because of the strong commitment of the Vietnamese nationalists/communists and their proven proficiency in guerrilla war, a renewed French campaign would require 500,000 men and that, even then, France could not win.

In 1965, similar warnings were blissfully ignored by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and the civilian whiz kids with whom he had surrounded himself. Then as now, the advice of our professional military was dismissed.

more...

http://www.tompaine.com/feature2.cfm/ID/9289

[Cha]

1. This really is similiar to Viet Nam and to

the watergate era..some people just aren't connecting the dots ..yet!

[burythehatchet]

4. From the start

to me this has been a carbon copy of Vietnam. Pre-emption being just one similarity

[Hand]

2. Christ...

This is eerie. All along through this misadventure, I was thinking of this exact incident. I remember when it happened--before then, just as now, GIs were dying in ones and twos and the prospect of fifteen or twenty dying at once was everyone's worst nightmare.

Same thing now--I kept wondering when the Iraq version of Pleiku would happen, and hoping that it wouldn't. Now it has.

Those idiot columnists (let alone the criminal gang in the misgovernment) who say this ain't Nam don't remember the errors of the past--and you KNOW what that means.

[teryang]

3. McGovern's analysis is brilliant

This is a must read!

<Instead of draw downs, pressure to send more troops will inexorably grow from neo-conservatives and those they have co-opted--like the pompous but vacuous Joseph Biden...>snip

<...One small problem, of course, is the unwelcome fact that all too few troops are available for reinforcement. But this kind of military "detail" would not likely affect the urgings of second-string but influential advisers like Douglas Feith, William Kristol, and Kenneth Adelman, each of whom knows less about war than a freshman ROTC cadet.>snip

<The assessment cited a recent Gallup poll...in which respondents described the United States as "ruthless, aggressive, conceited, arrogant, easily provoked and biased." And that was before the war in Iraq.>snip

<As long as the occupation continues, so will the killing of US troops and others...>