Vietnam: We Could Have Won?

[Atlantians]

Wow. CF has really messed up HTML imbeded code. Look at my last post, it is a mess.

 

[Gracchus]

Want more? Just google these and follow the first links.

•The American War: The U.S. in Vietnam
• Vietnam: American Holocaust - Tonkin Incident
• Vietnam: American Holocaust - Bombing Vietnam
• Agent Orange - Vietnam journeymanpictures
• Karen Stuhldreher rape in vietnam
• Kali Tal Nicholas
•Turse Deborah.Nelson War.Crimes

 

[Atlantians]

Then, Atlantians, there is this:

"
In the post-war era, Americans struggled to absorb the lessons of the military intervention.[186] As General Maxwell Taylor, one of the principal architects of the war, noted "first, we didn't know ourselves. We thought that we were going into another Korean war, but this was a different country. Secondly, we didn't know our South Vietnamese allies... And we knew less about North Vietnam. Who was Ho Chi Minh? Nobody really knew. So, until we know the enemy and know our allies and know ourselves, we'd better keep out of this kind of dirty business. It's very dangerous."[187][188]
Some have suggested that "the responsibility for the ultimate failure of this policy [America's withdrawal from Vietnam] lies not with the men who fought, but with those in Congress..."[189] Alternatively, the official history of the United States Army noted that "tactics have often seemed to exist apart from larger issues, strategies, and objectives. Yet in Vietnam the Army experienced tactical success and strategic failure... The... Vietnam War('s)... legacy may be the lesson that unique historical, political, cultural, and social factors always impinge on the military... Success rests not only on military progress but on correctly analyzing the nature of the particular conflict, understanding the enemy's strategy, and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of allies. A new humility and a new sophistication may form the best parts of a complex heritage left to the Army by the long, bitter war in Vietnam."[190] U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote in a secret memo to President Gerald Ford that "in terms of military tactics, we cannot help draw the conclusion that our armed forces are not suited to this kind of war. Even the Special Forces who had been designed for it could not prevail."[191] Even Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara concluded that "the achievement of a military victory by U.S. forces in Vietnam was indeed a dangerous illusion."[192]"

Vietnam War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Of course it is only wikipedia, but a student of history should have no problem checking the citations.

I found Kissinger's memo quite interesting.
That quote of him is a little misleading, however.
If you are interested:
Lessons of Vietnam by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, ca. May 12, 1975

What is most fascinating is his last paragraph (I transcribed, may be spelling errors):
"I have always believed, as have many observers, that our decision to save South Vietnam in 1965 prevented Indonesia from falling to Communism and probably preserved the American presence in Asia.

This not only means that we kept our troops. It also means that we kept our economic presence as well as our political influence, and that our friends -- including Japan -- did not fell that they had to provide for their own defense. When we consider the impact of what is now happening, it is worth remembering how much greater the impact would have been ten years ago when the Communism movement was still widely regarded as a monolyth destined to engulf us all. Therefore, in our public statements, I believe we can honorably avoid self-flagellation and that we should not characterize our role in the conflict as a disgraceful disaster. I believe our efforts, militarily, diplomatically and politically, were not in vain. We paid a high price but we gained ten years of time and we changed what then appeared to be an overwhelming momentum. I do not believe our soldiers or our people need to be ashamed. "

Want more? Just google these and follow the first links.

•The American War: The U.S. in Vietnam
• Vietnam: American Holocaust - Tonkin Incident
• Vietnam: American Holocaust - Bombing Vietnam
• Agent Orange - Vietnam journeymanpictures
• Karen Stuhldreher rape in vietnam
• Kali Tal Nicholas
•Turse Deborah.Nelson War.Crimes

Yes and for all our evil the North Vietnamese matched it ten fold, with the obvious exception of the bombs which I don't consider 'evil' per se.

 

[Gracchus]

I found Kissinger's memo quite interesting.
That quote of him is a little misleading, however.
If you are interested:
Lessons of Vietnam by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, ca. May 12, 1975

What is most fascinating is his last paragraph (I transcribed, may be spelling errors):
"I have always believed, as have many observers, that our decision to save South Vietnam in 1965 prevented Indonesia from falling to Communism and probably preserved the American presence in Asia.

