Vietnam War was unwinnable

[Third Party]

If you want the full story on the Vietnam War and how certain Washington politicians, mostly Democrats, sabotaged the war effort and handed victory to the Communists, read Leonard Scruggs' book Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You (Warren Publishing, 2009). Scruggs was a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer in Vietnam. His book is one of the best refutations of the standard liberal myths about the war, such as the myths repeated by the likes of Ken Burns and John Paul Vann, among many others.

Here are some good online articles on the Left's betrayal of America in the Vietnam War:

Justifying Betrayal of Vietnam Emerges as the Raison d'être Of Ken Burns' Film on the War

Vietnam War Myths

AIM Report April A, 1975

Don't Blame Nixon for Scuttled Peace Overture | RealClearPolitics

Here's a good five-minute video that summarizes the betrayal that led to South Vietnam's defeat:

The Truth about the Vietnam War

Here's a good documentary, made in 1984 and narrated by Charlton Heston, Television's Vietnam: The Real Story, that, among other things, responds to PBS's slated documentary on the war and also discusses how anti-war and immoral politicians, mostly Democrats, sabotaged the war effort:

Please, the war was hopeless from the start because it was NOT a war. It was a local civil uprising and some here were making lots of money off it.

mmm... no. It was a war. And honestly, it wasn't a local civil uprising. Unless you would consider a small group of US citizens, joining a Mexican armed militia group, backed by Russia, to slaughter US citizens in hopes that Mexico will take over the US... to be a local civil uprising...

Ho had also been inviting Viet Minh leaders to see him in Red China, then ratting out those who weren't loyall to him and the Communists to the French intelligence as they crossed back over the border, and putting his own men in charge. that doesn't qualify as 'locals' either.

They were right-Mexico DID take over the US

 

[harmonica]

General Giap regarding our last bombing campaign said NV was just about ready to quit:

General Giap was a brilliant, highly respected leader of the North Vietnam
military. The following quote is from his memoirs currently found in the
Vietnam war memorial in Hanoi:

“What we still don’t understand is why you Americans stopped the bombing
of Hanoi. You had us on the ropes. If you had pressed us a little harder,
just for another day or two, we were ready to surrender! It was the same
at the battles of TET. You defeated us! We knew it, and we thought you
knew it. But we were elated to notice your media was definitely helping
us. They were causing more disruption in America than we could in the
battlefields. We were ready to surrender. You had won!”

proof please of this AMAZING claim
!!!!!
NVietnam was toying with he US at the negotiation table
NV is NOT surrendering

again--proof --AND Cambodia is not critical area

bold mine
thank you--that's another reason WHY it was unwinnable--they had all the time they needed--the US did not

again--the South's leadership/etc was crap/corrupt/etc--this is a HUGE point---the South's military and government were corrupt---they were not going to help at all--as proven when the North won ''quickly'' after the US stopped bombing

the French lost before us --
then the US lost
like Afghanistan, you are NOT going to change a country's culture/politics/etc
please, maybe you can give us some scenario for a win--westwall's try was ludicrous

Please read the links I provided.

I just proved the Nixon link is crap

You proved no such thing. You're repeating the standard liberal talking points about the Vietnam War, which are designed to obscure/hide the fact that the Democrats sabotaged the war effort and handed South Vietnam over to the Communists.

Quoting the likes of weak-kneed politicians like McNamara proves nothing.

In his most recent statement on the matter that we’re aware of, a 1996 interviewconducted for a CNN series on the Cold War, General Giap attributed the Communists’ eventual military victory to their courage, determination, wisdom, tactics, intelligence, and sacrifices, along with Americans’ lack of knowledge about the Vietnamese nation and its people, but he said nothing about a defeated Vietminh preparing to give up the effort before U.S. protesters and news media changed the course of the war.

