Vietnam War was unwinnable

[9thIDdoc]

....just found this in a book about various wars the US has fought--this is the icing on the cake:

PRESIDENT KENNEDY. I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it—the people of Viet-Nam—against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don't think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort, and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months the Government has gotten out of touch with the people.

Kennedy TV Interviews on Vietnam

Not sure what point you think you are making. The interviews were in 1963 when we were advising; not fighting a war.
From your link:

MR. CRONKITE. Do you think this Government has time to regain the support of the people?

PRESIDENT KENNEDY. I do. With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel, I think it can. If it doesn't make those changes, I would think that the chances of winning it would not be very good.

the point???!!
even the POTUS says the US can't win it for them--no matter what
BOOOOM baby

just like Morley Safer said

Bullspit. What part of: PRESIDENT KENNEDY. I do. With changes in policy and perhaps with personnel, I think it can. do you not understand?

Ever the revisionist you are quoting interviews from before we were even at war in Vietnam. Who is making a claim that South Vietnam could win a war against North Vietnam and their USSR and ChiCom allies? Not I. Although they kicked their ass when they invaded in '74 they couldn't last once we had left and cut their supply line.

JFK was wrong
The situation in Vietnam changed for the worse when Diem was killed. Diem was corrupt and led an inept government but his death created a power vacuum
S Vietnam never had the respect of the people and was doomed to fail.

LBJ did what JFK would have

The people much preferred their situation with the government they had to the one in North Vietnam as evidenced by the hundreds of thousands that left everything they had to travel south to avoid becoming Part of North Vietnam. They again proved where their sympathies lay by fighting desperately against their North Vietnamese foes right to the end.

After the French were driven out, the US negotiated a split government with the understanding a vote would be conducted in five years for a united Vietnam.
When it became obvious that Ho Chi Minh would win, the US refused to allow the election.

You don't know jackshit about Vietnam Moon Bat so just shut the fuck up.

Prove what I posted is wrong then or STFU

The South Vietnamese were in a stable Government after 1971 when we pulled out. We promised to provide arms ammo and support if they were attacked which we did in 1974 and the North backed off. Then the democrats being the slime balls and fuckwads they are withdrew all support breaking a TREATY we had signed. Even with out support South Vietnam held out for 30 days against an army twice their size. While the democrats sat by and LAUGHED it up. We had won in South Vietnam there was no insurgency anymore. They fell to an INVASION of 25 Divisions.

For crying out loud

We propped up their corrupt and inept Government for twenty years. We invested billions in their defense and 60,000 US lives. You still claim we did not do enough.

More false history that if we just supported them a little longer this thing would be winnable.

It was never winnable

plus giving the French 15 MILLION $ for their war

The French also lost 50,000 men trying to enforce their Colonial empire on Vietnam.

The US claims to have fought for the forces of freedom and liberation during WWII. But when given the choice of supporting an independent Vietnam or Frances Colonial ambitions, we chose France

..jesus christ--how dense can they be? First the POWERFUL French '''lose''', then the US.....how about Russia and the Brits go in there and if they ''lost'', they would still say it was winnable ..it's like putting your hand in the fire and keep doing it

You are confused. But we did win. We stopped the Communists from taking over South Vietnam. That was the mission and it was accomplished when the Paris Peace Accords were signed where the filthy Communists acknowledged the existence of a non Communist South Vietnam.

However that was unacceptable to the filthy Democrats and when they defunded aid to South Vietnam that gave the green light to the Communists to undo the Peace Accords.

You can argue all you want that the US should have never been in the business of stopping the spread of Communism. Being a real Conservative and believing in non interventionism I will probably agree with you a lot more than I would disagree. However, the truth of the matter about Vietnam is that the Democrats made the decision to protect South Vietnam from Communism and it took a Republican Nixon to get actually achieve that objective. Then the stupid Democrats turned right around and gave it away with the Case Church Amendment in Congress.

We did not “win” as we never established what victory would be.

The Paris Peace accords was an opportunity to withdraw from Vietnam without being attacked in the process. Any delusions that S Vietnam would do just fine without our forces protecting them was just fantasy.

