Was it inevitable that the US lost the Vietnam war?

[Zkribbler]

Defeat was not inevitable at first. IMHO, we lost for two reasons:

First, we had nothing to fight for. Yes, I know we were fighting against communist expansion, but we had nothing to fight FOR.

The leadership is Saigon started out with Diem and his brother Ngo, who was the head of the secret police. Ngo especially was cut from the same cloth as Saddam Hussein; he was a murdering monster.

Once the Diem brothers were overthrown, there was a series of military dictators. In addition to the usual dictator oppresssion, these guys were into both corruption and drug smuggling. The last was President Ky and his Vice President, Thieu.

When the US finally wised up and realized it needed a democracy, these guys ran (switching roles, with Thieu running for President and Ky for VP). Election fraud was so rampant that all of their opponents quit, and they ended up unopposed. If two guys need to be driven out to the woods and shot for losing the war, it's these two.

Second, we tried to win a guerilla war using draftees. Not a good idea. When someone shoots at you from a village, you have to have the discipline not to level the village. But our draftees where not motivated, and often overreacted, which resulted in us losing the hearts and minds of the people. Sure the commies were bad, but we were worse!

We could not have won with a military invasion of the North. First, that would have just doubled the size of the guerilla war. Second, the Chinese would have probably come in a la the Korean War. (While it is true, they got the snot beat out of them when they themselves attempted to invade North Vietnam, if we had invaded, they'd have been coming in as allies.)
And third, the Vietnamese were closer allies to the Russians than to the Chinese. So the Soviets could have done something nuts, like snatching West Berlin or Gitmo.

[Sprayber]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
There is only one way that the U.S. could have won the Vietnam War: kill all the Vietnamese people.

That's pretty much the difference wasn't it. They were quiet willing to do just that to achieve victory.

[Zkribbler]

Sun Tsu teaches us that the most important factor in victory is morale.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
The US lost because the people united to drive out imperialism out of Vietnam, and in the end against the people all nations are powerless.

Exactly!

Commies have the "right" to wage aggressive war against non communist nations to spread "socialism" and terminate regimes allied to Imperialist powers, like the United States.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Lancer
"according to wikipedia, Kennedy dreamed up Vietnam as a way to funnel Soviet aggression over there and avoid nuclear confrontation (started when Krushcev demanded Berline when the 2 met in Vienna).

I'd say avoiding nuclear war is a good thing. No? Yeah we lost, and alot of people died. But how many more would have died in a nuclear confrontation."

wikipedia sounds like he's trying to cover grand stupidity by calling it grand strategy.

"It was their nukes that caused concern, not their ground forces, and the Sovs nukes as well. However nukes are useless, just ask Kruschev. If you use them, you die."

The Russians aren't going to get their own country blown away for North Vietnam, niether are the Chinese who have a very small nuke capability at the time.

This is just crazy. Wikipedia sounds like a commie revision of history. It is devoid of all connection to reality.

[Ned]

We lost the war because we didn't fight to win in 64-65 when the American people were fully committed to the conflict. By '68, the American people were dismayed by Tet, Johnson "resigned," and Nixon was elected to end the war.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ned


Exactly!

Commies have the "right" to wage aggressive war against non communist nations to spread "socialism" and terminate regimes allied to Imperialist powers, like the United States.

How does this post relate to what you quoted?

[Ned]

Originally posted by General Ludd





How does this post relate to what you quoted?

I note your confusion.

But this is symphomatic of a very general pattern that commies seem to have the right to wage aggressive war and the press, or the left, never seems to question this. It is as if some commie God exists that has ordered that communism be spread over the world so that all commie aggression is justified.

In plain fact, North Vietnam waged aggressive war against the South and conquered it. If this had been NAZI Germany doing this, I am sure you would see the problem.

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Ned


I note your confusion.

But this is symphomatic of a very general pattern that commies seem to have the right to wage aggressive war and the press, or the left, never seems to question this. It is as if some commie God exists that has ordered that communism be spread over the world so that all commie aggression is justified.

In plain fact, North Vietnam waged aggressive war against the South and conquered it. If this had been NAZI Germany doing this, I am sure you would see the problem.

again, how does any of this relate to a nation being powerless in a people's war? The only way you can defeat a popular movement through military means is genocide.

[Ned]

General Ludd, are you kidding? The Vietnam war was a war of aggression by the North. Defeating the North was the ONLY way of winning that war.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Zkribbler
Defeat was not inevitable at first. IMHO, we lost for two reasons:

First, we had nothing to fight for. Yes, I know we were fighting against communist expansion, but we had nothing to fight FOR.

In a sense this is right because we ourselves (Johnson and McNamara) always treated the conflict as an insurgency in the South and never for what it really was, naked aggression by North Vietnam. To those of us who lived thru those trying times, the luducracy of Johnson's policy and diplomacy was more than aggravating.

[Ted Striker]

Wikipedia sounds like that whole, "Bush is drawing terrorists away from the US and into Iraq," crap theory.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
Wikipedia sounds like that whole, "Bush is drawing terrorists away from the US and into Iraq," crap theory.

In a sense it does.

But to the extent Kennedy and others may have viewed Vietnam as a proxy war against the USSR, they contributed to our failure there.

[Ned]

BTW, the central theorist to the whole concept of "proxy war" is none other than our beloved Henry Kissinger.

[Lancer]

"conservative idiots"- Che

Che, I have noticed that many on the left, and some on the right, will denigrate a person who holds a different opinion. Kind of an 'I think less of you because you think blah'. Well, I don't think less of you because you think blah Che. Just want you to know that. That's right. I don't think you're an idiot because of your politics or pov, I figgure you got dropped on your head as a baby.

We could not have won with a military invasion of the North. First, that would have just doubled the size of the guerilla war.-Zkrib

Good point. However it would have cut their routes of supply.

Zkrib, South Vietnam was a mess and corrupt as hell. Not worth fighting for imo. I don't think we were fighting for that regime, but against the spread of communism, a worthy goal imo and one I've spent some time at personally.

Whoha, what an excellent link!

From Whoha's link:

Bui Tin was particularly appalled at the political humiliation of his long-time mentor, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, the hero of the Battle of Dien Bien Phu. But what turned him totally and irrevocably against the communist regime was the colonial attitude of his country's leaders toward Laos and Cambodia, which Vietnam's army invaded in 1979. Bui Tin fled Vietnam in 1990 and became a powerful critic ofthe communist regime from the safety of the U.S.

and

" We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was." And on strategy: "If Johnson had granted Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.... it was the only way to bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge effort involving tens of thousands of ..."

Politicians!

and

"Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable"

Should have gone north imo, screw the Chinese we would have kicked them back into China. The NVA did it with a fraction of our power.

"Stopping support from the North was easier and Johnson should have authorised many of the measures Nixon eventually took. Mining the ports and bombing any targets of any value in the North would, IMO, have forced North Vietnam to back off in the late '60's.

"It could have been won but the decisions that might have created the necessary conditions weren't taken so the conflict was lost."

Cerberus IV