It’s possible that the apparently apocryphal General Giap statement is based upon a misattribution of somewhat similar sentiments expressed by other political or military figures involved in the Vietnam War. For example, in 1995 the Wall Street Journalpublished an interview with Bui Tin, a former colonel who served on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army, that included the following exchange:

mg you are putting out bullshit --maybe you believe it because you want to
they were NOT surrendering--per my book quotes
they TOYED with the US during the negotiations--per the book quotes---etc
General Vo Nguyen Giap on the Vietnam War

Giap never said they were on the verge of quitting

That is just conservative revisionist history...we were SO close to winning and the media screwed it up

.....that crap about Giap is like the Smollet case.......they've been fighting the Japanese, the French, and then the Americans for over 25 years and on the verge of victory they are going to surrender???!!!
big HAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA

 

[harmonica]

It was a blunder of epic proportions....but it would have been "winnable" if we fought it to win it...we confuse warfare with welfare...you can't fight like that...

The problem with “winning” was we were on the wrong side

We were never going to win the hearts and minds of the people. They resented our being there and did not consider the South to be a legitimate government

Yeah, yeah, you can repeat these myths ad nauseam--that won't make them come true. You might want to read and watch the articles and videos linked in my thread The Vietnam War Was Winnable, especially the Charlton Heston documentary. You might also want to read former USAF intelligence officer Leonard Scruggs' book Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You.

it was winnable and that's why we lost
????!!!!!!
Morley Safer knew it was unwinnable in 1965
McNamara knew it

 

[rightwinger]

In another example, a memo from the Defense Department under the Johnson Administration listed the reasons for American persistence:

• 70% – To avoid a humiliating U.S. defeat (to our reputation as a guarantor).
• 20% – To keep [South Vietnam] (and the adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
• 10% – To permit the people [of South Vietnam] to enjoy a better, freer way of life.
• ALSO – To emerge from the crisis without unacceptable taint from methods used.
• NOT – To help a friend, although it would be hard to stay in if asked out.[12][35]

Pentagon Papers - Wikipedia

 

[mikegriffith1]

When Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam war knew it was a lost cause back in 64', well, we can't add too much to that, can we?

If you put in place, rules that make a game unwinnable, then yes, it is unwinnable.

We did not take the fight to the north Vietnamese. We did not march up there, and destroy them.

This is kind of like playing football, with the rules being... you can only stop the other time from scoring, but you are never allowed to run the ball past the 50 yard line, and there is no time limit to the game.

Well yeah... if those are the rules of the game, you will lose.

The US government put rules on our military the prevented us from winning. There was no possible way to defeat the enemy, when we were not allowed to fight the enemy. All we did was march around in circles. Well yeah, if we are that stupid, then yeah we're going to lose.

But if we had fought the enemy... . if the left-wing trash protesting in the streets, and their left-wing leadership in government, had not put those rules in place on our military.....

we would have flattened the North Vietnamese.... and easily too. Easily. We would have rolled over them like a fat boy rolling through and all-you-can-eat buffet.

And by the way... that is not a dis- against Vietnamese soldiers, that's just a fact. They were less trained, less equipped, and less supported. In some cases, they were robbing local villages, just to get food to keep their soldiers alive.

Saying that the US military could not win in face to face combat against the North Vietnamese, is like saying a Harvard professor couldn't win against Forest Gump in a battle of knowledge.

Of course we could win. In fact, even the North Vietnamese knew that, this is why they avoided engagement directly with US troops.

Your point about our absurd rules of engagement is a good one. I should have mentioned them in the OP. Scruggs talks about them in his book. They were unbelievable. When Nixon began to discard some of them, we began to make tangible progress.

Those who say the NVese didn't care about casualties have never seriously studied the war. The NVese cared deeply about casualties, which was why they usually avoided set-piece battles with us, especially big ones.

All of this is not to say that everything we did in Vietnam was perfect or upright. Nor is it to say that the SVese government was a shining example of democracy. Similarly, the South Korean government that we initially set up was hardly a paragon of virtue, but it was better than the alternative.

 

[Desperado]

Vietnam was never winnable.
The US should never have been involved in another country's civil war.
American politicians are responsible for the death of over 40,000 American servicemen and God knows how many wounded.

 

[edthecynic]

If you want the full story on the Vietnam War and how certain Washington politicians, mostly Democrats, sabotaged the war effort

Typical GOP revisionist history.

