Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?
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Clearly, the war was unwinnable. Because the government we were supporting was not supported by the people. The revolt against Diem started in the south.
Clearly the American public supported the war. As late as February 1968 23% of Americans defined themselves as "doves" and 61% "hawks."
Clearly it was the lies of our government, as revealed in the Pentagon Papers, and its brutality, that turned public opinion. We dropped more bombs than were dropped in the history of the world on South Vietnam, the "country" we were supposed to be defending. I suppose had we taken General LeMay's advice, and bombed the Vienamese back to the stone age, we could have killed every man, woman and child in the country and thus "won" the war." Short of that, victory was impossible.
"Insanity" is not the right word to use for McCain's viewpoint. He is simply wrong.
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and so are you. <font color="white"> and you like baseball! what a maroon </font>
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Can you elaborate? I am genuinely interested.
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There isnt much to elaborate on, the war was "winnable". People may differ in what constituted winning, and people may differ on whether the ends would justify the means of winning, but it is unquestionable that under some definition of winning and at some cost, it was winnable.
And the definition wasn't particularly onerous and victory wasnt very far off in many military experts opinion.
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