I remember an anti-war demonstration in DC, where some were waving North Vietnamese and VC flags. I remember Jane Fonda cheering North Vietnamese AA gunners. Those acts clouded the message too.
3 Likes
Hanoi Jane
The Captain
1 Like
Watched the ABC evening news tonight. Not one utterance of “outside agitators”. Coincidence, or a directive from management to use the phrase, that was rescinded today?
Steve
3 Likes
Sorry, David, but whatever you thought/think about our involvement in SE Asia half a century ago, the idea is if you are going to fight a war then it should be fought to win. This includes attacking them where they are.
Agreed.
DB2
4 Likes
Not wanting to win in Vietnam back then. Not wanting Ukraine to win now. Sick!
The Captain
2 Likes
What is it you think we should have done?
As frame of reference, North Vietnam is about the size of Connecticut. We dropped more ordinance on North Vietnam than were dropped by both sides in all battles in World War II. So add up all the explosives from that war: in England, France, Italy, Norway, Russia, Poland, Austria, Hawaii, Germany, Japan, Philippines, Burma, Egypt, Greece and any others I’ve forgotten,…
Then add the TNT equivalent of both atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan and the atomic bomb test at Trinity, …
And you still haven’t reached the amount of ordinance dropped on North Vietnam.
So, what were the tactics that we should have employed to defeat a country where 1) we stopped an election in the South because Ho would have won by a landslide, and 2) where in the North he enjoyed overwhelming support of the populace.
Or are you just talking simple genocide of everyone there?
5 Likes
Remember the mind set of the time “better dead, than red”.
Steve
@steve203 What should the message be?
I’d suggest the Islamic world check itself because there are five larger wars in the region.
I would suggest instead of blaming the US, Europe and Israel that the region change their governance to allow for free elections, civil rights, and freedom of religion.
Am I wrong? Or is there just one war that matters?
2 Likes
At one time it was Europe that was the hotbed of wars, petty fights, and meaningless slaughter of tens of thousands. Sometimes over religion, sometimes not, sometimes over property or greed, occasionally for no real reason at all.
Now Europe is more or less mollified, and it’s the Middle East which is in turmoil.
All it took for Europe to be settled was a World War with 50-60 million dead and countless more maimed, the bankruptcy of empires, and the death of innumerable tyrants. Maybe that’s what we need, again, just in a different temperature zone.
1 Like
And nukes. Pretty sure Europe would have found away to get embroiled in horrible wars again, if nukes didn’t exist.
1 Like
Either fight to win or not fight at all. To send young people to die to lose is plain criminal.
I’m not a military strategist but one thing that was absurdly wrong was thinking that victory would come from a large number of body bags [genocide of everyone there?]. William Westmoreland was rated one of the worst American generals. He should have been fired instead of letting him blunder on for four years. But the main problem was not in Vietnam but in Washington.
France is quite a power and they lost Indochina and de Gaulle was smart enough to call it quits.
Like nuking Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Like fire bombing Tokyo, Hamburg and Dresden? Was that genocide of everyone there?
The Captain
4 Likes
Replace Westmoreland earlier. (How many generals did Lincoln go through?)
You might want to read A Better War by Lewis Sorley. It is how the war changed under General Abrams. Example: replace ‘search and destroy’ with ‘clear and hold’.
DB2
Oh I certainly agree with that. What I don’t agree with is that “we didn’t even try”. Clearly we did. We had a larger mobilization than most other wars, we spent a bloody fortune doing it, we killed 50,000 young Americans and who knows how many Vietnamese, we ravaged a foreign country with bombs and napalm, we virtually occupied South Vietnam, we used the highest tech weaponry available at the time against an enemy armed with bamboo shoots (exaggeration, I know), and we still lost bigly.
We tried. We screwed it up, but I have yet to read an analysis of how we might have won, given the proclivities of the Vietnamese people themselves.
6 Likes
Check out A Better War by Sorley.
DB2