Iraq's My Lai

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander


No, ARVN ran out of confidence because they were cut off by the Dems. Thieu quit listening to the advice of his American advisors (who advised against every mistake he made at that crucial time) because he no longer trusted that the U.S. wanted the South to endure. If you listened to the crap coming out of congress at that time you wouldn't be surprised by this either.

So it was a failure of leadership by the South Vietnamese. Thanks for confirming my point. After all, one would think Thieu could find some competent South Vietnamese generals. After all, it was highly competent North Vietnamese generals who won the war. If a country can't stand without endless foreign aid and guidence, that is a doomed country.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Ah, no. That's a common mistake.

Someone who was in Vietnam in 1975 would be seeing a very small section of the entire picture. And what a person sees in their small section may well distort the reality of what was happening.

For instance, on a given day, it might be quiet on one part of the front, while in another part, the front is being overrun. Depending on where, you're going to have a different image of what happened.

Anyone can under study history. The people "who were there" do not have a monopoly on understanding the past.

No doubt your statement is true. But your theory about why the South collapsed is only partly true. It is also true that the Army lacked ammo, that Congress denied Ford's request for emergency aid and that Ford did not use our Air Force as we had promised the South that we would do.

Had the ARVN been well supplied and backed by massive US Airpower and still failed, well, your case would have been proven entirely correct.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned


No doubt your statement is true. But your theory about why the South collapsed is only partly true. It is also true that the Army lacked ammo, that Congress denied Ford's request for emergency aid and that Ford did not use our Air Force as we had promised the South that we would do.

Had the ARVN been well supplied and backed by massive US Airpower and still failed, well, your case would have been proven entirely correct.

Maybe you missed tha article posted above Ned, but the ARVN had vast stockpiles of war material. Heck, the north used captured ARVN ammo in parts of their campaign.

That their leadership was so poor they could not create a working logistics system to get ammunition to the places it was needed is the fault of the South Vietnamese.

[Ned]

Originally posted by GePap
From what is obviously a deeply biased leftist source, Parameters, the US Army War College Quarterly [bunch of commies in the War College!]

http://www.carlisle.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/99winter/pribbeno.htm

some excerpts:

On 4 March 1975, the Communist People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) launched the final campaign of its 30-year war with an attack on South Vietnamese positions in the Mang Yang Pass in the Central Highlands. The PAVN offensive, which ended in total victory less than two months later, was unlike any other in the war's long history. The difference? For the first time, PAVN's campaign strategy was not based primarily on the demonstrated willingness of its troops to die in greater numbers than those of its opponents. Moreover, it paid only lip service to the old dogma of a popular uprising. The PAVN campaign relied instead on deception, diversion, surprise, an indirect approach, and alternate objectives--in short, a highly cerebral strategy. PAVN finally mounted a campaign worthy of the modern, professional army the Vietnamese communist leadership worked so long to build.

Many historians maintain that given the massive reductions in US military aid to South Vietnam after 1973, any major communist offensive was bound to succeed. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) which confronted PAVN in early 1975, however, was no paper tiger.[1] While ARVN suffered from serious morale and logistics problems, and much of its leadership was abysmal, ARVN's soldiers were hardened veterans, and South Vietnam still maintained vast stockpiles of ammunition and equipment (as demonstrated by the massive quantities of war materiel captured by the North Vietnamese when the war ended). The final collapse of the South Vietnamese army may well have been inevitable, but the end would have been much bloodier and much longer in coming had the communists chosen a more direct, conventional plan of attack. In fact, the most damaging blow of the entire communist campaign may have been the crushing psychological blow their skillful and unexpected strategy dealt to the mind of ARVN's commander-in-chief.

On 9 March the PAVN 10th Division, with two infantry regiments (the 28th and 66th) and supported by only two 105mm howitzers with 50 rounds of ammunition, attacked and overran Duc Lap and all its outlying defensive positions within 24 hours. ARVN losses at Duc Lap totaled three battalions, including 14 artillery pieces and 20 armored vehicles.[49] After consolidating its victory, the 10th marched north toward Ban Me Thuot.

