Posted on 01/07/2018 4:11:48 PM PST by GoldenState_Rose
“Unification” is how Ho and his propagandists here in the US were selling it, as if there was something inherently wrong about the people of South Vietnam not wanting to be subjects of a Communist police state. You’re just supposed to ignore the part about killing anyone who objected or otherwise got in the way of the Vanguard of the Revolution.
“as if there was something inherently wrong about the people of South Vietnam not wanting to be subjects of a Communist police state”
Hard to believe that people actually bought that crap.
Oh, I guess not, since they had Cronkite and the rest of the treason chorus helping them.
wonder if it will take 50 years for the General Officers Corps to admit invading Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, Syria, and more ; was a losing dumb sh*t move from the get go ?
US military leadership has its head so far up its own a^^ that it hasn’t won a war in 70 years. Perfumed Princes sucking each other’s dicks
Bookmarked, for each of the books mentioned. Read the first (1972) book, was even then disgusted with what Washington did, how they decided things, how they mucked up things - almost deliberately.
I have not read the more recent.
I am with you. I have chosen to remember that Ronald Reagan said, “ours (mine in Vietnam) was a noble cause. A small country (including ethnic Chinese, Catholic Vietnamese, and others fleeing Communism) newly free from colonial rule sought our help in establishing self-rule and the means of self-defense against a totalitarian neighbor (Tonkinese) bent on conquest. He said that to consider it otherwise dishonored the memory of over 58,000 who died in the cause.
Thank you so much dsc. It’s an important time in history to reflect upon and I thank God men like HR McMaster are at the helm of our security and of our troops - so that we chart a path as a nation without repeating the same mistakes! (And have men lead who are humble enough to admit when they do.)
I also think it’s a part of our history that we need to make sense of and make peace with as a country. And, as Trump says, it’s atrocious how we have treated our veterans. I hope that vets feel the peace and appreciation they deserve.
Thank you for bringing that to mind. What a great man he was.
As a VN era vet it is hard to make sense of a war where we have to fight for a countryman that won’t fight for his own freedom. There are exceptions, of course, but that sums it up.
I’ve heard Ike sent the first advisors to Vietnam. Kennedy sent the first troops and Johnson/McNamara used the Gulf of Tonkin incident to escalate the conflict to a full scale war.
dsc: also great points here also.
I am not sure that isolationism was the answer especially in light of the bigger picture of the Cold War. McMaster was correct to point out the failures in political leadership, but it was American society at large that was weakened by our own inner turmoil and our own confusion about what we stood for as a nation.
LBJ’s “Great Society” program echoed Soviet principles! How can we defeat the menace of communism when we were adopting Marxism-Leninism for ourselves?
Had we been resolute about our values and united as a country about the nature of the global battle we were facing, then even the political leadership would have reflected that clarity. We would have had better qualified leaders with a clear sense of purpose and vision about our mission in Southeast Asia.
Despite all the human error and tactical mishaps though, strategically speaking: the war effort in Vietnam did ultimately contribute to the greater strategic victory over the Soviet Union and communism.
And today we are served by an administration with our best interests in mind and advisors to the president who have learned the lessons of the past. Grateful to have Trump as our commander in chief.
The first American ground combat troops were Marine units that arrived early 1965 during the Lyndon Johnson admin.
Kennedy had some 15,000 US advisors in Vietnam, including my father. The number involved in combat would have been very small and largely off the record. Special forces leading their ARVN trainees, things like that.
Eisenhower had 750 - 1,500 American advisors in South Vietnam during his presidency. The Communist insurgency hadn’t grown as large as it would during the Kennedy years.
Lyndon Johnson was a welfare state President and the first president that I really despised, but he was certainly no Marxist-Leninist.
In fact his bitterest enemies were the American Left, some of whom became the braintrust of the Obama Democrats. LBJ was an FDR liberal and a lousy president, but he was not a communist of any sort.
His programs had a socialist bent which echoed Marxist/Leninist solutions to pressing economic problems. And my point is, regardless of LBJ and who our leaders were: American society *at large* was going through an inner siege. For better (civil rights) and worse (secularization - which is definitely Marxist influence. )
Marxist-Leninism involves a good deal more than just socialism.
It’s jailing and or killing your political rivals with a one party state.
“American society *at large* was going through an inner siege”
Yeah well I spent my teenage years living through the 60s and I somehow missed the “inner siege”. What we had was social change fueled by The Pill, pot, rock music, the draft and an unpopular war, inner city riots, assassinations- in other words uncontrolled history just like today. I was just younger.
” For better (civil rights)”
Sure, if you love the thought policing and gov’t coercion that have grown out of it. The road to hell being paved with good intentions.
Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan both opposed the 1964 civil rights act because like every other conservative of the time they knew that it would grant too much control over average Americans to the political class and the administrative state. And boy did they hit the bullseye on that one.
Thanks Robert.
“it was American society at large that was weakened by our own inner turmoil and our own confusion about what we stood for as a nation.”
The turmoil and confusion were created whole cloth by the lying media, both “news” and entertainment.
“It’s jailing and or killing your political rivals with a one party state.”
Thank God the foundations of our country are strong enough so that, as imperfect as our government has been — it never was to the extent of authoritarian regimes in USSR, China, and the kind we were battling against in Southeast Asia.
“Uncontrolled history just like today.”
We are in the 50 year anniversary of 1968 and I say: things were crazier back then! I did not live through the 60s, but looking back on them helps me put today in perspective. “We shall overcome.” And at least we’re not in the 1860s: when our nation was embroiled in literal CIVIL WAR!
“The turmoil and confusion were created whole cloth by the lying media, both “news” and entertainment.”
dsc: And we can’t underestimate the influence of liberal, Marxist academia on college campuses, the watering down of theology in our churches, and the liberalization of the Catholic Church via Vatican II council.
“The turmoil and confusion were created whole cloth by the lying media, both “news” and entertainment.”
It was much easier for dominant liberalism to control the national debate back when CBS, NBC and ABC were it as far as national news broadcasters.
David Brinkley was the only anchor back then who wasn’t hostile to the Right and he had to share the show with Chet Huntley who labelled Goldwater crazy. Cronkite was a left-progressive who hid it well behind his avuncular demeanor.
And in the newsprint world the NY Times and the Washington Post reliably gave us all the news that conventional liberalism wanted to hear.
“It was much easier for dominant liberalism to control the national debate back when CBS, NBC and ABC were it as far as national news broadcasters.”
It’s only the Internet that has allowed so many people to become aware of the perfidious nature of the media.
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