 

[harmonica]

It was a blunder of epic proportions....but it would have been "winnable" if we fought it to win it...we confuse warfare with welfare...you can't fight like that...

The problem with “winning” was we were on the wrong side

We were never going to win the hearts and minds of the people. They resented our being there and did not consider the South to be a legitimate government

Yeah, yeah, you can repeat these myths ad nauseam--that won't make them come true. You might want to read and watch the articles and videos linked in my thread The Vietnam War Was Winnable, especially the Charlton Heston documentary. You might also want to read former USAF intelligence officer Leonard Scruggs' book Lessons from the Vietnam War: Truths the Media Never Told You.

Revisionist history still claiming victory in Vietnam was within our grasp

By 1967, Robert McNamara was already admitting in private that the war was not winnable

mike started a copy thread because he was getting his a$$ spanked on this one
hahahhahahahhahahah

 

[harmonica]

Ken Burns book page 19:
in 1945/etc,--- '' wherever they [ the French soldiers ] went [ they ] were able to take territory but then didn't seem able to hold on to it....''
a French soldier writes:
''if we departed, believing a region pacified, ...the Viet Minh would arrive on our heels. Combat in Vietnam would follow that pattern for three decades'''
sound familiar???
UNwinnable

 

[Dan Stubbs]

Even though the cost was high, we did win in a way. Vietnam seems to have become more capitalist over the years. They manufacture alot of the stuff sold in Walmart, and they've become a tourist attraction.

I mean, compared to North Korea.

A North Vam General wrote a book and in it he stated that they were beat three times, but without the cease fires they would have had to lower the flag. The stopping of the war allowed them to restock and rearm and recruit new men and women......We never lost a fight or battle in Nam you could say we defeated ourselves.

 

[harmonica]

Even though the cost was high, we did win in a way. Vietnam seems to have become more capitalist over the years. They manufacture alot of the stuff sold in Walmart, and they've become a tourist attraction.

I mean, compared to North Korea.

A North Vam General wrote a book and in it he stated that they were beat three times, but without the cease fires they would have had to lower the flag. The stopping of the war allowed them to restock and rearm and recruit new men and women......We never lost a fight or battle in Nam you could say we defeated ourselves.

1. who was this general???! ..... '''a general'''' ------hahahahahahahah????
2. proof please!!!

 

[Andylusion]

Actually it was the military leadership lying to their Presidents and to the press, which is always stupid in a country with a free press, same as it was for Britain's governments over a hundred years or so. This made it easy for the commie friendly press to distort the war and spread bullshit propaganda at home. And yes, when Congress fecklessly abandoned the South Vietnamese govt. in 1975, it fell, and only then; they had two big countries supplying material and troops against a tiny half of country. In any event, by that time the Soviets had gone bankrupt and were on western life support, and couldn't exploit their Pyrrhic victory, and were toast as far as their imperialist dreams were concerned. We won the Cold War, and Viet Nam played a major role in bankrupting the Soviets, so it was a victory in the strategic sense.

Absolutely true. It just irritates me that while it was in fact a victory in any other sense.... there was heavy morale damage done by people saying that we lost.... when we most certainly did not.

And it still persists to this day. We did not lose. We left. There is a difference. It's like Bobby Fischer.

Remember when Bobby knew he was going to win already, but offered to concede? The other guy refused, and told him to keep play, and Bobby won. Because him leaving, is not the same as beating him.

We left the match. We left because of all this crap by left-wingers here in the US. If we had simply unshackled our military, we would have easily destroyed the North Vietnamese.

Even during the rolling thunder campaign by Nixion, the military was complaining about the restrictions on targets. You can't win a war, by having some blow hard politicians in Washington sitting there, micro managing "ok you can bomb that... but no you can't bomb that.... and you might be able to bomb that. I'll ask about it in a committee meeting next week".

You can't win with that. You have to let the military do the job. Or DO NOT DO THE JOB.

This is like Mogadishu. The military said to the government we need this and this, and that, and this, to do this job. The government said.... no, you don't need all that. So we rolled into Mogadishu with only partially equipped and armored units, and then got torn up by some half starving militia units.

