Was Vietnam Misunderstood?

[Bugfatty300]

Let me turn it around for you. 1 of every 3 soldiers in Vietnam were drafted. In any group of 3 guys, one of them didn't even volunteer.

So? And vice versa. Hence 70% or 2/3 were volunteers and 1/3 or 20% were drafted. Good for you. You can do fractions!

Even without any losses, Vietnam would have been extremely difficult to hold.

Yet the North Vietnamese were only able to take the South 2 years after the last 100 U.S. soldiers left Saigon, 9 years after the big build up began? Wierd.

So us leaving opened up even more slaughter, on both sides? I don't get how this helps the rest of your point

Again, I fail to see how it helps your point that they were merely put to death instead of still being held. And it's awful that we can't account for more than two thousand of our own men.

I don't think you even get my point.

 

[bigmeat]

wow bugfatty thats amazing i only knew like the last 2 paragraphs of that, damn liberal media and public schools with misinformed teachers

 

[bigmeat]

i almost forgot, do u know there were 500,000 vietnamese hookers in the vietnam war and made up to 3 times as much money as the average GI

a vietnamese woman could make 200 dollars in one night, enough to support her family for a year!

PS, moderator don't be mad at me i just thought that factoid was funny

 

[joespaniel]

Clausewitz-ian theory died the second the atomic bomb was born.

Vietnam was the first modern "little war" fought by the US, and the limited effort was self defeating. When the North walked away from the negotiating table, Nixon ordered full scale bombing and within a matter of weeks, the North was ready to negotiate again.

The idea behind the war was to strike at the Soviets through a client state and prevent other Asian states from going communist. Even though the South was run by a corrupt government, the people were worth fighting to protect from a brutal North VN army.

I'm not going to argue for or against the domino theory, because it was a flawed concept. However, the US did (and still does) have strong ties to countries in the region that it was concerned for.

My thanks to the thread starter for a well thought out piece.

 

[dgfred]

Clausewitz-ian theory died the second the atomic bomb was born.

Vietnam was the first modern "little war" fought by the US, and the limited effort was self defeating. When the North walked away from the negotiating table, Nixon ordered full scale bombing and within a matter of weeks, the North was ready to negotiate again.

The idea behind the war was to strike at the Soviets through a client state and prevent other Asian states from going communist. Even though the South was run by a corrupt government, the people were worth fighting to protect from a brutal North VN army.

I'm not going to argue for or against the domino theory, because it was a flawed concept. However, the US did (and still does) have strong ties to countries in the region that it was concerned for.

My thanks to the thread starter for a well thought out piece.

Excellent post . I believe all-out war would have knocked out
N. Vietnam . Limited war sucked and proved it so .

 

[allhailIndia]

All out war would have led only to many, many more deaths in the US, its total loss of credibility among its Asian allies and more national trauma.

The Vietnamese are people who are willing to lose everything to win..did the US have that resolve..I think not.
By EVERYTHING, I mean, these people were willing to live in stinking, damp, unlit caves under the ground, eating a few handfuls of rice a day, for years, just so that they could win. You can have bombers, tanks, napalm, or anything, but you cannot beat a people at war.
You can bomb cities, destroy infrastructure, take away everything they have, but if they resolve never to submit to foriegn rule, you cannot beat them. The Japanese, Chinese and French would have told you that, but you wouldn't listen.

 

[Tallanas]

You can bomb cities, destroy infrastructure, take away everything they have, but if they resolve never to submit to foriegn rule, you cannot beat them. The Japanese, Chinese and French would have told you that, but you wouldn't listen.

One of the biggest lessons that history teaches us is that we have to learn our lessons for ourselves. Time and again we see mistakes being repeated.

The US could have been told by France that they couldn't win the Vietnam conflict. And in turn, they could have told the Russians they would not have any success in Afghanistan... But, for political reasons, both nations had to find out for themselves.

 

[CruddyLeper]

I don't think the Vietnamese misunderstand this war.

They call it "the American war" and as they won it, I think they have that right.

 

[bigmeat]

we could have won in vietnam if we were committed to it, like ww2

 

[joespaniel]

The US did not invade the North except to do raids. There was no intention of conquering it and untiting the two Vietnams, as was attempted in Korea.

The US was there to defeat a guerilla insurgency in the South, at the behest of the South and the French govenments. When the NVA became fully involved, the US sent more force. That's when things started to get murky.

One aspect of the war in Vietnam was to keep the two superpowers occupied with supplying the armies fighting, instead of facing off in Europe, which had a high potential of becoming a nuclear war.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

The US did not invade the North except to do raids. There was no intention of conquering it and untiting the two Vietnams, as was attempted in Korea.

Due no doubt to the Chinese factor.

 

[dgfred]

All out war would have led only to many, many more deaths in the US, its total loss of credibility among its Asian allies and more national trauma.

