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  #11  
Old 11-29-2007, 10:57 PM
Scary_Tiger Scary_Tiger is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

[ QUOTE ]
I have 3 American employees, I know their character very well. I also know that they are grateful for the British intervention that made it possible for their families to emigrate to the UK and held off the North from taking over. Sovereignty indeed.

[/ QUOTE ]
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  #12  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:09 PM
andyfox andyfox is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

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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  #13  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:10 PM
Misfire Misfire is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

We could have easily won Vietnam.


The question is, would it have been worth it?
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  #14  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:11 PM
Albert Moulton Albert Moulton is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

I suppose we could have risked nuclear war with China and the USSR by nuking North Vietnam. That would have "won" the war.

But given the constraints that we placed on ourselves because of the threat of a larger war with the Soviets and China, we could have stayed there fighting to this day. Or left, like we did, and let the NVA roll in shortly after we got out.

A more useful question would be, "Would the communist Soviet Union have collapsed had the West, led by the United States, failed to pursue a long-term strategy of containment." That strategy had a lot of negative consequences. But, in the end, Europe did not fall to communism. And we didn't have to fight a nuclear war to see eastern europe liberated.

I always thought of Vietnam as a long, failed battle in a longer post-WWII ideological struggle for world dominance. Would the world be a place of representative democracies? Or of Soviet style dictatorships? I think in 1947, no body knew the answer yet.
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  #15  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:16 PM
The Truth The Truth is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

I think I am going to go with Robert Mcnamara on this one. We saw vietnam as a piece in the cold war, which it was not, and we [censored] up. No, there was no winning the war in vietnam (outside of turning north vietnam into a parking lot which is stupid obv.)
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  #16  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:16 PM
andyfox andyfox is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

This is SOB. Many believe it was either the anti-war movement or the media that lost the war. It's easier than recognizing the hubristic, ignorant, evil, murderous policies we pursued.
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  #17  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:19 PM
The Truth The Truth is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

[ QUOTE ]

"Insanity" is not the right word to use for McCain's viewpoint. He is simply wrong.

[/ QUOTE ]

McCain's position is intellectually indefensible. Yes, this should disqualify him as a candidate for president. A fundamental grasp on our own history is prerequisite for this position.
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  #18  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:40 PM
illini43 illini43 is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

We could have won Vietnam if we had never sent a troop/advisor there. Vietnam was irrelevant in terms of a power struggle between communist and democratic or republic type governments. The best way to win the "war" against communism would be to let it fizzle out through local revolutions.


It is impossible to force a system of government on people who are unwilling to accept it. The only way to succesfully convert a country's government is either: 1) completely destroy all dissidents and opponents by wiping them out (which is cleary impossible to do - killing opponents only spawns more) or 2) Peaceably working with the civil population toward making changes they want to implement. We have done a mix of both in Vietnam, and are currently doing a mix in Iraq. If we continue on our present course with the war, it will end in the same result.

Terrorism / guerilla warfare is a tactic and an ideology, not a state. You can't take on an idea physically and expect to defeat it, which is what we did in Vietnam and what we are currently doing in Iraq.
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  #19  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:43 PM
owsley owsley is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

What was there that was worth "winning"?
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  #20  
Old 11-29-2007, 11:51 PM
ikestoys ikestoys is offline
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Default Re: Could We Have Won Vietnam?

[ QUOTE ]
Wow. I'm amazed.

The Chinese fought the Vietnamese for hundreds of years and never prevailed. The French fought with them for ten years before we arrived and never prevailed. We fought them for years and never prevailed.

[/ QUOTE ]
lol wrong, wrong, wrong....
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