Can the liberals learn from Vietnam? - (Westmoreland: legacy of the left's defeatism; spot on!)

TOWNHALL.COM ^ | JULY 21, 2005 | EMMETT TYRRELL

[CHARLITE]

Washington -- When retired Gen. William Westmoreland (Ret.) died this week in Charleston, S.C., the press erupted with reminiscences, mostly about him and the Vietnam War, mostly permeated with the myths of the Kultursmog , the politically-polluted culture of our elites, our liberal elites. After Vietnam the general spent the rest of his life refighting the war. He never learned that it was a war we could not win. He was a failure. These are three of the foul thoughts that pollute the liberals' culture and were repeated in many of his obituaries.

I knew Westmoreland later in life, not as a general but as a private citizen. For years he served on the board of The American Spectator. He was interested in journalism. He felt many American journalists did a pretty shabby job in covering the military. When a CBS News documentary, "The Uncounted Enemy: A Vietnam Deception," claimed in 1982 that he, as the commanding officer in Vietnam, had engaged in a "conspiracy" to "suppress" unfavorable intelligence and dupe America into believing we were winning the war, Westmoreland sued. CBS, after four painful months, admitted to grievous error and settled out of court. The general felt vindicated, but I doubt he ever felt fully satisfied. Somehow, he could not accept that American journalists would get the facts so wrong and apply the paranoid scheme of a "conspiracy" to his generalship.

The old general I knew at American Spectator board meetings and other events was as incapable of conspiracy as he was incapable of bad manners. He was a thorough gentleman. Far from being consumed by Vietnam, he never mentioned it unless one of his fellow board members brought it up. Nor did he talk much about military matters or his own illustrious military service. He had breezed through the Citadel and West Point, where in his last year he received the Pershing Sword for achieving the highest command position in the student body. He went on to fight valiantly through WWII in Europe. In Korea he commanded paratroopers and late in his career, insisted on leaping out of airplanes. I once asked him why, as a relatively old man, he attempted such derring-do. If his young troopers could do it, he told me, he wanted to, also. And I remember his smile in answering my question.

He was a perfect gentleman, but he was also a can-do kind of guy. Most of our soldiers are. Westmoreland was also a fount of good sense. There was a serene quality to him, and far from being preoccupied with anything from Vietnam to politics, he always struck me as level-headed and sagacious. At the magazine, we have always prided ourselves in developing younger generations of clear-headed journalists, and that seemed to be an interest of his. With regard to the Vietnam War, he thought many of the journalists had gotten it wrong, but I could only get that judgment out of him when I brought the matter up.

The war was never a military defeat, he believed. It was a political defeat. The politicians did not have the stomach for victory. What burned them most badly was the 1968 Tet Offensive, during which the North Vietnamese launched a massive offensive that temporarily put them in control of critical parts of the country. Westmoreland instantly counterattacked, vanquishing the enemy and leaving 40,000 dead to the one thousand we lost. In military terms, it was equivalent to Gen. Andrew Jackson's victory over the British at New Orleans, but the journalists reported it as a defeat, and so it was recorded for years.

Actually, now historians are noting that in military terms, Tet was the Communists' defeat. Our armies never lost in Vietnam, and Vietnam only fell after our armies had been withdrawn and our politicians reneged on their promise to resupply the South Vietnamese and bomb the North Vietnamese in the event of further aggression against the South. In the end the Vietnam War was very useful to the defense of American interests. Westmoreland's forces held off Communist designs on the Pacific rim, showed Moscow and Beijing that continued aggression would be costly, and demonstrated the superiority of American military hardware and tactics, a demonstration that did not escape the Communists' notice, particularly in Moscow. Vietnam was the last time the Communists mounted such an assault.

Yet back home the liberal politicians and their intelligentsia were whipped. They never again regained their resolve. Even today, after the American military's demonstration of its effectiveness in Afghanistan and Iraq, these bearers of the Kultursmog are revealing their defeatist nature. In Vietnam they demanded that we negotiate with Hanoi. Today the Taliban and the insurgents in Iraq offer no such opportunities to negotiate. Nonetheless, the liberals are increasingly calling for withdrawal before our interests are realized. One wonders: Can they screw things up as nicely as they screwed up Vietnam?

[CHARLITE]

"One wonders: Can they screw things up as nicely as they screwed up Vietnam?"

[CHARLITE]

"Actually, now historians are noting that in military terms, Tet was the Communists' defeat. Our armies never lost in Vietnam, and Vietnam only fell after our armies had been withdrawn and our politicians reneged on their promise to resupply the South Vietnamese and bomb the North Vietnamese in the event of further aggression against the South."

