So, what happened in Vietnam? Why all the acrimony after all this time? Why won't the wounds heal? Can't we all just get along?

The war in Vietnam was part of the Cold War. The communists, China and the USSR, wanted control of Southeast Asia. The easiest way to take that control was through Ho Chi Minh, a North Vietnamese Communist. The West, the United States and its allies, did not want the Communists to seize control of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and other countries of the area. The place to stop the Communists was Vietnam.

President Lyndon Johnson tried to conduct the war in true Liberal fashion. He appointed as his Secretary of Defense, the position responsible for the protection of American lives and interests, Robert McNamara. McNamara's qualification for running the defense of America was his previous experience as a bean counter at Ford Motor Company.

Together, Johnson and McNamara used their combined military experience to micro-manage the war. They knew they could direct the war in a much better fashion than professional military leaders because, as the leaders of the Liberal Elites, they were much smarter that the people beneath them.

Their philosophy was to bomb the Communists just a little bit, and then stop to see if the Communists gave up yet. Then bomb just a little bit more, and check again. They established strict Rules Of Engagement. When our pilots bombed North Vietnam, they had to fly the same route every time, giving the Communists a chance to put their anti-aircraft guns in exactly the right spots. Our pilots could only bomb certain targets in the North. We could not bomb the Communist's re-supply route through the jungle mountains of Laos and Cambodia, the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Our ground troops were not allowed to fire on the re-supply route either. We were not allowed to go into North Vietnam, or even to fire our artillery at massed troops north of the Demilitarized Zone. We were not allowed to interfere with the shipment of arms and troops into Hanoi from Communist China and the USSR.

One of their best strategies was to send a few hundred U.S. soldiers to die taking a hill from the Communists. Then, after the hill was taken, give the hill back to the enemy.

McNamara's best idea was to fight a "war of attrition". That means that if we could count more dead Communists than dead Americans, the Communists would surely give up, even if we had to lie about the number of enemy dead. I'm not sure what they do in the corporate offices at Ford, but I'm reasonably sure they don't study military tactics.

The Communists, on the other hand, used a different approach. Their tactic was to try to actually win the war, by whatever means necessary. While McNamara was concerned with the daily count of dead people, the Communists concerned themselves with the people still living. Backed by the Chinese Communists and the Russian Communists, the North Vietnamese used terrorist tactics to accomplish their goals. And, yes, there were Russian and Chinese troops in Vietnam. According to Chinese sources, there were, at one time, 170,000 Chinese troops in country.

The terrorist tactics they used included murder of civilians, rape, torture, kidnapping, arson, blackmail, random bombings, starvation, and anything else they could think of. Prisoners of War were beaten, starved, tortured, murdered, and held without notification.

General Westmoreland was the commander of U.S. troops in Vietnam. To a degree, his hands were tied by the Whiz Kids in Washington, and he had to obey orders from his Commander-in-Chief. He did, however, fail to recognize a successful strategy proposed by Lt. Gen. Lewis Walt, U.S.M.C. General Walt understood the necessity of Vietnamization- of winning the hearts and minds of the South Vietnamese civilians. General Walt's brainchild, the Combined Action Program, was the most successful operation undertaken during the war. There were 114 villages protected by CAP units. None of these villages was ever lost to the Communists during American participation in the war. With 8 or 10 Marines in each CAP, simple math indicates efficiency rarely, if ever, equaled.

General Westmoreland, however, stuck with the bigger-is-better theory, sending large troop units to engage the Communists in a face-to-face fight. The Communists were well aware that they couldn't win a face-to-face fight, declined to step into that trap. They used a much more efficient, more insidious tactic.

Russian Communists inside the United States convinced, and financially supported, a group of malcontent mental midget Elitists to fight the war for them. Tom Hayden, Jane Fonda, John Kerry, and many of their ignorant minions undertook a campaign of lies, propaganda, subversion, and treason to convince American civilians that the Communist terrorists were, in fact, Freedom Fighters, defending themselves from American Imperialism. Once the talking heads on network TV bought into the lies, it was all over but the shouting.

