General Westmoreland

[harmonica]

..we wasted $MILLIONS giving it to France BEFORE we got involved

 

[Picaro]

We'll never know, will we.

We do know that if we allowed Vietnam to form its own government after WWII, we could have avoided the whole mess

Ah no; we would have been in it a lot sooner if that were case, having committed up front to keeping it free from Soviet attempts to collapse it.

Johnson did what anybody else would have done in the same situation, i.e. where his entire JCS and his own Secretaries were ally lying about the facts, and trusted none of them, so he took control of some facets of the war himself. He wasn't going to be led into criminal acts in violation of the UN mandates by his political enemies, either. IT was the press who made TET, a major and final defeat of the Viet Cong, look like a major victory, and it was also the press who never complained about the North's constant violations of UN restrictions ignoring the DMZ and their use of the trails in Laos and Cambodia. You can blame the press and the pseudo-intellectual commie in American academia for selling the public bullshit about the 'war' that continues to this day. It was right for the U.S. to get involved, same as it was to get involved in Korea, the ME, Africa, and South America. The difference between Johnson's escalations and Eisenhower's wimpiness and conservative approach to the Cold War is like night and day; Eisenhower rescued no one from Soviet and Red Chinese mass murders and slavery, Johnson's polices bankrupted the Soviets' imperialist dreams and kept Red China and the Soviets divided, and pretty much ended the Cold War. Nixon merely reaped the benefits of a bankrupt Soviet Union.

After WWII, Vietnam would have united under Ho Chi Minh and formed its own country......just like today
They would avoided millions of deaths

I agree any politician would have followed the path of LBJ. In Cold War USA, allowing Vietnam to turn communist was political suicide

Ho would have turned it into another North Korea, and more millions would have died. LBJ's polices crushed the Viet Cong, and yet the media kept claiming it was a 'loss', and also ignored the North's blatantly illegal invasions of the south, while all the commie sympathizers were running around calling Johnson and company 'war criminals', and of most dope addled idiots liked the sound of that, so the repeat it to this day. They would have kept on going, first Laos, then Cambodia, then Thailand, then Malaysia. Fortunately Viet Nam bankrupted the Soviets, the 1973 war ended their influence in the ME, and they collapsed in 1973, unable to exploit their victory.

Not necessarily
Ho had made repeated overtures to the West to support a free Vietnam. Colonialism was hated and oppressive. When the West supported a return to Colonial rule, Communism offered a tempting alternative

Ho was a Red; his 'overtures' were rightly rejected as bullshit, and his word meant nothing.

lol @ communism offering 'an alternative' to oppression. IT would merely become a Russian colony, which is exactly what it did for a few years.

 

[Picaro]

....the US could NEVER win in Nam, but USMC Gen. Walt wanted to do it differently--small USMC/SV units--getting to know the people/etc
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/williamson.pdf
Lewis William Walt - Wikipedia
etc

Being barred from the northern part kind of put a damper on that idea, though it did have much to recommend it. Viet Nam is quickly becoming an American satellite these days.

 

[harmonica]

....the US could NEVER win in Nam, but USMC Gen. Walt wanted to do it differently--small USMC/SV units--getting to know the people/etc
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/williamson.pdf
Lewis William Walt - Wikipedia
etc

Being barred from the northern part kind of put a damper on that idea, though it did have much to recommend it. Viet Nam is quickly becoming an American satellite these days.

we could've even went into the North and nothing would change--they would've just:
waited us out
moved their troops

 

[rightwinger]

We do know that if we allowed Vietnam to form its own government after WWII, we could have avoided the whole mess

Ah no; we would have been in it a lot sooner if that were case, having committed up front to keeping it free from Soviet attempts to collapse it.

Johnson did what anybody else would have done in the same situation, i.e. where his entire JCS and his own Secretaries were ally lying about the facts, and trusted none of them, so he took control of some facets of the war himself. He wasn't going to be led into criminal acts in violation of the UN mandates by his political enemies, either. IT was the press who made TET, a major and final defeat of the Viet Cong, look like a major victory, and it was also the press who never complained about the North's constant violations of UN restrictions ignoring the DMZ and their use of the trails in Laos and Cambodia. You can blame the press and the pseudo-intellectual commie in American academia for selling the public bullshit about the 'war' that continues to this day. It was right for the U.S. to get involved, same as it was to get involved in Korea, the ME, Africa, and South America. The difference between Johnson's escalations and Eisenhower's wimpiness and conservative approach to the Cold War is like night and day; Eisenhower rescued no one from Soviet and Red Chinese mass murders and slavery, Johnson's polices bankrupted the Soviets' imperialist dreams and kept Red China and the Soviets divided, and pretty much ended the Cold War. Nixon merely reaped the benefits of a bankrupt Soviet Union.

After WWII, Vietnam would have united under Ho Chi Minh and formed its own country......just like today
They would avoided millions of deaths

I agree any politician would have followed the path of LBJ. In Cold War USA, allowing Vietnam to turn communist was political suicide

Ho would have turned it into another North Korea, and more millions would have died. LBJ's polices crushed the Viet Cong, and yet the media kept claiming it was a 'loss', and also ignored the North's blatantly illegal invasions of the south, while all the commie sympathizers were running around calling Johnson and company 'war criminals', and of most dope addled idiots liked the sound of that, so the repeat it to this day. They would have kept on going, first Laos, then Cambodia, then Thailand, then Malaysia. Fortunately Viet Nam bankrupted the Soviets, the 1973 war ended their influence in the ME, and they collapsed in 1973, unable to exploit their victory.