During the early morning hours of 10 March, 12 PAVN regiments launched a massive surprise attack on Ban Me Thuot. The 198th Sapper Regiment and two regular infantry battalions which had secretly infiltrated into the city struck Ban Me Thuot's two airports, the Mai Hac De supply depot, and the 23d Division headquarters. Five infantry regiments (three from the 316th Division, the 10th Division's 24th Regiment, and the battle-scarred veterans of the 325th Division's 95B Regiment) rolled into the city from three directions, led by 64 tanks and armored personnel carriers of the 273d Armored Regiment and under a curtain of fire laid down by the 78 heavy guns of the 40th and 675th Artillery Regiments.[50] The 232d and 234th Antiaircraft Regiments accompanied the attack columns, putting up an umbrella of antiaircraft fire so intense that South Vietnamese air force bombing attacks were largely ineffective and did almost as much damage to friendly forces as to their PAVN targets.[51] After 32 hours of combat, PAVN forces overran the 23d Division headquarters complex and captured the division's deputy commander.[52] General Dung informed Hanoi that his forces had captured 12 artillery pieces and 100 tons of artillery ammunition in Ban Me Thuot, assuring the worried General Staff that the offensive could proceed unhindered by ammunition concerns.[53] The North Vietnamese leadership immediately recognized the significance of their victory. During a Politburo meeting on 11 March, Le Duan broached the possibility that the strategic opportunity, the time to launch the final general offensive, might be imminent.[54] Victory in war goes to the side prepared to seize it. The North Vietnamese were prepared.

The drum roll of attacks, first seemingly directed at Pleiku, then Saigon and Hue, and now, unexpectedly, the assault on Ban Me Thuot, were psychological blows that stunned South Vietnam's leaders. Confused, desperate, and in what must have been a virtual state of shock, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu made two momentous decisions on 10 and 11 March that sealed the fate of South Vietnam. Thieu still had not guessed that Ban Me Thuot was PAVN's main target. He was convinced, however, that he was facing an all-out offensive and that PAVN's ultimate target was Saigon. Thieu's first move was to order the immediate recall of the ARVN Airborne Division, the cornerstone of the defense of I Corps, to shore up Saigon's defenses.[55] As ARVN commanders tried to withdraw units and redeploy to fill the gap left by the Airborne's pull-out, the defenses of I Corps began to teeter like a house of cards. Second, as the North Vietnamese knew he would, Thieu ordered an immediate counterattack to retake Ban Me Thuot "at all costs."[56] With the road to Ban Me Thuot cut, ARVN II Corps Commander General Pham Van Phu was forced to send the two remaining regiments of his 23d Division into battle by helicopter, dropping five battalions on a landing zone east of Ban Me Thuot during the period 12-14 March with no armor and only limited artillery support. The regiments landed in the middle of a planned PAVN "killing zone." The 10th Division, newly arrived from Duc Lap and with powerful armored and artillery support, lay in wait. In four days of blitzkrieg-like attacks the 10th rolled over and destroyed what was left of the 23d Division and the 21st ARVN Ranger Group.[57] Meanwhile, the last remnants of ARVN's once-powerful army in the Highlands (19 ranger battalions, one infantry battalion, three armored squadrons, and six artillery battalions), their supply lines cut and with no prospect of resupply or rescue, were doomed.[58] Thieu's 14 March order to withdraw these forces from Pleiku down the unused and almost impassable Provincial Route 7B to the coast was an act of desperation aimed at saving what was left of his forces in the Highlands. The order was stupid, its execution abysmal, but, in context, it was understandable.

As General Dung's forces completed their destruction of the ARVN column withdrawing from Pleiku, General Giap ordered his forces around Hue to bypass the ARVN mountain defense line which had thrown back PAVN's initial attacks. Giap ordered PAVN 2d Corps to send its 324th and 325th Divisions to strike directly into the coastal lowlands, cut Route 1, ARVN's main line of withdrawal, and destroy retreating ARVN forces before they could regroup and consolidate.[59] Caught in the open and on the move, cut off and isolated, the retreating ARVN units were swept with panic. By 29 March, Hue, Da Nang, and all of ARVN I Corps were in communist hands.

So Ned, ARVN ran out of ammunition due to Dems. in Congress? Really? Care to tell this War College guy how his research was wrong, cause obviouly you know something he, hardly a man to know, right?, does not.

Stockpiles?

Regardless, I remember that the average ARVN unit was low on ammo. I remember the SEC Def's argument to Congress that we needed to fulfill our commitments to SV. I know we did not use our airpower as promised.

I don't blame the Dems entirely for what happened. Ford was to blame as well. But my contention is that had Nixon been in the White House, he would have found a way to bring SV the aid it needed. Would this have been enough? I don't know.

But you can see part of the reason I have a deep disgust of Ford. Not only was he really stupid, he was a weak panderer as well. No character at all.

[Cyclotron]

Originally posted by GePap
Maybe you missed tha article posted above Ned, but the ARVN had vast stockpiles of war material. Heck, the north used captured ARVN ammo in parts of their campaign.

Allow me to be the Vocabulary Gestapo and propose that this thread affords you all a very unique opportunity to use the word materiel.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ned


Stockpiles?

