Need help with Vietnam war rebuttal, old RW meme raises it head again

[steve2470]

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/showpost.php?p=39688&postcount=27

Quote:Originally Posted by Steve Mahfouz
The American people finally got sick of seeing dead soldiers coming home in coffins and realized the war was hopeless. *end quote in this post*

That's a gross oversimplification. In point of fact, according to Ngo Giap's memoirs, the North was very close to asking for a ceasefire when our own anti-war movement was on the verge of dragging us out of that war.

We never suffered a major military defeat in Vietnam. The Tet Offensive was a devastating setback for the Viet Cong (they lost most of their units). They siezed hundreds of cities and hamlets but held none of them. The war was not hopeless, but it had another 5 to 10 years to run at least.

But when Walter Cronkite returned to the States and got on his evening news show calling it a "stalemate" and appealling for truce talks, he had a better sense of the lack of American will than he did the real situation on the ground. He was wrong about the war, but right about American public sentiment.

And that's where we lost it - we lost the battle of wills. One would think our leaders would have learned to pick their engagements better and do a better job of verbalizing the mission before sending in the troops. Open-ended commitments aren't something democracies do well (with the exception of the 11 years Britain spent in Malaya). We want clear, definable goals, a cause worth the blood & treasure, and a deadline to bring our boys home.

Unfortunately, real wars don't always work like that. But let's not twist history, please.

*end of quoted post by Cindy Claveau*

How do I rebut this ?

[Skinner]

1. I don't even see the point.

I would just tell him that he's right about this part:

"We want clear, definable goals, a cause worth the blood & treasure, and a deadline to bring our boys home."

And point out that Bush fucked up big time because he didn't do give us any of it. And he has lost this war because of it.

[rockymountaindem]

2. Ask them what part of the observable aftermath of the war would have justified fighting until

1978 or 1983, according to their calculations. Other countries in the region, particularly our main regional ally Thailand, were not threatened by new communist movements. Cambodia had already been dealing with the Khmer Rouge before we left, and there was no way we could have defeated both them and the North Vietnamese. Besides, Vietnam's invasion of Cambodia in 1978 to depose Pol Pot demonstrated that in just three short years the supposedly radical Vietnamese communists had become a status quo power.

In addition, the Vietnam War did extensive damage to the financial system which the US had been carefully tending since WWII. It brought about the end of the Breton Woods system, a giant cash cow for the US, because we could no longer support pegging the dollar at $35/ounce of gold due to our war expenditures and our trading partners began to doubt our solvency. We're still living with the effects of the demise of Breton Woods today. It transformed us from the hub of all international finance into just one competitor among many. Keeping up the war until 1983 would certainly have had even worse effects on the US treasury.

So, perhaps we could have "won" in Vietnam by their definition, but the financial costs, to say nothing of perhaps doubling the human losses, would have been unbearable.

[bryant69]

3. The key question is what would victory have looked like

What would victory have been? It's clear, for example, that the Tet offensive was a phyrric victory for the VC at best; they were a lot weaker after that. But does that automatically mean the United States was winning? Only if our only goal was to defeat the VC. But that wasn't our only goal. Our goal was a prosperous stable and "free" South Vietnam. Defeating the VC was part of that, perhaps, but it wasn't sufficient. Because the weaknesses of South Vietnam were still there after the Tet offensive had crashed and fallen.

At least that's my answer.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[steve2470]

4. any truth here ?

We were engaged in widespread programs aimed at securing the countryside and undercutting the Viet Cong's power politically (losing most of their units in Tet helped). It wasn't all about bombing the North - that was simply a device aimed at pressuring the government into negotiating. We actually had been bombing the Ho Chi Minh trail for a lot longer than we bombed Hanoi. We were gaining the military upper hand by the time Tet was over.

http://www.sluniverse.com/php/vb/showpost.php?p=39707&postcount=32

Truth here ?

[bryant69]

12. It only presents one side of the story

It's probably true as far as it goes, but by cutting out a few key issues, you don't really know what was going on. For example had the conditions that gave rise to the VC substantially changed by the end of the Tet offensive? I'll also note this highlights a difference between the conservative and liberal way of looking at the world. Conservatives believe people are largely good or evil and don't go back and forth that much. Liberals believe that circumstances dictate behavior, to a large extent. Fix the circumstances and you improve the behavior.