Easter Offensive

Views 2,040,242Updated Jun 28 2020

Easter Offensive (1972).Knowing that the United States was losing its will to continue the war in Vietnam, the North Vietnamese government in Hanoi decided in January 1972 to attack South Vietnam and thus started the war's largest battle to date. American intelligence knew Hanoi's general intentions, but was wrong on the estimates of the time and place of the offensive. On 30 March 1972—three days before Easter—the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) committed fourteen divisions backed by several hundred tanks and heavy artillery to a three‐pronged assault to gain territory and possibly win the war outright.

NVA Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, directed spearheads toward Quang Tri and Hué in the northern provinces of South Vietnam, Kontum in the central highlands, and An Loc northwest of Saigon. Initially, South Vietnamese resistance failed, but American advisers such as John Paul Vann and Maj. Gen. James Hollingsworth helped stabilize the ground defense, supported by American airpower and naval bombardment.

Still, in early May, Gen. Creighton Abrams, American commander in Vietnam, cabled Washington that Saigon had lost the will to fight and the war might be soon lost. The NVA had taken Quang Tri and had put Hué, Kontum, and An Loc under siege. The situation at An Loc was particularly dangerous. If it fell, there was little standing between Hanoi's forces and Saigon. President Richard M. Nixon authorized a major buildup of American airpower, plus heavy air strikes against Hanoi and Haiphong for the first time since 1968. On 8 May, with Saigon fighting for its life, the U.S. Navy mined Haiphong Harbor to block the flow of Soviet supplies. Ultimately, the South Vietnamese, supported by American airpower, drove the NVA back from the cities and recaptured Quang Tri.

The Easter Offensive cost the NVA dearly. Americans estimated Hanoi lost 100,000 men killed and 400 tanks destroyed. The failure to end the war on the battlefield undoubtedly prodded Hanoi toward the negotiations that led to the Paris Peace Agreements in January 1973. Three years later, forced to fight without American aid, Saigon could not duplicate its defensive victories of 1972.

During the Easter Offensive, American forces for the first time employed sizable numbers of precision‐guided munitions, “smart weapons.” U.S. warplanes used wire‐guided bombs to destroy North Vietnamese bridges that had withstood years of attack by conventional ordnance, and American helicopter gunships and South Vietnamese infantry employed TOW antitank weapons with deadly effect.

 

[9thIDdoc]

I think everyone would want a fair election....what ALL the Vietnamese wanted--and that was the FOREIGNERS out--- stop messing with their country and politics

If given a choice, why would the Vietnamese choose to align with the Communists over aligning with a Government allied with the Western Governments?

They saw what type of Vietnam the Western Governments wanted. The West treated Vietnamese as incapable of ruling themselves. They needed a big brother to watch over them. Attempts by Ho Chi Minh to set up a free Vietnamese Government were laughed off by the west.

Communism offered them a self determined Government with Vietnamese leaders

Great (but silly) imagination. Invasion is not an "offer". Conquered by force is not "self-determination". There was most certainly nothing brotherly about Ho Chi Minh or North Vietnam. They were azzhos who stole their own peoples' land and slaughtered them if they resisted giving up farms that had been in their families for generations.

Bad behavior on both sides of the border. Also bad behavior on our side.

Ho Chi Minh tried working with the Western Powers after WWI and WWII. We laughed at the idea that Vietnamese were capable of self rule.

The communists offered a better deal than we did in that regard.

Regardless, we killed over two million Vietnamese trying to protect them from Communism.

That was much worse than a Communist Vietnam turned out to be

The Communists didn't "offer" anything. They demanded and forced. No self-determination allowed.
We should regret killing enemy troops trying to kill us? I certainly don't.

 

[rightwinger]

I think everyone would want a fair election....what ALL the Vietnamese wanted--and that was the FOREIGNERS out--- stop messing with their country and politics

If given a choice, why would the Vietnamese choose to align with the Communists over aligning with a Government allied with the Western Governments?

They saw what type of Vietnam the Western Governments wanted. The West treated Vietnamese as incapable of ruling themselves. They needed a big brother to watch over them. Attempts by Ho Chi Minh to set up a free Vietnamese Government were laughed off by the west.

Communism offered them a self determined Government with Vietnamese leaders

Great (but silly) imagination. Invasion is not an "offer". Conquered by force is not "self-determination". There was most certainly nothing brotherly about Ho Chi Minh or North Vietnam. They were azzhos who stole their own peoples' land and slaughtered them if they resisted giving up farms that had been in their families for generations.

