Retelling An Old Lie

[9thIDdoc]

The primary mission in Indochina was to support US perceived interests. If that could have been done with a Jeffersonian democracy in Saigon, I'm sure the US would have been happy with that. The point is that this was secondary, just as such issues were in the past, and continue to be today, for the most part. South Vietnam was run by an army strongman, and was hardly a democracy that was enthusiastic about human rights.

The US has supported anyone that was of use to them, historically, even if such were murderous dictators. That is the point that you and mushroom cannot accept, which is a problem, because those that do not read the mistakes of history will go out and commit them again. Iraq 2 is a good example of that

"The invading NVA". If the US were divided by the UN down the middle, because it suited certain international interests, and your "9th division" said, bullshit, were are going to put things back the way they were, and have been for 200+years, would you classify yourself as invaders? Transfer this argument to Vietnam, and you'll get the picture.

Beside the point. It is a matter of historical record that the NVA invaded S. Vietnam and Cambodia along with Laos and Thailand and anybody else that got in their way.

Well, at least that sums up the problem. It is the inability of so many in the US to understand the historical background of such events, or to think in the abstract enough to understand how others might feel that has caused so much grief in the past, and still does.

Sorry, but I tend to consider a failure to subscribe to communist revisionist propaganda a virtue instead of a problem. But that's just me. Your mileage may vary.

 

[sambino510]

This was the goal of the war in general, not to support the human rights or rights to self-determination of South Vietnam or its neighbors.

I do not understand your confusion. Where is it written that those goals are in any way incompatible? The primary mission was to aid S. Vietnam in defending herself against communist aggression. Doing so did in fact support human rights and self-determination and stop the spread of communism.

The primary mission in Indochina was to support US perceived interests. If that could have been done with a Jeffersonian democracy in Saigon, I'm sure the US would have been happy with that. The point is that this was secondary, just as such issues were in the past, and continue to be today, for the most part. South Vietnam was run by an army strongman, and was hardly a democracy that was enthusiastic about human rights.

The US has supported anyone that was of use to them, historically, even if such were murderous dictators. That is the point that you and mushroom cannot accept, which is a problem, because those that do not read the mistakes of history will go out and commit them again. Iraq 2 is a good example of that

.
The areas known as the Ho Chi Minh trail were occupied and controlled by the NVA and was way more than just a trail but was also a string of NVA bases, supply depots, training and staging areas. We fought the invading NVA there as part of defending S. Vietnam and ourselves.

"The invading NVA". If the US were divided by the UN down the middle, because it suited certain international interests, and your "9th division" said, bullshit, were are going to put things back the way they were, and have been for 200+years, would you classify yourself as invaders? Transfer this argument to Vietnam, and you'll get the picture.

Beside the point. It is a matter of historical record that the NVA invaded S. Vietnam and Cambodia along with Laos and Thailand and anybody else that got in their way.

Whose historical record? I would use the age-old quote "history is written by the victor", but we lost. Yet, we still get to write the history? These matters depend highly on perspective, no matter how many Western nations, including the U.S., would contend that the NVA were an invading force. This could be argued most strongly for Laos and Cambodia, but I think it would be hard to claim they "invaded" South Vietnam. Either way, Ho Chi Minh felt he was doing the right thing to unite his divided country, no matter what ideology he had in mind.

 

[9thIDdoc]

The primary mission in Indochina was to support US perceived interests. If that could have been done with a Jeffersonian democracy in Saigon, I'm sure the US would have been happy with that. The point is that this was secondary, just as such issues were in the past, and continue to be today, for the most part. South Vietnam was run by an army strongman, and was hardly a democracy that was enthusiastic about human rights.

The US has supported anyone that was of use to them, historically, even if such were murderous dictators. That is the point that you and mushroom cannot accept, which is a problem, because those that do not read the mistakes of history will go out and commit them again. Iraq 2 is a good example of that

"The invading NVA". If the US were divided by the UN down the middle, because it suited certain international interests, and your "9th division" said, bullshit, were are going to put things back the way they were, and have been for 200+years, would you classify yourself as invaders? Transfer this argument to Vietnam, and you'll get the picture.

Beside the point. It is a matter of historical record that the NVA invaded S. Vietnam and Cambodia along with Laos and Thailand and anybody else that got in their way.

