What do you know about the Vietnam War?

[GLASNOST]

Bad strategy by the higher ups is a reason why the war drug out so long.

1). America didn't take part in an on-going war.
2). America didn't take sides in an on-going war.
3). America didn't assist anyone in an on-going war.
4). American didn't lend a hand in an on-going war.
5). Americans didn't DIE NOBLY in an on-going war.
6). There was no NOBLE CAUSE.
7). The US crated a war from nothing.
8). There never was a North and South Vietnam.
9). America refused to allow Democratic elections in Vietnam ......... the country of Vietnam ..... one country. Instead, America tried to created two countries out of one.

Get educated, for Chrit's sake!

The Viet Veterans, enlisted an officers alike I have spoken to over the years all would like ...

For one simple, tiny moment let us believe you (which I don't), then you are now in a discussion with a Vietnam Veteran who DOES NOT want whatever it is you say we ALL want. Read my paragraph above this one to know what I (and all of my Vietnam Veterans Against the War brothers) have to say. I don't know who the hell you think you were talking to "over the years" but they were just tellling you what you wanted to hear and blowing it at you -

 

[GLASNOST]

That's the problem they don't know what the hell they are talking about.

They know NOTHING.

 

[whitehall]

LBJ sent American troops to Vietnam on the basis of a faked (Gulf of Tonkin) crisis. The media supported it because LBJ was a democrat. The CIA shoved the generals aside and ran the war and when things went bad they managed to blame Nixon.

 

[mikegriffith1]

5) Who famously and wrongly predicted seeing a “light at the end of the tunnel” in the Vietnam War in 1967?

A) Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger
B) President Lyndon B. Johnson
C) General William C. Westmoreland
D) Defense Secretary Robert McNamara

But, actually, Westmoreland was not wrong. We now know from released/previously unavailable North Vietnamese sources that we were indeed smashing the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army (NVA), that the Communist war effort was going very badly. That was the main reason the Hanoi regime decided to roll the dice and gamble on a massive offensive in 1968 (Tet Offensive).

Westmoreland was entirely correct in saying that our war effort was going well and that there was indeed light at the end of the tunnel. The Tet Offensive ended up being a horrendous blunder by Hanoi that led to a ghastly military defeat.

6) What was the Tet Offensive and why was it significant?

A) [SNIP] B) [SNIP] C) Viet Cong guerrillas attempted an uprising in South Vietnam on the Lunar New Year. It was ultimately defeated, but the media reporting about the offensive helped turned American public opinion against the war. D) [SNIP]

The correct answer is actually wrong on both counts. The Viet Cong acted under orders from the NVA. The Tet Offensive was not the Viet Cong's idea, and the NVA used the Viet Cong as cannon fodder during the offensive. The Viet Cong were so decimated during the offensive that they never recovered, and Hanoi had to start putting more NVA soldiers in Viet Cong units because Viet Cong recruiting dropped drastically after Tet. Also, following the Tet disaster, NVA desertions rose dramatically.

Contrary to popular mythology, studies of polling data show that the Tet Offensive did not turn American public opinion against the war. In fact, it had the opposite effect: It made more Americans favor stronger war measures. Now, the offensive did make a majority of Americans turn against LBJ's handling of the war, but not against the war itself. Dr. Harold Robbins exhaustively examines the polling data in his 2012 book This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive.

 

[candycorn]

LBJ sent American troops to Vietnam on the basis of a faked (Gulf of Tonkin) crisis. The media supported it because LBJ was a democrat. The CIA shoved the generals aside and ran the war and when things went bad they managed to blame Nixon.

The media supported the Vietnam war? Wow...you’re dumb.

 

[Deadstick]

They know NOTHING.

What makes it worse is they want to remain in ignorance.

 

[Zincwarrior]

From what I understand, Charlie don't surf. That appeared to be a major contention of the war.

 

[GLASNOST]

LBJ sent American troops to Vietnam on the basis of a faked (Gulf of Tonkin) crisis.

Let me put my two cents in and maybe straighten out a wrinkle or two. Vietnam did, in fact, take a shot at an American naval ship by mistake. Vietnam appologised and the US accepted the appology. Later ( 2 days, 3 days later?) the US claimed that Vietnam had again attacked an American naval ship intentionally. It was a lie and the Naval officers said it was a lie. Anyway, for that "faked crisis" as you rightly call it, the US bombed the shit out of Hanoi with B-52 planes that resulted in the death of God knows how many civilians. That was a war crime of the highest order.

The media supported it because LBJ was a democrat.

I have no information on that aspect so I'll take your word for it.

The CIA shoved the generals aside and ran the war and when things went bad they managed to blame Nixon.

Well, let us be honest. Generals (the military) had nothing to do with the war other than pulling the trigger and aiming it at whatever the CIA (let us be honest again ..... the Military Industrial Complex) told them to do. The MIC created the war in Vietnam as (to put it into plain English) a money laundering operation and sold it to the American tax-payers as an extortion scheme. The very same thing is being played out as we speak in Ukraine. Maybe Trump will stop it. Maybe that's what he wants to do. I hope so.

 

[GLASNOST]

That's the problem they don't know what the hell they are talking about.

They know NOTHING.

What makes it worse is they want to remain in ignorance.

It is what I call, "Selective, voluntary ignorance".

 

[Zincwarrior]

It is what I call, "Selective, voluntary ignorance".

Its weird to see two Russobots just having an entire conversation with each other.

 

[Failzero]

A Cousin of mine who was American served in Vietnam with the Marines he must have been a real believer because he went twice, i met him a couple of times he was a very nice bloke but totally brainwashed about US foreign policy, his Dad my Uncle served with the US airforce in WW2 which was a war worth fighting.

