Do you remember Vietnam on TV?

[Trajan]

Diem was also more interested in preserving his own power than fighting Communists. That meant preserving the army as much as possible and staffing it with cronies that would keep him in power. Any commander who lost too many men was sacked, so his officers played it safe and did as little fighting as possible.

no , I am sorry but you are conflating and innocently mis- characterizing .

example- the strategic hamlet program for instance was on its way to to a huge measure of success. But in fits and starts...why?

Because In order for it to be a success Deim had to be IN power.

So when he was threatened he had to pull troops in from the country side or keep elite units close to Saigon, ANY and every commander there after did same, the how many, 9 governments that came after Deim and before the fall in 75 all did the same, when we recognized Deim a lot of that went away, which was a good thing. BUT we did not and could not sit on it all.

You should ask the residents forcibly removed from their villages and ancestral land whether or not the strategic hamlet program was a huge success. Or, ask the residents of Duc Duc.

I agree and Diem was planning on fixing the land "ownership" issue once he took care of the Viet Cong, however, I submit it was better than the alternative in many respects, it wasn't perfect, nope but as I said, the tender mercies visited upon Ho's rice tillers was far worse, and add to that, the NLF didn't exactly have a lot to offer aside from talk, they spoke smoothly and promised much, and they didn't mean any of it.

 

[georgephillip]

"After the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come again through the Geneva Agreement.

"But instead there came the United States, determined that Ho should not unify the temporarily divided nation, and the peasants watched again as we supported one of the most vicious modern dictators, our chosen man, Premier Diem.

"The peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition, supported their extortionist landlords, and refused even to discuss reunification with the North.

"The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States' influence and then by increasing numbers of United States troops who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused.

"When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictators seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace."

American Rhetoric: Martin Luther King, Jr: A Time to Break Silence (Declaration Against the Vietnam War)

 

[usmcstinger]

The plebiscite was to be held in the south. You don't seem to know much about the history. We would have been on the side of democracy, but decided not to let the people have their say.

According to the Geneva Convention: One of the documents called on the brand new governments off North and South Vietnam to hold joint elections in 1956, in which voters from both countries would vote to choose a single government under which the two nations would be merged into one. Not just in South Vietnam as you erroneously stated
The Ho Chi Minh regime in North Vietnam was so brutal in its repression of its own people that something like one million people voted with their feet by fleeing to the South. According to this Wikipedia page, as many as three million people might have fled the North if the Communist government had not stopped most of them.

Paris Peace Accords of January 27, 1973, were the beginning of the end of South Vietnam. There would be an immediate in-place permanent cease-fire. The U.S. agreed to withdraw all its troops in 60 days (but could continue to send military supplies); North Vietnam was allowed to keep its 200,000 troops in the South but was not allowed to send new ones.
Fall of South Vietnam - encyclopedia article - Citizendium
In addition:There would an immediate in-place permanent cease-fire. The U.S. agreed to withdraw all its troops in 60 days (but could continue to send Both sides agreed to the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Laos and Cambodia and the prohibition of bases in and troop movements through these countries. It was agreed that the DMZ at the 17th
Parallel would remain a provisional dividing line, with eventual reunification of the country "through peaceful means." An international control commission would be established made up of Canadians, Hungarians, Poles, and Indonesians, with 1,160 inspectors to supervise the agreement. According to the agreement, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu would continue in office pending elections. Agreeing to "the South Vietnamese People's right to self-determination,"the North Vietnamese said they would not initiate military movement across the DMZ and that there would be no use of force to reunify the country. Paris Peace Accords signed ? History.com This Day in History ? 1/27/1973

On January 13, 1975 ( In Violation of the Paris Peace Accords ), The North Vietnamese Army invaded and took control of South Vietnam.
North Vietnam violated every aspect of the Paris Peace Accords. A 6th grader knows that Democracy does not exist in a Communist country.

Hey dimwit. It is you who does not know history. Try doing some research before you make a fool of yourself.

From Wiki:

"The colonial administration ended and French Indochina was dissolved under the Geneva Accords of 1954, which separated the forces of former French supporters and communist nationalists at the 17th parallel north with the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.

"A 300-day period of free movement was given, during which almost a million northerners, mainly Catholic, moved south, fearing persecution by the communists.

