Posted on 05/05/2018 8:52:15 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
Aha...so you fell for Hanoi Jane's song and dance too.It wasn't a "civil war" any more than Korea was a "civil war".
It wasn’t just Vietnam. The domino theory held sway at the time.
Vietnam itself was of little importance (other than as a domestic political issue, i.e., JFK and LBJ were afraid of a “who lost Vietnam” controversy such as “who lost China” hurt the Democrats a decade before.)
The big prize was Indonesia. And the pro-western Suharto perhaps would not have dared to overthrow the pro-leftist Sukarno in 1965, if it hadn’t been for the US stand in Vietnam. I’m not justifying it; the bloodbath in the 1965 coup in Indonesia was horrendous.
But that was the thinking.
Vietnam should be studied if only to learn how not to fight a war.
I put the loss of this war on politicians and the Leftist media. Throw in Hanoi Jane for good measure. Her passport should have been revoked for even traveling to North Vietnam.
We won the Vietnam War in 1973. It was the Democrats in 1975 who frightened President Ford into abandoning our treaty obligations to South Vietnam. We sat on our hands instead of providing the agreed upon air support while North Vietnam followed the Democrats’ lead and invaded.
I believe Eisenhower did the right thing in supporting a non-Communist government in South Vietnam. And his policy was successful. When he left office, South Vietnam had a stable government. We had only a few hundred troops in Vietnam serving in an advisory role, and they suffered less than ten casualties.
Burns seems to be a serious producer of leftist history. I did watch his Civil War series years ago but nothing since. I definitely dont care to ever see this VN series. It was my generation and i was lucky enough to be there, admittedly as a Maritime Patrol crewmember (no combat), but i was still spit at in the airport in Honolulu on my way home. The lefty view of VN is an insult to those that served.
A large part of the South is/was Catholic - I seem to remember JFK being accused of getting into it because he wanted to help fellow Catholics.
Dominoes did fall after South Vietnam was overrun, but they weren’t all in Southeast Asia. Within year, Communists seized control of Angola, Mozambique and São Tomé e Príncipe.
Vietnam itself was of little importance (other than as a domestic political issue, i.e., JFK and LBJ were afraid of a “who lost Vietnam” controversy such as “who lost China” hurt the Democrats a decade before.)
The big prize was Indonesia. And the pro-western Suharto perhaps would not have dared to overthrow the pro-leftist Sukarno in 1965, if it hadn’t been for the US stand in Vietnam. I’m not justifying it; the bloodbath in the 1965 coup in Indonesia was horrendous.
But that was the thinking.
I know that was the thinking, and I even understand it. At the time I even agreed with it, even though I was just a very young man, and didn't know anything, really.
As I said in my post, in hindsight; I understand the power of the "domino theory."
My point was that it was the received wisdom of the advisors of to the President, like Dean Acheson, and Allen Dulles, and McGeorge Bundy, and Robert McNamara, that Communism was stronger, that Communism would prevail in the long run.
Today, with the benefit of hindsight we can see that Communism is not stronger, is not more efficient, and will not prevail over the long run.
“Vietnam was a propaganda war as well as a physical one and many communists and fellow travelers are still fighting it.”
I loved the Vietnam series. It was a complete waste. McNamara and Kissinger should have been hanged.
That could be. I’m not up on what those advisers thought about Communism as the wave of the future. I don’t think however that McNamara had any particularly strong beliefs on that, because IMO he was a yes-man who just did and said what he thought the president wanted to hear.
Actually Eisenhower, whom I respect, had little concern about Vietnam. When Kennedy came to the White House for his post-election briefing with Eisenhower, Eisenhower didn’t even mention Vietnam. Laos was the topic of conversation with regard to southeast Asia.
It never would’ve gotten to the point it did if Eisenhower had still been in control IMO. He knew the limits of power and the cost/benefit aspect of things.
I didn't "fall for it," that's what it was. Even though China and the USSR were backing and supplying the North. Much of the population of both north and south wanted Communism, and that's the reason they supported Ho Chi Minh.
Look, I know it wasn't right for them, and you know it wasn't right for them, but the problem is that they didn't know it wasn't right for them, or at least enough of them didn't know it, and we were not going to change their minds by blowing the shit out of them.
The basic fact and lesson is this: the President of the United States cannot place hundreds of thousands of young Americans in harm's way for years on end without overwhelming political support from the American population. It's not a matter of justice, it's a matter of politics and public opinion and public sentiment.
We were able to mobilize that kind of effort during WWII because most people could see that Hitler and Japan were actual, physical threats to the United States.
That just wasn't the case in Vietnam, especially when it became obvious that many, many ordinary Vietnamese people wanted us to leave. I well remember the story of the teenaged girl who tossed the grenade at the American soldiers; I heard it from my uncle who had come back from Vietnam (I'm not saying he was present when it happened, but he heard about it). Maybe she was brainwashed, maybe she was even not an actual teenager, but was a NVA soldier disguised as a villager, I don't know, but what does it matter? Incidents like that, and others, are powerful, and the North knew very well how to use incidents like My Lai to their advantage.
War is psychological as well as military, and we lost the psychology before we lost the military war.
Another factor was that Johnson was a genuinely bad man, and the war was to some extent being waged to help his political friends back in Texas make money. As his time to live grew short, I think he realized his mistake and actually felt remorse.
The B-52 brought Hanoi to its knees and to Paris. The left made sure that the military would not win so they cut funding and stopped the bombing. The “war” was winnable. The scumbag left loved POS Commies then and now love the Islamists and everything socialist. I hate the left and always will.
And another thing: my views on Vietnam do not for one second mean that I don't respect and admire the men who went there and fought for America and for freedom. That is not the case at all. They were doing what they thought was right, in many cases, and they did a very good job. They couldn't possibly know how history was going to play out, and within the context of the time they were doing what was right; in any event, they did their duty when they were called upon by the United States, and the deserve tremendous respect for that. They didn't run away, and I love them and admire them for that, and the fact that so many of them paid the ultimate price for it hurts me to this day.
The first hint of conservative thought I ever experienced happened when — as a teenager in high school — I heard the story about how returning American soldiers were spat upon as they made their way through Kennedy Airport in NYC. Even though I was somewhat against the war (like essentially 100% of my classmates and friends) I still thought that wasn't right, couldn't possibly be right. It struck me as wrong, and I knew it with certainty.
That was the beginning of my learning to "go against the crowd."
Tried to watch his Baseball then gave up on him altogether.
Yeah, I feel the same. Baseball started out pretty good, and then turned into one big diatribe about how awful and racist America is. I couldn't take it, he just hammered it and hammered it.
It ticks me off the way these elitists think that baseball gives them the common touch.
Burns, George Will, Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Read the Pentagon Papers.
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