You can't do it that way. Ridiculous.

 

[Andylusion]

When Robert McNamara, the architect of the Vietnam war knew it was a lost cause back in 64', well, we can't add too much to that, can we?

If you put in place, rules that make a game unwinnable, then yes, it is unwinnable.

We did not take the fight to the north Vietnamese. We did not march up there, and destroy them.

This is kind of like playing football, with the rules being... you can only stop the other time from scoring, but you are never allowed to run the ball past the 50 yard line, and there is no time limit to the game.

Well yeah... if those are the rules of the game, you will lose.

The US government put rules on our military the prevented us from winning. There was no possible way to defeat the enemy, when we were not allowed to fight the enemy. All we did was march around in circles. Well yeah, if we are that stupid, then yeah we're going to lose.

But if we had fought the enemy... . if the left-wing trash protesting in the streets, and their left-wing leadership in government, had not put those rules in place on our military.....

we would have flattened the North Vietnamese.... and easily too. Easily. We would have rolled over them like a fat boy rolling through and all-you-can-eat buffet.

And by the way... that is not a dis- against Vietnamese soldiers, that's just a fact. They were less trained, less equipped, and less supported. In some cases, they were robbing local villages, just to get food to keep their soldiers alive.

Saying that the US military could not win in face to face combat against the North Vietnamese, is like saying a Harvard professor couldn't win against Forest Gump in a battle of knowledge.

Of course we could win. In fact, even the North Vietnamese knew that, this is why they avoided engagement directly with US troops.

Your point about our absurd rules of engagement is a good one. I should have mentioned them in the OP. Scruggs talks about them in his book. They were unbelievable. When Nixon began to discard some of them, we began to make tangible progress.

Those who say the NVese didn't care about casualties have never seriously studied the war. The NVese cared deeply about casualties, which was why they usually avoided set-piece battles with us, especially big ones.

All of this is not to say that everything we did in Vietnam was perfect or upright. Nor is it to say that the SVese government was a shining example of democracy. Similarly, the South Korean government that we initially set up was hardly a paragon of virtue, but it was better than the alternative.

Oh yes. This is wildly under-stated. I remember reading a small book by a soldier who was talking about literally watching the North Vietnamese build a bunker. They watched them do it day by day.... until finally they started shooting at the US troops from the bunker. Then after being hit by this bunker, only then were they allowed to fire on, and destroy the bunker....

and then absolutely unbelievably.... they would be prevented from firing on the North Vietnamese troops as they rebuilt the bunker. And the whole thing happened all over again. They were be required to just sit there and watch the enemy rebuilding a bunker encampment, because they were not allowed to fire on the enemy until the enemy was killing people.

And they our military lost? No it didn't. The left-wing in this country refused to let them fight. Here's a professional boxing tournament. Let's tie your hands behind your back, and push you into the ring. Good luck.

 

[Andylusion]

Vietnam was never winnable.
The US should never have been involved in another country's civil war.
American politicians are responsible for the death of over 40,000 American servicemen and God knows how many wounded.

Bull. We could have easily won. We were only stopped from winning, by evil America hating communist supporters here in the US. There is a reason that protests in the US were actively monitored and supported by the Soviets.

 

[Third Party]

Actually it was the military leadership lying to their Presidents and to the press, which is always stupid in a country with a free press, same as it was for Britain's governments over a hundred years or so. This made it easy for the commie friendly press to distort the war and spread bullshit propaganda at home. And yes, when Congress fecklessly abandoned the South Vietnamese govt. in 1975, it fell, and only then; they had two big countries supplying material and troops against a tiny half of country. In any event, by that time the Soviets had gone bankrupt and were on western life support, and couldn't exploit their Pyrrhic victory, and were toast as far as their imperialist dreams were concerned. We won the Cold War, and Viet Nam played a major role in bankrupting the Soviets, so it was a victory in the strategic sense.

Absolutely true. It just irritates me that while it was in fact a victory in any other sense.... there was heavy morale damage done by people saying that we lost.... when we most certainly did not.

