Was Vietnam Misunderstood?

[YotoKiller]

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

Exactly. Everybody has heard of the villains at My Lai. But I bet nobody has heard of the "Heroes of My Lai." The crew of a lone American helicopter. The pilot who saved many fleeing civilians by putting his armed helicopter between the villagers and the marauding soldiers and threatening to fire on them if the attack wasn't halted.

Or that Communist atrocities that dwarfed My Lai were so wide spread that the media didn't bother covering them. American soldiers who committed atrocities would expect to be court-martialed and even executed in some cases while North Vietnamese tax collectors and soldiers received medals for the same atrocities. A huge injustice.

But what am I talking about? Everybody has seen 'Platoon' and 'Apocalypse Now' so everybody is an expert I guess

 

[joespaniel]

Americans are held to a higher standard though.

I'm not being sarcastic, I'm serious. We are (or rather, were) supposed to be the good guys. Up until certain points in history (Mi Lai, Abu Grayb, etc.) most people in the world had faith that Americans will do the right thing, that America had the moral currency to effect change whereas many countries do not.

Hitro explained it better than I can.

 

[allhailIndia]

It is foolhardy to argue that somehow the US lost because of strategy or tactics and such-like, that the Vietnamese won because of luck or whatever. The US lost because the American public weren't willing to have their sons die in a far-off land to keep some far off people from uniting, because one side happened to call themselves Communist. To the Vietnamese it was a matter of their nationhood and they were willing to pay any price to win the war. Some of the conditions that they had to endure in their war effort, would make any potential aggressor against Vietnam think twice about being funny with this country and its people. Even they lost all the battles, they fought with the conviction that they would win the war and they did.

 

[Merc]

Yeah, Vietnam was managed poorly from the start. When you look at early polls, Americans supported the actions in Vietnam in 65. But the military was handcuffed and could not accomplish anything. We should have took the North in 66. As the war dragged on and nothing was changing people started to get sick of the unproductive conflict.

China might have gotten involved if the north was invaded, but LBJ should have looked at that possibility and decided whether or not to get involved in Vietnam in the first place. If you're going to commit half-assed, don't bother with it at all. There are quotes of him saying not to attack Russian ships that were supplying the NVA. And letting the Ho Chi Minh trail operate for the whole war, doing nothing about it. Yeah, great plan, leave the supply lines alone, brilliant way to fight a war.

But really, looking at the statistics the US forces really gave an unprecidented preformance considering the situation. For every soilder the NVA killed they lost 7 of their own. The NVA did not push the U.S. out of Saigon. The US left 2 years beforehand. The NVA never pushed them out of anywhere.

Vietnam has lead people to believe that Guerilla warfare is actually effective somehow. It is effective at swaying the publics opinion, but you cannot accomplish anything of military importance using uncoventional warfare. You will never take a base, you will never take a city, you will never bring down the government. They never beat the U.S. at anything in Vietnam. But the homefront beat the military for them.

But we certainly lost the war. Entirely by public opinion. The media made stuff like Tet seem like defeats when they were actually victories. We claimed the Germans were finished in '44, but then they did a big attack known as the Battle of the Buldge, and that wasn't a defeat, was it?

 

[Bugfatty300]

It is foolhardy to argue that somehow the US lost because of strategy or tactics and such-like, that the Vietnamese won because of luck or whatever. The US lost because the American public weren't willing to have their sons die in a far-off land to keep some far off people from uniting, because one side happened to call themselves Communist. To the Vietnamese it was a matter of their nationhood and they were willing to pay any price to win the war. Some of the conditions that they had to endure in their war effort, would make any potential aggressor against Vietnam think twice about being funny with this country and its people. Even they lost all the battles, they fought with the conviction that they would win the war and they did.

To keep a people from uniting? If I can recall, the South had absolutely no interest in "uniting" with the North. We all saw what happened when the U.S. left and the people were "united." The same "uniting" that we saw in 1950 Korea or in 1865 America.

The South was equally committed to repelling the North as the North was committed to conquering the South. The South Vietnam Army held their own against the invaders for over 5 years before the big American build up began. But their own government was so corrupted by spies, communist sympathizers, traitors and tyrants that they were little more than a house of cards when the U.S. pulled out.

Even then, they held of the North for 2 more bloody years loosing hundreds of thousands of soldiers and out-numbered 3 to 1 with out any American or outside support at all and against an enemy well-funded and equipped by Russia and China.

 

[Case]

And letting the Ho Chi Minh trail operate for the whole war, doing nothing about it. Yeah, great plan, leave the supply lines alone, brilliant way to fight a war.