The Vietnamese are people who are willing to lose everything to win..did the US have that resolve..I think not.
By EVERYTHING, I mean, these people were willing to live in stinking, damp, unlit caves under the ground, eating a few handfuls of rice a day, for years, just so that they could win. You can have bombers, tanks, napalm, or anything, but you cannot beat a people at war.
You can bomb cities, destroy infrastructure, take away everything they have, but if they resolve never to submit to foriegn rule, you cannot beat them. The Japanese, Chinese and French would have told you that, but you wouldn't listen.

I do not agree :shakehead . I agree with bigmeat- we could have easily won.
The limited warfare aspect is what caused the failure , not the Viet
resolve . The generals seemed to look at the war as a sort of
training exercise for tactics and weapons .

 

[F15Trigger]

Hmmm... I noticed that the Americans were too arrogant to admit their defeat in Vietnam. They stated the Vietnam War was "a war that no one won".
Come on we all know who won...

 

[F15Trigger]

Hmmm... all of this talks are based on the American Stratagists/Tacticians/Soldiers/ECT's views... i'm not saying that they lied but how can you articulate what really happened in Vietnam without the Vietnamese views.

 

[F15Trigger]

Some American history books blamed their defeat on the ARVN by saying: The ARVN was not delicated. However, based on statistics the ARVN deaths are way over 200, 000 troops.

Some on you said that Vietnam could be won if it was not a limited war. Then what do you want? An unlimted war? Where they are free to use all neccesary forces to shoot and nuke the people... even the innocent.. young.. old... and women?

Of course, the American forces are unbeatable in one to one combat. But what about not one to one combat. Vietnam was not a bulls fight, where two bulls charge straight at each other and the strogest bull wins. It was a tactical war. They shot your from behind and run. They shot you when you sleep and run. They shot you when you ****ting and run. They shot you when you taking a nap. The ART OF WAR was well used.

 

[troytheface]

Read somewhere that wars break out when the male populations reach a certain level.
(kinda Freudian but Blazac stated a similiar theory) ...this would explain why a modern nation would send troops into battle with guns that jammed. (M16) I mean, i find it hard to believe that no one in the U.S was smart enough to test a weapon under all kinds of battlefield conditions...and who made this desicion? Older non combatant men....kinda like sending a primary jet fighter out with only missles and no dog fighting gun....
My father was a Navy Captain and he once told me that the military brass wanted to just bomb continuosly (al la Iraq) but the "body count" idea won out...
In so far as liberal bias...what was that famous quote "we had to destroy the village in order to save it" made by a ground commander...rationality thrown to the wind
I read somewhere that the war had to do with economic control of something or other (think the author said a drug trade) ..whats the ol adage...follow the money trail..
The Mia Lai (sp) massacre was due (by one psyciatrists account) to several factors one of which was the policy in many small towns to give certain young men who got into trouble the option of joining the military as oppossed to jail -added to this was the frustration at not being able to come to grips with ur enemy- seeing friends killed- and
human behavior while in groups-which led to killing civilians....
Find it hard to believe that in this day people are reluctant to consider that the u.s. may have been the bad guys in this war...

 

[dgfred]

Hmmm... I noticed that the Americans were too arrogant to admit their defeat in Vietnam. They stated the Vietnam War was "a war that no one won".
Come on we all know who won...

Arrogance has nothing to do with it . No one doubts who ended up
winning the war , we are saying it was at best for the Viets a
stalemate while the US was on the offensive. I have also read many accounts of the Vietnamese point of view in the war, you assume too much.

 

[samildanach]

It's the first I've ever heard of such a thing, and I was there! Was this some kind of propaganda film you were watching Inhalaattori?

I've seen it as well. I can't remember what the documentary was called. But a camera crew went round and interviewed some of the guys that were involved in some of the more well known incidents. I remember one guy who had shot a kid at my lia who had been reduced to a total nervous wreck. When he returned from Vietnam some gang bangers had shot his young daughter dead in his garden and he was convinced that it was divine vengeance for what he had done in Vietnam.
A few years after seeing that documentary I saw the film "the Patriot", I think Mel Gibsons character in that film was partly based on the guy from the documentary as his character in the movie said a lot of the same things that this guy had said.
You might be able to find a reference to the documentary some where on the internet if you are interested but it isn't pleasant viewing.

 

[joespaniel]

Find it hard to believe that in this day people are reluctant to consider that the u.s. may have been the bad guys in this war...

At times, the US was the bad guy in that war. But the communists have the distinction of being THE bad guys. While some US troops committed war crimes, it was widespread amongst the NVA and especially the VC.

As for who REALLY lost, the real losers were the people of South Vietnam. I doubt they wanted their lives and countryside torn apart by war by the North/French/Americans any more than people elsewhere.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Hmmm... I noticed that the Americans were too arrogant to admit their defeat in Vietnam. They stated the Vietnam War was "a war that no one won".

Oh yes and the Viet Cong and NVA who were the "good guys."

Perhaps you never heard of the Hue masacre. It made Mai lai look like Dewey canyon III.

and who made this desicion? Older non combatant men.

You mean the same "non-combat" men who fought in WW2 and Korea? Yes brilliant!