Yes, Ned. The guy form the Army War College who did research found that ARVN had huge stockpiles of ammunition. But of course your recollection must be a better source of information...

Regardless, I remember that the average ARVN unit was low on ammo. I remember the SEC Def's argument to Congress that we needed to fulfill our commitments to SV. I know we did not use our airpower as promised.

1. Perhaps the deeply corrupt SV leadership was not distributing its supplies well..you know, had a flawed logistics system.
2. Correct, the US didn't use its air power. And neither did anyone else. If South Vietnam could not stand on its own even after the ridiculous amount of aid given by the US to them, then that regime did not deserve to survive.

The US invested huge amounts of money, and vast amounts of time into South Vietnam, the US gave far more aid to SV than the Soviets or Chinese ever gave NV. And yet, after 30 years of war, after being bombed mercilessly by the US, NV could still win a campaign on its own resources, through its own generalship. On the other hand, the US was supposed to hold SV's hand forever? Because NV would not have given up in 1975. They would have kept going. A single Vietnam was their aim, it had been for three decades, and it was not one they would surrender.

Why should the US save SV when the South Vietnamese were uncapable of it?

And this lesson brings us back to Iraq. The US is a sideshow. What happens in Iraq will be decided in the end by the actions of Iraqis. The US can;t win, because "winning" is not something the US can do. Only Iraqis can. Just like Vietnam.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Tingkai

So it was all the fault of the United States, not the fault of the South Vietnamese leaders. The U.S. is all to blame, eh.

Why do you hate the U.S. so much?

Seriously though, the South had all the supplies they needed to fight on their own, but they were not willing to fight. They wanted the Americans to fight their war while they looted as much as they could.

Given all that they had received from the States and had on hand to fight, they could have fought, but ran away instead.

South Vietnam collapse because of its leaders, not the United States.

There was certainly a void of good leadership in the south, but that alone cannot be blamed for the collapse of the regime. Otherwise they would have collapsed much earlier, say in 1972 when they were attacked by a larger force in a campaign designed to destroy them utterly. But the U.S. lived up to its guarantees then and pounded the NVA with airstrikes, while ARVN managed to do their part on the ground. Keep in mind that U.S. ground presence was very limited to non-existent from 1971 on. ARVN was doing all the fighting and dying for four years while the NVA was being rejuvenated by massive Soviet aid that led them to their peak wartime strength and a number of "final" offensives designed to overwhelm and overrun.

The one thing that the south lacked logistically in 1975 was fuel for their Air Force, which congress pointedly refused to provide when asked. This grounded a significant portion of their air power, which was critical considering their tactical position of being vulnerable to attack along their very long western border.

I think that NVA generalship is often overrated. While their troops were generally excellent and their tactical leadership decent, they were often wasted in WW1 style assaults or ground up by air power and artillery while concentrating when used in large unit formations. 1975 was by far their best campaign, and I think part of that was that it was not planned to be a final offensive, but had more limited aims. The success was because they were willing to be much more flexible than usual and were willing to take what they were being given and adjust their plan to the situation as it developed. It in fact reminds me quite a bit of the recent U.S. campaign in Afghanistan, a war of maneuver where they were able to concentrate just enough force to beat whichever force tried to make a stand while keeping the pressure on the enemy to keep moving in order to make any unit that stood its ground stand alone. Defeat in detail made possible by the pace of operations.

This is exactly the sort of offensive that can be brought low by airpower which can concentrate force while causing massive casualties to anyone who wants to move rapidly (using main roads, moving in daytime) in the area of operations. The south may have fallen eventually, but they wouldn't have fallen in 1975 if the U.S. had lived up to its security guarantees, and they probably wouldn't have fallen in 1975 if the U.S. had given them the fuel and the confidence that it would continue to stand by them even without B-52s pounding NVA concentrations.

The critical move in 1975 was Thieu's abandonment of positions in the Central Highlands just as those positions were being attacked by the NVA. Even if the 1975 operations were successful in their limited goals, ARVN would still have had significant forces to defend themselves and their economy and prolong the war, perhaps for years. ARVN was a much more significant fighting force in the seventies than it is given credit for, largely because of its pathetic reputation from earlier in the war.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by GePap
...

The US invested huge amounts of money, and vast amounts of time into South Vietnam, the US gave far more aid to SV than the Soviets or Chinese ever gave NV. And yet, after 30 years of war, after being bombed mercilessly by the US, NV could still win a campaign on its own resources, through its own generalship. On the other hand, the US was supposed to hold SV's hand forever? Because NV would not have given up in 1975. They would have kept going. A single Vietnam was their aim, it had been for three decades, and it was not one they would surrender.