Actually, there was a prolonged and extreamly intense bombing campaign directed against the Ho-Chi Minh trail throughout the American involvement in Vietnam. When this involvement was winding down, the South Vietnamese invaded Laos with their best units in an attempt to cut the trail. The result was an absolute fiasco, with the 'elite' ARVN Airborne Division and Marine Division breaking and running and literally hundreds of American crewed helicopters being destroyed.

But really, looking at the statistics the US forces really gave an unprecidented preformance considering the situation. For every soilder the NVA killed they lost 7 of their own.

The US and Australian Armies were routinely doing much better then that against the Japanese in 1944-45.

Vietnam has lead people to believe that Guerilla warfare is actually effective somehow. It is effective at swaying the publics opinion, but you cannot accomplish anything of military importance using uncoventional warfare. You will never take a base, you will never take a city, you will never bring down the government.

...only if you're going up against a major military power. See the Rhodesian War for a clear-cut guerilla victory.

 

[YotoKiller]

China might have gotten involved if the north was invaded, but LBJ should have looked at that possibility and decided whether or not to get involved in Vietnam in the first place.

To be fair, it was Ike who got the U.S. involved in the Vietnam conflict and it was JFK who took it up a notch. Then LBJ inherited the war.

 

[Merc]

Actually, there was a prolonged and extreamly intense bombing campaign directed against the Ho-Chi Minh trail throughout the American involvement in Vietnam. When this involvement was winding down, the South Vietnamese invaded Laos with their best units in an attempt to cut the trail. The result was an absolute fiasco, with the 'elite' ARVN Airborne Division and Marine Division breaking and running and literally hundreds of American crewed helicopters being destroyed.

Laos and Cambodia should have been invaded from the start. Boming 1/4 of the trail is not going to fix anything, espically with the inaccuracy of airstrikes back then. You simply don't let your enemy have a totally unmolested supply line.

The US and Australian Armies were routinely doing much better then that against the Japanese in 1944-45.

And they also had the full support of their respective countries, and their commanders were not handcuffed by excessive regulations.

...only if you're going up against a major military power. See the Rhodesian War for a clear-cut guerilla victory.

The Rhodesian Forces were massively outnumbered by the Rebels, and the Rhodesian forces still had measures of success such as Operation Dingo, where 165 SAS and Rhodesian Paratroopers killed 5,000 Rebels while on the offensive. And don't forget it was certainly the popular thing at the time to give up to majority rule in Africa.

To be fair, it was Ike who got the U.S. involved in the Vietnam conflict and it was JFK who took it up a notch. Then LBJ inherited the war.

We were helping plenty of other countries the way we were helping Vietnam, but LBJ decided we would actually commit a large force. And I think it was Truman who first sent aid to the French in Vietnam.

 

[allhailIndia]

Vietnam has lead people to believe that Guerilla warfare is actually effective somehow. It is effective at swaying the publics opinion, but you cannot accomplish anything of military importance using uncoventional warfare. You will never take a base, you will never take a city, you will never bring down the government. They never beat the U.S. at anything in Vietnam. But the homefront beat the military for them.

Exactly my point! Guerilla warfare is irregular warfare, where you DONT take bases or cities, but harass your enemy out of the battlefield. You make your enemy's victories so bloody and pointless that they become semi-defeats, while your own defeats are glorified as great sacrifices. The NV were clever enough to realize that they would never be able to beat the Americans in open combat and hence, their policy was to cause enough deaths and casualties to make the American public believe that the war was pointless.
As far as guerilla victories goes, you are forgetting Afghanistan. The Soviets showed enormous stupidity in getting involved there, and even a totalitarian govt. didn't prevent people from getting mighty pissed at the bloodbath their sons and fathers were being sent into in Afghanistan.
In fact, even David's victory over Goliath was a typical example of irregular warfare, where a bigger, stronger, well equipped and well trained foe was beaten with unconventional weapons! David knew that he would never be able to fight GOliath even with the best of Israelis weapons because Goliath would still beat him because of his skill and size. He instead chose weapons he would be comfortable and those that would make Goliath uncomfortable. He hit Goliath when he least expected it and was too overconfident to defend against. Seeing the death of their champion, the Philistines routed and the Israelis won an improbable victory.
This is what guerilla warfare thrives on. It does not matter if you have atomic weapons, or nerve gas or anything, because you just don't seem to be able to win and stop the attacks and casualties. This is what is going on in Iraq, and ideally to stop it, the US would need a smaller, better trained force than what they have in place, and good intelligence, which comes from a rapport with the native population. Given that neither is going to happen anytime soon, Iraq looks doomed.

 

[Bugfatty300]

The NV were clever enough to realize that they would never be able to beat the Americans in open combat and hence, their policy was to cause enough deaths and casualties to make the American public believe that the war was pointless.