Obviously these are simplifications; but in this case I think they hold true. Conservative believed that by killing the VC or killing the current insurgents in Iraq you solve the problem. Liberals believe that since the underlining conditions that created the VC or the Insurgents are the same, you can't kill your way out of it. More insurgents, more VC will rise to replace those you kill.

Bryant

[steve2470]

13. last time, is there any truth to this assertion ? nt

[Onlooker]

5. A few points

(1) One of the reasons for opposition to the war was that the South Vietnamese government was hardly virtuous. They engaged in brutal practices and were very corrupt. The war was not a case of the good guys vs. the bad guys.
(2) China had repeatedly hinted it would get involved in the war, and if that happened, given Chinese army of about 200 million, we would have never been able to win.
(3) The Tet Offensive did inflict major casualties on the South Vietnamese and on our troops, and the North Vietnamese did not have a shortage of troops. While in some respects in certainly failed, it was far from being a complete failure.
(4) As Mike Gravel pointed out, you can buy Starbucks in Hanoi today, so there's no reason to believe that by pulling out of Vietnam we harmed our interests. The fact is that the war served no good purpose (and the North Vietnamese later on played a major role in getting rid of Pol Pot, despite US objections).
(5) We had lost 60,000 troops and would have lost tens of thousands more for no good reason.
(6) Propaganda is every bit a valid part of war. The war hawks failed to counter the propaganda of the anti-war movement. In that way, they lost the war at home and abroad.

[zbdent]

7. I can't really understand the "love-hate" relationship that Repukes have with Vietnam ...

their party didn't get us into the war ... they keep pointing out ...

but then, they point to Vietnam as the ones the Dems hated the troops for ...

they attacked MacNamara for getting us "into" the war ... and when he wrote his book, they attacked him for not speaking out against the war when he had the chance ...

probably far more Repukes dodged the draft with their elite kids being able to get college deferments or cushy positions in the National Guard than Dems (Repukes the party of the wealthy and connected) ... probably more people who leaned Dem politically served than Repukes ... and yet they call the "anti-war" people Dems ...

Nixon said he'd get us out ... and then dragged his ass doing so ...

[EstimatedProphet]

6. How do you rebut that? Leave the board.

I just looked at the board, and it seems to be full of Might Makes Right fetishists. Screw em. Upgrade to a better class of people.

[Ganja Ninja]

8. A quick google search of the name Steve Mahfouz turns up ...

what looks to be someone who plays a lot of the second life virtual reality game. Perhaps his Vietnam fantasy is just an extension of that.

[steve2470]

9. correction...

no no, I am that guy. The other poster is.... Cindy Claveau.

[endarkenment]

10. So we should have murdered another 1-2,000,000 vietnamese

and wasted another 50-60,000 of our own lives in order to prevent Nike from building sneaker factories in Vietnam? Is that their point?

Hint: the war was wrong from the start. It was none of our business what sort of society the vietnamese chose to construct for themselves.

[DCKit]

11. If not impossible, it is unlikely that any country will ever win a civil war in a third country.

Ask the Russians. As long as there is outside financing (and there always is) and a strong native opposition, it's simply not possible. History - which this administration has chosen to ignore - is rife with examples.

Economic and diplomatic sanctions work far better and cost far fewer lives. However, given the example of N. Korea and Saddam's Iraq, we are not qualified on these fronts either. We won't be qualified until we elect competent leadership across the board and Congress exercises their MANDATE for oversight of the Executive branch.

[tuckessee]

14. I love it when they say..."We never suffered a major military defeat in Vietnam."

It shows how out of touch with reality these folks are.

The US was (and still is) stuck with the WW2 Big Firepower Large Body Count mentality.

Vietnam was not a war of "major" military battles. It was guerilla war.

In order for the Vietnamese nationalists to "win" all they had to do was be able to engage the Occupiers and emerge in a state that would allow them to continue to do so in the future.

Patience was the key for them. Longevity meant victory.

The American's heavy & indiscriminate of firepower which defeated the Vietnamese "every time" was also one of the main reasons Charlie never had a shortage of recruits.

Having the US say "we won every battle" is like an athlete bemoaning a loss by saying "But we scored a touchdown on every possession" even though the game he played was actually basketball.

Americans overlook the big picture. They did lose suffer a major military defeat in SE Asia. It was called the Vietnam War and the indigs won.