Grandson shooting an XM 177E2 ( Nam Era Carbine build )

 

[Eman623]

It is their country to govern however they wish.

It was also the country of the people there who did not want to see it fall to Communism. They didn't get to govern how they wished.

Many of those people - the ones who didn't die in the "reeducation camps" - were chased out of the country and had to come to the US who took them in and gave them new lives. Here in San Jose where I live there are a lot of their kids and grandkids - one of my 18 yo daughter's best friends is a 3rd generation Vietnamese-American. Which is great. Vietnam's loss is our gain.

We had economic sanctions on them and froze them out of world markets for decades after the war.

Like you said, that was their choice. There was a cold war going on and the world for better or worse was divided into two ideologically incompatible camps. Vietnam chose to reject the west and the First World and they chose to align themselves with the Communists. They were free to trade with Maoist China, the Soviet Union (and their impoverished Eastern Europe puppets), and the Communist utopia in Cuba.

 

[odanny]

It was also the country of the people there who did not want to see it fall to Communism. They didn't get to govern how they wished.

Many of those people - the ones who didn't die in the "reeducation camps" - were chased out of the country and had to come to the US who took them in and gave them new lives.

Yea, we saw their determination to fight for their country when the U.S. loaded them up with military equipment and flew out of their country. We left them to die at the hands of the communists, who believed in their cause. The government of South Vietnam could not believe in their own cause, because that was controlled by the United States.

It would appear we doubled down in Afghanistan, actually prolonging that war by twice the amount of time as we did Vietnam. How did the Afghan army do with all the military equipment we loaded them up with after 20 solid years of training?

They gave up in a week.

Please don't think anyone wants to fight for an occupier, those who do have no chance of victory when forced to fight against those who don't.

 

[Eman623]

Yea, we saw their determination to fight for their country when the U.S. loaded them up with military equipment and flew out of their country. We left them to die at the hands of the communists, who believed in their cause. The government of South Vietnam could not believe in their own cause, because that was controlled by the United States.

It would appear we doubled down in Afghanistan, actually prolonging that war by twice the amount of time as we did Vietnam. How did the Afghan army do with all the military equipment we loaded them up with after 20 solid years of training?

They gave up in a week.

Please don't think anyone wants to fight for an occupier, those who do have no chance of victory when forced to fight against those who don't.

How do you explain Korea then?

 

[Deadstick]

It was also the country of the people there who did not want to see it fall to Communism. They didn't get to govern how they wished.

Many of those people - the ones who didn't die in the "reeducation camps" - were chased out of the country and had to come to the US who took them in and gave them new lives. Here in San Jose where I live there are a lot of their kids and grandkids - one of my 18 yo daughter's best friends is a 3rd generation Vietnamese-American. Which is great. Vietnam's loss is our gain.


Like you said, that was their choice. There was a cold war going on and the world for better or worse was divided into two ideologically incompatible camps. Vietnam chose to reject the west and the First World and they chose to align themselves with the Communists. They were free to trade with Maoist China, the Soviet Union (and their impoverished Eastern Europe puppets), and the Communist utopia in Cuba.

You are obsessed with Communism, the Vietnam war was always more about National liberation from Colonialism and Imperialism which you seem to be a fan of, Vietnam was divided by the UN as a temporary measure with the Geneva accords in 1954 with the intention of a referendum on unifying the Country which Ho Chi Mihn would have won, the Southern puppets and their handlers made sure it never went ahead, those vietnamese you talk of were a disgrace quislings to the French then the Americans they don't deserve to live in Vietnam that thousands fought and died to liberate from French Colonialists the Japanese and the US, General Giap was the guy who liberated Vietnam, in historical tems you guys were just passing through into the dustbin of History.

 

[GLASNOST]

It was also the country of the people there who did not want to see it fall to Communism. They didn't get to govern how they wished.

Many of those people - the ones who didn't die in the "reeducation camps" - were chased out of the country and had to come to the US who took them in and gave them new lives. Here in San Jose where I live there are a lot of their kids and grandkids - one of my 18 yo daughter's best friends is a 3rd generation Vietnamese-American. Which is great. Vietnam's loss is our gain.


Like you said, that was their choice. There was a cold war going on and the world for better or worse was divided into two ideologically incompatible camps. Vietnam chose to reject the west and the First World and they chose to align themselves with the Communists. They were free to trade with Maoist China, the Soviet Union (and their impoverished Eastern Europe puppets), and the Communist utopia in Cuba.

You have it all screwed up. You've got every point wrong. Admit it ..... you know nothing about Vietnam or Communism at all.

 

[Deadstick]

You have it all screwed up. You've got every point wrong. Admit it ..... you know nothing about Vietnam or Communism at all.

That's the problem with these people and not just about Vietnam, they should keep quiet and learn some History.

 

[GLASNOST]

...... Vietnam was divided by the UN as a temporary measure with the Geneva accords in 1954 with the intention of a referendum on unifying the Country which Ho Chi Mihn would have won,

PAY ATTENTION and read this above, all of you moronic illiterates.

the Southern puppets and their handlers made sure it never went ahead, those vietnamese you talk of were a disgrace quislings to the French then the Americans they don't deserve to live in Vietnam that thousands fought and died to liberate from French Colonialists the Japanese and the US, General Giap was the guy who liberated Vietnam, in historical tems you guys were just passing through into the dustbin of History.

You may just as well have written that paragraph in Greek to these idiots.

 

[Failzero]

History will show the Russians lost 8x more Casualties in 3 years of Ukraine Conflict than we had in 11 Years of the Vietnam Conflict

 

[Mac-7]

History will show the Russians lost 8x more Casualties in 3 years of Ukraine Conflict than we had in 11 Years of the Vietnam Conflict

russia (and china) do not care about human life

Americans do