To be fair the South Vietnamese also fought for 30 years, and neither side were fighting the campaign solely with their own resources. If the NVA was left completely to its own devices they would have been defending themselves along the DMZ rather than occupying Laos and Cambodia and invading South Vietnam anywhere they chose along the western border. They had no economic capability to produce even simple modern weapons and ammunition or to procure them in the amounts necessary through trade without an immense amount of largesse from the communist bloc.

Originally posted by GePap
Why should the US save SV when the South Vietnamese were uncapable of it?

Why should Britain and France try to save Poland when the Poles were incapable of defending themselves against the Nazis? Because the latter states considered it in their interest. Your argument isn't valid at all per se, you have to look at what a state hopes to gain from their intervention.

[Ned]

Originally posted by GePap


Why should the US save SV when the South Vietnamese were uncapable of it?

And this lesson brings us back to Iraq. The US is a sideshow. What happens in Iraq will be decided in the end by the actions of Iraqis. The US can;t win, because "winning" is not something the US can do. Only Iraqis can. Just like Vietnam.

To an extent, this is right. This was the debate in the Kennedy cabinet prior to his death. Kennedy was willing to help, but not carry the entire load. Johnson changed that, making it America's war.

I also agree that in '75 if the ARVN were fully supplied and the US had used its airpower as promised and still they were defeated, then the US should not have done more. If, after all we did they could not win, then so be it.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Ned
Regardless, I remember

emphasis added

This is your problem, right here, Ned. You are going on what you remember, which has been heavily influenced by right-wing lies for the past 30 years. Maybe you should, oh, I dunno, pick up a book!

[chequita guevara]

South Vietnam wasn't worth defending because the people of South Vietnam wanted to be part of a united Vietnam, which the South Vietnamese dictatorships had been thwarting.

[Ted Striker]

That's just not true at all

HALF of them wanted South Vietnam, the other half didn't

Course, you're free to argue with the 1 million of them that live here in the US now. They'll smack you upside the head for saying that.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Sikander
To be fair the South Vietnamese also fought for 30 years, and neither side were fighting the campaign solely with their own resources. If the NVA was left completely to its own devices they would have been defending themselves along the DMZ rather than occupying Laos and Cambodia and invading South Vietnam anywhere they chose along the western border. They had no economic capability to produce even simple modern weapons and ammunition or to procure them in the amounts necessary through trade without an immense amount of largesse from the communist bloc.

If both sides had been left to their own devices, with no outside intervention the North would have long before beaten the south. In fact, therw would have been no south since once the French left therw would just have been the Viet Mihn ruling the Vietnamese part of Indochina. After all, long before there was any independent southern vietnamese regime, the group fighting for an independent Vietnam were the Viet Mihn. The men who came to rule South Vietnam were the guys sitcking with the French, maybe the same guys who did little when the Japanese were there.

Why should Britain and France try to save Poland when the Poles were incapable of defending themselves against the Nazis? Because the latter states considered it in their interest. Your argument isn't valid at all per se, you have to look at what a state hopes to gain from their intervention.

Sorry, but I don;t buy comparing keeping Vietnam divided as being in the same League as maintaining the European balance of power amongst multiple great powers.

What hope did the US have of intervention? What did the US gain from keeping South Vietnam independent as long as it did? Did the US gain ANYTHING? I see no actual benefit to the US whatsoever, EVEN in the ideological "battle against communism" that was gained from letting Vietnam be split in 1954, subverting the 1956 election process, and then spending uncounted billions, and tens of thousands of lives to keep that division going, against never ending opposition from the Vietnamese who actually kicked out the French.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Ted Striker
That's just not true at all

HALF of them wanted South Vietnam, the other half didn't

Course, you're free to argue with the 1 million of them that live here in the US now. They'll smack you upside the head for saying that.

What about the 80 Million back in Vietnam?

The south Vietnamese government was never particulaaly popular, even amongst Vietnamese who were anti-communist and pro-democracy there in the South. And recall that the Vietcong was made up of South Vietnamese.

Who knows how things would have gone if after the French pulled out the Viet Mih would have been allowed to rule the whole country and there would not have been two decades more of war. Personally I think things would have been better ion the long term for everyone involved, particulaly the millions killed to maintain that artifical partition impossed from the outside.

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Damn... looks like they can't pull the "these were just bad people" excuse. Seems like this is more widespread that some previously thought.

As I said earlier in this thread, events like this happened since day one of the invasion, it's just the political climate in US that has changed. Now it's finally reported and debated in the US media.