America's Victory in Vietnam

The Washington Times ^ | April 30, 2010 | James S. Robbins

[Abakumov]

America won the Vietnam War. You hadn't heard? Then check out "The Politi- cally Incorrect Guide to the Vietnam War," Phillip Jennings' new entry in the popular Regnery series. Mr. Jennings wrote the book with a specific purpose: "To settle scores with the pernicious mythmakers of the Vietnam War." These include journalists, politicians and academics, who both created the myths of Vietnam and profited from them. For this group, Mr. Jennings has three words: "Shame on you."

Mr. Jennings' book is a well-researched, brisk review of the central myths of the Vietnam War, set in historical context. It is not a comprehensive history of the war, nor does it claim to be, but an all-out assault on the negative and misleading way in which the war has been portrayed....

This book offers common-sense, factually-based rejoinders to the mythmakers who continue to misrepresent the causes and course of the Vietnam War. It is ready ammunition for anyone faced with defeatist arguments comparing Vietnam to Afghanistan, Iraq or any other conflict. The book is also a public service. Former South Vietnamese Ambassador to the United States Bui Diem said, "History is written by the victors, but over time the truth comes out." This book is part of that continuing process of discovery. There is much yet to be learned - and unlearned - about America's just and heroic involvement in the Vietnam War.

[FlingWingFlyer]

The U.S. military did not lose in Vietnam. We left.

[GeronL]

Sounds interesting.

[ETL]

John Kerry and the VVAW--Hanoi's American Puppets?
"Two recently discovered documents captured from the Vietnamese communists during the Vietnam War strongly support the contention that a close link existed between the Hanoi regime and the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) while John Kerry served as the group's leading national spokesman."
http://www.wintersoldier.com/staticpages/index.php?page=puppets
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Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) Complete FBI files:
http://www.wintersoldier.com/index.php?topic=VVAWFBI
___________________________________________________________

June, 1970 -- Kerry joins Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW), a national veterans group that is part of the Peoples Coalition for Peace and Justice. The PCPJ is a broad coalition of local and national organizations, including the Communist Party, USA, "committed to conducting demonstrations aimed at ending the war in Indochina, and poverty, racism and injustice at home." The VVAW, CCI and PCPJ all have headquarters at 156 Fifth Avenue in New York City. VVAW Executive Secretary Al Hubbard, a former Black Panther, is also on the coordinating committee of the PCPJ. Hubbard soon appoints Kerry to the VVAW's Executive Committee, bypassing the normal election process.
http://www.wintersoldier.com/index.php?topic=Timeline
___________________________________________________________

"...if the United States were to set a date for withdrawal the prisoners of war would be returned."-J.F. Kerry

"Under questioning from the Committee, Kerry referred to the democratically elected government of South Vietnam -- our allies -- as a "dictatorial regime, the Thieu-Ky-Khiem regime," while respectfully calling the North Vietnamese communist regime we were fighting by its oxymoronic official name, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and the murderous Viet Cong's political arm by their preferred "Provisional Revolutionary Government.":
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/chavez042804.asp

[patriot preacher]

This is a joke, right?

Sure, our military won every battle — our politicians lost us the war. It’s still a loss. Now, can we let our vets loose on America’s real enemies — Washington DC?

[Billthedrill]

A case we've often argued on FR. I think, though, that we will not see a true victory in Vietnam until we see free elections of a representative government there. And I do believe we will.

Do not expect any mea culpas from the peace creeps, however. Without the assurance that they are morally superior to the rest of humanity they wouldn't have any lives at all.

[Fiji Hill]

In his new book , American Amnesia: how the US Congress Forced the Surrenders of South Vietnam and Cambodia (New York: Beaufort, 2010), Bruce Herschensohn recalled hearing shouts of "We won!" and "It's V-V Day! Victory in Vietnam!" when the Paris Peace Accords ending the war were announced on January 23, 1973.

[Eagles6]

We pilled out combat troops after the north signed peace accords and vowed to stay above the DMZ.

In 1972 they broke those accords and invaded the South. With American advisors, air power and bullets they were sent back across the DMZ with heavy losses.

By 1975 the dem congress had pulled all troops and aid from SV and the Russian/Chinese backed NVA, breaking the accords again, marched into Saigon

For the first time in my adult life I was NOT proud to be an American.

[Eagles6]

And yes, the real enemy is here. “commander zero” has no plans to win in afghanistan and I expect a scene similar to SV.

[Intolerant in NJ]

Vietnam was not lost - it was thrown away.....

