THANK YOU MR. KNAPPENBERGER, THOUGH I RESPECTFULLY DISAGREE

Recently on Wally’s Blog I made reference to elements in the News Media and the destructiveness of the Peace Movement in the United States. I was called to the carpet by one of our servicemen who served in Iraq to cite sources for a claim that I made. He may not realize it, but I am grateful because it prompted me to research some people and Events. I would like to refer you to Wally’s website, http://www.wallywonderswhy.com/
And to look at his article, Do you see what I see. http://www.wallywonderswhy.com/?p=762
There are 9 posts, and this is where I was called to the carpet.
· Poindexter P. Parkenfarker October 28th, 2007 16:53
"I believe that Al Quaida learned well from North Viet Nam. After the war, the North Vietnamese Generals said that the United States had solidly won the war twice. And they knew that they lost almost every battle in the field. What the NVA generals told the world was that they defeated the US because of Soviet and Chinese agents directing the US Peace movement, they were losing the war in S.E. Asia, but winning the war with our own peace movement. They learned, we didn’t."

Mr. Knappenberger then asked me to cite references, because he refused to believe it. However, he accurately assessed the NVA perspective during the War.
So, below are my references, with a correction. (thank you Mr. Knappenberger.)
I was only able to find ONE occasion that the NVA were ready to negotiate their surrender to us. That was after they lost 90,000 of their volunteers, which was ½ of their forces after they failed to take and hold any territory or strategic points during the Tet offensive of 1968 (year of the Goat to year of the Monkey) Since the first advisers under President Eisenhower and Kennedy to this point in the war, we tragically had lost 10,000 of our young boys. Had we accepted their surrender and President Johnson had not bowed down to our own peace protesters the war would have been over in 1968.
General Vo Nguyen Giap credited our News Media and the Peace Protesters for delivering him a political victory from a military defeat. The Soviets funded and directed the Peace movement and considered this a great propaganda victory for communism.
So here are several references which are a good jumping off point to further research this whether you agree with my premise or not.
http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Camp/7624/Generals/giap.htm
http://www.i-served.com/v-v-a-r.org/VietnamAndTheMedia_part03.html
http://www.i-served.com
plus google search Vo Nguyen Giap for many more references and a biography.

By no means am I demonizing the past or current Peace Movement, but make no mistake about it, I disagree with it and think that even though their hearts are in the right place, that ultimately it may unwittingly cause more death, destruction and tragedy for our young boys and girls in uniform serving around the world.
I sense that you have been truly affected by Stop Loss and this may be the biggest motivation for your efforts.
I do not think that re-instating the draft is a solution, but I wonder if they raised the age of enlistment for reservists if some of us old out of shape guys could run supply lines, drive transports and take on many support duties if that would be a better solution than Stop-Loss? (so long as we don’t fall over dead during basic training.) My thoughts are that volunteers who believe in the policy may be more effective than Drafting or Stop-Lossing those who don’t.

Side note: Several of my friends survived the Tet Offensive and on rare occasions tell me hellish things that I wish no- one should ever have to experience. They lost heroic friends and were themselves permanently wounded.

p.s. many thanks to gk and others for references and guidance in research.