The Best and the Brightest

"That McNamara's role was major, the he was by default usurping the role of the Secretary of State, did not faze him. He was intelligent, forceful, courageous, decent, everything in fact but wise...

If it just been a matter of getting the right goods to the right villages, we would have won; unfortunately, what we were selling was not what they were buying. This man, whose only real experience had been in dealing with the second largest automotive empire in the world, producing huge Western vehicles, was the last man to understand and measure the problems of a people looking for their political freedom."

In the words of President Lyndon Johnson, "I forgot he had only been president of Ford for one week."

The Best and the Brightest

The Vietminh did much to get rid of the colonial French from Vietnam after WW II while the politicians in the south did just the opposite. Many fought on the side of the French or profited from the war to expel them. Was it any surprise we would have an issue with "hearts and minds" when we appeared for all purposes to just be taking the place of France and installing our own politicians?

Under President Eisenhower when Dienbienphu fell to the Vietminh - bombing by US forces would rightly have been seen as an act of war. And Eisenhower rightly did not take the bait. President Kennedy opened that door a crack and slowly it swung wide open.

Those in power when the French again took over after WW II knew America should not get involved militarily. At best they'd be on the side of a colonial power when we were the poster child for anti-colonialism and the costs were likely to be more along the lines of the Philippines insurrection from 1899 to 1913 than the Korean conflict. Besides Americans were emotionally exhausted from both WW II and Korea.

By the time President Kennedy was elected - Americans were more rested, China had been "lost" to the Communists, and the US was now an acknowledged Super Power. Plus we were willing to believe in illusions. To paraphrase Richard Feynman, "The easiest person to fool is yourself." David Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest tells the story of how America fooled ourselves into the Vietnam war.

Dense history but worth the time.

Dispatches by Michael Herr

The recent anniversary of the death of Errol Flynn made me think of the Vietnam War book Dispatches by Michael Herr which features Flynn's son who was described thus: Sean Flynn could look more incredibly beautiful than even his father, Errol, had thirty years before as Captain Blood, but sometimes he looked more like Artaud coming out of some heavy heart-of-darkness trip, overloaded on the information, the input! The input!

Is it any surprise that Herr was also the co-writer of the screenplays for both Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket. Gives one a new respect for the prose of Dispatches which could be summed up by the following paragraph:

In the months after I got back the hundreds of helicopters I'd flown in began to draw together until they formed a collective meta-chopter, and in my mind it was the sexiest thing going; saver-destroyer, provider-waster, right hand-left hand, nimble, fluent, canny and human; hot steel, grease, jungle-saturated canvas webbing, sweat cooling and warming up again, cassette rock and roll in one ear and door-gun fire in the other, fuel, heat, vitality and death, death itself, hardly an intruder. Men on the crews would say that once you'd carried a dead person he would always be there, riding with you.

Yeah - the whole book is like that. Maybe why I'm re-reading it.

Refighting the Vietnam War

Fascinating post by VDH on Mark Moyar's book Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968. Long but very worthwhile use of your time. I was left thinking that everything I thought I knew about the Vietnam War was wrong! 

Immediately added this book and Moyar's earlier Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 to my stack of books I plan to read.

Hopefully I'll have those two books finished in time for Moyar's final book on the war to come out.

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The list of 1300 side effects of the Covid vaccines (from Pfizer's own documents). The vaccines were never "safe and effective."

- Wow - John Foster Dulles offered France a pair of tactical nuclear weapons for use at Dien Bien Phu. (Via)

- Shedding Innocence - a worthwhile article by Dr. Robert Malone. In my opinion, Dr. Malone is both a hero and martyr of the Covid pandemic.

- Lawsuit by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others charges legacy media and tech companies with Antitrust and First Amendment claims for censoring Covid related content. On the surface, the suit filed in Texas has a lot of antitrust merit. Will be interesting to see the case unfold.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Marilyn Monroe once famously sang Happy Birthday to You (Mister President) to JFK. What's lesser known is that Kennedy never paid the licensing fee for the song. That was the real reason JFK was killed. The Happy Birthday to You rights holders don't friggin' mess around... FACT: Donald Trump has never been defeated in the Octogon by any other President living or dead. You can't argue with facts!... Excellent point... I'm going to have business cards printed up that say "Chris Lynch - Public Intellectual and Thought Leader" because why not?... Speaking of Trump "Loki Never Forgets an Insult" would make a great Trump 2020 campaign slogan... A reminder on the wisdom of the masses - a 1967 Gallup poll found almost twice as many Americans supported nuking North Vietnam as opposed to those who supported withdrawing from the war... It's possible that when parents started to tell children not to be "fresh" (i.e. talking back) is when America started having an obesity problem. "Do you want some fresh fruits or vegetables?" "No - my parents told me not to be fresh"... Remember until you pin me Festivus is not over!...