This not only means that we kept our troops. It also means that we kept our economic presence as well as our political influence, and that our friends -- including Japan -- did not fell that they had to provide for their own defense. When we consider the impact of what is now happening, it is worth remembering how much greater the impact would have been ten years ago when the Communism movement was still widely regarded as a monolyth destined to engulf us all. Therefore, in our public statements, I believe we can honorably avoid self-flagellation and that we should not characterize our role in the conflict as a disgraceful disaster. I believe our efforts, militarily, diplomatically and politically, were not in vain. We paid a high price but we gained ten years of time and we changed what then appeared to be an overwhelming momentum. I do not believe our soldiers or our people need to be ashamed. "

"What then appeared to be an overwhelming momentum..."

I take it then that we are completely free to commit any evil if it might be in a good cause?

Of course some fool who didn't understand pragmatism said:

"For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

We gained ten years, in the opinion of a man as evil as any Nazi, and all we had to do was kill millions of Vietnamese, or as our brave fighting men called them, slopes, slants, and [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]. It helps to bond with your buddies if you demonize or dehumanize your victims. (I find it risible that the forum censors the most common term our troops used for the Vietnamese.)

"No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon."

Neither, I think it obvious, would he think you can you serve God and Mars.

Tell me, Atlantians, what master were our fighting men serving?

Yes and for all our evil the North Vietnamese matched it ten fold, ...

Do you really believe the wrongs committed by others excuse those we commit ourselves?

...with the obvious exception of the bombs ...

And Hitler was a fine fellow, with the obvious exception of the holocaust, and the rape of Europe, and ... After all, he did build the autobahns.

...which I don't consider 'evil' per se.

Of course you don't. I understood that about you from your first post.

You have, from long exposure to the port-a-potty, lost your sense of smell.

 

[mindlight]

With 6 million dead , lands covered in toxic agent orange, deformed and malnourished children and a generation of poverty the Vietnamese paid a heavy price for their victory. The US lost 60,000. But of course you could have won:

1) You could have completely nuked the place.
2) You could have worked with the North Vietnamese to establish a more friendly partnership and by offering development aid rather than all out war weeded them away from Communism. But this was not LBJs style.

I do not believe a conventional war was winnable in Vietnam.

 

[Lemmiwinks]

We were meddling in another country's affairs and therefore we didn't deserve to win the vietnam war. We didn't have the will to win because we knew deep down inside that we hadn't the right to be there in the first place.

 

[Ruckhard82]

Of course the war could have been won, the communists never acheived any real military victory. The problem is simply that we didn't march into North Vietnam and crush the enemy.

 

[Gracchus]

Of course the war could have been won, the communists never acheived any real military victory. The problem is simply that we didn't march into North Vietnam and crush the enemy.

Luckily, there were enough decent people left in the U.S. to prevent that.

The "enemy" was the bulk of the Vietnamese people, who had not offended the USA in any way, other than to repel a foreign invasion.

 

[exotic walrus]

"The idea that it lost the war is an expression of imperial arrogance"

YouTube - Vietnam War: What really happened

 

[Sphinx777]

Vietnam, officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (Vietnamese: Cộng hòa xã hội chủ nghĩa Việt Nam), is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea to the east. With a population of over 86 million, Vietnam is the 13th most populous country in the world.

The people of Vietnam regained independence and broke away from China in AD 938 after their victory at the battle of Bạch Đằng River. Successive dynasties flourished along with geographic and political expansion deeper into Southeast Asia, until it was colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. Efforts to resist the French eventually led to their expulsion from the country in the mid-20th century, leaving a nation divided politically into two countries. Fighting between the two sides continued during the Vietnam War, ending with a North Vietnamese victory in 1975.

Emerging from this prolonged military engagement, the war-ravaged nation was politically isolated. The government’s centrally planned economic decisions hindered post-war reconstruction and its treatment of the losing side engendered more resentment than reconciliation. In 1986, it instituted economic and political reforms and began a path towards international reintegration. By 2000, it had established diplomatic relations with most nations. Its economic growth had been among the highest in the world in the past decade. These efforts culminated in Vietnam joining the World Trade Organization in 2007 and its successful bid to become a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 2008.

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[General Mung Beans]

I think the US could have won in my opinion had it more support. After all the US has won it Iraq despite the widespread belief that it was lost.

 

[Gracchus]

I think the US could have won in my opinion had it more support. After all the US has won it Iraq despite the widespread belief that it was lost.

What the @#$% have we won?

Dead Americans, dead Iraqis, huge expenses, ...