re: #19 EPR-radar

Thanks for the corrections about Ho, although the part about Ho not being a puppet is still true. Ho had serious nationalism credibility by the time he had fought the Japanese and French, and dealt with Chinese encroachment. There weren’t really any South Vietnamese leaders of comparable significance —- in fact the usual corruption and abuses associated with colonial rule and puppet regimes were always a problem in the South.

So, to complete my thought, Ho was an authentic Vietnamese nationalist who was Communist and was supported by China and Russia as part of the cold war.

By the time the US got into this mess, we were propping up a corrupt colonialist regime in the South, apparently out of mindless reflex.

Not a good strategic situation, regardless of how individual military exercises might have been done more competently.