Not necessarily
Ho had made repeated overtures to the West to support a free Vietnam. Colonialism was hated and oppressive. When the West supported a return to Colonial rule, Communism offered a tempting alternative

Ho was a Red; his 'overtures' were rightly rejected as bullshit, and his word meant nothing.

lol @ communism offering 'an alternative' to oppression. IT would merely become a Russian colony, which is exactly what it did for a few years.

No, at the time, Ho was not a red

Eventually, the Communists offered Ho a better option than the Colonial Capitalists

 

[rightwinger]

....the US could NEVER win in Nam, but USMC Gen. Walt wanted to do it differently--small USMC/SV units--getting to know the people/etc
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/williamson.pdf
Lewis William Walt - Wikipedia
etc

Being barred from the northern part kind of put a damper on that idea, though it did have much to recommend it. Viet Nam is quickly becoming an American satellite these days.

we could've even went into the North and nothing would change--they would've just:
waited us out
moved their troops

A US “Victory” would have led to Viet Cong led insurgency supported by Russia and China

We would have had to remain to support the Saigon Government and would still be taking casualties

 

[harmonica]

....the US could NEVER win in Nam, but USMC Gen. Walt wanted to do it differently--small USMC/SV units--getting to know the people/etc
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usmc/williamson.pdf
Lewis William Walt - Wikipedia
etc

Being barred from the northern part kind of put a damper on that idea, though it did have much to recommend it. Viet Nam is quickly becoming an American satellite these days.

we could've even went into the North and nothing would change--they would've just:
waited us out
moved their troops

A US “Victory” would have led to Viet Cong led insurgency supported by Russia and China

We would have had to remain to support the Saigon Government and would still be taking casualties

....they would've done like what Russia did with Napoleon when he entered Moscow = no win

 

[Mindful]

I'm now watching Korea on PBS.

And looking for any comparisons to and similarities with Vietnam.

 

[rightwinger]

I'm now watching Korea on PBS.

And looking for any comparisons to and similarities with Vietnam.

I think Korea was a more conventional war

 

[Sunni Man]

#1 lesson learned from the Vietnam War.

"You can't bomb people back to the stone age when they still live in the stone ago."

30 years later America forgot lesson #1 and bombed the stone age people of Afghanistan, and achieved the same results as we did in Vietnam. ...

 

[harmonica]

I'm now watching Korea on PBS.

And looking for any comparisons to and similarities with Vietnam.

1. Vietnam was not a peninsula like Korea--so the US could isolate Korea more easily
the ''waist'' of Korea very ''narrow''/ocean on both sides--more easily defended
2. the S Korean government was more stable than the SV gov't. S Vietnam had 3 heads of state changes in about 2 years! --one a bloody murder coup/and many other attempted coups [VERY difficult to help a country with a corrupt/etc government-culture like that ]
3.the beginning/etc of the Vietnam War was more guerrilla and not massive troops--as was the Korean War
..a.China brought in MASSIVE amounts of troops into Korea
4.Korea was an obvious ''invasion''/attack whereas there were supposed to be elections in Vietnam which the US did not ''allow''......kind of a slow ''burn''

 

[harmonica]

#1 lesson learned from the Vietnam War.

"You can't bomb people back to the stone age when they still live in the stone ago."

30 years later America forgot lesson #1 and invaded the stone age people of Afghanistan and achieved the same results as we did in Vietnam. ...

....Afghanistan was much different in that we targeted the bad guys and NOT the Afghan airfields/industry/etc as much
..North Vietnam DID agree to terms after the massive Linebacker bombings--it did not win the war, but it did cause the NVs to relent

 

[Mindful]

#1 lesson learned from the Vietnam War.

"You can't bomb people back to the stone age when they still live in the stone ago."

30 years later America forgot lesson #1 and bombed the stone age people of Afghanistan, and achieved the same results as we did in Vietnam. ...

Afghanistan wasn't always the Stone Age.

 

[Sunni Man]

....Afghanistan was much different in that we targeted the bad guys and NOT the Afghan airfields/industry/etc as much
..North Vietnam DID agree to terms after the massive Linebacker bombings--it did not win the war, but it did cause the NVs to relent

The end result was the U.S. lost the Vietnam war and gained zilch.

Afghanistan is basically the same story. No win, no prize. ...

 

[harmonica]

#1 lesson learned from the Vietnam War.

"You can't bomb people back to the stone age when they still live in the stone ago."

30 years later America forgot lesson #1 and bombed the stone age people of Afghanistan, and achieved the same results as we did in Vietnam. ...

they did learn the lesson--PG1 is a perfect example--perfect

 

[Mindful]

Before the Soviets.

 

[harmonica]

....Afghanistan was much different in that we targeted the bad guys and NOT the Afghan airfields/industry/etc as much
..North Vietnam DID agree to terms after the massive Linebacker bombings--it did not win the war, but it did cause the NVs to relent

The end result was the U.S. lost the Vietnam war and gained zilch.

Afghanistan is basically the same story. No win, no prize. ...

.....1. objective one is to attack the bad guys--objective completed
....2. kill the bad guys [ NOT everyone ]--objective completed
--Osama = DEAD
...... we know we can't change cultures/countries..
.it's NOT the same

 

[harmonica]

....Afghanistan was much different in that we targeted the bad guys and NOT the Afghan airfields/industry/etc as much
..North Vietnam DID agree to terms after the massive Linebacker bombings--it did not win the war, but it did cause the NVs to relent

The end result was the U.S. lost the Vietnam war and gained zilch.

Afghanistan is basically the same story. No win, no prize. ...

also we disrupted the bad guys--A LOT --this is good

....fighting terrorism is MUCH DIFFERENT

 

[Sunni Man]

Afghanistan wasn't always the Stone Age.

Only for the political elites who controlled the capital city.

The other 99% of the population lived in abject poverty. ...

 

[Sunni Man]

Before the Soviets.

You live in a delusional fantasy world. ...