Does Anyone Here Think We Could Have "Won" The Viet Nam War?

I think this is an interesting question to ask, not just DUers, but to ask those running for the nomination for president of both parties.

I realize that there are some (even those who lived through that time) who believe that if we'd just stayed "x" number of years longer, or dropped even more bombs, or did some other unspecified action, that we would have 'won'. "Winning" of course is never really defined, but I suppose could involve popular support of the puppet we installed as 'president' of S. Viet Nam or the end of fighting in S. Viet Nam with popular support for the government we installed. I don't think we could ever have had them accept a Western puppet government.

John McClueless believes we could have 'won' in Viet Nam. He is among a dwindling number of sycophants who when they utter that thought, make most people shake their heads....as if they'll never ever learn a damned thing.

Its past time to start to compare these two debacles, so that we can find who the clueless are among the candidates. I'd like to know what Guiliani thinks, what Thompson thinks, what Governor Goodhair thinks.
I think it can help to marginalize them and make people understand that if they were elected, they would help prolong a lost cause.

They're not worth arguing with.

:rofl:

Maybe we can convince them we 'won' in iraq too, so they will support bringing the troops home

I know a woman who supports bringing the troops home because they've done all that they can for "those people". No recognition we were lied into a war, commited international war crimes, slaughtered tens of thousands of people, bankrupted our country, ruined our reputation in the world - no, she's in complete denial to all of that but is counted among those who now oppose the war.

Freepers.

If we could have solved THAT little problem, it would have been a cake walk.

So, no.

We could not have "won" something that was, in fact, someone else's Civil War.

even had we installed a pupet, history has shown that the rulers we've installed don't create a stable country or long lasting government, nor have much concern for the well being of the countries population. just look at the Shah as an example.

But it would have required a million soldiers and more than likely a wider war with China/USSR. It was a lost cause from the beginning.

this invasion is a lost cause too.:hi:

Thanks for the welcome, I've been on here for a long time, I just never comment. And yes, this invasion is definitely a lost cause, and it sucks that we got into it in the first place, because no matter when we leave, its going to be a disaster for a long time to come. My thinking is that the Bushman wants to extend it beyond his presidency so he doesn't have to take the fall for losing the war.

The question is so broad as to be meaningless though.

As you point out, we'd first have to define what we meant by winning; secondly we'd have to ask at what point we can change course. What if Kennedy or Eisenhower had forced the South Vietnamese Government to be less corrupt and respect Buddhism more? What would have happened then?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

country as predicted?

Or how about it we hadn't sold him down the river in the first place, after he helped us fight the Japanese during WWII, then declared an independent Vietnam quoting liberally from our own Declaration of Independence?

We could have "won", by letting the Vietnamese people run their own damn country and getting the fuck OUT. Same with Iraq.

Bryant

To keep Vietnamese people from running their own country? To allow the French whose asses we had just pulled out of the fire to re-obtain their colonial "property" after WWII?

That might be advocated as a third possibility.

Bryant

version, indicates that to be a ridiculous falsehood. Like I said, Ho Chi Minh worked with the CIA during WWII. He quoted liberally from the Declaration of Independence when he declared an Independent Vietnam in '45. And isn't the corollary to preventing the spread of communism "spreading democracy"? How were we spreading Democracy if we kept the Vietnamese from electing their own leader in 1956? Am I to understand that "freedom" and "Democracy" only apply when people are voting for the folks WE want them to vote for? Like the voters in Chile before the Coup, the Vietnamese wanted a leftist government. Was it our business to tell them -with the barrel of a gun- that they couldn't have one?

Lastly. We "lost" the Vietnam war. We got out. The "commies" won. So how come Communism didn't spread all over southeast asia like we were warned it would? How come we're not "fightin' em here" since we stopped "fightin em there"? I'll tell you why: Because those are the bullshit slogans and lies with which wars were, and still are, sold to the American Populace.

I have a master's degree in histry specializing in the American Communist party; I have more than a passing interest in this issue.

