I want to point out that this is not about whether we should have gone into Vietnam or not. Nor whether we should have stayed in so long.
Funny when I used to hear about the Tet Offensive in school by liberal professors, they stated it as a major victory for the Viet Cong and NVA. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. First, the Viet Cong was decimated and was no longer an effective fighting unit. The damage of this failed operation knocked them out.
Second, the Tet Offensive also critically wounded the NVA.
Prior to Nixon taking office, LBJ was wary of China and/or Russia directly entering the war as China did in the Korea War. Therefore, the loser approach, was not to engage in operations in North Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos. Nixon understood you couldn't win if you didn't take out North Vietnam resupplying capability. Therefore he stated the bombing of the North. He then also took the fight to Cambodia and Laos. I know the revisionist will say this did nothing. However, the bombing of the North, which should have happened YEARS before, crippled the North in resupplying and decimated their economy.
This forced them to the table of at the Paris Peace Accords, which they previously refused to do. The sides signed the Accords. Then Watergate occurred. The Democrats took Congress, they defunded all war operation (as it was agreed upon in the Paris Accords) and went back on ALL promises they made the South Vietnamese. They left the South without the weapons promised, with out the foreign aid, without the air support promised and left them on a silver platter for the North. The North saw this act of weakness and started to attack the South. Make no mistake, if the North won't have tested the US, if they though the bombing campaign of the North would have continued.
The NVA tested whether the US would keep it's promise with a small attack in the North against Buôn Ma Thuột. The US did nothing. Since the US did nothing, they pushed on. When they saw the news that the Democrats in control of Congress stated no funding, no air support and no support at all, they pushed it into full gear.
Make no mistake, the South Vietnamese army wasn't the best army, but if they were equipped funded and supported with US air support they would have been able to stop this next offensive. If the US then bombed the North the North would have backed off.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqYGHZCJwk]The Truth about the Vietnam War - YouTube[/ame]
Funny when I used to hear about the Tet Offensive in school by liberal professors, they stated it as a major victory for the Viet Cong and NVA. However, that couldn't be further from the truth. First, the Viet Cong was decimated and was no longer an effective fighting unit. The damage of this failed operation knocked them out.
http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/P...The Defining Year 1968 PCN 19000313800_1.pdf
Horrendous losses inflicted on Viet Cong units struck into the heart of the irreplaceable infrastructure that had been built up for over a decade. MACV estimated that 181,149 Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops had been killed during 1968.From this point forward, Hanoi was forced to fill one-third of the Viet Cong's ranks with North Vietnamese regulars
Second, the Tet Offensive also critically wounded the NVA.
http://www.marines.mil/Portals/59/P...The Defining Year 1968 PCN 19000313800_1.pdf
North Vietnam had little difficulty making up the casualties inflicted by the offensive.
Prior to Nixon taking office, LBJ was wary of China and/or Russia directly entering the war as China did in the Korea War. Therefore, the loser approach, was not to engage in operations in North Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos. Nixon understood you couldn't win if you didn't take out North Vietnam resupplying capability. Therefore he stated the bombing of the North. He then also took the fight to Cambodia and Laos. I know the revisionist will say this did nothing. However, the bombing of the North, which should have happened YEARS before, crippled the North in resupplying and decimated their economy.
This forced them to the table of at the Paris Peace Accords, which they previously refused to do. The sides signed the Accords. Then Watergate occurred. The Democrats took Congress, they defunded all war operation (as it was agreed upon in the Paris Accords) and went back on ALL promises they made the South Vietnamese. They left the South without the weapons promised, with out the foreign aid, without the air support promised and left them on a silver platter for the North. The North saw this act of weakness and started to attack the South. Make no mistake, if the North won't have tested the US, if they though the bombing campaign of the North would have continued.
BBC ON THIS DAY | 21 | 1975: Vietnam's President Thieu resigns
Nixon was driven from office due to the Watergate scandal in 1974 and when the North Vietnamese did begin their final offensive early in 1975, the United States Congress (controlled by the Democratic Party) refused to appropriate the funds needed by the South Vietnamese, who collapsed completely. Thieu resigned, accusing the U.S. of betrayal in a TV and radio address:
"At the time of the peace agreement the United States agreed to replace equipment on a one-by-one basis. But the United States did not keep its word. Is an American's word reliable these days? The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men"
The NVA tested whether the US would keep it's promise with a small attack in the North against Buôn Ma Thuột. The US did nothing. Since the US did nothing, they pushed on. When they saw the news that the Democrats in control of Congress stated no funding, no air support and no support at all, they pushed it into full gear.
Make no mistake, the South Vietnamese army wasn't the best army, but if they were equipped funded and supported with US air support they would have been able to stop this next offensive. If the US then bombed the North the North would have backed off.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hqYGHZCJwk]The Truth about the Vietnam War - YouTube[/ame]