Bad behavior on both sides of the border. Also bad behavior on our side.

Ho Chi Minh tried working with the Western Powers after WWI and WWII. We laughed at the idea that Vietnamese were capable of self rule.

The communists offered a better deal than we did in that regard.

Regardless, we killed over two million Vietnamese trying to protect them from Communism.

That was much worse than a Communist Vietnam turned out to be

The Communists didn't "offer" anything. They demanded and forced. No self-determination allowed.
We should regret killing enemy troops trying to kill us? I certainly don't.

Nobody is blaming you

I blame those who hid behind false patriotism to get us into a senseless war

 

[9thIDdoc]

Massacre at Huế - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Massacre at Huế

Huế Massacre
Location	Huế, Thừa Thiên-Huế Province of South Vietnam
Date	January 30 - February 28, 1968
Target	Civilians and prisoners of war
Attack type	Massacre
Deaths	2,800 – 6,000[1]
Perpetrators	Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army

hide v t e Massacres of the Vietnam War

The Huế Massacre (Vietnamese: Thảm sát tại Huế Tết Mậu Thân, or Thảm sát Tết Mậu Thân ở Huế, lit. translation: "Tết Offensive Massacre in Huế") is the name given to the summary executions and mass killings perpetrated by the Việt Cộng (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) during their capture, occupation and later withdrawal from the city of Huế during the Tết Offensive, considered one of the longest and bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War.
The Battle of Huế began on January 31, 1968, and lasted a total of 26 days. During the months and years that followed, dozens of mass graves were discovered in and around Huế. Victims included women, men, children, and infants.[2] The estimated death toll was between 2,800 and 6,000 civilians and prisoners of war,[1][3] or 5–10% of the total population of Huế.[4] The Republic of Vietnam released a list of 4,062 victims identified as having been either murdered or abducted.[5][6] Victims were found bound, tortured, and sometimes buried alive. Many victims were also clubbed to death.[7][8][9]
A number of U.S. and South Vietnamese authorities as well as a number of journalists who investigated the events took the discoveries, along with other evidence, as proof that a large-scale atrocity had been carried out in and around Huế during its four-week occupation. The killings were perceived as part of a large-scale purge of a whole social stratum, including anyone friendly to American forces in the region. The Massacre at Huế came under increasing press scrutiny later, when press reports alleged that South Vietnamese "revenge squads" had also been at work in the aftermath of the battle, searching out and executing citizens that had supported the communist occupation.[10][11] In 2017, Ben Kiernan described the mas as "possibly the largest atrocity of the war."

But I guess the South Vietnamese wanted this. Don't you?

 

[elektra]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

The French should of been a lesson? You don't know the history of Vietnam. Not in the least.

 

[harmonica]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

The French should of been a lesson? You don't know the history of Vietnam. Not in the least.

hahahha
1. I post links and evidence--you post NOTHING but babble
2. yes--the French should've been the lesson to stay out of Nam
3. FYI--we lost
4.yes---history--you need to learn some
Britain lost in Afghanistan---then Russia

 

[harmonica]

I think everyone would want a fair election....what ALL the Vietnamese wanted--and that was the FOREIGNERS out--- stop messing with their country and politics

If given a choice, why would the Vietnamese choose to align with the Communists over aligning with a Government allied with the Western Governments?

They saw what type of Vietnam the Western Governments wanted. The West treated Vietnamese as incapable of ruling themselves. They needed a big brother to watch over them. Attempts by Ho Chi Minh to set up a free Vietnamese Government were laughed off by the west.

Communism offered them a self determined Government with Vietnamese leaders

Great (but silly) imagination. Invasion is not an "offer". Conquered by force is not "self-determination". There was most certainly nothing brotherly about Ho Chi Minh or North Vietnam. They were azzhos who stole their own peoples' land and slaughtered them if they resisted giving up farms that had been in their families for generations.

Bad behavior on both sides of the border. Also bad behavior on our side.

Ho Chi Minh tried working with the Western Powers after WWI and WWII. We laughed at the idea that Vietnamese were capable of self rule.

The communists offered a better deal than we did in that regard.

Regardless, we killed over two million Vietnamese trying to protect them from Communism.

