Could We Have Won Vietnam?

[The Truth]

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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.

[Copernicus]

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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.

[andyfox]

Which military experts? The ones who constantly lied to us and were wrong every step of the way? The younger posters here are probably most familiar with Bill Clinton's duplicity, but he was an amateur compared to the pathological liars who ran the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

[Copernicus]

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Which military experts? The ones who constantly lied to us and were wrong every step of the way? The younger posters here are probably most familiar with Bill Clinton's duplicity, but he was an amateur compared to the pathological liars who ran the Johnson and Nixon administrations.

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Not even close. Clinton wouldnt know the truth if it was kneeling under his desk.

[ikestoys]

illini43-

i pretty much agree with you, my main point was that is was pretty ignorant to accuse people saying we should have stayed of idiocy when there is seems that there could easily be an argument for staying when 1+ million were slaughtered after you left.

[Copernicus]

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illini43-

i pretty much agree with you, my main point was that is was pretty ignorant to accuse people saying we should have stayed of idiocy when there is seems that there could easily be an argument for staying when 1+ million were slaughtered after you left.

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Noooooo. Chompsky [sic] tells us that there was no slaughter after we left, and if there was it was our fault for being there in the first place.

[zasterguava]

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illini43-

i pretty much agree with you, my main point was that is was pretty ignorant to accuse people saying we should have stayed of idiocy when there is seems that there could easily be an argument for staying when 1+ million were slaughtered after you left.

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Noooooo. Chompsky [sic] tells us that there was no slaughter after we left, and if there was it was our fault for being there in the first place.

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Wrong. Will provide quote if you persist, or are too lazy to look yourself.

[andyfox]

Is there documentation for 1,000,000+ slaughtered after we left?

[ikestoys]

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Is there documentation for 1,000,000+ slaughtered after we left?

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Theres not much documentation on the Vietnam side, but the Khmer Rouge were pretty terrible, and there rise to power was correlated with us leaving.