[A_Former_Democrat]

I remember laying awake those nights listening to the radio national news every half hour. As the reports grew worse and worse I couldn’t help but think about all those lives, all that effort, all those taxpayer dollars . . . I think I might have some audio tapes of those reports somewhere in the house

[Stepan12]

I got it when it came out. I think it is pretty good. Maybe I’ll give it to a veteran friend of mine.

[JSteff]

Read PJ O'Rourke book “”All the trouble in the world”.

If I remember, he was saying several years ago in this book that we had won. Funny to boot.

I gave it out to all my family and relatives several Christmas’s ago.

[ETL]

Do not expect any 'mea culpas' from the peace creeps

The "peace creeps" then, like today, are the communist "anti-war" organizations. Every one of the "peace" groups around today were initiated by one of the three following communist organizations:

Communist Party USA (United for Peace and Justice, also Peace Action)

Workers World Party (ANSWER, TroopsOutNow, May1Coalition)

Revolutionary Communist Party (World Can't Wait, NotInOurName, RefuseAndResist, BushCrimesCommission).

[RedMDer]

Very true.

[daniel1212]

Media Bias

Charges of western media bias in favor of the Communist side have often been made by critics,^[6] who see such alleged bias as being crucial in turning military victories by America into a loss of the war, much by means of propaganda. Underlying the importance of such is the often quoted exchange between Colonel Harry G. Summers, Jr. and his North Vietnamese counterpart, Colonel Tu. During one of his liaison trips to Hanoi, Colonel Harry told Tu, "You know, you never beat us on the battlefield," Colonel Tu responded, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."^[7]

The success of the propaganda war has seemed enigmatic to many. “If there is to be an inquiry related to the Vietnam War, it should be into the reasons why enemy propaganda was so widespread in this country, and why the enemy was able to condition the public to such an extent that the best educated segments of our population (that is, media and university elite) gave credence to the most incredible allegations.” (Final Report - Chief of Military History - U.S. Government)

British "Encounter" journalist Robert Elegant stated,

For the first time in modern history, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield but on the printed page and television screens - never before Vietnam had the collective policy of the media sought, by graphic and unremitting distortion, the victory of the enemies of the correspondents own side.^[8]

Some journalists have admitted that their reporting was decidedly biased, and had profound effects on history. West German correspondent Uwe Siemon-Netto confessed, "Having covered the Viet Nam war over a period of five years for West German publications, I am now haunted by the role we journalists have played over there." In relation to not reporting the true nature of the Hanoi regime and its actions resulting from the American withdrawal, he asked,

What prompted us to make our readers believe that the Communists, once in power in all of Viet Nam, would behave benignly? What made us, first and foremost Anthony Lewis, belittle warnings by U.S. officials that a Communist victory would result in a massacre?... Are we journalists not in part responsible for the death of the tens of thousands who drowned? And are we not in part responsible for the hostile reception accorded to those who survive?...However, the media have been rather coy; they have not declared that they played a key role in the conflict. They have not proudly trumpeted Hanoi's repeated expressions of gratitude to the mass media of the non-Communist world, although Hanoi has indeed affirmed that it could not have won "without the Western press."^[9]

CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite regularly carried news reports from its Moscow Bureau Chief, Bernard Redmont. When peace negotiations commenced with North Vietnam in Paris, Redmont became CBS News Paris Bureau Chief. What Redmont never reported during the ten year conflict was, Redmont had been a KGB operative since the 1930s, and member of the notorious Silvermaster group. ^[10] Redmont was the only journalist to whom his fellow Comintern party member, and North Vietnamese chief negotiator, Mai Van Bo, granted an interview to bring the Communist point of view into American living rooms in what has been called, "the living room war."

The most manifest example of such biased reporting is held to be the portrayal of the TET offensive, in which western media was charged with inspiring and aiding the propaganda war of the communists.

Truong Nhu Tang stated years later,

The Tet Offensive proved catastrophic to our plans. It is a major irony of the Vietnam War that our propaganda transformed this debacle into a brilliant victory. The truth was that Tet cost us half our forces. Our losses were so immense that we were unable to replace them with new recruits. (Truong Nhu Tang - Minister of Justice - Viet Cong Provisional Revolutionary Government - The New York Review, October 21, 1982)

[ROTB]

Note the tagline ...

[RedMDer]

https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/

Wow! Maryland is in 5th place. This little BLUE state is in 5th place.

Come on folks y'all can do better than that!

[RedMDer]

https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/

[Eagles6]

Can you imagine piling into a little boat and heading out to sea, to anywhere else because, because you knew what the evil bastards were going to do to you and yours and anything was better than yhat?

The lucky ones were picked up by the US Navy, some made land somewhere, many were victims of pirates and many disappeared.

Death at sea was a better fate that what was in store in the socialist paradise.