"The partition of Vietnam, with Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam in North Vietnam, and Emperor Bảo Đại's State of Vietnam in South Vietnam, was not intended to be permanent by the Geneva Accords, and the Accords expressly forbade the interference of third powers.

"However, in 1955, the State of Vietnam's Prime Minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, toppled Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, and proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Vietnam.

"The Accords mandated nationwide elections by 1956, which Diem refused to hold, despite repeated calls from the North for talks to discuss elections."

Third graders know Uncle Ho would have won that election easier than G. Washington won his.

Vietnam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You and others like you may learn something by reading the following books: A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath by Toung Nhu Tang
Following Ho Chi Minh: The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel by Bui Tin, Do Van and Judy Stowe (Jan 1999) The Game is Over.

 

[Oldguy]

There's always more to the story, and so it is with the lore of millions voting with their feet and moving south during the days of partition:

The VVA Veteran - The Numbers Game: How Many Vietnamese Fled South in 1954

In short, it didn't happen the way people now think it did, nor was the number nearly 2 million. It wasn't even 1 million. In fact, when you discount French troops and civilians, plus those who had actively assisted the French during the war with the Viet Minh, or worked for them (and had an idea of what the Viet Minh had in store for them in retribution), the number falls to somewhat less than 500,000. Even that number is little more than a guess.

Moreover, the evacuation of the North (Tonkin) was a huge operation, consisting of large numbers of ships and aircraft and it enjoyed the active support of the United States, which spent $40 million on it, a substantial sum at the time. However, there was no companion effort for those who wished to go north, nor was there an extensive propaganda campaign to encourage them to do so, as there was in Tonkin. A few Polish and Russian ships showed up, and the French carried some back north as they returned for another load of "refugees," but it was pretty much an ad hoc operation.

The point is that American propaganda at the time has entered the history books as established fact, but it isn't so.

 

[PUCrussel]

Never before....

 

[georgephillip]

According to the Geneva Convention: One of the documents called on the brand new governments off North and South Vietnam to hold joint elections in 1956, in which voters from both countries would vote to choose a single government under which the two nations would be merged into one. Not just in South Vietnam as you erroneously stated
The Ho Chi Minh regime in North Vietnam was so brutal in its repression of its own people that something like one million people voted with their feet by fleeing to the South. According to this Wikipedia page, as many as three million people might have fled the North if the Communist government had not stopped most of them.

Paris Peace Accords of January 27, 1973, were the beginning of the end of South Vietnam. There would be an immediate in-place permanent cease-fire. The U.S. agreed to withdraw all its troops in 60 days (but could continue to send military supplies); North Vietnam was allowed to keep its 200,000 troops in the South but was not allowed to send new ones.
Fall of South Vietnam - encyclopedia article - Citizendium
In addition:There would an immediate in-place permanent cease-fire. The U.S. agreed to withdraw all its troops in 60 days (but could continue to send Both sides agreed to the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Laos and Cambodia and the prohibition of bases in and troop movements through these countries. It was agreed that the DMZ at the 17th
Parallel would remain a provisional dividing line, with eventual reunification of the country "through peaceful means." An international control commission would be established made up of Canadians, Hungarians, Poles, and Indonesians, with 1,160 inspectors to supervise the agreement. According to the agreement, South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu would continue in office pending elections. Agreeing to "the South Vietnamese People's right to self-determination,"the North Vietnamese said they would not initiate military movement across the DMZ and that there would be no use of force to reunify the country. Paris Peace Accords signed ? History.com This Day in History ? 1/27/1973

On January 13, 1975 ( In Violation of the Paris Peace Accords ), The North Vietnamese Army invaded and took control of South Vietnam.
North Vietnam violated every aspect of the Paris Peace Accords. A 6th grader knows that Democracy does not exist in a Communist country.

Hey dimwit. It is you who does not know history. Try doing some research before you make a fool of yourself.

From Wiki:

"The colonial administration ended and French Indochina was dissolved under the Geneva Accords of 1954, which separated the forces of former French supporters and communist nationalists at the 17th parallel north with the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.

"A 300-day period of free movement was given, during which almost a million northerners, mainly Catholic, moved south, fearing persecution by the communists.

