America won the vietnam war

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The communists won in Vietnam not because they were communists, but because they were nationalists.


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What exactly do you mean by this? That they fought harder? Neither the NVA or the VC ever once captured a square foot of land in South Vietnam nor won a single battle while the US was there. They were obliterated top to bottom.

Its a shame to still see the myths created by the ultra-left still resonating 40 years later in this thread. I sincerely hope you don't think our boys were "baby killers and rapists".

[jcx]

I think your thinking is seriously flawed here. The US vs. communism in major "hot" wars is 0-1-1 (Vietnam-loss, Korea-stalemate). The greatest US miltary success vs. communists was against a rag tag band in Grenada. We have not defeated China on the battlefield. Yet China is now communist in name only - visit Shanghai and you'll see what I mean. Communism will always fail sooner or later on its own - military action is not necessary to defeat it. In the decades after WWII the US screwed with a lot of people's lives, propping up brutal thugs like Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire just because they weren't communist. I'm sure the residents of today's Deomcratic Republic of the Congo would give us plenty thanks for that. Better to just but out and let things take their own course.

BTW, the few million Vietnamese (not to mention Hmong) living among us today would also tend to disagree with you on who won the war.

[twowords]

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The communists won in Vietnam not because they were communists, but because they were nationalists.


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What exactly do you mean by this? That they fought harder? Neither the NVA or the VC ever once captured a square foot of land in South Vietnam nor won a single battle while the US was there. They were obliterated top to bottom.

Its a shame to still see the myths created by the ultra-left still resonating 40 years later in this thread. I sincerely hope you don't think our boys were "baby killers and rapists".

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Wow. To lower the discourse even further.....you're a joke.

Out of curiosity though, which blatant reality were you refering to as an "ultra-left myth?": a) that we could not win the war in Vietnam and retreated (ie. lost) or b) that HCM and the VC were nationalists first and communists second?

Guess you could also throw in a completely unwarrented mention of baby killers if you want to.

Wow, just...wow. I had no idea it was this bad.

First of all

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that HCM and the VC

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Please go look up Viet Cong and NVA. Know the difference. Get atleast a clue.

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that we could not win the war in Vietnam and retreated

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HW assignment #2, go look up what our objective was in Vietnam. If you answer "to win the war", I'm sorry, youre wrong and only further proving my point.

One more thing, youre lying when you say that US forces ever retreated from NVA forces.

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What countries? Laos? Cambodia?

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Well, yeah, those, plus countries recently breaking free from British colonialism were under heavy assault from Communist revolutionaries. The 2nd largest political party in India at the time was the Communist Party.

Particularly in Southeast Asia you had Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Phillippines were all dealing with rapidly growing Communist insurgencies.

Fortunately, as a result of our extended containment of Vietnam, Communism did not spread to many of these countries , where an economic "miracle" took place in their eyes, a "flower blossoming" they put it, and following our pullout from Vietnam our trade with these countries surpassed even our trade with Europe.

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If you think that the government in Vietnam was a threat to spread to other parts of the region, then u have a limited knowledge of Asian history/culture.


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I think you're being sarcastic, but incase you aren't, then for the record...

A) The region was in shambles

B) There's this thing that happens following a Communist revolution...millions and millions of people die. Ever heard horror stories from the Vietnamese communities in Cali? Ever heard of the Cambodian killing fields?

C) Note that when Communist revolutions happen in one country, they tend to happen in neighboring countries as well, hence the threat to millions of lives by "the government in Vietnam"

[Dynasty]

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Communism was completely overblown as a threat to this country.

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That's just not true. The Soviet Union was a genuine threat. Their stated goal was to spread their form of communism (whether it's "pure" communism or not) worldwide. They were more than willing to use military force to accomplish their goals.

Half of Europe was conquered by the Soviets during World War II. They expanded their military influence to Southeast Asia and Central America. The thread Moscow represented was great than that of Nazi Germany.

[Cyrus]

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It's impossible to say which ones because it didn't happen.

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This is why when I open 2+2 Politics I also open Word -- and copy down text. If only sitcom writers knew about us.

[DougShrapnel]

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It's impossible to say which ones because it didn't happen.

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This is why when I open 2+2 Politics I also open Word -- and copy down text. If only sitcom writers knew about us.

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I get jokes..

well some of time

[Cyrus]

Very, very briefly:

- A war between A and B is considered won by A when country A occupies or dictates terms to country B. Clearly, America lost the war in Vietnam, in military and political terms.

- America's objective in Vietnam was ostensibly to contain communism but, in fact, aimed at containing a national liberation movement. The Vietnamese were fighting against the French colonialists for decades - and the Yanks, instead of coming in as liberators, simply took over where the French left off.

- When there is a national liberation struggle, the side of those who seek liberation is usually radicalised politically. The proper way of defusing that radicalism is accomodating their national liberation aspirations and drawing them into the circle of western democracies through diplomacy, trade, etc.

- The Vietnamese always wanted peace and co-operation with the West. (The evidence for this is in everything they did and still do, now.) America feared that China's communists would over-run the whole South-East Asia if the NVA would win, but, in fact, China and Vietnam have been mortal enemies historically. (Proof : The China-Vietnam war that broke out after the Americans left!)

- This posture resulted in America losing a great deal of the "goodwill capital", to use a Bush phrase, it has accumulated by helping defeat Nazism and imperialist Japan. Instead of a post-colonialist, liberating power, Americans appeared to come on as the supreme neo-colonialists.

- This perception (not unjust) of America hurt the country a lot in its Cold War effort, in the sense that its credibility and its popularity retreated tremendously among the (anti-communist) peoples of Western Europe. People who would have been otherwise natural allies to America's efforts against the Soviets were becoming hostile against the US and NATO.

- The creation of the European Union, currently a formidable antagonist to American economic supremacy, began as a strictly commecrial & customs venture, but soon took on a very political character, aiming at two things : (1) Peace among Germany and France, and (2) Setting Europe on a course that would give it some independence from American post-WWII influence. The EU's progress towards a political union was probably precipitated by America's growing reliance on military means to "solve problems" and fueled by widespread anti-Americanism.

- The American errors of the war in Vietnam became obvious when the North won : There was no bloodshed; China attacked Vietnam; the other countries did not fall "like dominoes"; Vietnam eventually, and all too quickly, turned its eyes westwards; etc.

- To compound their mistakes in Vietnam, and probably out of pure pique, the United States refused to support Vietnam when Vietnam tried to put down the murderous regime of the Khmer Rouge and stop the massacres. Instead, the US allied itself diplomatically with the Khmer Rouge in all the world forums. Days of infamy.