Coulter: Leftists Celebrate U.S. Defeat in Vietnam

NewsMax.com ^ | 7/01/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

Vietnam, writes Ann Coulter in "Treason: Treachery From the Cold War to the War on Terrorism," is the left’s favorite war because America lost. "Liberals never tire of citing it."

Veterans of that sad chapter in American history have every reason to bitterly resent the manner in which the left wing cast them as baby killers only one step removed from jack-booted Nazi storm troopers. After all, having given every ounce of determination and courage they could muster in a war they fought valiantly but were not allowed to win, they came home to be spat upon and shunned by some of their fellow Americans, then drenched in leftist-inspired anti-war propaganda.

If Sgt. York was the symbol of America in World War I and Joe Foss or the five Sullivan brothers were the symbols of America in World War II, "Hanoi" Jane Fonda was the left's American symbol of the Vietnam War.

Says Coulter: "Republicans proceed from the assumption of America’s virtue. Democrats do not." She could easily have added that "liberals" proceed from the assumption that everything America does is wrong, wrong, wrong, as Sen. Robert Byrd, D-KKK, would put it.

And America’s effort to save South Vietnam from being swallowed up into a communist hell was, in "liberal" eyes, wrong, wrong, wrong.

When President John Kennedy sent U.S. forces to Vietnam, he "didn’t want to be too tough with the enemy." The result was that when the U.S. could have easily won, Kennedy refused to order an invasion of the North.

"At a press conference on November 5, 1965, his brother Bobby said America should donate blood to the North Vietnamese as a gesture of good will toward the enemy."

In the end, we did donate a lot of blood to the North Vietnamese – it was spilled by the 50,000-plus GIs who died there fighting a war the liberals got us into and then refused to win.

Recalling that President Lyndon Johnson refused to commit enough troops to win, Coulter writes that he "micromanaged" the bombing of the North from his command post in the Oval Office and severely limited its scope. The targets he chose were picked on the basis of politics, not strategy.

"Johnson’s inability to wage a war," Coulter writes, "warmed the hearts of the domestic 'peace' movement, which was unabashedly rooting for the Vietcong." Who can ever forget the heart-warming vision of Fonda at a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun site cheering her little North Vietnamese brothers as they tried to blow her fellow Americans out of the skies?

Coulter recalls how the left rolled out "all the usual arguments of treason," fatuously arguing that the conflict was a civil war, that the communists were really "agrarian reformers" (that great catch-all leftist phrase for communist butchers), and that the way to fight communism was to send taxpayer money to end poverty, ignorance and disease, just as they argue today about fighting al-Qaeda and international terrorism.

And we mustn’t forget the role the media played in bringing the U.S. to its knees – a position in which "liberals" love to see Uncle Sam.

"Eager to demoralize the nation, the press happily published staged photos of alleged American atrocities. Enemy defeats were characterized as victories, such as the Vietcong's failed Tet offensive," which all but finished off the Vietcong, leaving the war to be fought by the North.

As Coulter put it, "Liberals could never figure out who the enemy was – other than an enemy called the United States of America."

President Richard Nixon had in effect won the war with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords, but that victory depended upon enforcement of the agreement. As Coulter notes, the U.S. retained "three trump cards to play if the Communist North violated the truce and invaded South Vietnam. Keep Haiphong harbor mined, furnish military and economic aid to South Vietnam. Or resume the bombing."

What happened, however, was what Coulter calls "the most dishonorable chapter" in American history. The Democrat-controlled Congress led the U.S. to double-cross an ally.

"Using hysteria over Watergate as cover, Democrats openly turned their backs on the South Vietnamese, leading to total conquest of Indochina."

After detailing the sorry history of Democrat betrayal of our South Vietnamese ally, Coulter recalls the sorry spectacle of North Vietnamese tanks rolling into Saigon and U.S. helicopters airlifting American officials from the roof of the U.S. Embassy. She quotes historian Paul Johnson as writing that it was "the greatest and most humiliating defeat in American history."

"The Democrats did that," Coulter writes.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
DNC

[fooman]

Excellent post. I saw the PBS documentary about how Nixon won the peace at the paris conference.

IT leaves out the dems imfluence on not resuming bombing/

[somemoreequalthanothers]

I'll give her credit, she knows how to push the hot buttons of a conservative. I hate those bastards for what they've done over the last 50 years.

[YoungKentuckyConservative]

I hate those bastards for what they've done over the last 50 years.

Ditto. And I'm ready to take my country back when you are.

[Old Sarge]

As long as I can pull back a charging handle, I'm there, too...

[Jumper]

Someday you may see the inside story as written by a young Army LTC who was at the Paris Peace talks, now a reitred 4-star general. I got to read this account, which talked of the Chinese, French Hosts and North Viet Nam participants as laughing during the Christmas Bombings. The General said they literally told Nixon to bring it on, and this we did for a week beyond their begging to stop. Both the North and Chinese generals/diplomats were actually crying, weeping, begging us to stop and only when they signed a peace treaty which they went on to break did we stop the bombings - Peace through Strength!

[shiva]

Coulter's book is #2. Hillary went down from #7 to #8

[ChadGore]

Sen. Robert Byrd, D-KKK <== Classic !

[fooman]

If nixon should resign for a two bit break in, then billy jeff and shillary should burn in hell with wooden stakes in thier hearts!

I don't like the moral equivalence here, especially since the nixon thing made us take our eyes off of 'nam.

I dont nixon's price controls though, I think they made the economy in the 70s worse.

[fooman]

If nixon should resign for a two bit break in, then billy jeff and shillary should burn in hell with wooden stakes in thier hearts!

I don't like the moral equivalence here, especially since the nixon thing made us take our eyes off of 'nam.

I dont nixon's price controls though, I think they made the economy in the 70s worse.

[fooman]

If nixon should resign for a two bit break in, then billy jeff and shillary should burn in hell with wooden stakes in thier hearts!

I don't like the moral equivalence here, especially since the nixon thing made us take our eyes off of 'nam.

I dont nixon's price controls though, I think they made the economy in the 70s worse.

[fooman]

If nixon should resign for a two bit break in, then billy jeff and shillary should burn in hell with wooden stakes in thier hearts!

I don't like the moral equivalence here, especially since the nixon thing made us take our eyes off of 'nam.

I dont nixon's price controls though, I think they made the economy in the 70s worse.

[fooman]

If nixon should resign for a two bit break in, then billy jeff and shillary should burn in hell with wooden stakes in thier hearts!

I don't like the moral equivalence here, especially since the nixon thing made us take our eyes off of 'nam.

I dont nixon's price controls though, I think they made the economy in the 70s worse.

[fooman]

If nixon should resign for a two bit break in, then billy jeff and shillary should burn in hell with wooden stakes in thier hearts!

I don't like the moral equivalence here, especially since the nixon thing made us take our eyes off of 'nam.

I dont nixon's price controls though, I think they made the economy in the 70s worse.

[fooman]

Gosh, I hate when I get bit by the multiple post thing

[Fred Hayek]

Hanoi waited until Nixon was out of office before the NVA made its final offensive to the south. If they had done so when Nixon was still in office they knew that Nixon would have darkened the skies over Hanoi and Haiphong with BUFFs. Linebacker would have been nothing in comparison.

[Spirited]

This woman is just awesome.
At last someone willing to tell and stand by the truth.

[RaceBannon]

......

......

[fooman]

lol

[PeaceCorpsGuy]

I just finished the chapter on Vietnam in Ann Coulter's book. She really knows her stuff.
Got get'em Ann!