Iraq And The Tet Analogy

[Annie]

Links.

http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2006/10/george-w-bushs-admission-and-tet.html

Wednesday, October 18, 2006
George W. Bush's "admission" and the Tet analogy
By TigerHawk at 10/18/2006 08:30:00 PM


The President has apparently made news by "accepting" the Iraq-Vietnam comparison. Drudge has linked, and lefty blog Think Progress is making a big deal of it. Here is what President Bush said:

Stephanopoulos asked whether the president agreed with the opinion of columnist Tom Friedman, who wrote in The New York Times today that the situation in Iraq may be equivalent to the Tet offensive in Vietnam almost 40 years ago.

"He could be right," the president said, before adding, "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."

Here's what Think Progress said he said:

President Bush is right to finally admit that violence in Iraq has reached a tipping point, and that the U.S. is not winning the war as he has claimed.
​

That is, of course, not what the President said. He merely agreed that there was an appropriate comparison to be made between the Tet offensive and the violence we are seeing in Iraq today. I agree. The question is, what was the lesson of Tet (the all-out offensive of the Viet Cong in early 1968, at the time of the "Tet" new year holiday in Vietnam)?

At the time the media perceived and promoted the Tet offensive as a great victory for the enemy. In an age when the network anchors deployed truly awesome power, Walter Cronkite destroyed Lyndon Johnson's chances for re-election when he editorialized that we were "mired in stalement". President Johnson declared "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America," and withdrew from the 1968 presidential campaign.

Tet, however, was not a military disaster for the United States. Quite to the contrary, history has revealed that the Tet offensive was in fact a crushing defeat for the Viet Cong, and effectively required that the Communists conquer the South by invasion from the North, rather than by civil insurgency. The Viet Cong were only able to turn a military disaster into strategic victory by persuading the American media that the United States was mired in stalement. With the domestic political support for the war fading fast, the United States decided to withdraw from Indochina, even though it would take Nixon and Kissinger another four years to accomplish it.

The summary of the Wikipedia entry on the Tet offensive captures the current view of military historians, even if it is quite different from the conventional wisdom of the Boomer editors and producers who set the agenda in the mainstream media:

The Tet Offensive can be considered a crushing military defeat for the Communist forces, as neither the Viet Cong nor the North Vietnamese army achieved any of their tactical goals. Furthermore, the operational cost of the offensive was dangerously high, with the Viet Cong essentially crippled by the huge losses inflicted by South Vietnamese and other Allied forces. Nevertheless, the Offensive is widely considered a turning point of the war in Vietnam, with the NLF and PAVN winning an enormous psychological and propaganda victory. Although US public opinion polls continued to show a majority supporting involvement in the war, this support continued to deteriorate and the nation became increasingly polarized over the war.[1] President Lyndon Johnson saw his popularity fall sharply after the Offensive, and he withdrew as a candidate for re-election in March of 1968. The Tet Offensive is frequently seen as an example of the value of propaganda, media influence and popular opinion in the pursuit of military objectives.

Not surprisingly to me but shocking to many, the President obviously knows more history than his interviewer. When President Bush "accepts" the analogy of the surge in violence in Iraq to the Tet offensive in Vietnam, he is not "accepting" that Iraq is an unwinnable struggle against a noble enemy. He is saying that victory or defeat in Iraq will not be a function of the amount of violence that the enemy is able to do during any given period, but our will to keep fighting notwithstanding that violence. In that one regard, Iraq is dangerously similar to Vietnam, which fact the mainstream media would know if the typical editor read military history instead of the journalism pretending to be history that fills the bestseller lists.

 

[José]

What a bunch of crap!!

In Vietnam, the US enemy was 20% communism and 80% vietnamese nationalism.

Many vietnamese perceived the US as the succesor of Japanese and French colonial rule: a foreign army of occupation preventing Vietnam from having self determination.

I personally believe the US had, by far, the best social project for Vietnam and you only have to compare South Korea and Vietnam to reach the same conclusion but the fact that vietnamese nationalism was the main cause of that conflict is an irrefutable historical fact.

Many vietcong fighters said at the time:

“I’m not a communist, I’m a nationalist. I want all foreign troops to leave Vietnam.”

The fact that nationalism was the main driving force behind that conflict is precisely the reason why the Vietnam War would survive the end of the Cold War: it had little to do with communism to begin with.

The reunification of the country was such an overriding concern for many people that the struggle would continue even if the US invaded NV and took over Hanoi.

If America “stayed the course” in that country, there would still be a separate country in the south but you can bet your ass that american soldiers would still be killing and dying in the jungles of Vietnam.

 

[CSM]

What a bunch of crap!!

In Vietnam, the US enemy was 20% communism and 80% vietnamese nationalism.

Many vietnamese perceived the US as the succesor of Japanese and French colonial rule: a foreign army of occupation preventing Vietnam from having self determination.

I personally believe the US had, by far, the best social project for Vietnam and you only have to compare South Korea and Vietnam to reach the same conclusion but the fact that vietnamese nationalism was the main cause of that conflict is an irrefutable historical fact.

Many vietcong fighters said at the time:

“I’m not a communist, I’m a nationalist. I want all foreign troops to leave Vietnam.”

