Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Wild Hoss]

providing weapons has never really worked, at least to my knowledge.

I think we've seen enough footage of ISIS using American equipment as it is.

[Whitley]

Yep, supplying weapons to Syria strikes an awful lot like what RR did in Latin America in the 1980s and that worked out so well right?

[Da Geezer]

Megyn Kelly to NBC

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/01/03/report-megyn-kelly-leaving-fox-news-nbc/

[Wild Hoss]

Yep, supplying weapons to Syria strikes an awful lot like what RR did in Latin America in the 1980s and that worked out so well right?

I was thinking more along the lines of training our Cold War "allies" in Afghanistan. Whom we wound up fighting in the Russians' stead, for the same reasons, minus the World Trade Center.

Seems like there's a lesson in there somewhere.

[Dr. Strangelove]

Leaves a big hole for Fox at 9PM. Guess they move back Hannity to his old slot?

[entropy]

The two biggest female stars of foxnews leave within 6 or so months of one another...

[Dr. Strangelove]

Interesting discovery for historical sake...new H R Haldeman notes show that Nixon gave direct orders to interfere with peace talks with Vietnam in 1968 because he felt if the War ended before the Election, it would help Hubert Humphrey.

This has long been speculated to have been the case but this seems to be the first confirmation.

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/us/politics/nixon-tried-to-spoil-johnsons-vietnam-peace-talks-in-68-notes-show.html?_r=0

[Jeff Buchanan]

Interesting discovery for historical sake...new H R Haldeman notes show that Nixon gave direct orders to interfere with peace talks with Vietnam in 1968 .......This has long been speculated to have been the case but this seems to be the first confirmation.

Lots of interesting history surrounding peace talks that were undertaken by Lyndon Johnson with the North Vietnamese in 1968. Johnson wanted to end the war. It was, at the time, understood that if he was successful, Humphrey was very likely to succeed Johnson as President.

The record that is open to the public - and not much of that paints an accurate picture of what actually went down during the negotiations known as the Paris Peach Accords - shows that Johnson finally agreed to halt bombing of the North in October of 68 after 5 months of deadlocked negotiations between Averall Harriman and Xuan Thuy.

It's around this time that it is speculated that Nixon reached out to South Vietnam's President Thieu via Anna Chennault and it is rumored that Chennault conveyed to Theiu that Nixon was going to win the election and to hold out a little longer for more favorable terms with the North.

My personal observation is that amounted to nothing because Thieu wouldn't sit down at any negotiating table (circular or square) as long as any representative of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (NLF) or the North's proxy operating in opposition to the Thieu government in SV wass going to get a seat at that table.

The other interesting thing about the Accords is that they were a public showing of no substance whatsoever. Everything that was agreed upon between the US and NV was done secretly and between Kissenger and Le Duc Tho. SV's President Thieu was out of it completely.

Secret negotiations reportedly went on without much progress for 2 years mainly over the insistence by NV that Theiu be replaced (read overthrown by the US/CIA like happened to Diem). Finally, the North changed the language of their demands suggesting that they'd accept other arrangements (won't be assassinated). Thieu was never involved in any of this and when he was informed by Kissinger he, not unexpectedly, went ballistic.

Kissinger publicly presented a very different circumstance vis-a-vis NV's position as it was articulated by Tho (called NV's "demands" for Theiu's replacement unacceptable) prompting the famous breakdown of peace talks that led to the resumption of massive bombing campaigns of NV that went on from October of 72 to January of 73. I took part in these flying combat missions out of the Phillipines and Danang AB, SV.

At that time most of understood that Nixon wanted to force NV back to the bargaining table and it worked with Nixon agreeing to stop the bombing of the Northon January 15th, '72. Subsequently, the North agreed to a cease fire in place. The Thieu government remained, US forces withdrew and the US undertook a huge operation to beef up the South Vietnamese military.

That was a huge waste of resources that a good deal of equipment ended up in the hands of the NVA. The Accord's provisions were routinely flouted by both the North Vietnamese and the Saigon government, eliciting no response from the United States, and ultimately resulting in the communists enlarging the area under their control by the end of 1973. North Vietnamese military forces gradually built up their military infrastructure in the areas they controlled, and two years later were in position to launch the successful offensive that ended South Vietnam's status as an independent country.

What I wanted to highlight here is that even though Nixon may have been "involved" in Johnson's efforts to disengage from Vietnam by negotiating "Peace with Honor" during his Presidential campaign of 1968, fearing that if LBJ were successful in ending the war, he'd lose and Humphrey would win. His involvement, however, was so on the margins as to be meaningless to the story of the Accords and I really doubt it had anything to do with how things played out for LBJ.

BTW, I had to reference Wiki to remember all the names. I didn't provide the accounting above without some looking up. It's also worth pointing out that most of us involved at that point of the Vietnam War were sick of it but we were massively pissed off at the outcome following the Accords when US forces withdrew after essentially having the NV on the ropes. Most of us felt that NV would eventually defeat the South without significant US involvement but by that time, Nixon was up to his neck in Watergate, hanging on to survive and there was no way he was going to order a resumption of combat operations. You'll probably also remember that Congress was prepared to not let that happen ...... that's another story altogether. Interesting times.

[froot loops]

Omarosa hired for a White House job.

[Da Geezer]

There is a word for what Nixon did in 1968: Treason

[entropy]

https://theintercept.com/2017/01/04/washpost-is-richly-rewarded-for-false-news-about-russia-threat-while-public-is-deceived/

Washington Post rewarded for their own fake news..

[hack]

My goodness already. The WaPo got taken perhaps, but is that ``fake news''? I don't think it's helpful to group together willful misrepresentation with incompetence. People have a hard enough time already with this stuff. Especially when it comes to this Russia stuff, since it's so difficult to know for sure without taking anyone's word for it. Especially Glenn Greenwald's. He knows better than to fail to make the distinction.

[CGVT]

Using the fake news moniker for news that is not really fake is to the advantage of those that have benefited from true fake news (cough...cough Donald Trump...cough cough)

The right has already started to call mainstream news outlets (including the BBC) as fake news outlets)

[hack]

Exactly. And Greenwald knows better. Shame on him.

[CGVT]

It is scary.

They are laying the groundwork to discredit all reputable media sources. There will be nothing that people will believe when it is time to question the crap that will spew from Trump's Propaganda Minister. People ate it up during the election. They will eat it up after.

And if anyone is going to post "But the liberal media..." Just stop.