"The partition of Vietnam, with Ho Chi Minh's Democratic Republic of Vietnam in North Vietnam, and Emperor Bảo Đại's State of Vietnam in South Vietnam, was not intended to be permanent by the Geneva Accords, and the Accords expressly forbade the interference of third powers.

"However, in 1955, the State of Vietnam's Prime Minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, toppled Bảo Đại in a fraudulent referendum organised by his brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, and proclaimed himself president of the Republic of Vietnam.

"The Accords mandated nationwide elections by 1956, which Diem refused to hold, despite repeated calls from the North for talks to discuss elections."

Third graders know Uncle Ho would have won that election easier than G. Washington won his.

Vietnam - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You and others like you may learn something by reading the following books: A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath by Toung Nhu Tang
Following Ho Chi Minh: The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel by Bui Tin, Do Van and Judy Stowe (Jan 1999) The Game is Over.

Are either of the books you mentioned available online?

Maybe all of us would learn something by starting here:

"The Vietnam War Crimes Working Group (VWCWG) was a Pentagon task force set up in the wake of the My Lai Massacre and its media disclosure, to attempt to ascertain the veracity of emerging claims of war crimes by U.S. armed forces in Vietnam, during the Vietnam War period.

"The investigation compiled over 9,000 pages of investigative files, sworn statements by witnesses and status reports for top military officers, indicating that 320 alleged incidents had factual basis."

Absent an illegal US invasion and occupation of South Vietnam, the authors of the works you cited would not have had much worth writing about.

Vietnam War Crimes Working Group - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Vandalshandle]

Vietnam had been at war continuously since 1942. they were not about to surrender to anybody. The South Vietnamese regime was among the most corrupt in the world, and their own people did not support it. LBJ and Nixon both tried to kill me, so that they could avoid being embarressed by their own poor judgment. The military industrial complex had taken control of the country, and was stopped only by the American people who stopped supporting them, which was a brave stance to take in those days. For this reason, I will fight against the draft reinstatement should it ever be considered again. Without cannon fodder, the madness can not proceed.

 

[georgephillip]

The madness was easier to stop in some ways when more US families had skin in the game:

"To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
"From: Tomas Young

"I write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care."

Truthdig - The Last Letter

We could stop war in less than a generation by serving up our richest 1% as the first installment of cannon fodder.

 

[hunarcy]

My brother didnt come home in a box thankfully.

I know he likely would have if he had gone to veitnam.


He instead when drafted did EVERYTHING that they demanded he do except one little thing.


He refused to hold a gun.


He did EVERYTHING they wanted him to do to punish him and taunt him into carrying the gun.


He refused.


the drill sargent would throw the gun at him and he would imediately throw it back at the guy.


He refused to hold a gun.



Needless to say after the drill sargent realised he COULD NOT BREAK my brothers will he advised he be dishonorably discharged.


That discharge was changed to a honorable one after the war was realised for what it was.


My brother never even petitioned for it to be changed.


Thankfully I only spent a few months wondering if my brother would end up coming home in a box.


Many little sisters fears were realised in that horrible fucking mess that was the Veitnam war.

When did he get out of Leavenworth?

 

[whitehall]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

 

[georgephillip]

From Kill Anything That Moves:

"Nguyen Van Phuoc, a young villager sheltering underground, heard the sound of the medevac helicopter landing and departing and, not long after, gunshots. His mother, fearing they would die if they remained in the bunker, grabbed him and his two-year-old brother and fled from their shelter into the chaos above.'Racing from our bunker, we saw the shelter opposite ours being shot up,' he recalled. One of the Americans then wheeled around and fired at his mother, killing her and leaving his brother covered in her blood."

The marines who killed a dozen civilians that October night in 1967 reported taking no enemy fire, no weapons were found in the village, and the marine's command chronology for that month states "no significant contact" was made during the operation.

None of the marines spent any time in Leavenworth.

Kill Anything That Moves, Metropolitan Books, Nick Turse, 2013 P.39

 

[georgephillip]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

How many more Vietnamese would have died before we "won"?
Those supporting the US occupation of Vietnam and those opposed to it agreed on very little during the hostilities, but one point I remember both side agreeing on was that it would be necessary to kill 80% to 90% of all Vietnamese in order to achieve our glorious victory.