The fact that nationalism was the main driving force behind that conflict is precisely the reason why the Vietnam War would survive the end of the Cold War: it had little to do with communism to begin with.

The reunification of the country was such an overriding concern for many people that the struggle would continue even if the US invaded NV and took over Hanoi.

If America “stayed the course” in that country, there would still be a separate country in the south but you can bet your ass that american soldiers would still be killing and dying in the jungles of Vietnam.

Your perspective is very North Vietnamese...ask the fleeing South Vietnamese if they felt the same.

 

[José]

Originally posted by CSM
Your perspective is very North Vietnamese...ask the fleeing South Vietnamese if they felt the same.

So what?

You can find hundreds of thousands of afghans who supported the soviet occupation of their country because they regarded communism as a lesser evil than islamic fundamentalism preached by many afghan fighters.

History proved them right: the soviets left and the country did become a theocracy.

But this doesn’t change the HISTORICAL fact that afghan nationalism and not religious fundamentalism was the main driving force of the conflict, the unifying factor that unified many afghans (secularists and fundamentalists alike) towards the common goal of expelling the invaders from their country.

Similarly, you can find hundreds of thousands of vietnamese who supported the american occupation of their country because they regarded the occupation as a lesser evil than the communist ideology preached by NV.

History also proved them right: America left and the country did become a communist dictatorship.

But this doesn’t change the HISTORICAL fact that vietnamese nationalism and not communism was the main driving force of the conflict, the unifying factor that unified many vietnamese (north and south, those who were communists and those who were simply nationalists) towards the common goal of expelling the foreign troops and unifying the country.

 

[CSM]

So what?

You can find hundreds of thousands of afghans who supported the soviet occupation of their country because they regarded communism as a lesser evil than islamic fundamentalism preached by many afghan fighters.

History proved them right: the soviets left and the country did become a theocracy.

But this doesn’t change the HISTORICAL fact that afghan nationalism and not religious fundamentalism was the main driving force of the conflict, the unifying factor that unified many afghans (secularists and fundamentalists alike) towards the common goal of expelling the invaders from their country.

Similarly, you can find hundreds of thousands of vietnamese who supported the american occupation of their country because they regarded the occupation as a lesser evil than the communist ideology preached by NV.

History also proved them right: America left and the country did become a communist dictatorship.

But this doesn’t change the HISTORICAL fact that vietnamese nationalism and not communism was the main driving force of the conflict, the unifying factor that unified many vietnamese (north and south, those who were communists and those who were simply nationalists) towards the common goal of expelling the foreign troops and unifying the country.

Sez you....the reverse of your argument is just as valid. The fact that lack of US resolve resulted in a win for the communist backed north does not mean that the nationalistic philosophy was the driving force nor the primary factor in a victory...it had a lot more to do with lack of US resolve. If the US and the south had won (and they could well have had they stuck it out despite the furor going on internal to the US), the propaganda opposite yours would be valid.

Where did you get the 80% (20%) numbers anyway. I would be very interested in seeing that source.

 

[CSM]

Here is an interesting study relating to what Jose is saying:

https://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/97unclass/vietnam.html

It is interesting to note that the CIA's view was the Vietnam was essentially a civil war....that there were competing views of communist nationalism, that Diem led a minority Catholic government in a largely Buddist country which made it unpopular....lots of interesting stuff.

As with most things, it is and was a complex situation. Nationalism, as such, was merely one more factor (which ever side of Jose's hypothesis you are on).

 

[Redhots]

But this doesn’t change the HISTORICAL fact that vietnamese nationalism and not communism was the main driving force of the conflict, the unifying factor that unified many vietnamese (north and south, those who were communists and those who were simply nationalists) towards the common goal of expelling the foreign troops and unifying the country.

The fact that lack of US resolve resulted in a win for the communist backed north does not mean that the nationalistic philosophy was the driving force nor the primary factor in a victory...it had a lot more to do with lack of US resolve.

You put these side by side and you get to see the larger truth of what won/lost that war.

Motivation.

The Vietnamese had far more at stake in that conflict than the average American, which was a very big reason things turned out like they did.

 

[Redhots]

Also, the same people who say there is no comparison between Iraq and VN can't turn around and later make comparison between Iraq and VN...

 

[Annie]

Also, the same people who say there is no comparison between Iraq and VN can't turn around and later make comparison between Iraq and VN...

and this means what?

 

[Gunny]

Also, the same people who say there is no comparison between Iraq and VN can't turn around and later make comparison between Iraq and VN...

There are some similarities and some dissimilarities. There are similarities between Vietnam and the American Revolution. There are similarities between Iraq and the US Civil War. So what?

The most glaring similarity is the left's use of the media attempting to brainwash the general public that we are losing in Iraq. It worked in Vietnam. It remains to be seen if the same ploy will succeed in the info age.

The fact is, Cronkite said the war was unwinnable following Tet, and the left in this country packed it in, when the fact is, the Viet Cong and NVA got their asses KICKED bigtime. The NLF (Viet Cong) ceased to exist as an effective organization, and the NVA couldn't field an army for a year.

The islamic nutjobs in Iraq are ramping up their attacks in hopes of affecting the elections next month. It'll be pathetic if it works.