I agree with your assertion that if we had worked with Ho Chi Minh instead of mindlessly condemning him as a Communist we would have accomplished our goals in that region; they would have had a leftist government, but one in our orbit, not the Soviets.

Jesus Christ I largely agree with you and I've made that clear and still you insult and demean me because I don't completely agree with you? I guess that is the traditional DU position, though, so you are in good company.

Bryant

deaths of 58,000 Americans and upwards of 3 Million Vietnamese. Needless. Seeing as those EXACT same lies and saws, like "we have to fight em there so we don't fight em here" are right now being used to justify more useless slaughter in Iraq, I'm not inclined to pull any punches with how I feel about that sort of baloney.

I wasn't under the impression that you were actually making those arguments yourself, merely throwing them out, playing the Devils Advocate perhaps. My comments weren't intended to be taken personally by you. Perhaps I should have worded my post differently- If they came across that way, I apologize.

It was a ridiculous concept, but it made sense to a lot of people who didn't know any better.

And it was a powerful incentive to keep average Americans in support of the war. For a while.

But, reason finally trumped idiocy. The public angrily turned against the war after seeing no progress and hearing about atrocities and illegal bombings of other countries. And the shockingly high death rate of troops.

Sound familiar?

Assuming we decided to fight it in a biblical fashion. Remember how they rolled back in the OT? Put everyone to the sword, leave not one brick atop another. If any of your warriors shows mercy to one of the enemy, kill him as well. Sometimes it's acceptable to kill all but the virgin girls, sometimes you had to kill them, too. Our country had the military capability to easily depopulate the entire nation. Thank God we didn't.

If your side can get away with genocide, it doesn't matter whether or not the other side can be won over. If you can't kill them all, you're going to have to see about winning them over to your side. Because if you don't, it's just going to be a slow, miserable bleed, just like Vietnam, just like Iraq.

Joshua "fit the battle of Jericho". HINT: The OT God doesn't come off looking too good.

Vietnam had no front line, not like Korea. In unconventional warfare, the guerrila/insurgent doesn't have to win....he just has to not lose. In other words, he has to merely wait out his adversary. And that's exactly what they did.

Can't win by just dropping more bombs. All the bombs in the world won't do you any good, if you can't occupy and hold territory.

To force any kind of armistice, you have to negotiate from at least a position of equity. We never had the country secured, and even before the end, even Saigon was touch-and-go. I really think we just prolonged the inevitable.

for every one the U.S. lost in perpetuity

I read a terrific book about Vietnam called "Patriots", it was nothing but first-person accounts from civilians and soldiers on both sides, from a teenage girl who worked on the Ho Chi Minh Trail to Kissinger. Remarkable book.

Anyway, that same girl said they would work on the trail nonstop, day and night. They would eat bark and tree slugs when there was no food, and drink out of puddles in the trail. If they were bombed, they sought shelter in the jungle. If one of their own was killed in the airstrike, they would place her in one of the craters in the trail, pray over her, then fill the crater, effectively burying their comrade while repairing the road. Then right back to work.

How can you beat such determination? She didn't even carry a weapon, but did we even have a chance against this kind of resolve? That just blew me away.

Norman Morrison, who immolated himself outside McNamara's office to protest U.S. involvement in Southeast Asia, his self-immolation an homage to the Buddhist monks' self-immolations to protest the outrages of the Diem regime.

Ho Chi Minh was so impressed by Morrison's example that he cited it in speeches to the Vietnamese people over the radio as proof that there was a distinction between the American people and the crimes being perpetrated by the Johnson administration. I have heard that the Vietnamese even erected a statue in honor of Morrison in Hanoi, although I cannot remember where I heard that.

May have been mentioned in the book.

Sad. Think of how little we knew about Norman Morrison, then and now. But the Vietnamese erected a statue for the man.

Just a stunning book.

a few months back. A man named Malachi Richter burned himself to death to protest Iraq. Got very little media play here - I found out about it through an alternative newspaper here in Los Angeles ("ChangeLinks").

http://www.electrical.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=21714 has an abbreviated account with a link to Chicago Sun Times article.