That was much worse than a Communist Vietnam turned out to be

The Communists didn't "offer" anything. They demanded and forced. No self-determination allowed.
We should regret killing enemy troops trying to kill us? I certainly don't.

....well---the US competes with South Korea and Vietnam economically....my company buys parts made in South Korea and Vietnam.....we should've stayed out of both, then kept our distance--but now, American companies got screwed and are getting screwed

 

[harmonica]

I think everyone would want a fair election....what ALL the Vietnamese wanted--and that was the FOREIGNERS out--- stop messing with their country and politics

If given a choice, why would the Vietnamese choose to align with the Communists over aligning with a Government allied with the Western Governments?

They saw what type of Vietnam the Western Governments wanted. The West treated Vietnamese as incapable of ruling themselves. They needed a big brother to watch over them. Attempts by Ho Chi Minh to set up a free Vietnamese Government were laughed off by the west.

Communism offered them a self determined Government with Vietnamese leaders

Great (but silly) imagination. Invasion is not an "offer". Conquered by force is not "self-determination". There was most certainly nothing brotherly about Ho Chi Minh or North Vietnam. They were azzhos who stole their own peoples' land and slaughtered them if they resisted giving up farms that had been in their families for generations.

South Vietnam:
''''' it was anti-democratic, autocratic, corrupt and nepotistic.''''

'''''The Agroville resettlements caused enormous social and economic disruption. Families were separated, shifted from familiar territory and forced to abandon important spiritual sites, such as temples and ancestral graves.'''''

'''''' Diem established an autocratic regime that was staffed at the highest levels by members of his own family.'''''
-----WORSE than communism

etc etc
AND the linkS!!! hahahhahahahaha--both links crosscheck each other

South Vietnam under Ngo Dinh Diem

The Geneva Accords created North and South Vietnam as temporary states. In reality, both had already become separate national entities.

alphahistory.com

Ngo Dinh Diem | Facts, Vietnam War, Significance, & Death

Ngo Dinh Diem, Vietnamese political leader who served as president of South Vietnam from 1955 until his assassination. He refused to carry out elections mandated by the Geneva Accords of 1954, ruled autocratically, and showed preference to fellow Roman Catholics in an overwhelmingly Buddhist...

www.britannica.com

 

[Andylusion]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

 

[harmonica]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

you--like a lot of people--think unrealistically and like it's a board game--this is a common problem with people--and you don't know history:
--so, to very easily refute your post---we go ''flatten North Korea and then we are at TOTAL war with China!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..so Mr Genius--please tell me how do we defeat China?

 

[harmonica]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

..so we flatten North Vietnam and we have the SAME problem as in the Korean war---war with China!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
jesus christ----you want another war with China!!!!!!!!

 

[harmonica]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

.......the North Vietnamese negotiated that the US gets out of Vietnam---not surrender

 

[harmonica]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

ending the war in 1965 with bombing!!!!!!!?????????????
..this proves you don't know history--and you haven't followed the thread or don't understand:
we destroyed all of Japan's major cities---and bombed the shit out of Germany--they did not surrender until the Allies were in Berlin and we used the Abombs---even after the Abombs, the vote for surrender was TIED 3-3 !!
.....wrong and double wrong--the war would not have been war by bombing...please read some history

 

[harmonica]

..you people are thinking like it's a board game = unrealistically
..there are reactions to military actions--politically and militarily
..you are think one-dimensionally

 

[harmonica]

..so we commit to total war on North Vietnam for WHAT reason???!!!!!

 

[rightwinger]

f the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

That is what Gen MacArthur said.
In a matter of about a month, his forces swept north of the 39 th parallel and chased the N Koreans all the way to the Yalu River.

That is when the Chinese forces came in and swarmed our unsuspecting forces and drove us back south of the 39th parallel. Ended up killing 50,000 American soldiers

We wanted to avoid the same mistake in Vietnam

 

[elektra]

..jesus christ--how dense can they be? First the POWERFUL French '''lose''', then the US.....how about Russia and the Brits go in there and if they ''lost'', they would still say it was winnable ..it's like putting your hand in the fire and keep doing it

You stated you post links. That is the same as stating, "I dont know what I am talking about it but I will back my opinion up with a google search cause I know I am right".