And it still persists to this day. We did not lose. We left. There is a difference. It's like Bobby Fischer.

View attachment 275813
Remember when Bobby knew he was going to win already, but offered to concede? The other guy refused, and told him to keep play, and Bobby won. Because him leaving, is not the same as beating him.

We left the match. We left because of all this crap by left-wingers here in the US. If we had simply unshackled our military, we would have easily destroyed the North Vietnamese.

Even during the rolling thunder campaign by Nixion, the military was complaining about the restrictions on targets. You can't win a war, by having some blow hard politicians in Washington sitting there, micro managing "ok you can bomb that... but no you can't bomb that.... and you might be able to bomb that. I'll ask about it in a committee meeting next week".

You can't win with that. You have to let the military do the job. Or DO NOT DO THE JOB.

This is like Mogadishu. The military said to the government we need this and this, and that, and this, to do this job. The government said.... no, you don't need all that. So we rolled into Mogadishu with only partially equipped and armored units, and then got torn up by some half starving militia units.

You can't do it that way. Ridiculous.

Hey, if Hitler let HIS military run things,he might have won. You pick the right wars to enter, that's part of the game-I personally think the Pope massaged Kennedy to save the South VietNam Catholics, just like he is pushing illegals down our throats to fill the pews today.

 

[Blackrook]

We won the Vietnam War, we had a peace signed by Nixon and it would have held if the fucking Democrats hadn't fucking made him resign.

 

[Andylusion]

Actually it was the military leadership lying to their Presidents and to the press, which is always stupid in a country with a free press, same as it was for Britain's governments over a hundred years or so. This made it easy for the commie friendly press to distort the war and spread bullshit propaganda at home. And yes, when Congress fecklessly abandoned the South Vietnamese govt. in 1975, it fell, and only then; they had two big countries supplying material and troops against a tiny half of country. In any event, by that time the Soviets had gone bankrupt and were on western life support, and couldn't exploit their Pyrrhic victory, and were toast as far as their imperialist dreams were concerned. We won the Cold War, and Viet Nam played a major role in bankrupting the Soviets, so it was a victory in the strategic sense.

Absolutely true. It just irritates me that while it was in fact a victory in any other sense.... there was heavy morale damage done by people saying that we lost.... when we most certainly did not.

And it still persists to this day. We did not lose. We left. There is a difference. It's like Bobby Fischer.

View attachment 275813
Remember when Bobby knew he was going to win already, but offered to concede? The other guy refused, and told him to keep play, and Bobby won. Because him leaving, is not the same as beating him.

We left the match. We left because of all this crap by left-wingers here in the US. If we had simply unshackled our military, we would have easily destroyed the North Vietnamese.

Even during the rolling thunder campaign by Nixion, the military was complaining about the restrictions on targets. You can't win a war, by having some blow hard politicians in Washington sitting there, micro managing "ok you can bomb that... but no you can't bomb that.... and you might be able to bomb that. I'll ask about it in a committee meeting next week".

You can't win with that. You have to let the military do the job. Or DO NOT DO THE JOB.

This is like Mogadishu. The military said to the government we need this and this, and that, and this, to do this job. The government said.... no, you don't need all that. So we rolled into Mogadishu with only partially equipped and armored units, and then got torn up by some half starving militia units.

You can't do it that way. Ridiculous.

Hey, if Hitler let HIS military run things,he might have won. You pick the right wars to enter, that's part of the game-I personally think the Pope massaged Kennedy to save the South VietNam Catholics, just like he is pushing illegals down our throats to fill the pews today.

I would agree with that. If Hitler had not attacked the Soviets. If Hitler had listened to the sound advice of his advisors. Any number of things.

I'm not sure what your point was there.

Regardless, This is debatable on many levels... but I think Stalin intended to rule the world. I've read a number of books on this, about the cold war. Stalin would routinely push one border, and then another, and then another.

If we had left Vietnam to fall, then it would have been just a matter of time before Stalin was pushing some other direction. And then we would have been roped into another fight. Or we would have let that fall, and Stalin would have pushed somewhere else.

