Anniversary: USS Mayaguez, Bungled by a Bunch of Bunglers...

The mission of the USS Mayaguez was to ferry US weapons to certain Southeast
Asian (SEA) allies in Cambodia who would stage search-and-destroy,
kill-and-retreat jungle assaults against North Vietnamese Communists (NVA)
attacking on a widespread front against the South Vietnamese government (GVN).

The operation was hatched by Henry Kissinger and approved by Gerald Ford but
opposed by dozens of generals including William Westmoreland (Retired) who felt
American military aid should be direct and upfront regardless of the UN regs
that prohibited members states from engaging in Mayaguez type ops.

Unfortunately, the Mayaguez operation failed because the right hand failed to
tell the left hand what it was doing...

The Operational Plan (Oplan) was to convey tons of munitions to anti-Communist
jungle operatives run by the CIA in Cambodia and Laos. The overt and published
version was to convey tons of munitions to the GVN (that neither needed them nor
possessed the capability at that time to receive or distribute them.)

The Oplan called for the Mayaguez to be "raided" by Khmer Rouge “pirates”
[footnote #1] and its cargo "stolen". However, the captain of the Mayaguez
(Charlie Miller) who was ordered to keep the real plan secret from his crew
until the last moment failed to communicate the plan even after gunfire was
first initiated by his crew against the "pirates" who were stunned at being
fired at. The Oplan called for no weapons fire, no hostages, no deaths. It was
supposed to be a three-hour operation that proceeded cleanly and without fatal
or injurious incident.

By the time Miller finally decided to tell his crew about his CIA mission and
orders there had already been three crew deaths... but by that time crew that
partly did not believe Miller and partly didn't care whether Miller was telling
the truth or not. (Two of the dead Merchant Mariners were said to be "wives" of
two angered homosexual Mariners who wanted nothing more than to avenge the
deaths of their "women".)

Murphy's Law kicked in bigtime... what can go wrong will go wrong under
incompetent or irresponsible commanders.

Upon learning of the deaths and a bungled Op the White House (WH) panicked.
President Ford had no alternative but to disavow the secret Oplan and address
the crises as what the news media did (and was pre-planned to) report it as: an
attempt to capture an American-friendly vessel at sea that -- unplanned -- had
become hostile w/deaths.

Meanwhile, the Merchant Mariners and "pirates" -- both sides utterly confused
and bewildered -- continued to exchange fire. The largely homosexual crew of the
Mayaguez angrily refused to relinquish ownership. (Because homosexuality among
Merchant Marine crews had become an "epidemic" by that year, and revealed as a
result of Congressional (public) investigation of the Mayaguez "Incident",
Congress soon-after authorized and mandated the U.S. Merchant Marine to allow
women to serve as Mariners. Women now serve with distinction as Merchant
Marines.)

The largely stunned CIA-trained "pirates" remained steadfast in completing their
CIA mission, while the angered crew remained steadfast in their refusal to allow
their cargo to be taken uncontested.

The WH, responding to American media reports of the action directed a rescue
mission using Marines to "rescue" the Mayaguez... but a second edition of
Murphy's Law kicked in... the UMSC commander was not briefed with instructions
to allow the contents of the Mayaguez to be off-loaded by the "pirates". The WH
hoped the Marines would kill off all of the “pirates” and, thereby, kill any
chance to the truth becoming known. But in his ignorance of the truth, the
hyper-patriotic Marine commander ordered his men to imagine themselves as
baby-John Wayne's and fight to the death.

In the end the Marines saved 39 Merchant Marines but lost 39 U.S. Marines in the
process. The reconciled "pirates" eventually got the vessel's cargo but promptly
sold it -- out of anger -- to Pol Pot who used the weapons to murder over 1
million of his countrymen and women in a merciless and bloody Holocaust rivaling
HitlerÂ’s slaughter of innocent men, women and children who happened to be Jews.

The lesson of the Mayaguez remained in CIA and US military Lessons Learned
instructions guides for the next thirty years, only to be discarded by Bush
Administration "neo-cons" (Israeli Americans members of JINSA and AIPAC) who
ignored everything we did wrong in the Mayaguez incident.