Viet Cong: sympathetic and supplied guerrilas; some from the south, some from the north.

NVA/North Vietnamese Army: actual uniformed troops of the north.

They would have infiltrated. Here's the definition for you:

American Heritage Dictionary
in·fil·trate (?n-f?l'tr?t', ?n'f?l-) Pronunciation Key
v. in·fil·trat·ed, in·fil·trat·ing, in·fil·trates
v. tr.
To pass (troops, for example) surreptitiously into enemy-held territory.
To penetrate with hostile intent: infiltrate enemy lines; terrorists that had infiltrated the country.
To enter or take up positions in gradually or surreptitiously, as for purposes of espionage or takeover: infiltrated key government agencies with spies.

What's the issue, then?

You obviously have something on your mind, besides grammar.

Please tell me that's not all you have to bring to this thread.

Literally. There also was no such thing as the NVA. Soldiers from the DRV were part of the PAVN (People's Army of Vietnam), and most honest military writers use that term, rather than the inaccurate "NVA." The 1954 Geneva Agreements explicitly stated that the 17th parallel was in no way to be considered a territorial boundary, but was, rather, a temporary demarcation line designed to separate warring parties for the cessation of hostilities (the French War). That agreement was subverted by US machinations, but even the RVN (Republic of Vietnam...there was also never any such thing as "South Vietnam") never relinquished its territorial claim to the land north of the 17th parallel. In the early years, many of the "infiltrators" from the North were actually former Viet Minh returning to their homes. They had followed the dictates of Geneva in good faith, relocating north of the demarcation line as they had been asked to do. Repression of their families began extraordinarily early; there are reports of Diem death squads hitting the villages as early as 1955-56, and resistance even at that point. (See Jeffrey Race's excellent contemporary RAND study War Comes to Long An: Revolutionary Conflict in a Vietnamese Province)

This is not to say that there aren't major cultural and linguistic differences between north and south Vietnam. there are. And by the time of Operation Masher/Whitewing, many of the PAVN troops coming from the north were indeed conscripts with no cultural connection to the south, and there are actually excellent studies of the resentment many in the DRV felt about the war. But if we make the initial mistake - that is, if we believe that there was such a thing as "North" Vietnam and "South" Vietnam - then we immediately buy into a US ideological construction. These notions existed only in the US political imaginary. They had no referent on the ground.

I've seen both used, NVA more so.

I have to respectfully disagree with your take on the notion of "North" and "South" Vietnam being a US invention. The border was a recognized demarcation line, set by the Geneva terms of 1954, and is still historically regarded as such. You can call them Floyd and Gertrude Vietnam, for all the difference it makes: it was still a geopolitical boundary at the 17th parallel, recognized by all parties involved including Ho Chi Minh. He actually lost ground with that treaty, since he declared the northern and central provinces of Vietnam politically independent in 1945. The border's gone now. The US had nothing to do with the establishment of that border; that was set by the French and Ho Chi Minh. We just continued to use the agreed-upon nonclemanture.

To dismiss the border as US political imaginary (sic) and having no referent (sic) on the ground is inaccurate, and ignores the long history of that conflict long before the US had boots on the ground.

I refer back to the definition of infiltrate. The example you gave of refugees returning home is hardly infiltrating with hostile intent, and is not what I'm referring to, either.

I have no doubt that there was widespread resentment of the war on both sides, like all soldiers through history. And like all soldiers through history, the soldiers of the NVA/PAVN realized that the way home was through Saigon. They realized that the US and their puppets had to be driven from the country. Peace terms like those they sought with the French would only buy short-term peace, and delay long-term independence.