Whose historical record? I would use the age-old quote "history is written by the victor", but we lost. Yet, we still get to write the history? These matters depend highly on perspective, no matter how many Western nations, including the U.S., would contend that the NVA were an invading force. This could be argued most strongly for Laos and Cambodia, but I think it would be hard to claim they "invaded" South Vietnam. Either way, Ho Chi Minh felt he was doing the right thing to unite his divided country, no matter what ideology he had in mind.

Wrong. History is what it is. Even N. Vietnam doesn't deny they invaded. Neither perspective, opinion, nor propaganda trump fact. I was there. they were there. It doesn't get simpler than that.
Who cares if uncle Ho thought he was doing the right thing?
And ,no, we didn't lose.

 

[Auteur]

Wrong. History is what it is. Even N. Vietnam doesn't deny they invaded. Neither perspective, opinion, nor propaganda trump fact. I was there. they were there. It doesn't get simpler than that.
Who cares if uncle Ho thought he was doing the right thing?
And ,no, we didn't lose.

Nixon and Kissinger bargained hard to achieve a formula whereby the US could withdraw from Vietnam with some minimal grace. The was no way to win, short of the ridiculous, like dropping nuclear weapons, or shooting a good proportion of the entire population. Even these options might not have been available if the Soviet Union had threatened to escalate the war to a wider conflict.

Nixon knew that he had to achieve some deal, there was no choice. The country was divided, and outright rebellion in the streets was not an altogether impossible outcome of the situation at that point. What made it a bitch was that N Vietnam also knew this . It makes for a bad hand of poker when your opponent can see your cards. So Nixon played all the cards he had, which included bombing the hell out of N Vietnam, in a fury not seen since Dresden. The best he achieved was a return of prisoners, and a decent interval between US withdrawal, and the fall of Saigon. What do you call that? I call it a loss.

 

[9thIDdoc]

As you wrote we had withdrawn our combat units well before N. Vietnam was able to take the country.
Had we still been there we would have continued to kick their ass just as we had been doing for the better part of a decade. We didn't win. We were never allowed to try to win. But they cannot claim to have beaten us. If anyone won our war it was the American communist sympathizer.

 

[Auteur]

As you wrote we had withdrawn our combat units well before N. Vietnam was able to take the country.
Had we still been there we would have continued to kick their ass just as we had been doing for the better part of a decade. We didn't win. We were never allowed to try to win. But they cannot claim to have beaten us. If anyone won our war it was the American communist sympathizer.

Doesn't that bolded part say something to you? A decade with all the most advanced military weaponry available, used against a peasant society, and your still at it after a decade? It only took six years to win WW2. You were "allowed" to bomb the bejesus out of the country, send in a half a million troops, use all weapons and other resources short of nuclear weapons, and you were still at it after a decade.

And let's get our timetable right. The US had given up the war as unwinnable long before 1973. The imperative by then was simply to get out, and do it in a way that didn't disgrace the country too much. It was get out, or face ever mounting pressure and social friction at home. It was an embarrassment that avoided a bigger embarrassment later on. If the US had stayed in the war, they would not have been "kicking ass" for another decade, but would have faced civil insurrection. Nixon knew this, and that is why he was desperate to get a peace treaty.

If you were around at the time, then you would know what a load of BS the claim of undercutting by communist sympathizers is. Public support for the war dropped during the final years of the US intervention, and by the time of complete withdrawal of combat troops, the majority of the US public had turned against the war. No American president would have survived even a suggestion of a return of troops. They had found their senses, and had called for an end.

You are simply repeating the same old adolescent, militaristic cliches that may help restore your testosterone levels, but are not based on historic fact. This is an important point because those that fail to understand history are at risk of repeating it. And its already happened.

 

[numan]

If you were around at the time, then you would know what a load of BS the claim of undercutting by communist sympathizers is. Public support for the war dropped during the final years of the US intervention, and by the time of complete withdrawal of combat troops, the majority of the US public had turned against the war. No American president would have survived even a suggestion of a return of troops. They had found their senses, and had called for an end.

You are simply repeating the same old adolescent, militaristic cliches that may help restore your testosterone levels, but are not based on historic fact. This is an important point because those that fail to understand history are at risk of repeating it. And its already happened.

It's the same old childish idiocy that so many Germans, after the First World War, used desperately to repair the "cognitive dissonance" of their defeat in the war:

"We didn't lose the War; WE WERE STABBED IN THE BACK!!"

It was stupid then, and it is stupid to use for America's defeats.

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