You did not start this OP with anything more than your opinion. I do not see any source or link here. I am simply looking through your posts about France and finding you have only expressed an opinion. Which is wrong. As this one is.

The "Powerful" French? Again, you prove you know nothing about Vietnam.

 

[Andylusion]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Yes, and no.

Obviously if you put in place all of the restrictions on how to win the war.... then yes, you can't win the war.

It's like going into a boxing match, and saying

"You can't move from the spot you start on, and you can only hit back, if you have been hit yourself."

If you put those restrictions on yourself in a boxing match, you are going to lose the boxing match.

If the government had sent in the military in a completely unrestricted, full scale war on North Korea, we could have easily flattened and defeated North Korea in a matter of... maybe a month.

As soon as Nixon in 1972, ordered a theater wide unrestricted war on North Vietnam, the N.Vet came to the negotiating table. Nixon approved of the mass offensive in February. Intensified the attack in May. By October, the North Vietnamese were the ones asking for negotiations.

If we had done that in 1965, we would have ended the war.

There is not a single time, at any point in the entire Vietnam war, where enemy troops confronted US troops directly, and did not lose. The US military was better trained, better supplied, better equipped, had better air and ground support, artillery support, navel support, and so on.

Every time we confronted enemy troops, they folded... even when they out numbered US troops, and sometimes by a wide margin.

We could have gone straight to Hanoi, and won the war.

Instead we put restrictions on ourselves, that made it impossible to win. You can't win a war, by not attacking the enemy. You can't win a war, by only playing defense.

Think about it like Football. Can you ever win a game of football without offense? Can you ever win the game, without ever going on the other teams side of the field?

But that is exactly how we played the Vietnam war. We stayed on our side of the field, and marched around, expecting... what? The enemy to all commit suicide? Of course you can't win, without ever going at the enemy.

you--like a lot of people--think unrealistically and like it's a board game--this is a common problem with people--and you don't know history:
--so, to very easily refute your post---we go ''flatten North Korea and then we are at TOTAL war with China!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

..so Mr Genius--please tell me how do we defeat China?

Are you kidding? China didn't barely have jack. In fact, having read about this, China was begging Stalin to let them drop the Vietnam war. It was draining their resources, and killing them economically.

Remember China just had the mass starvation of the Great Leap Forward in 1958 to 1960. The first half the 1960s of China was barely making a recovery.

And just by 1965, when things were almost at least back to where they were before the 1958 'leap to hell', then they engaged in the cultural revolution.

One of the idiotic things they did during the cultural revolution, was place all the factories and manufacturing plants, under the control of the revolutionary army. The managers and operators and knowledgeable people, were all replaced with military people. And unlike the US, these were not West Point trained officers, but rather just any idiot that was loyal to the communist party.

The people who knew how the factories worked, were sent to work the fields in the rural countryside.

In 1967 alone, production dropped 14%. That's insane. And keep in mind, China wasn't even a fraction as advanced as the US was, at that time. To lose 14% production in one year, when they didn't have that much production to begin with, was devastating.

And remember, in 1958, the entire Chinese arm was made up of peasants.

Again, if we had simply pushed to Hanoi in 1965, this would have been over. China could not have stopped us. Not even come close. Waves of peasants, would not have stopped fully supported US military advances.

And honestly, based on the huge critical issues throughout the China economy, they really would not have tried to stop us. If we had absolutely rolled in mass, towards Hanoi, they would have stepped back and let us go.

 

[elektra]

..the US was involved with Vietnam for over 7 years!!!!!

Yes you are right, but 7 years is so short of the actual years of our involvement you prove you know nothing about Vietnam.

 

[healthmyths]

..we are talking REALITY--not nuking anyone....not invading the north like the Russians and US did to Germany --that wasn't going to happen--even if they did invade the North, they couldn't stay there forever.....
..first--the French lost--and after we gave them MILLIONS$ and with all their '''advantages'' ....this should've been a lesson
......a big problem was the Vietnamese government [ and military ] = for a long time it was corrupt/unstable/etc = they had 3 heads of state changes in less than 2 years--one with a MURDER..with many attempted coups before and after......that mess was still there after Thieu took over
...N Vietnam did not have to even beat the US ......
.......the US could cut off Korea because it was peninsula--where as NV could bring troops/etc to the South over land
.

Evidently you never heard of SEATO....look it up!