Fall of Saigon revisited: The costs of the U.S. defeat in Vietnam linger 35 years later

The Washington Times ^ | April 30, 2010 | Editorial

[Abakumov]

Ultimately, South Vietnam became a casualty of American domestic politics: Watergate, the oil crisis and a general crisis of national confidence. The 1973 Paris Peace Agreement was a flawed deal forced on Saigon with promises of future support that were soon broken. President Nixon was hounded from office. The emboldened Democratic Congress cut aid to South Vietnam and left the Paris Peace Agreement unenforceable. President Ford was too weak politically to force the issue, even if he had wanted to.

Hanoi seized the opportunity in the spring of 1975 and invaded the South. The South Vietnamese mounted a spirited defense but soon ran out of ammunition and supplies. Hanoi, meanwhile, was amply supplied by its communist patrons in Moscow and Beijing. By the end of April 1975, South Vietnam was in its death throes, Americans were being choppered out from Saigon rooftops and the world saw the United States as a pitiful, enfeebled giant.

[2ndDivisionVet]

Defeated? Name a battle during that war that the United States lost. Just one.

[RichInOC]

We didn’t lose. We quit.

[okie01]

Defeated? Name a battle during that war that the United States lost. Just one.

The Battle of Washington.

[ETL]

"President Nixon was hounded from office."

"Daniel Ellsberg (born April 7, 1931) is a former American military analyst employed by the RAND Corporation who precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of government decision-making about the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg
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"As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally. Aides Egil Krogh and David Young under John Ehrlichman's supervision created the 'White House Plumbers,' which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg#Fallout
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So what is Daniel Ellsberg up to these days? Well, for one thing, he is an endorser of the Revolutionary Communist Party's "World Can't Wait" movement...

Click on the 'World Can't Wait' link just below and see: "Endorsers of the Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime Include" You may recognize a few other names as well, including the democrat chair of the House Judiciary Committee, John Conyers Jr. Conyers' name appears right after Ward Churchill's.
http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2
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Endorsers of the [World Can't Wait] Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime Include:

James Abourezk, Aris Anagnos, Rocky Anderson, Anti-Flag, Edward Asner, Russell Banks, Ed Begley Jr., Harry Belafonte, St. Clair Bourne, Gabriel Byrne, Margaret Cho, Ward Churchill, Paulette Cole, US Rep John Conyers Jr., John Densmore, Jesse Diaz Jr., Michael Eric Dyson, Steve Earle, Niles Eldredge, Daniel Ellsberg, Eve Ensler, Laura Flanders, Jane Fonda, Martin Garbus, Senator Mike Gravel, Andre Gregory, Sam Hamill, Suheir Hammad, Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Jr., Mumia Abu-Jamal, Rickie Lee Jones, Sarah Jones, Brig. Gen. (Ret) Janis Karpinski, Jonathan Kozol, Rabbi Michael Lerner, US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, Robin Meyers, Mark Crispin Miller, Tom Morello, Viggo Mortensen, John Nichols, US Rep. Major Owens, Grace Paley, Harvey Pekar, Sean Penn, Michelle Phillips, Harold Pinter, Michael Ratner, Mark Ruffalo, US Rep. Bobby Rush, Susan Sarandon, Richard Serra, Jeff Sharlet, Rev. Al Sharpton, Cindy Sheehan, Martin Sheen, Nancy Spero, Gloria Steinem, Lynne Stewart, Serj Tankian, Sunsara Taylor, Studs Terkel, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut, Alice Walker, Naomi Wallace, US Rep. Maxine Waters, Cornel West, Ann Wright, Howard Zinn, and thousands more who have already joined us.

http://worldcantwait.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2538&Itemid=2
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World Can't Wait--Drive Out the Bush Regime is a Maoist-revolutionary movement organized by the Revolutionary Communist Party. (scroll down the list that appears (after clicking link) to find the World Can't Wait organization --rwor.org is the website of the Revolutionary Communist Party):
http://rwor.org/a/rwlink/links.htm
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From David Horowitz's FrontpageMag.com /DiscoverTheNetworks.org:
Profile: World Can't Wait (WCW)

*Revolutionary communist movement that stages protests against the Bush administration

*Organizes college and high-school students

*Founded in June 2005 by Charles Clark Kissinger, a longtime leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7213

[randomhero97]

Defeated? Name a battle during that war that the United States lost. Just one.

