November 3, 1969 - (It didn't work for Nixon and it won't work for Bush.)

[cyberpj]

"Let's do the time warp again!........"


November 3, 1969

President Nixon announced the "Vietnamization" program to shift fighting by U.S. troops to U.S.-trained Vietnamese troops. “We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all U.S. combat ground forces, and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces on an orderly scheduled timetable.”

The last U.S. troops didn’t return home until 1975.

[Infinite Hope]

1. I don't see how that's comparable to now...

*if* that's your insinuation since it wasn't an election year, not even a midterm. It wasn't a campaign ploy if you're trying to compare it to the current Bush Co. B.S. with the Saddam trial and the "new" plan for Iraq.

[cyberpj]

2. It has to do with staying at war for purposes of training the locals to take over.

Bush adviser: Iraqis must move quickly to stop violence
CNN
Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander who appeared at a news conference with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, said Iraqi forces should be able to take control of security in the next 12 to 18 months with minimal American support.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/10/24/us.iraq.ap/

[Infinite Hope]

3. ;) Okay, just making sure. n/t

[Imagevision]

4. training for the next 12 to 18 months? or by the 2008 election...!

Bush said that future presidents will determine when the US. gets out of Iraq.

Bush already did his part for defense, Oil, drug companies, even outlawing declaring bankruptsy, George served his purposes.

[Jack Rabbit]

5. That was my eighteenth birthday

I registed for the draft and then came home and watched that.

[Johnyawl]

6. This is not true: last U.S. troops didn’t return home until 1975.

Look here:
Vietnam war timeline.

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/vietnam/timeline.htm

1973

Cease-fire Signed in Paris: A cease-fire agreement that, in the words of Richard Nixon, "brings peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia," is signed in Paris by Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. The agreement is to go into effect on January 28.

End of Draft Announced

Last American Troops Leave Vietnam



Too many Americans look at those pictures of Siagon in 1975, and assume those are American combat troops on the roof top of the Embassy. Those are US Marine Corps Embassy Guards, we have them at every American Embassy in the world. The last actual combat troops left in '73.

However, your point is still valid, cyberpj; It took us four more years to get the last combat troops out of harms way.

And as old-foot-in-mouth John Kerry likes to point out, 1/2 of all the American KIAs came during that period. As did my service in Vietnam.

[cyberpj]

8. Oops. Thanks for clarification.

And your service.
Glad you made it back.
My cousin didn't.
Which is what makes watching this war that much harder.

[struggle4progress]

9. Lots of us who remember that era still have trouble believing the ..

.. so-called official histories.

In the Fall of 1972, not too long before the elections, the Nixon Administration loudly announced that the Vietnam war was ending. But this didn't prevent Nixon from conducting his Christmas bombing campaign against the North in December. Nor did the January 1973 ceasefire prevent Nixon from escalating his illegal bombing campaign against Cambodia, which persisted until Congress cut off funding that summer. US "military advisors" remained in country as US military aid persisted for at least another year.

Certainly troops who left Vietnam in early 1973 are welcome to identify that as the real end of the Vietnam war, and in hindsight perhaps it was the end: but at the time I think it was completely unclear to many Americans what would happen next, and in particular it still seems possible that Nixon would have redeployed troops elsewhere if his political situation hadn't deteriorated suddenly. When Congress cut off funding for the continuing air strikes against Cambodia in mid-1973, Kissinger whined that this would be detrimental to his continuing peace talks, even if today many people regard the January ceasefire as the end. Even in the early Ford Administration, it was perhaps not entirely clear that the "Mayaguez incident" wasn't an attempt to replay the old Gulf of Tonkin script.

[Tom Joad]

7. "Fraid that sounds like the Dems plan. Fuck the timetable, troops home now!