"6. The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the Agreement relating to Viet-nam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary. The Conference expresses its conviction that the execution of the provisions set out in the present Declaration and in the Agreement on the cessation of hostilities creates the necessary basis for the achievement in the near future of a political settlement in Viet-Nam."

http://vietnam.vassar.edu/doc2.html

If you continue to read that document, and not cherry-pick, you'll see that they were supposed to hold elections in 1956 to unify the country, but the turmoil in the countryside postponed that. The border became semi-permanent, since both sides continued to honor it.

Ho Chi Minh declared the northern and central provinces independent in 1945, while the southern province remained in French control. He named the new republic the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which was recognized by both China and the Soviet Union. in 1950. They may have issues with your thesis that there were no differences between North and South Vietnam.

And the million or so who fled North Vietnam after the peace of '54 may disagree with you also, as well as the hundreds of thousands who moved north. If there was no difference between the two nations/states/whatever you want to call them, why the mass exodus, going both ways?

In 1975, official control of the occupied Saigon seat of power was assumed by the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. This was established by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh himself. Apparently he thought that there was indeed a border, and a North and South Vietnam; otherwise, why the provisional authority?

You seem to know your history. You should know as well as I do that what is agreed upon over a treaty table and what actually happens are two different things.

The border may have been represented as "semi-permanent," but neither side ever established it as legal. It's also a bit silly to talk about "honoring it" when RVN conducted numerous raids against the DRV, and the whole logic of your post has to do with supposed "infiltration."

This is direct quote from Ho Chi Minh's Declaration of Independence: "They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united." Tell me again how this constitutes a limitation of the declaration to the Annam and Tonkin political regions? It doesn't. he clearly refers to Cochin China as well.

There is no doubt that two governments existed in practice, and that the temporary demarcation was subverted by any number of actors. But it is an imaginary construction, no less than was the French establishment of territories.

http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/van_kien/declar.html

Ho Chi Minh knew the elections were going to be bogus, thanks to the French and the US. He had no illusions about that.

They signed a legal treaty, establishing a legal provisional border that became semi-permanent. If Ho Chi Minh didn't recognize it, then why bother seeking peace and agree on a fixed position? Are you really reading what you're writing? You're not making sense.

By infiltrate, I am talking about the US stage of the conflict. No one can deny that the NVA and Viet Cong were active in damn near every corner of the theater. I was never talking about the French and post-accord stage of the conflict. Matter of fact, your broadening the conflict to this period only strengthens my point. Thanks for the assist.

"Tell me again how this constitutes a limitation of the declaration to the Annam and Tonkin political regions?"

This speech is historically significant only in context of independence, not of the provinces involved. He was clearly intent on uniting the whole Vietnamese people, true. But you (and Ho Chi Minh) conveniently ignore the French presence in the south. He made this statement in '45. He sought a peace accord in '54. The reality of what happened is far different from this speech. I can declare Iraq independent too, but if I can't hold it, it's kinda meaningless, isn't it? He declared the provinces that he could hold.

The French did not have colonies, then? Imaginary? That's pretty dismissive, and it goes both ways. Careful where you go with that. Are you dismissing the subjugation of the Vietnamese people under the French as imaginary, too, since apparently the French weren't there at all? Pass what you're smoking, my friend, it RAWKS.

I get the impression you think that by disputing your take on things, that I'm approving of the French occupation and the US conflict. I'm not saying the history is just, just saying that it's reality-based and intellectually honest to acknowledge what actually happened. Frankly, you seem hell-bent on denying anything that you don't deem just, except for a couple speeches and a piece of paper that proved meaningless. Acknowledging the existence of something and approval of it are two very different things. I think you should learn the difference. I can deny things I don't like either, but that's not intellectually honest.

Ho Chi Minh declared the northern and central provinces independent in 1945, while the southern province remained in French control.

He declared all the provinces independent. All the provinces were under French control, nominally. Once I demonstrate this to you using his actual declaration, you shift the goal posts. Not fair play, sir. As for the next bit:

The French did not have colonies, then? Imaginary? That's pretty dismissive, and it goes both ways. Careful where you go with that. Are you dismissing the subjugation of the Vietnamese people under the French as imaginary, too, since apparently the French weren't there at all? Pass what you're smoking, my friend, it RAWKS.