President Johnson, aware of how badly he had screwed things up, bailed out on the Democrats, leaving the presidential election to Richard Nixon. President Nixon was immediately identified by the Hayden/Fonda/Kerry cabal as the sole cause of the murder of all those innocent Communists. The Democrat led Congress cut off funding for the South Vietnamese, and the Communist victory was complete. Many thousands of South Vietnamese people, as well as many thousands of Cambodian and Laotian people, were starved, tortured and murdered.

On April 17, 1975, the Communists took over Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. The Communists, known as Khmer Rouge, ordered the immediate evacuation of all cities in Cambodia. Lest you misunderstand what that means, their idea of "immediate evacuation" is probably not what you would think. Hospitals were emptied on the spot. Operating rooms were emptied in mid-surgery. Patients who could not move were murdered in their beds. In Phnom Penh hospital, about 100 people were shot.

On that day, about 3 million people were marched out of the cities and into the countryside. Those who stopped walking were killed. Those who complained were killed. Those who talked to each other were killed. Those who didn't care for the food they were given were killed.

The next day, all married couples were separated, and their children were removed. Everyone's name was changed, so that it would be impossible to locate any friends or relatives. Anyone caught speaking an old name was killed.

All government employees and their spouses were killed. Starvation in the "re-education" camps led not only to cannibalism, but also to the cannibalism of relatives.

The Communists removed all road signs. Money was declared contraband, and the only currency allowed was rice. All hospitals, clinics, doctor's offices, churches, and temples were destroyed. All communication infrastructures were destroyed, including telephone, TV, telegraph, and postal systems. Religion was outlawed, and atheism was ordered. Anyone caught practicing religion was killed. Anyone caught sleeping at work was killed. Anyone caught flirting was killed. All books that were published before April 17, 1975 were burned. Anyone caught with a banned book... well, you probably get the idea.

On April 30, 1975, the Communists took Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam, and immediately changed the name to Ho Chi Minh City. There were also some other immediate changes made. From Saigon about 1 million people were relocated to re-education camps called New Economic Zones. Typewriters were outlawed. Everyone was required to submit a list of books they owned. Everyone was ordered to report any private conversation they heard which was not "pro-revolution".

About 1 million South Vietnamese people were able to escape by boat. They fled in any available boat that was sea-worthy or not. It was estimated that about 600,000 of them drowned in the North China Sea.

On December 2, 1975, the country of Laos fell to the Communists.

Back in 1972, peace negotiations were taking place in Paris between the United States and North Vietnam. The North Vietnamese knew from listening to American news programs every morning at 9:00, that if they could stall the negotiations, the Fonda/Hayden/Kerrys would help them win the war.

President Nixon decided that in order to put some pressure on these stall tactics, he would order our military to (gasp) actually bomb the enemy in North Vietnam. This operation is what the talking heads refer to as The Christmas Bombing, since it began in December of 1972. The talking heads don't mention that we halted the bombing for 36 hours for Christmas, and for another 36 hours for New Year.

In January of 1973, the North Vietnamese signed an agreement to our terms. However, between the beginning of The Christmas Bombing and the signing of the agreement, our talking heads had plenty to say.

Dan Rather (CBS) reported that the United States, "Has embarked on a large scale terror bombing" which was "unrestricted". He also quoted a Radio Hanoi report, which called the operation "extermination raids on many populous areas".

Harry Reasoner (ABC) reported, "Dr. Kissinger's boss had broken Dr. Kissenger's word. It's very hard to swallow".

Eric Sevareid (CBS) : "In most areas of the government the feeling is one of dismay, tinged with shame that the United States is again resorting to mass killing in an effort to end the killing."

Walter Cronkite (CBS) said, " Soviet news agency Tass said hundreds of US bombers destroyed thousands of homes, most of them in the Hanoi-Haiphong area." he then reported, without additional comment, "Hanoi Radio said the bombings indicate President Nixon has taken leave of his senses."