Today a new version of the bungled Mayaguez is being played out in Iraq. The
same Israeli-American "neocons" led by (former State Dept) Douglas Feith,
(SenÂ’s.) Leibermann and Kyl, and (General) Raymond Odierno (currently scheduled
to replace Petraeus as commander of US Forces in Iraq) who wish to use American
blood and money to involve the United States in multiple wars against Islamic
nations have used -- for the past year-- Israeli-American news correspondents to
fill news reports about Iranian-made weapons being flooded into Iraq.

However, only recently -- last week -- on 10 May 2008 did the GAO officially
report that an exhaustive audit revealed that none -- repeat NONE -- of the
weapons alleged reported by Petraeus and Odierno to be of Iran manufacture or
origin are in fact Iranian.

Forgotten, it seems, were the reports made by prior Generals in Iraq shortly
after the invasion who said: "Iraq is one huge weapons storehouse. Saddam has
weapons everywhere. Anywhere and everywhere you look you will find guns, ammo,
explosives...".

In short, Iran doesn't need to provide weapons to Iraq. There remains, since
2003, vast storehouses of Saddam-acquired munitions from every weapons producing
country on the globe.

The planned purpose of the Mayaguez was to continue the Vietnam War using
American armed and paid indigenous forces in Cambodia (Khmer Rouge) and Laos
(Hmong) to replace US military personnel. The Mayaguez operation terminated that
plan.

The plan and purpose of the current Administration is to fool the American
people into believing Iran is the cause for the continued problems in Iraq.

The question for those of us who served in Vietnam is the following: Do we vote
for John McCain who will continue the failed war in Iraq and open a new war in
Iran, or do we oppose McCain by voting for a candidate who will use Truth and
Honesty to battle our legitimate opponents?

FOOTNOTE #1:
Nixon had visited China in 1972 where CambodiaÂ’s legal leader (Prince Norodom
Sihanouk) dissed him. Because Nixon was pissed at Sihanouk for not allowing
American military free-access to Cambodia in 1970 (“The Cambodian Incursion”),
Nixon threw support to Pol Pot who promised to fight eternally against the North
Vietnamese in Cambodia. However, what Pot did not tell Nixon that he intended to
murder any person in Cambodia who did not meet his personal Nazi-like physical
standards. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese in Cambodia, along with over one
million Cambodians of mixed racial heritage, were murdered by Pot using the
weapons he obtained from the Mayaguez (and other sources of US origin).
Outraged, the American people responded by rejecting FordÂ’s re-election request
in 1976.

POSTSCRIPT:
a. Several Hollywood movies in the works about the Mayaguez were successfully
terminated by CIA to prevent further research and disclosures to harm Gerald
Ford's re-election. Ford lost anyway despite the fact that he ordered Congress
to establish and (temporarily) fund the "Vietnam Veterans of America"
organization by buying off the leaders of "Vietnam Veterans Against The War"
organization that haunted him at every campaign stop...

b. Since the Revolutionary War all presidents have consulted with former
Generals regarding future ops and military strategies. In fact, in 1812 Congress
ordered that all former generals and admirals (amended in 1947 to mandate all
Four-Star generals and admirals) be formally consulted (when secrecy was
important they would be ordered to report for duty at the Pentagon) whenever any
major military operation or campaign was being planned or anticipated. However,
one week ago on 09 May 2008 SecDef Gates officially ordered an end to all
formal, mandatory consultations with former Four-Star generals and admirals...
it seems Gates and Bush donÂ’t like what our former generals are telling them
about their idiotic plans to initiate a war with Iran, Syria and Lebanon before
the November elections.)

-- 30 --

REFERENCES:

1. Copy of a Memoradum of Events that was authored (for public release) three
weeks prior to the event:
http://www.ford.utexas.edu/LIBRARY/exhibits/vietnam/750519a.htm

2. The names of the 39 Marines who died during the Mayaguez Operation are listed
on the Vietnam War Memorial: http://members.aol.com/veterans/freecard.htm

-- Aaron (aaronwilson@pacbell.net)

-- Otis Willie (Ret.)
Military News and Information Editor (http://www.13105320634.com)
The American War Library, Est. 1988 (http://www.amervets.com)
16907 Brighton Avenue
Gardena CA 90247
1-310-532-0634

Military Webmaster Site Link Request Form:
http://www.amervets.com/linkreq.htm

Military and Vet Info-Exchange/Discussion Groups
http://members.aol.com/amerwar/share.htm