A more aggressive misreading I cannot imagine. I'll not engage if you cannot be honest.

Cheers.

Many posts ago, actually.

Rewriting history is fun!!!

Your backtracking, attacks, and deliberate misreadings certainly do not speak to diligence or character.

You may also be interested in this clause of the Paris Peace Accords (January 27, 1973):

Chapter V The Reunification of Viet-Nam and The Relationship Between North and South Viet-Nam

Article 15

The reunification of Viet-Nam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Viet-Nam, without coercion or annexation by either party, and without foreign interference. The time for reunification will be agreed upon by North and South Viet-Nam. Pending reunification:

(a)The military demarcation line between the two zones at the 17th parallel is only provisional and not a political or territorial boundary, as provided for in paragraph 6 of the Final Declaration of the 1954 Geneva Conference.

(b)North and South Viet-Nam shall respect the Demilitarized Zone on either side of the Provisional Military Demarcation Line.

(c) North and South Viet-Nam shall promptly start negotiations with a view to reestablishing normal relations in various fields. Among the questions to be negotiated are the modalities of civilian movement across the Provisional Military Demarcation Line.

(d) North and South Viet-Nam shall not join any military alliance or military bloc and shall not allow foreign powers to maintain military bases, troops, military advisers, and military personnel on their respective territories, as stipulated in the 1954 Geneva Agreements on Viet-Nam....

You keep repeating that there was never a North and South Vietnam, yet here you are, posting language that in black-and-white that identifies these countries and discusses re-unifying the two.

Wha hoppen? Change of heart? I'll not engage if you cannot be honest, as you say.

Unless I'm missing something, you are in effect refuting your own assertation with your own evidence. Can't have it both ways; can't use a fact when it supports your own point-of-view, but refute it when it doesn't. Talk about moving goal posts.

And you comment on MY diligence and character? Thanks for the laugh!

"no territorial or political boundary" are you having difficulty with? When you explain how you can have two countries without a territorial or political boundary, you will be correct. Until that time, you're wrong.

Never mind that neither party ever renounced its claim to the other side of the provisional demarcation line. Ever. This is akin to the US civil war, in that the United States never recognized the legitimacy of the CSA. But it's even more than that. because the RVN never recognized the boundary either. The analogy would be if the Confederacy believed itself entitled to the whole of the US.

I suspect we're talking past each other, however. I am speaking at the level of legitimacy and recognition. You're speaking at the level of practice. These are two different levels. So I'll keep making my point, and you'll keep making yours, and we'll never even speak. Salud.

"When you explain how you can have two countries without a territorial or political boundary, you will be correct. Until that time, you're wrong."

Well, then, you'll have to explain that to Ho Chi Minh and the rest of the North. They certainly saw the North as independent, with Hanoi as their seat of power, as did pretty much the rest of the planet by that time, and in the context of history still do. If that makes you right, to argue against that, then so be it.

That's a good analogy with the CSA.

"I am speaking at the level of legitimacy and recognition."

Exactly. Certainly legitimate.

"You're speaking at the level of practice."

Exactly. Certainly legitimate.

"These are two different levels."

They can be. I think the line between them is as fuzzy as, well, a provisional demarcation line.

Whew.

Salud!

:toast:

He understood that what they had north of the provisional demarcation line was solid, and the rest was disputed. He clearly disagreed with the subversion of the reunification agreement, and clearly believed that Vietnam was ONE country in need of re-unification. That's why it was a civil war. But Ho Chi Minh was also a nationalist and an idealist, and he fully expected that the civil war would fulfill the goal he aimed for all along: one Vietnam, free of foreign rule.

That the same language disputing the legitimacy of the 17th parallel as a political or territorial boundary appears in the 1973 accords certainly speaks to its axiomatic character in the DRV. As you certainly know, the French war was waged not just in Annam and Tonkin, but in Cochin China as well (Bernard Fall's brilliant books attest to this, especially Street Without Joy).