 

[editec]

Dear All

I am trying to find out if anyone clearly remembers the television footage from The Vietnam War as the event was unfolding? Did any TV footage stick in peoples minds or have photographs now taken over our memory of the war?


All your comments are welcome

Thanks Ross

Yes I do, vividly.

And my first memory was when it was announced on TV that the 8th American military advisor was killed in Viet Nam. I remember this well because I had to ask my mother where VN was.

Siam, she responded and I thought I knew where that was because of of the Yul Brenner movie "The King and I"

That was 1960 and I was in 5th grade at the time.

And yes I then also served in the military during that conflict, starting ten years later.

Long assed war, that one was, eh?

 

[t_polkow]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

!!!!!!!

I was in Nam and came home and joined the anti war movement, the Media at that time was heavly influenced by the CIA

Media assets would eventually include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service, etc. and 400 journalists, who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens. The CIA had infiltrated the nation's businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. CIA Director Dulles had staffed the CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League graduates, especially from Yale with figures like George Herbert Walker Bush from the "Skull and Crossbones" Society.

OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD

 

[t_polkow]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

!!!!!!!

I was in Nam and came home and joined the anti war movement, the Media at that time was heavly influenced by the CIA

Media assets would eventually include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service, etc. and 400 journalists, who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens. The CIA had infiltrated the nation's businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. CIA Director Dulles had staffed the CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League graduates, especially from Yale with figures like George Herbert Walker Bush from the "Skull and Crossbones" Society.

OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD

CNN aired "Valley of Death" in June of 1998 and Time magazine (both owned by Time-Warner) ran a story about a secret mission called Operation Tailwind and the activities of SOG, Studies and Observations Group, a secret elite commando unit of the Army's Special Forces that used lethal nerve gas (sarin), on a mission to Laos designed to kill American defectors. Suddenly the network was awash in denials and the story was hushed up, as usual. Acknowledged use of this gas coming at a time when the U.S. government was trying to get Saddam to comply with weapons inspections, was an embarrassment to say the least. What hypocrisy! Having actually used the weapons on our own troops, then complaining and accusing Saddam of potential use of stored similar weapons, of which some were manufactured in and supplied by the U.S. The broadcast was prepared after exhaustive research and rooted in considerable supportive data. To decide for yourself what the truth is read Floyd Abrams' report on the CNN site at CNN - Report on CNN Broadcast - July 2, 1998.

 

[t_polkow]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

!!!!!!!

I was in Nam and came home and joined the anti war movement, the Media at that time was heavly influenced by the CIA

Media assets would eventually include ABC, NBC, CBS, Time, Newsweek, Associated Press, United Press International (UPI), Reuters, Hearst Newspapers, Scripps-Howard, Copley News Service, etc. and 400 journalists, who have secretly carried out assignments according to documents on file at CIA headquarters, from intelligence-gathering to serving as go-betweens. The CIA had infiltrated the nation's businesses, media, and universities with tens of thousands of on-call operatives by the 1950's. CIA Director Dulles had staffed the CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League graduates, especially from Yale with figures like George Herbert Walker Bush from the "Skull and Crossbones" Society.

OPERATION MOCKINGBIRD

which document skepticism over the pretext for entry into the Vietnam war, date from 1968.
Four years into the war, senators were at loggerheads with Lyndon B. Johnson. At the time Foreign Relations Committee meetings were held behind closed doors.
It would take over thirty years for the truth to emerge that the Aug. 4, 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, where US warships were apparently attacked by North Vietnamese PT Boats – an incident that kicked off US involvement in the Vietnam war – was a staged event that never actually took place.
However, the records now show that at the time senators knew this was the case.
In a March 1968 closed session of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee, the father of former vice president Al Gore, noted:
“If this country has been misled, if this committee, this Congress, has been misled by pretext into a war in which thousands of young men have died, and many more thousands have been crippled for life, and out of which their country has lost prestige, moral position in the world, the consequences are very great,”
Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, said in an executive session in February 1968:
“In a democracy you cannot expect the people, whose sons are being killed and who will be killed, to exercise their judgment if the truth is concealed from them.”