[EagleUSA]

The real history of Viet Nam, especially for the benefit of libs, is that they started it, they perpetuated it, did not allow the miltary to fight and win it, and then it took a conservative to end radical losses in life and money.

As a VN vet, I can attest to how badly the libs f-ed up the VN war. It could have been won, with much less cost in blood and money. Another fine mark in history for the libs...

[markedman]

Hmmm. "Let's go to the video tape scoreboard"

NUMBERS ON NAM

* Number of americans who served in Vietnam 2,700,000

* Number of U.S. servicemen killed in combat in Vietnam 47,072

* Estimated number of North Vietnamese military/Viet Cong KIA 444,000

* Percentage of Americans severely wounded that were saved 82%

* Percentage of American wounded who died after arriving at hospitals 2.6%"


Looking at those numbers is sure looks like we lost that war. Just like how the New England Patriots lost the Superbowl this year to the Philadelphia Eagles!

[hang 'em]

Viet Nam was lost thanks to the traiter/gigilo John Fonda Kerry and his ilk.

[ex-snook]

" The war was never a military defeat, he believed. It was a political defeat"

Sums it up. But a lesson here is that the military, if it does not stand up to politicians, will be left holding the bag of blame. The military might also read up on General Short and Admiral Kimmel. MacArthur was dumped because he didn't go along with Truman.

[kublia khan]

And yet Ted Kennedy and John Kerry are both still in the U.S. senate. A disgusting yet forceful commentary on the citizens of one state in the union.

[Names Ash Housewares]

Ive read stories of pilots unable to destroy missiles being loaded on docks that would be fired at them the next day.

[markedman]

"The real history of Viet Nam, especially for the benefit of libs, is that they started it, they perpetuated it, did not allow the miltary to fight and win it, and then it took a conservative to end radical losses in life and money."

Never before on this board have a seen a quote more deserving of a BUMP!!!!

[CGVet58]

Vindication, Char, Vindication... freepers here have been saying this same thing (that the only resemblance to Vietnam WOT has is in the desired-similarity-of-results the left seeks) here for two years.

[colorado tanker]

I would add to this that Johnson and McNamara's refusal to fight the war full throttle, as in really bombing Hanoi and Haiphong, hurt us.

[Bigun]

"The real history of Viet Nam, especially for the benefit of libs, is that they started it, they perpetuated it, did not allow the miltary to fight and win it, and then it took a conservative to end radical losses in life and money."

Never before on this board have a seen a quote more deserving of a BUMP!!!!

AMEN! Second the motion!

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

Thanks to Nixon
the lies of Hanoi Kerry and Hanoi Jane
are being told again.
And our military are being slandered in Gitmo, Iraq and Afghanistan

Hanoi Kerry and War Crimes in Vietnam

Hanoi Kerry went before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations in 1971
to accuse the United States military
of committing massive numbers of war crimes in Vietnam.

Too bad that because Nixon failed to uphold the law,
we are still stuck with Hanoi Jane and Hanoi Kerry.
If Nixon hadn't caved into the minority anti-war crowd
and listened to the Silent Majority
Hanoi Jane AND Hanoi Kerry
would have been prosecuted for their treason in the 70's,
while Nixon was still President.

Keep in mind that Nixon was directly involved in Viet Nam,
as Vice President, going back to at least 1955.

26 Sep 1945 - The first death of an American serviceman in Vietnam occurred.
OSS (Office of Special Operations) Major (Lieutenant Colonel) A. Peter Dewey
was killed in action by the Communist Vietminh near Hanoi.
May 1950 President Harry S Truman authorised $10 million in aid to the French for their war in Viet Nam.
By January 1951, $150 million had been given in aid.
1953-61 Dwight D. Eisenhower 34th US President
1953-61 Richard M. Nixon Vice President
1953 - The US is supporting the French in the amount of $1 billion per year--
33% of all US foreign aid--which is 80% of the total cost to the
. US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles (under Eisenhower) first voices the 'Domino Theory':
if one country in Southeast Asia falls to the Communists, they will all fall, one by one.

12 Feb 55 - President Eisenhower's administration sends 1st 350 U.S. advisers to South Vietnam
to train the South Vietnamese Army

8 Jun 56 - The first American of record to die in Vietnam
was Air Force Tech Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr.
His son, Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, died in Vietnam Sep 7, 1965.
8 Jun 56 Has been formally recognized by the Pentagon as the first American officially to die in that war.

5 Sep 56 - President Eisenhower tells a news conference that the French are
"involved in a hopelessly losing war in Indochina" 1956 The US believed in that Ho Chi Minh would have won any election held in Viet Nam and used their influence over the government of the State of Viet Nam to ensure that the election was not held



From a Must Visit Site
Vipers Vietnam Veterans Page, A Vietnam Veteran & Proud Web Site
About Vietnam

The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history.
1st American advisor was killed on June 08, 1956,
and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.

Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran.  For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers.  And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.

[La Enchiladita]

Thanks for the ping. I am delivering this article post haste to my neighbor who just last night expressed we went to Nam for nothing...

[Eva]

I don't blame Nixon for the failures of Vietnam. Eisenhower warned Kennedy not to expand the troops there and Kennedy ignored his advice. Vietnam was Kennedy and Johnson's war.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"I don't blame Nixon for the failures of Vietnam."

I do, Nixon was involved as a VP in 1955

He knew what to expect and did nothing.

He and Johnson were both losers.

And Nixon gave Hanoi Kerry and Hanoi Jane a get out of jail card!

[El Gran Salseron]

I've read the pilots' accounts of seeing tankers in Haiphong harbor offloading fuel. They were NOT authorized to bomb the tankers. They had to fly inland to bomb the fuel depots.

Doesn't make any sense whatsoever and must have been very frustrating for the pilots.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

PS I seved in Viet Nam under both Johnson and Nixon.

[El Gran Salseron]

Correct. They both tried their very best to micro-manage the war instead of telling the military......Just DO it!

[CHARLITE]

Very elegant, professionally done post, Tonkin. This can't be emphasized enough: the horrendous, inexcusable TREASON committed by Kerry, Fonda et al, which, to this day, goes unpunished.........and the appalling fact is that the prime poster boy for perpetrating incalculable tragedy upon the American military, Vietnamese patriots (and Cambodians) we left behind......was nominated by the communist-controlled Democrat party to become Commander in Chief of the armed forces of the United States of America, his native land which he sold his soul to try to destroy.

Now THAT is something else that will "live in infamy!" - his treasonous behavior 35 years ago, plus the atrocious political cynicism of the now worthless Democrat party in having nominated a scumbag who should have been put in prison decades ago.

Thanks for your post, Tonkin. They are always of very high quality and very much appreciated.

Char

[Soaring Feather]

bump

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!!

[colorado tanker]

Not many people know Ike was also an old Asia hand, having been MacArthur's chief of staff. He always counseled against getting into a land war in Asia, as he appreciated the vast distances and populations.

It drives me crazy when the Dims and MSM keep trying to blame Ike for Vietnam.

[Army Air Corps]

The war was won on the battlefield and the RVN lost in the hall of our own congress and at the negotiating table. The communists themselves admit that if Linebacker II had continued for another week, they would have offered unconditional surrender. Instead, we showed pulled a punch to show a bit of kindness to an emeny who only saw the cesasion of bombing as an opportunity to screw us and the RVN.

[CHARLITE]

"It drives me crazy when the Dims and MSM keep trying to blame Ike for Vietnam."

They are always attempting to dilute their own egregious foreign policy weakness and ineptitude........just as they started the "Bush Lied" campaign, which not many people saw for what it was.

Bush's own integrity, high degree of human decency and sense of honor is in such sharp contrast to the piece of true "trailer trash" whom he succeeded in the Oval Office, that the "Bush Lied" campaign was designed to "even the playing field."

Their methods are as transparently bogus, evil and dishonest as their 5 decades of foreign policy is glaringly incompetent.

Thanks for your comments, colorado tanker and Army Air Corps. You're both right on the mark!

Char (:

[Army Air Corps]

Ike thought that supplying and training the RVN forces was enough. Give to them the weapons and provide training and leave it at that. Many ex-ARVN officers are highly critical of LBJ for "highjacking" the war and making it more his war than Vietnamese people's war. Also, our crapweasel media bears a lot of responsibility. They denigrated and mocked the ARVN even when they won stunning victories (sound familiar?). Also, the media managed to gloss-over NVA/VC butchery to focus on a few isolated allied transgressions. Most of us have heard of My lai, but how many here are aware that the NVA butchered over 3,000 people in Hue in less than a month? According to a former NVA political officer, the fortified hamlet programme, Chieu Hoi, and Operation Phoenix (all criticised by the media) were highly effective in combating VC influence and NVA power.

[Eva]

Most people still don't know, to this day that we were actually winning the war before the media forced the politicos to pull support. I'm not saying that I think that it was a good or just war, just that once we were in so deep, it was wrong to pull back before the job was done.

[Army Air Corps]

I agree. We were so close to forcing the North to a complete surrender and we let them off the hook. To make matters worse, we cut-off the RVN while the North was getting resupplied from the USSR and the PRC.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[onedoug]

By Vietnam's direction, we yet will have won.

If we lose the current war, everything's off anyway.