Now, people looking on from outside, with little of the knowledge you and I have about the historical context, may wonder why these points are relevant. Here's why they're relevant to me, and why legitimacy and recognition are not merely fuzzy concepts with respect to practice. It is almost impossible to deny that a unified, single Vietnam was the desired state of affairs for the Viet Minh who cast off the French. That unity was subverted through no small number of machinations on the part of the US and Vietnamese who sided with the French, or otherwise opposed the communists (Catholics, ethnic Chinese and Vietnamese business people, French loyalists, etc.). But that subversion did not establish, de jure, two separate countries - and this is what, as Pink Floyd tells us the fighting's all about. The US propaganda attempted to portray the war as the "North's" invasion of the South. This is misleading, and from a logical perspective, deeply flawed. Unless you assent to a de jure territorial boundary, you cannot assent to the notion of an invasion. The US propaganda thus puts the cart before the horse, making the very thing that was at issue into an assumption. THat's why I think honest historians should abjure little tricks associated with this propaganda, like the term North Vietnam (the DRV) or South Vietnam (the RVN) or NVA (the PAVN). What's remarkable is that such distinctions do not require me to take the DRV view of things, precisely because the RVN also never recognized the 17th parallel as a de jure territorial or political boundary! That's the really striking thing to me. Rigor requires accurate language, it seems to me.

I don't dispute anything you've said. I never said that Ho expected to sit fat n' happy above the 17th parallel, with his brand-new shiny border, and abandoned his ideals.

Classifying the US involvement as "defending against invasion from the North" is false on it's face. No one with an IQ above room temp and a library card believes that anymore. Can't say I've heard anyone try to explain away Vietnam like that and expect to be taken seriously. You need to give those around you more credit.

If you think that's what I was getting at this whole time, that the US was defending against invasion, then you misread me wholly and completely. I don't see acknowledging some kind of fuzzy idealogical/political/military/imaginary border as legitimizing US propaganda, at all. I think most would see the argument as academic, and as another poster said, navel-gazing.

You go on being rigorous.

I don't dispute anything you've said.

Lovely, then.

Don't be getting all rigorous on me.

I'll stay trite and academic. Little matters of historical understanding and the like.

Last word's yours, ace. I'm done. Have fun.

Making Pyrrhic issues of terminology where the meaning is clear is, imho, mere navel-gazing.

I also don't think it is an issue of mere terminology. I think the status of the 17th parallel as a territorial/ political boundary is crucial to our historical, political, ethical, and pedagogical understandings of the conflict. In other words, if you believe it was a de jure boundary, you draw one set of conclusions in each of those domains. If you think otherwise, you draw another. At the very least, understanding that issue (wherever you stand on it) builds historical understanding of the conflict as a whole, while dismissing the issue, in my view, means dismissing an important political point that speaks to the motivation, decision-making, and values on each side.

Now, I know you served in Vietnam, and I will admit that much of this would certainly qualify as academic tripe from that point of view. I'll cop to that. But I think it is important that my daughter, for instance, learn the history of her country (the United States) in a rigorous manner, and not take a set of rhetorical moves made by the US government as obvious truth or historical fact. That's where I'm coming from here, and I hope that doesn't offend you, or insult your service. Welcome home.

The smell of napalm in the morning or accomplishing geopolitical/diplomatic objectives that stabilize the region?

were artificially created and no other nation has a right to determine the type of government another chooses. There was a small escalation in the violence when South Viet Nam fell and now there is calm and Nam is growing economically and internationally.

and we'd stayed out of it.

I can't understand what more people think we could have done to militarily "win" that war.

for president.

I think that would send an incredibly strong message that they are suckers for more disaster.

I don't think there are any democratic presidential nominees stupid enough to think we should have stayed and continued that nightmare.

:sarcasm:

In truth, there's no such thing as "win-lose." In real life, there's only "win-win" and "lose-lose." :shrug:

Anyone who thinks differently should join a Professional Hand Grenade Catching League.