A New York Times editorial said that bombers "flying in wedges of three, lay down more than 65 tons of bombs at a time, in a carpet pattern one and a half miles long and one half mile wide, equivalent to 20 of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima," in "densely populated areas." Four months later, after we pulled out, The New York Times reported, "Hanoi films show no carpet bombing."

Just before we pulled out, the Pentagon made plans to evacuate Americans from Saigon. Of course, the plans would necessarily have to be a secret. Here is the way Newsweek lived up to it's responsibility to protect American lives:

"The Pentagon made contingency plans for an all too conceivable eventuality: the closing of Tan Son Nhut by Communist troops or the lethal SA-2 and SA-7 missiles that were being positioned near the airfield. This operation -- known as Phase Two -- would be carried out by more than 60 giant CH-46 and CH-53 helicopters. The choppers would whirl in from the decks of the U.S. aircraft carriers Hancock, Okinawa, and Midway, now standing off South Vietnam as part of a veritable armada of more than 40 vessels, including two other carriers.

"All Americans in Saigon were advised last week that the May-Day signal for Phase Two would be a weather report for Saigon of '105 and rising' broadcast over the American Radio Service, followed by the playing of several bars of 'White Christmas' at 15-minute intervals. That message would send the last Americans still in Saigon streaming toward 13 'LZs,' or landing zones situated throughout the downtown district, all atop U.S. owned or operated buildings..."

They published the plan so that the Communists would know when and where to attack the citizens of Saigon.

The tactics used by the Communists were so successful that they are still being used to this day.

During Tet of 68, a few Communist fighters were able to get inside the wall of our embassy compound in Saigon. Walter Cronkite reported that, because of this "success", the United States could not possibly win the war. The contemporary Socialist media outlets have taken Cronkite's lesson to heart. Their hatred and derision of Capitalism and the free market system gives them license, they believe, to color the news to the degree that it can only be called propaganda.

Dan Rather made a report on his national "news" program, which he knew to be an outright lie. And yet, he was surprised when public outcry demanded that he be fired.

The Los Angeles Times and The New York Times are bastions of innuendo, half-truth, and anti-American rhetoric.

CNN has become more anti-American than Al-Jazeera. Terrorists and subversives are well aware that CNN will publicize their voices to the world, no matter the truthfulness of their words.

The United States Congress of today must surely be an embarrassment to our founding fathers. Kennedy, Kerry, Rangel, Reed, et al, are so eaten up with hate for President Bush that they actually espouse letting the terrorists win this war. Think of that for a moment. They would prefer that their own children and grandchildren live in tyranny and oppression ( if they are allowed to live ) than to support their political opponent in a time of war. They would rather that United States citizens, which by extension includes their own families, be subjected, oppressed, and forced to live under Taliban rule than to give up "unearned" political points. They stand in front of any available TV camera and tell outright lies, demand ludicrous concessions, and make every attempt to demoralize our military forces.

The liberal media outlets have tried to convince the world that we torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, when in fact these imprisoned terrorists eat better than I do. Each meal for these prisoners costs more than the meals given our fighting troops. The prisoners have more religious freedom than our troops, our students, our workers, or virtually any American citizen.

The liberal media claim that we torture these prisoners in the manner of Nazis or Soviets. I can't help but wonder how Admiral James B. Stockdale would compare his treatment in Hanoi to that of the prisoners at Gitmo. So far, no reporter has brought back pictures of men being beaten to death, arms and legs broken with steel bars, being forced to kneel on the floor with steel bars behind their knees, being suspended by their arms which are tied behind them, slowly starved to death, festering abscesses caused by lack of rudimentary medical care, or being staked out, day after day, exposed to the flies, mosquitoes, and leeches. It is probably just a matter of time, though, until Dan Rather comes foreword with “proof” of these atrocities.