The War in Afghanistan

Conflicted over my view on the War in Afghanistan. I support the troops but I'm not sure if I support the War anymore. This report by the Washington Post seems to make it clear that the Generals and the civilians overseeing the war have not been exactly truthful with the American public.

Read the whole thing.

Parallels between Afghanistan and Vietnam are not exactly hard to draw. The Post even calls their report The Afghanistan Papers to echo the historic Pentagon Papers from the Vietnam War (not exactly subtle). You can't help but wonder if the War in Afghanistan was being fought with draftees instead of volunteers if we'd still even be there?

Like I said - not sure what to think. Only sure of one thing - I support the troops.

Trump, the Democrats, Syria and Iran

Interesting article that claims that President Trump may have prevented a war with Iran by withdrawing our troops from Syria. This paragraph really got my attention (and my blood pressure up):

"People should remember that in the height of the Nixon Watergate Impeachment tumult during late 1973/early 1974 culminating in Nixon's resignation in August 1974, the North Vietnamese reneged on the Nixon Paris Peace Accords, and Saigon fell soon thereafter, in April 1975. G-d only knows what will happen because of Democrats' paralyzing of an American President while the world is in flames."

Now I hesitate to draw any comparisons between Trump and Nixon and I would also hesitate to use the description that "the world is in flames" but there's a special place in hell for those of either political party who claim to be acting on behalf of world peace or downtrodden folks in foreign lands when they are only acting in the interests of their own domestic political agenda. A special place in hell!

Do you remember the plight of the "boat people"?

Remember how eager the press was to hear from General Mattis prior to his recent book tour when they thought he was going to speak badly about President Trump? Remember how quickly they dropped any interest in him when they learned it was President Obama who was slammed in the new book?

Remember the 24/7 news cycle about how "Trump was abandoning the Kurds" and the predicted horrors that awaited those poor people? Can you remember any of those horrors coming to pass? And you know if they did come to pass it would have been an orgy of coverage. Instead we got fake news footage from a  Kentucky shooting range. 

Remember how Libya is now a failed nation-state because of the actions of President Obama and his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton? Slavery is now an accepted practice in what used to be Libya! Talk about horrors (horrors you won't learn about on the MSM).

I remember! And I hope you do too! A SPECIAL PLACE IN HELL!

Linky Links

Stuff I found interesting or amusing.

- Robert Mueller helped Saudi Arabia cover up its role in the 9/11 attacks according to lawsuit.

- Interesting bit of Vietnam War history that I was not aware of.

-  Heh Heh

- DNA evidence suggests that the Loch Ness Monster could be a giant eel.

- Companies moving manufacturing out of China may force them to end trade war before too many companies leave for good. I really think China has overplayed their hand.

- The Four Tools of Discipline

A Homecoming in Dallas

Wow - just wow.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

Cross Words would be a good name for a Broadway play where two actors just shout angry, rude insults at each other for an hour... Cool - Navy Seal sees a broken American flag and acts just like you think a Navy Seal would act... A reminder of the wisdom of the masses - a 1967 Gallup poll found twice as many Americans supported nuking North Vietnam as opposed to withdrawing... The Jordan B. Peterson drinking song... Who knew? The Spanish National Anthem has no words... Still say that if low calorie beer was called "skim" instead of "light" they would be much less popular. Michelob Ultra is skim beer... It's the circle - the circle of life...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

If I were a programmer my coder name would be "Biatus" and any time I hacked a system I'd leave a note "Hack from Biatus" (I have a very low bar on what I find amusing)... Interesting? Scary? The "Buffett Indicator" and why it says a market correction may be due... Still disappointed that when Burger King and Canada's Tim Horton's merged they didn't call the new company Burger Horton's... Interesting - an argument that Ken Burns PBS series on Vietnam wasn't as impartial as it claimed to be... If I ran an Artificial Intelligence company I'd call it A.I. Davis and have my "Siri" voice be that of the late Raiders owner... "The game of life is the game of everlasting learning. At least it is if you want to win." Charlie Munger... Have no idea why the Bruins have waited this long to retire Rick Middleton's number 16. And a reminder why they called him Nifty...

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

I'm confused - shouldn't the Democrats insist that Hillary Clinton deliver the official State of the Union response? Otherwise shouldn't they just "Move On"and stop mentioning her?... Nuclear fusion - the future of energy on Earth? Not to be confused with nuclear fission... A reminder on the wisdom of the masses - a 1967 Gallup poll found almost twice as many Americans supported nuking North Vietnam as opposed to withdrawing... Wait - can this really true? California has 34% of the welfare recipients in the US despite having just 12% of the population of the country... "Anger is a hot coal you hold in your hand waiting to throw at someone" - the Buddha.. Interesting - what happens to your body during a 29-day thru-hike... 18 years ago today - the New England Patriots hired Bill Belichick to be their head coach. And that has made all the difference...