There are some that, for many reasons, cannot accept that once Uncle Sugar starts a war we must be victorious. If anyone admits a loss, the whole house of cards falls apart. If we face the fact that we cannot "win" (whatever that means) in Iraq, they will have to admit that all the money we spent and lives we lost were in vain and no one will ever want to serve in or pay for the next conflict. I have had people try to tell me that we could have "won" in Viet Nam if only we didn't quit too soon, the press was against us, the Democrats sold us out, or if we had used nukes. From my own personal experience, we could have bombed the living shit out of North Viet Nam until ther was only one poor bastard left and he would crawl out of his cave and throw rocks at us.

It would be so refreshing to have someone say that we cannot win some wars and we shouldn't even start them. If any of the candidates says we could have won in Viet Nam, they would be a poor president because they would be prone to think we could win any mess we got into.

no grasp of history. Did the Russians win in Afghanistan? Did the British defeat the US? Did the French? Did the Spaniards? Are the British still in India? Recent history, unless I'm wrong (not a historian) usually favors the natives over the Colonists or invaders--except, of course, Native Americans and Aborigines! When your homeland, religion, and way of life are at stake, you fight the foreigners.

Spanish-American War and its aftermath.

But--was that a fair fight, or was it our industrial-revolution weapons against their spears?

They burned Washington DC.

Thank you for saying it so well
:thumbsup:

After all, it's not over you know. :shrug:

tons of bombs, napalm and God only knows what else, it can't be won, period. Too many Vietnamese lost too much that was dear to their hearts to ever allow peaceful occupation and occupation was what it would have had to be...same with Iraq.

thought the powers that be were up to grand larcency. Again.

I don't think the american could win the Viet Nam War.
The french men have been in the Viet Nam War 12 years before the american and they lose the war before the american take over it.
Thanks
Is you interested of the american civil war 1861-1865 please visit www.factasy.com you have even a little info about the Viet Nam War in the site
Ann

The way to win in Vietnam would have been to recognize Ho Chi Minh's declaration of independence in 1945 and not supplied the French with the shipping they needed to try to reclaim their colony in Indochina.

The people didn't want freedom and democracy as much as they wanted independence from foreigners. That's why we would never have won there and why we won't ever win in Iraq.

We could have presented ourselves as the bringers of independence (from the French)
and actually lived up to it -- They would have been our friends forever.

Instead, we attempted to replace the French as colonial overlords.
We shoulda known better.
We DID know better, but the "deciders" never asked us.

They KNOW we know better.

It would seem the people formulating foreign policy, then and now, are decidedly dumber than a computer named WOPR.

treating Vietnam as say a game of RISK, and soldiers and people on both "sides" as faceless, meaningless wooden chits, yes we could have "won".

Winning in Vietnam would have required either another 5-20 years of more brutual occupation (Think My Lai times 10,000) and US acceptance of say another 250,000 US deaths. And the more widespread use of the tactics which lead to victory in the counter-insurgent wars of the Phillipines 1899-1913, or the Second Boer War, 1899-1902. Concetration camps and the "Howling wilderness" approach.

But, the development and proliferation of automatic rifles (namely the AK), AA pieces, mines and the amazing bravery and determination of the Vietnamese people, plus the eventual unacceptance of the savagery of the War in the US, resulted in defeat.

Yes. I admit that had we nuked every square inch and killed everyone there, we would have 'won' I suppose. However, I think 'winning' in the conventional sense would have meant, accomplishing the stated goal of colonizing Viet Nam and controlling it through our puppet under the guise of 'democratic elections' and an end to armed conflict.

I don't think that was ever attainable

Seriously, uh, no. Because it was an occupation of a country that didn't want us there- there was nothing to "win". Like Iraq, it was built on lies, and it was a huge mistake to be there in the first place.

Chi Minh

the vietcong are gonna win.

Communism never spread on the peninsula. The dominoes never fell. The United States is Vietnam's largest trading partner. Nike has it's ONLY manufacturing plant there.

