Posted on 10/02/2011 7:47:21 AM PDT by Borges
HANOI, Vietnam – Legendary Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap built his career on never backing down, even against seemingly impossible odds. Now, decades after ousting the French and later the Americans, he’s celebrating another major victory: his 100th birthday.
Giap is revered by Vietnamese second only to former President Ho Chi Minh. Together, they plotted gutsy campaigns from jungles and caves using ill-equipped guerrilla fighters to gain Vietnam’s independence, eventually leading to the end of French colonial rule throughout Indochina.
Two decades later, Giap’s northern Communist forces also wore down the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at spokesman.com ...
To be fair the "gooks" had little to do with Pol Pots regime.
Liberal’s like Ives have made a habit over recent decades out of glorifying mass murderers and baby killers like Giap. I would bet that Ives wasn’t even around in the mid sixties to watch Cronkite and Rather each evening feigning bullets flying and reporting ‘from the front’ (so to speak). Once in a while Cronkite and Rather accidentally got it right and reported on “the Viet-Cong” coming into villages in the middle of the night and just butchering old men, women and children and kidnapping any young men around and drafting them into serving the Cong. To keep it balanced and more accurate, Cronkite/Rather would report atrocities of the Cong and NVA infinitely less than they would be critical of American’s in country. Indeed, Cronkite/Rather’s anti-american drumbeat seemed woven into every single report from them!
And, let’s not forget Giap’s troops raping their own young women and small girls with impunity too. All this went on for decades with untold tens of thousands of his fellow countrymen just being massacred. So, when Giap’s allies “the Cong” weren’t doing this, Giap’s NVA (North Vietnamese Army) were torturing and murdering US prisoners of War in camps in the north and south. We now know indisputably that Giap’s and Ho’s so called ‘liberation war’ cost the lives of millions of Vietnamese, his fellow countrymen! Imagine one American General costing the lives of millions of Americans! Would we be calling him a hero?
So, no Mr. Ives, your attempt to portray Giap as a venerable old 100 year old man and “hero” show your ignorance, immaturity and genetic lefty bias. The man belongs on a stage (preferably a gallows) with Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao and Hussein. That ‘some’ Vietnamese regard him as a hero doesn’t mean they all do or even a majority do. The Germans regarded Hitler as a hero too. Some still do!
One thing is for sure though, some of us still alive would come closer to honoring Giap and Ho than we would LBJ, Rusk, McNamara and Westmoreland. LBJ’s famous quote “they” (his military officers) can’t attack an outhouse without my permission” pointedly reflects the condescending/ivy league/elitist attitude prevalent back then at the top echelon of civilian authority and that ended up needlessly costing tens of thousands of American lives, maimed tens of thousands of others and prolonged the war. One of them, Bobby Robert’s being a close personal childhood friend and dead at 18 years old from a bullet in the gut. I served my two years in Japan or likely would have ended up like Bobby.
I hope my post neutralizes to at least 1 degree among readers this erroneous and leftist portrayal of Giap by Ives.
And, Borges, thanks for posting as it gave me an opportunity to “VENT” on the Vietnam War in general and civilian authority at the top during that war in particular! Not, LOL, that anybody is going to read it on this dying post and because I made it too long!!!
Big Deal my friend is 101 yrs and 3 months old,and didn’t kill anyone....that I know of...
The NVA did not wear down our military or force it out of vietnam. They did, however, wear down the american public, congress and the president. McNamara is responsible for a large share of our defeat.
I don’t even think Mussolini belongs in a group with those others.
Here’s a couple of links about Cronkite’s involvement, and a reference to a book by VDH on the subject:
http://www.9thinfantrydivision.com/html/actualenemy.htm
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/walter_cronkite_vietnam_and_th_1.html
“The Meaning of Tet” by Victor Davis Hanson, American Heritage (2001) A historian argues that in Vietnam America’s cause was just, its arms effective, and its efforts undermined by critics back home— and that this is how things must work in a free society
Yes, McNamara and Giap were great allies during that conflict. Giap never won a battle against the U.S. forces yet the Left still praises him as a great general. McNamara threw in the towel and LBJ tried his hand at being a field general, much like Hitler in WWII. The political leadership on both sides were Marxists.
