Storied Vietnamese general is 100

The Spokesman Review ^ | 8/25/11 | Mike Ives

[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.

[Borges]

Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap shakes hands with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara during a meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1995.

[stylecouncilor]

ping

[vladimir998]

Great. He can celebrate his 101st birthday in Hell.

[umgud]

Did John Kerry or Jane Fonda attend the party?

[bigheadfred]

The good die young...

[onedoug]

¨Give my regards to General Giap.¨ —Nguyen Dung, Apr 2000

[barstoolblues]

All together now.
Leftists love tyrants and mass murderers

Oh leftists love tyrants and mass murderers

So tyranny keeps marching on. duhn da duhn da duhn.

[mosesdapoet]

Mike Ives revisionist narrative doesn’t deal with the continous blunders and errors in judgeemnt contributed by the Americans who snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Begining with JFK’s authorized assasination of Diem by the CIA or the defeat of the Viet Cong in the Tet offencive to the defunding of military supplies to SVN.

[Leaning Right]

Leftists love tyrants and mass murderers

Quiet please. Giap is a hero in Vietnam. The left is trying to make him a hero in America as well.

Who are you to get in their way? /s

[vetvetdoug]

Giap was highly underestimated by the French and the US Generals. He was a very good leader and general, too bad he was one of theirs and didn't have to put up with a US House and Senate meddling with the tactical decisions. I had the benefit to spend a couple of days with a former French Foreign Legion paratrooper that was captured at Dien Bien Phu and in his opinion his leaders also let them down.

[Gunslingr3]

If a foreign army was in the U.S., would you ever stop fighting them? I can safely say I wouldn't.

Vietnam tried to get independence at Versailles after WWI and the West ignored them. They fought the Japanese when they invaded. They fought the French when they came back, and they fought the U.S. when they came in.

"Following World War I, under the name of Nguyễn Ái Quốc (“Nguyễn the Patriot”), he petitioned for recognition of the civil rights of the Vietnamese people in French Indochina to the Western powers at the Versailles peace talks, but was ignored. Citing the language and the spirit of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, Nguyễn petitioned U.S. President Woodrow Wilson for help to remove the French from Vietnam and replace them with a new, nationalist government. While he was unable to obtain consideration at Versailles, the failed effort had the effect of further radicalizing Nguyễn, while at the same time making him a national hero of the anti-colonial movement at home in Viet Nam."

Unable to find help in the West, he turned to the communist powers in the East. Our deference to European colonialism pushed him into the Soviet orbit to achieve his main goal, Vietnamese independence and the ejection of foreign armies.

[huldah1776]

Good book for those interested:

This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive.

We all have to make sure this never happens again.

No budget cuts for the DOD and CIA until there are no US enemies.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Can’t be! The CIA declared Giap dead in a bombing raid back in the early 1070s!

But then the CIA also declared CHE dead in the late 1960s. a few months later he popped up in Bolivia.

[oh8eleven]

Legendary Vietnamese Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap
Eff him. His military never beat us in a single major battle. We kicked their @ss every feckin' time we fought.
He's also one of many NV Pols and Gens who agree it was the anti-war scumbags marching in the US
who gave them the "courage" to fight on for another FIVE years after we crushed them during Tet.
Eff all of them ... including LBJ.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

There was an interesting page on YAHOO (now removed) in which Giap stated that he was ready to give up the war after the disasterous TET offensive.

Then he heard Walter Cronkite’s “we can’t win this war” speech on CBS and decided to fight on.

I dispise Walter Cronkite for the traitor he is.

[Nip]

Mike Ives totally ignore statement made by numerous North Vietnamese leaders, including General Giap himself, about how important, and successful, the political offensive they waged inside the US from the 1950’s through the mid 12970’s.

They repeatedly admitted that their military operations would have failed, castropically, if the peace movements in the US failed. The acts of Kennedy, Johnson, McNamara, et al were minor helps. Their main ally was the American left as found in the colleges and LMSM.

[decimon]

Unable to find help in the West, he turned to the communist powers in the East.

He was already communist but probably didn't want to be under the heel of Stalin or Mao.

Our deference to European colonialism pushed him into the Soviet orbit to achieve his main goal, Vietnamese independence and the ejection of foreign armies.

US policy was anti-colonial but more anti-communist.

[silverleaf]

Too bad Yamamoto, Hitler and Stalin didn’t make it to 100- American admirers coulda’ had cake or something

[13Sisters76]

What a load of crap.

The “legendary” Giap had his butt handed to him in EVERY confrontation with the US military, which won that war decisively by 1973. What the “legend” got was So Vietnam HANDED to him by a demonRAT led Congress, as usual, turning its back on a desperate ally by 1975. Our “representatives” didn’t care about the people in So Vietnam, but they sure did care about seeing the war turn out for their “fellow travelers”.

And those infamous pyramids of skulls in Cambodia? A fitting monument to leftists everywhere- including the demonRATs in THIS country.

[PGR88]

Giap had the advantage that only Communist leaders have - being able/willing to throw tens of thousands of your own troops into battle to be slaughtered by human wave and “mass mobilization” tactics. All for the good of the proletariat and the Party, of course!