And lets be real about this..... Stalin killed hundreds of millions of people. Stalin was just a less charismatic version of Hitler, and he would have had all of Europe under his control, if given the chance. That's the whole reason he carved up Poland with Hitler. He wanted control over the world as well.

So I suggest to you that as sucky as Vietnam was, it could have easily been much worse, if Stalin had started another western front battle in Europe. And that could have easily happened, with all the countries falling under the Soviet bloc, and with most of western Europe wiped out on infrastructure.... World War 3 could have happened in a decade or two from the end of WW2.

I would much rather Stalin bankrupt the Soviet resources in Vietnam, fighting a proxy war.

Of course I understand this is all speculation. It's impossible to tell what would have happened in the counter factual. But I think it's rather naive to think if we had just let the Soviets and Mao, dominate in Vietnam, that they would have said "ok! We have all we want! Let's have a tea party, and celebrate peace!".

No. I don't believe that anyone reading up on Stalin or Mao, would really believe that was a possible result from letting Vietnam fall.

 

[harmonica]

from Ken Burns book:
1953 Gen. Navarre says: ''victory was near: Now we can see it clearly, ...like the light at the end of the tunnel''
1968 Ambassador Bunker:
''I think we're now beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel''
unwinnable

 

[rightwinger]

Even though the cost was high, we did win in a way. Vietnam seems to have become more capitalist over the years. They manufacture alot of the stuff sold in Walmart, and they've become a tourist attraction.

I mean, compared to North Korea.

A North Vam General wrote a book and in it he stated that they were beat three times, but without the cease fires they would have had to lower the flag. The stopping of the war allowed them to restock and rearm and recruit new men and women......We never lost a fight or battle in Nam you could say we defeated ourselves.

Care to provide a specific quote from that book?

Gen Giap never said such a thing

 

[harmonica]

Actually it was the military leadership lying to their Presidents and to the press, which is always stupid in a country with a free press, same as it was for Britain's governments over a hundred years or so. This made it easy for the commie friendly press to distort the war and spread bullshit propaganda at home. And yes, when Congress fecklessly abandoned the South Vietnamese govt. in 1975, it fell, and only then; they had two big countries supplying material and troops against a tiny half of country. In any event, by that time the Soviets had gone bankrupt and were on western life support, and couldn't exploit their Pyrrhic victory, and were toast as far as their imperialist dreams were concerned. We won the Cold War, and Viet Nam played a major role in bankrupting the Soviets, so it was a victory in the strategic sense.

Absolutely true. It just irritates me that while it was in fact a victory in any other sense.... there was heavy morale damage done by people saying that we lost.... when we most certainly did not.

And it still persists to this day. We did not lose. We left. There is a difference. It's like Bobby Fischer.

View attachment 275813
Remember when Bobby knew he was going to win already, but offered to concede? The other guy refused, and told him to keep play, and Bobby won. Because him leaving, is not the same as beating him.

We left the match. We left because of all this crap by left-wingers here in the US. If we had simply unshackled our military, we would have easily destroyed the North Vietnamese.

Even during the rolling thunder campaign by Nixion, the military was complaining about the restrictions on targets. You can't win a war, by having some blow hard politicians in Washington sitting there, micro managing "ok you can bomb that... but no you can't bomb that.... and you might be able to bomb that. I'll ask about it in a committee meeting next week".

You can't win with that. You have to let the military do the job. Or DO NOT DO THE JOB.

This is like Mogadishu. The military said to the government we need this and this, and that, and this, to do this job. The government said.... no, you don't need all that. So we rolled into Mogadishu with only partially equipped and armored units, and then got torn up by some half starving militia units.

You can't do it that way. Ridiculous.

Hey, if Hitler let HIS military run things,he might have won. You pick the right wars to enter, that's part of the game-I personally think the Pope massaged Kennedy to save the South VietNam Catholics, just like he is pushing illegals down our throats to fill the pews today.

hitler is NOT winning a war against Russia
he still has troops in Norway/France/Balkans/etc etc etc
there is resistance everywhere
he's fighting in North Africa
he is still fighting Britain
Russia is too big--with a larger population