Thanks largely to US support, Diem thought he could refuse to have the elections in South Vietnam (which he figured he would lose), effectively leading straight to the war.

Had we stood up for democracy, Ho Chi Minh would have won the election, Vietnam would have unified legally and relatively peacefully as a socialist state, we could have had normalized trade relations with Vietnam 20+ years sooner without killing 10 million Vietnamese or 50k American soldiers, and spared an unknowable number of people from committing or witnessing uncounted atrocities, not to mention the ravages of malnutrition and disease.

Furthermore, it is hard to say for sure, but I think it likely that Pol Pot would not have come to power in Cambodia in the absence of the instability caused by the war in Vietnam, thus sparing millions more from horrors of degradation, starvation, torture, and death.

I don't know about you, but I would have counted that as a win all around.

They'd kick so much ass and take so many names it would have been over by the time JFK took office

and I am glad for that

"From 1964 to 1972, the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of the world made a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs, to defeat a nationalist revolutionary movement in a tiny, peasant country-and failed. When the United States fought in Vietnam, it was organized modern technology versus organized human beings, and the human beings won."
---The Impossible War, Howard Zinn

traditional terms.

I know right wingers still saying the same thing about Iraq. They think the world is still in that state where one country can declare victory over the other and be done with it.

say that question has been answered 55,000 times over.

Here's a factoid to chew on ...... in that 'war', we used 100 lbs of napalm for every man, woman, and child who lived in Viet Nam contemporaneously. Would another few million pounds have made a difference?

we've been here, spoken out....and done that.

Perhaps WE (who lived through it) are not your audience. There's nothing left for us to say but WHAT YOU SEE..REVISITED!!!

Problem with winning Vietnam is a lot like winning Iraq.
Noone can define success, its an occupation.
Eventualy the occupier leaves.
So is "winning" delaying "defeat" and if so for how long?
Here's hoping we dont need to "win" in Iraq as badly as we needed to "win" in Vietnam (although 4+ years is closer than most feared)

I suppose that a super aerial bombardment of Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam that targeted not only their military but civilian population, as well, for months on end could have destroyed their determination to be independent. No amount of ground forces could have been added to change the outcome, because China was poised to come into the war and an Asian ground war would have certainly broken our resolve. A nuclear attack would have certainly ended in a victory of sorts, although I am not sure how the world would have reacted and it would have been a defeat for humanity.

If you look at Vietnam today, I would have to conclude that they are far better off than we ever dreamed. Though they have a communist economy, it seems to include some capitalist ventures and they have been completely free of colonial rule and a nation united and thriving.

There would have been much less death and suffering if a global bully had not suddenly landed its' Armed Forces and began determining their future based on American capitalist values and greed.

The average American cared nothing about the lives and aspirations of the average Vietnamese, any more than the average American cares about the lives and aspirations of the average Iraqis. We were just in it for what we could gain from going to war.

One out of four Vietnamese were killed in the Vietnam War. Had we killed them all, we would have "won." Sort of. I guess.

No, not really.

:sarcasm:

There seem to be many 'experts' among those who weren't there or weren't even out of grade school. Surreal.

The only exceptions to this have been when the invaders killed all of the invaded. Remember the Roman solution to the conquered lands that resisted, and they were the model empire.

Yet still we have a fair number of idiots that continue to believe that it is possible to conquer and hold another people's land, without killing all, or nearly all, of them. Our own country is a good example, how many Native American tribes no longer exist, or have been reduced to such small numbers that resistance is impossible?

Vietnam wasn't just a "badly run" war, it was a crime against humanity whose perpetrators are still immune from justice.

But, besides being immoral and insane, it was downright stupid to think that we could "democratize" an entirely different culture and people by demonstrating the superiority of "Western Culture" by killing 3 million of them.

"Because I do it with one small ship, I am called a terrorist. You do it with a whole fleet and are called an emperor."
A pirate, from St. Augustine's "City of God"