Could We Have Won Vietnam?

[owsley]

What was there that was worth "winning"?

[PLOlover]

chomsky says saigon was "jewel of the orient" or pearl or sometihng, well that part is history not his opinion, his opinion was that US wanted the good stuff in VN, the resouces and other stuff, and so US either wanted to control said resources, or deny them to others.

since US achieved goal 2 of denying them to others (ie, blew the hell out of the whole country), US won the war and achieved their objective.

[Copernicus]

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chomsky says saigon was "jewel of the orient" or pearl or sometihng, well that part is history not his opinion, his opinion was that US wanted the good stuff in VN, the resouces and other stuff, and so US either wanted to control said resources, or deny them to others.

since US achieved goal 2 of denying them to others (ie, blew the hell out of the whole country), US won the war and achieved their objective.

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more proof the Chomsky is a blithering anti-American idiot.

[PLOlover]

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more proof the Chomsky is a blithering anti-American idiot.

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yeah alex jones thinks chomsky is scum too.

but I mean, the whole premise of vietnam really was not to let it "fall" to the communists (a la domino theory).

so if you can't prevent a communist takeover (best), then 2nd best by far is to level the place so the dirty commies have nothing to take over.

also in line with the domino theory is that other countries will think twice before going commie, because they will see that at best their revolution will win them a totally destroyed country.

now that's realpolitik.

also modern politicians have stated that vietnam was a good war precisely because it deterred other countries from going commie.

[andyfox]

"modern politicians have stated that vietnam was a good war precisely because it deterred other countries from going commie."

Ridiculous. The fact that American leaders didn't understand that Vietnamese communism was related to Vietnamese issues doesn't mean other countries' leaders didn't get it. Which modern politicians have called Vietnam a "good war"? Seems to me politicains from all over the political specturm feel (for different reasons) it was a disaster.

[PLOlover]

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"modern politicians have stated that vietnam was a good war precisely because it deterred other countries from going commie."

Ridiculous. The fact that American leaders didn't understand that Vietnamese communism was related to Vietnamese issues doesn't mean other countries' leaders didn't get it. Which modern politicians have called Vietnam a "good war"? Seems to me politicains from all over the political specturm feel (for different reasons) it was a disaster.

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sorry, I should have said "modern day total scum p;oliticians".
people like newt gingrich. probably most high level right wing republicans.

I'm almost positive that piece of human garbage UN guy Bolton holds that view, to name another.

[adios]

The United States couldn't win the war with the strategy they had. They were committed to not ever, for any reason taking the war to the North Vietnameese by sending troops north of the DMZ. The goal was to make the South Vietnameese strong enough to defend themselves. We started to pull the rug out from under the South Vietnameese when we left in 1973 and in 1975 Congress finished the job by cutting off funds.

[owsley]

What was there to win in Vietnam that was so important that we should have gone beyond the 60,000 americans killed and 150,000 wounded? Not to mention the millions of Vietnamese, if that even enters the mind of the war supporters. Communism was going to collapse on its own, us fighting wars like this only helped radical leaders stay in power because it gave them a legitimate scapegoat.

[tame_deuces]

Grunching,

Counter-insurgency wouldn't have worked, even if following the british Oman model (which is the bomb) because you'd have the chinese and the soviets doing pretty much the same thing anyway.

Declaring war was not a viable solution in the beginning of the conflict, due to the international situation.

The change in military doctrines really came around when needed, it would be unrealistic to believe the US could have been prepared for all the eventualities in the vietnam, lending another reasons as to why early invansions could have been catastrophical.

The political gains from an American military victory are debatable, since ideally you would want the south vietnamese to win while you were there as advisors.

So all things considered the defensive line tactic seems like a good idea, the military tactics used throughout seems sound enough (the ratios are brilliant compared to anything of its time or before) and the political situation at home were out of control anyway.

So I'll end it by grunching that discussion if it could have been won is not really an issue.

The military certainly did a good job at the military bits and the political situation changed and the people didn't want to win nomore.

[Kaj]

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The military certainly did a good job at the military bits and the political situation changed and the people didn't want to win nomore.

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I disagree and so do many Vietnam war heroes and military analysts. Excerpt below from an excellent article on Vietnam's winnability, hosted on the US Army War College's site.

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<font color="blue"> Such military observers as Harry Summers, Jr., Andrew Krepinevich, Jr., David Hackworth, Dave Richard Palmer, Douglas Kinnard, and Bruce Palmer, Jr., are critical of the professional military's performance in Vietnam as well as that of civilian authority. Readers will discover among their writings[38] often brutal condemnations of professional hubris, the attrition strategy, excessive use of firepower, reliance on lavish base camps, self-defeating personnel rotation policies, command disunity and micromanagement, and an officer corps corrupted by careerism--none of which can be laid at the doorsteps of McNamara's whiz kids, David Halberstam, or Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda. These and other critics have properly concluded that no debacle as epic as America's in Vietnam can be ascribed solely to either military or civilian authority. Neither acquitted itself well, though ultimate responsibility for what happened to the United States in Vietnam rests with the White House. Harry Summers has observed that much of the criticism of political interference in military operations "is off the mark. Our problem was not so much political interference as it was a lack of a coherent military strategy--a lack for which our military leaders share a large burden of responsibility."</font>

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