 

[whitehall]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

How many more Vietnamese would have died before we "won"?
Those supporting the US occupation of Vietnam and those opposed to it agreed on very little during the hostilities, but one point I remember both side agreeing on was that it would be necessary to kill 80% to 90% of all Vietnamese in order to achieve our glorious victory.

That's just it, we won even though the convoluted LBJ rules almost guaranteed that we would lose. How many Vietnamese died as a result of Cronkite's lies that caused the US to abandon the struggle just when it seemed we would win it?

 

[georgephillip]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

How many more Vietnamese would have died before we "won"?
Those supporting the US occupation of Vietnam and those opposed to it agreed on very little during the hostilities, but one point I remember both side agreeing on was that it would be necessary to kill 80% to 90% of all Vietnamese in order to achieve our glorious victory.

That's just it, we won even though the convoluted LBJ rules almost guaranteed that we would lose. How many Vietnamese died as a result of Cronkite's lies that caused the US to abandon the struggle just when it seemed we would win it?

What did we "win?"

After the "War to End All Wars" Smedley Butler, a retired USMC general, wrote a warning about the clouds he saw gathering in Europe and the cost of our "victory" in WWI:

"The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some
$52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child.
And we haven’t paid the debt yet.

"We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our
children’s children probably still will be paying the cost of that war."

The generation that fought and died in Vietnam paid off the debts to investment bankers generated by Butler's war.

We are "winning" our childrens' slavery.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf

 

[konradv]

Believe it or not the only news available to Americans during the Vietnam war was filtered through the liberal media. Before Fox and talk radio there was no news other than left leaning liberal news. Cronkite was king and he managed to spin the news in such a way that the victory of Tet which all but eliminated the NVA was considered to be part of a continuing stalemate and it caused the freaking coward in the White House to throw in the towel and give the VC a new lease on life. Democrats tried the same thing in Iraq calling the US commander "betray-us" and the democrat senate majority leader addressed Americans (and the Troops) and actually said "the war is lost" just before the Troop Surge.

How many more Vietnamese would have died before we "won"?
Those supporting the US occupation of Vietnam and those opposed to it agreed on very little during the hostilities, but one point I remember both side agreeing on was that it would be necessary to kill 80% to 90% of all Vietnamese in order to achieve our glorious victory.

That's just it, we won even though the convoluted LBJ rules almost guaranteed that we would lose. How many Vietnamese died as a result of Cronkite's lies that caused the US to abandon the struggle just when it seemed we would win it?

It's revisionist history to say we were winning. There would never be any winning as long as an invasion of the north wasn't in the plans and that was ruled out by Cold War considerations. The N.Viet Namese and Viet Cong weren't about to go anywhere.

 

[whitehall]

How many more Vietnamese would have died before we "won"?
Those supporting the US occupation of Vietnam and those opposed to it agreed on very little during the hostilities, but one point I remember both side agreeing on was that it would be necessary to kill 80% to 90% of all Vietnamese in order to achieve our glorious victory.

That's just it, we won even though the convoluted LBJ rules almost guaranteed that we would lose. How many Vietnamese died as a result of Cronkite's lies that caused the US to abandon the struggle just when it seemed we would win it?

What did we "win?"

After the "War to End All Wars" Smedley Butler, a retired USMC general, wrote a warning about the clouds he saw gathering in Europe and the cost of our "victory" in WWI:

"The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some
$52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child.
And we haven’t paid the debt yet.

"We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our
children’s children probably still will be paying the cost of that war."

The generation that fought and died in Vietnam paid off the debts to investment bankers generated by Butler's war.

We are "winning" our childrens' slavery.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.pdf

Butler was living proof that good generals don't necessarily make good political analysts. The funny thing is that the media ran away from Truman's war in Korea and called it the "forgotten war". They couldn't criticize it even though it was badly run because both Truman and MacArthur were icons. Because of the aging (possibly mentally defective) general's ego the war that should have ended in victory in less than a year dragged on for three years and ended in an embarrassing truce that was dictated by the NK. We are still living with that legacy. Bill Clinton's DOD decided that the number of American Troops who died during the conflict was too high (55,000) so they revised it down to around 35,000 to 38,000. Unlike every other conflict in history the defense dept decided to include only combat deaths and throw out accidents and other deaths.