I wasn't born yet but my dad and uncle (Nam vets) always tell me how much BS it was that the Tet Offensive was reported as a commie victory when it actually destroyed the Viet Cong as a fighting force.

[The Great RJ]

I am sure the Obama’s are celebrating the anniversary of the fall of Saigon along with Bill Ayers.

[verity]

Why are you sure?

[Fiji Hill]

Name a battle during that war that the United States lost. Just one.

I'll play devil's advocate. How about Ap Bac (1963) or Tchepone, aka Dewey Canyon II (1971)?

[Fiji Hill]

Name a battle during that war that the United States lost. Just one.

I'll play devil's advocate. How about Ap Bac (1963) or Tchepone, aka Dewey Canyon II (1971)?

[Fiji Hill]

I wasn't born yet but my dad and uncle (Nam vets) always tell me how much BS it was that the Tet Offensive was reported as a commie victory when it actually destroyed the Viet Cong as a fighting force.

At the time, I recall perceiving the Tet offensive as clearly being a victory for South Vietnam and its allies. However, I never listened to Walter Cronkite et al. My favorite TV news anchor man was George Putnam, who staunchly supported the war effort.

[liberalism is suicide]

And that’s the battle that counted the most.

[lentulusgracchus]

Defeated? Name a battle during that war that the United States lost. Just one.

The Battle of New York Press Smartasses Stabbed Us in the Back.

Remember the last scene -- the very last scene -- in All the President's Men, in which a teletype machine gradually drowns out the bands and saluting cannon of Richard Nixon's second inaugural?

That's what those schmucks were made of. Pus.

[shanover]

The truths,wisdom,and knowledge paid for by the blood of fallen heroes can not be in vain.Our soldiers today are at the mercy of the same anti American forces of ideology,media manipulation and political cowardliness.Nothing less than victory is acceptable.We and a few allies are the last hope of a tyrannical world.Those retreads of the sixties are the ones now pulling many levers of our society.We need to persist.

[neverdem]

Tchepone, aka Dewey Canyon II (1971), was in Laos. Did U.S. convenional ground forces go there? It’s my understanding that it was only the South Vietnamese.

[easternsky]

You have a interesting posting record

[Nam Vet]

I was in country during Tet '68 and it was hell on wheels. We lost over 1000 kia as I recall, but we also killed over 50,000 VC. We knew it was a rout and only later learned we lost it badly when we received letters from home.

It seems that lying sack of crap Cronkite and the rest of the MSM did a pretty good job of lying. I know my family could hardly believe me as I told them what a victory it really was.

When the lying, socialist democrats in the congress let South Vietnam die from lack of supplies is when I knew that they were all either enemies of the country and the Constitution or too damned stupid to vote.

Nam Vet

[ripley]

“Those retreads of the sixties are the ones now pulling many levers of our society.”

The most disheartening of all is that they were freely elected by the “American” electorate.

(A t-shirt at a union picnic, many years ago; “American by Birth, Union by Choice.”

Both disappointing and disheartening.

IMHO

[Jacksonian Grouch]

Bttt

[Fiji Hill]

Tchepone was fought by the South Vietnamese with US air support. Although the media portrayed it as a defeat—showing South Vietnamese soldiers clinging to the skids of helicopters as they withdrew—the battle was more likely a draw, due to the large numbers of North Vietnamese killed.

Ap Bac was clearly a South Vietnamese defeat, but again, the US only provided advisers and logistical support.

When US ground forces went up against the North Vietnamese, they always won.