Which is not really true. The NVA learned that the hard way. In the early years of American involvement the NVA tried several time to defeat a smaller American force in open combat. Each time losing hundreds and thousands against an numerically-inferior enemy. Even when they succeeded in completely surrounding an ill-fated American force in attempts to make a repeat of Dien Bien Phu they lost badly. That is when the Viet Cong, the true guerillas of Vietnam, took over the fighting in the South and the guerilla war against the U.S. began. But then the Viet Cong were almost wiped out in the 1968 Tet Offensive when the NVA used them as cannon fodder in insane and suicidal attacks on U.S. fire bases. But by then the American pull out had begun and communist victory over the south was all but assured.

As far as guerilla victories goes, you are forgetting Afghanistan. The Soviets showed enormous stupidity in getting involved there, and even a totalitarian govt. didn't prevent people from getting mighty pissed at the bloodbath their sons and fathers were being sent into in Afghanistan.

Its important to note that the Afghan rebels were backed by billions of dollars of weapons and training from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Britain, China, the U.S. and Pakistan and once the Afghans got their hands on the stinger missiles, soviet helicopters began dropping like flies. With out this major international aid Afghanistan would have been conquered.

The Soviets did not pull out because of losses or dessent on the homefront. The Soviets lost only 13,000 troops durring the 9 years they occupied Afghanistan while the U.S. lost over 50,000 over a 6 year period in Vietnam alone. The Soviets pulled out because they simply could not afford it anymore since the USSR was completely broke in 1988.

 

[dgfred]

@ Bug- You really know your stuff . Excellent points and
observations . Right on target!

 

[Gelion]

Right on target!

True True!

 

[Bugfatty300]

@ Bug- You really know your stuff . Excellent points and
observations . Right on target!

Thanks. Vietnam is pretty-much my field of expertise.(I'm not a veteran by no means, it just happens to be what I know more about.)

Its lots of fun to crush peoples misconcieved ideas about that paticular quagmire.

 

[dgfred]

Thanks. Vietnam is pretty-much my field of expertise.(I'm not a veteran by no means, it just happens to be what I know more about.)

Its lots of fun to crush peoples misconcieved ideas about that paticular quagmire.

for your knowledge and crushing!

 

[Case]

Even when they succeeded in completely surrounding an ill-fated American force in attempts to make a repeat of Dien Bien Phu they lost badly.

OTOH, they did suceed in drawing all the American mobile reserves to the far north of South Vietnam and away from the big cities ahead of the Tet Offencive, something which many historians argue was their actual goal in the seige of Keh Sahn.

The Soviets did not pull out because of losses or dessent on the homefront.

While you're correct to identify the economic cost of the war as being a major reason for the Soviet withdrawal, there was a huge degree of public dissent against the war, and this dissent went a long way towards the downfall of the Soviet system.

The Soviets lost only 13,000 troops durring the 9 years they occupied Afghanistan while the U.S. lost over 50,000 over a 6 year period in Vietnam alone.

Hey, does that mean that the Soviet Army was even more effective then the US Army was in Vietnam?

Its lots of fun to crush peoples misconcieved ideas about that paticular quagmire.

quagmire? that's a strange world to use about something you argue to be a great US victory which was disarsterously mis-reported by the media

 

[Bugfatty300]

OTOH, they did suceed in drawing all the American mobile reserves to the far north of South Vietnam and away from the big cities ahead of the Tet Offencive, something which many historians argue was their actual goal in the seige of Keh Sahn.

There MAIN goal was to overun the base, period. Infact it was orchestrated by the same NVA general, Nguyen Giap. Also known for his victory at Dien Bien Phu.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khe_Sanh
http://www.multied.com/vietnam/KheSan.html
http://www.vietnam-war.info/battles/siege_of_khe_sanh.php
The intent of North Vietnamese and Viet Cong was to overrun the small base and its 600 or so marines and engineers with 20,000 NVA and Viet Cong to open the supply trails before the Tet Offensive began. The NVA even used what little supply of tanks they had in their desperation to overrun the base before the U.S. bombing began.

Wether or not the battle of Khe Sanh had some diversionary goals really doesn't take away from the fact that the NVA and Viet Cong were seriously trying to win this battle and repeat their victory at Dien Bien Phu. And they nearly did. Several hundred of the defenders of Khe Sanh were killed before Operation Niagra and Niagra II took place.

Hey, does that mean that the Soviet Army was even more effective then the US Army was in Vietnam?