And those infamous pyramids of skulls in Cambodia?
***To be fair the “gooks” had little to do with Pol Pots regime.****
I remember when SVN fell. Then Cambodia within a few days. I also remember the University students in Kalifornia having candle light marches in favor of Pol Pot, Cambodia, and North Vietnam’s victories.
*** Once in a while Cronkite and Rather accidentally got it right and reported on “the Viet-Cong” coming into villages in the middle of the night and just butchering old men, women and children...***
I remember Paul Harvey reporting, around 1965, the VC came into a refugee center, lined up the people, gave them a lecture, and turned flame throwers on them.
***A historian argues that in Vietnam America’s cause was just...***
I wonder how many remember the fall of LAOS. When it fell, the US sent in the US military to seize the land on the Thai side of the border just in case the Laosians decided to cross the border into Thailand.
You mean that we were protecting the Thais from the Laotians?
I suppose. I’m a little conflicted about that. I’m not an isolationist by any means, but drafting young Americans to go protect Thais from their neighbors, even in the context of a war on communism...well, I’m just a little conflicted.
Obama declared Osama dead in 2011.
****You mean that we were protecting the Thais from the Laotians?***
Yes we did, from the COMMIE LAOSIANS.. This was around 1964 or 1965. We had been getting reports on the news from Laos about the commie guerillas taking and loosing the Plain of Jars many times.
No, they weren't. Please check the Geneva Agreements (1954): Final Declaration, Article 6: "The Conference recognizes that the essential purpose of the agreement relating to Vietnam is to settle military questions with a view to ending hostilities and that the military demarcation line is provisional and should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary"
The North Vietnamese were waging a war of unification against a corrupt western puppet regime. They hated the Chinese, but they were more than willing to use their aid to expel foreign armies and influence.
You have the situation reversed. NV was the corrupt regime waging war on SV. SV was not the aggressor. SV had corruption because of the military pressure from NV. NV waged a war of aggression and imposed a brutal totalitarian state. When Vietnam was divided, 800,000 to 1 million North Vietnamese, mainly Roman Catholics, sailed south as part of Operation Passage to Freedom due to a fear of religious persecution in the North.
The Vietnam situation is similar to the Korean situation. North Korea invaded South Korea with the backing of the Soviet Union and China. The Soviet Union and China (to some extent) were waging a proxy war against the freedom of South Koreans. North Korea had no right to invade the South Korea. North Vietnam had no right to invade South Vietnam.
I think our involvement in Vietnam was a mistake given the collapse of the Soviet Union and its evil intentions. However, there was no way in the 1960s to know about the eventual Soviet collapse. Regardless of our involvement, NV was the aggressor and the villian.
No, I understand that.
I wasn’t referring to the “gooks”- I was talking about the American left.
I didn't say that NV wasn't corrupt, I said they were fighting a war of unification attempting to remove the latest vestiges of foreign influence. Diem's government was propped up by the U.S., and Diem refused to hold the reunification election stipulated by the Geneva Accords that established the 17th parallel DMZ.
North Vietnam had no right to invade South Vietnam.
It wasn't simply an invasion by the north. Plenty of Vietnamese in the south were opposed to Diem's corrupt, puppet regime, and the subsequent juntas that assassinated Diem.
Regardless of our involvement, NV was the aggressor and the villian.
If, subsequent to our successful overthrow of British colonial rule, the French had supported a corrupt, puppet government over the Southern states, would the Northern states and the indigenous population of the South that resisted said government be villains?
To understand the Vietnam War you have to keep foremost in your mind what was in the mind of the average Vietnamese, and that nationalism/patriotism, not communism. The 'aggressors' to them were the succession of foreign powers that sought to control Vietnam, each of which were resisted in turn by the Vietnamese until they finally had independence.
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