Word: viets
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...ARMY AND VIET NAM: THE STAB-IN-THE-BACK COMPLEX...
WHENEVER a war ends in defeat or a dubious stalemate, the unsuccessful military leaders are apt to grope for some kind of stab-in-the-back explanation. The U.S. is certainly not headed in Viet Nam for any defeat remotely akin to Germany's humiliation in World War I, which the German generals blamed on treacherous politicians and civilian softness. Nor is Viet Nam likely to prove quite as bitter a military experience as the French abandonment of the Algerian war, in which some French officers even threatened to attack Paris in their rage against De Gaulle...
...many privately agree with Westmoreland's complaint, and there are signs that a stab-in-the-back, or Versailles, complex is developing. Some officers contend that they were not permitted to move quickly, massively and without restrictions-either on bombing targets or in hitting enemy sanctuaries along Viet Nam's borders-once the decision was made in 1965 to commit U.S. combat troops. This complaint is aimed mainly at President Johnson and Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who, some officers argue, wanted to win the war "on the cheap and without disturbing the country...
...heated argument even within the military about the effectiveness of the U.S. bombing that was permitted, many officers contend that U.S. airpower, properly applied, could have ended the war in about six months. By the spring of 1966, this argument goes, the Air Force had ample bases in South Viet Nam and the Navy had enough carriers in position to carry out a systematic destruction of the enemy's power plants, transportation network and military facilities in the North. But, officers complain, instead of being able to hit all those related targets at once, they had to get Washington...
Commanders in the field have other complaints. They say that the U.S. should have moved much sooner to strengthen the South Vietnamese forces, which are now belatedly expected to take over the fighting. Field officers would have liked greater freedom to clean the Viet Cong out of populated villages without having to obtain cooperation from province and district chiefs -although the massacre at My Lai raises questions about whether the restrictions are, in fact, tight enough. Officers contend that too many of the most prominent critics of the war simply do not understand Viet Nam or the nature...