No. Only slightly smarter. If you knew anything about either wars, you would know the Soviets were only willing to commit a marginal number of troops. 80,000 was pretty much the extent of the Soviet presence in Afghanistan. U.S. commited over 1 million troops over a ten year period, with 500,000 being the largest amount in Vietnam at one time. And on top of all that, Vietnam was one of the largest wars in the 20th century. FAR bigger than Afghanistan. 5,000,000 were killed on both sides. Its only natural that the U.S. casualty rate be far greater than that of the Soviets in Afghanistan.

quagmire? that's a strange world to use about something you argue to be a great US victory which was disarsterously mis-reported by the media

Ummm. I was mocking a famous quote by the Reporter, Klondyike in which Vietnam was reffered to as a "quagmire." The word was stuck ever since.

But hey. If you have to desperatly nit pik at everything in my post, then its fine with me

 

[Headline]

Vietnam has lead people to believe that Guerilla warfare is actually effective somehow. It is effective at swaying the publics opinion, but you cannot accomplish anything of military importance using uncoventional warfare. You will never take a base, you will never take a city, you will never bring down the government. They never beat the U.S. at anything in Vietnam. But the homefront beat the military for them.

Guerilla warfare IS effective. It was known that Americans had the control over the countryside villages during the daytime, but the Vietcong had the control over the villages during the nighttime. Whenever American left a village, the Vietcong came in, and when Americans came, they immediately left the village. In certain way, they have a partial control over the countryside. The amount of Americans in Vietnam was not enough to control the villages.

Now, race comes into the play. Americans were trying to hunt down those Vietcong, but they were unable to distinguish between the normal villagers and the Vietcong. They all look the same, so American started to simply burn down villages when they came. I guess the villagers wouldn't think the Americans were the good guys when the Americans were burning their home, so they naturally sided with the Vietcong and supported the Vietcong.

It is very easy to identify an American in a crowd of Vietnamese, but very hard to identify the Vietcong. The Vietcong would simply poke Americans and Americans would turn back and kill bunch of innocent pp (metaphor) suspecting the pp are Vietcong. All they needed to do were hiding in the crowd. The killing innocent pp would certainly agitate most common Vietnamese. Throwing out some nationalism, a lot of Vietnamese pp would turn against Americans.

Now, culture and nationalism come in to the play. Americans had hard time communicating with Vietnamese. The culture and language are so different that the Vietnamese did not understand why Americans were fighting. There was no justification. Americans were not spreading or educating "democracy" to Vietnamese in the city or in the countryside. Americans could not convince the countryside folks to side with them. On the other hand, the North Vietnamese uses common culture, national identity, and US imperialism to appeal the Vietnamese villagers. A well educated city folks could distinguish what is truth and what is not. Americans did not fight for imperialism.

On the side note, Vietnam War is also a war between city and rural. Vietcong got enough countryside to support them, so the proletariat won.

 

[YotoKiller]

The villergers were equally afraid of the Vietcong as they were of Americans. But there were some country people who did join with the U.S.

The Montagnard hated the communist and where previously friendly with the French, and hence their allegiance to the Americans

And they weren't very bad guerilla fighters either when given some surplus WWII-era American rifles.

 

[FriendlyFire]

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 .

"From start to finnish, American leaders remained catastrophically ignorant of Vietnmese history, culture, values, motives, and abilities. Misperceiving both it enemy and its ally and imprisoned in the myopic conviction that sheer military force could somehow overcome adverse political circumstances, Washington stumbled from one failure to the next in the continuing delusion that success was always just ahead" - Without Honor - Arnold R. Isaacs


seems we have learnt very little

 

[Bugfatty300]

"From start to finnish, American leaders remained catastrophically ignorant of Vietnmese history, culture, values, motives, and abilities. Misperceiving both it enemy and its ally and imprisoned in the myopic conviction that sheer military force could somehow overcome adverse political circumstances, Washington stumbled from one failure to the next in the continuing delusion that success was always just ahead" - Without Honor - Arnold R. Isaacs


seems we have learnt very little

Same thing could be said about the Philippines or Japan in World War II. The Americans pretty much disregarded Japanese culture and past? Yet they were still defeated. It took the U.S. 16 years to pacify the whole Philippines Islands but it was still done.

Why don't people claim the Japanese culture and resolve of World War II made them invincible? Because they lost to superior military force, obviously. Why don't people say the Vietnamese culture and resolve kept them from being conquered by communism?

Why people say this about North Vietnam perplexes me. I guess because people's natural reasoning tells them that the communists were indestructable, super-humanoids that were incapable of being defeated by anything.

I tend to look at what actually happened compared to what people think happened. The U.S. pulled out of Vietnam because of the near-revolutionary dissent, violence and riots back home. Not because they were chased out by some invincible immortal North Vietnamese people's Army.