Did we win in Viet Nam?

"John?] "
wrote in message
. net...
In article , WalterM140
wrote:

We won in Viet Nam and lost in Washington and Paris. Your bitterness is
misdirected.


I don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that we "won"
anything in
Viet Nam.

NVA army units siezed the capital of the south, ran up their flag --
they even
changed the name. We and our allies had to flee. That's defeat.

Walt

You should try reading a history book sometime so perhaps you won't
look like such an idiot.

The last combat units left Vietnam on March 29 1973. The only American
forces remaining in Vietnam after that date were the Marine guards at
the embassy and the Defense Attache Office. When the NVA units seized
the capitol, US forces had been gone more than two years. It's hard to
flee or suffer a defeat when you are not even there.

So overall then you would say the US intervention in Vetnam was a success?
The lives lost worthwhile?

Just interested in how far you would go with this...

John

The question posed here is a tough one and one that probably doesn't have an
answer that can be explained on a single (or dozen) usenet posts.


Bufdrvr,

After viewing the original poster's personal website, I attempted to illustrate
this point in a manner that I perceived might impact her thinking. You say
that the question is a tough one. You, I, and many of the other frequent
contributors and visitors to this newsgroup understand this. I don't think
that she understands this. Hence, my response.



Kurt Todoroff


Markets, not mandates and mob rule.
Consent, not compulsion.

SteveM8597 wrote:

here was no clear winner, and NVN's patron, the Soviet Union,
collapsed 15 years later so who really lost?

That is a very good argument itself. Like I said, not an easy question to
answer.


BUFDRVR

"Stay on the bomb run boys, I'm gonna get those bomb doors open if it harelips
everyone on Bear Creek"

"John?] "
wrote in message
. net...
In article , John Mullen
wrote:

"John?]
"
wrote in message
. net...
In article , WalterM140
wrote:

We won in Viet Nam and lost in Washington and Paris. Your
bitterness is
misdirected.


I don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that we "won"
anything in
Viet Nam.

NVA army units siezed the capital of the south, ran up their flag --
they even
changed the name. We and our allies had to flee. That's defeat.

Walt

You should try reading a history book sometime so perhaps you won't
look like such an idiot.

The last combat units left Vietnam on March 29 1973. The only
American
forces remaining in Vietnam after that date were the Marine guards at
the embassy and the Defense Attache Office. When the NVA units seized
the capitol, US forces had been gone more than two years. It's hard
to
flee or suffer a defeat when you are not even there.

So overall then you would say the US intervention in Vetnam was a
success?
The lives lost worthwhile?

Just interested in how far you would go with this...

John

Of course it was not a success; the country fell to communist rule, but
it is wrong to call it a "defeat". Words mean things, and the U.S.
military was not "defeated" in Vietnam, we withdrew for political
reasons. On March 29, 1973 we had a nice parade, retired the colors of
the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, boarded chartered and
military aircraft, and left in an orderly fashion. We were not
"defeated" and we did not "flee". Those are the facts, plain and
simple.

Ok, so you say it was not a success, but it was not a defeat either. What
*would* you call it?

How would you say it compared with say the USSR withdrawal from Afghanistan?

If you wish to play word games please continue, but you will have to do
so without me.

Ah but you see, words mean things. Though often a matter of opinion,
sometimes thrashing out exactly what was and wasn't a defeat can be fairly
interesting.

John

"John Mullen" wrote:
"John?] "
wrote in message
. net...
In article , John Mullen
wrote:

"John?]
"
wrote in message
. net...
In article ,
WalterM140
wrote:

We won in Viet Nam and lost in Washington and Paris. Your
bitterness is
misdirected.


I don't see how anyone can say with a straight face that we "won"
anything in
Viet Nam.

NVA army units siezed the capital of the south, ran up their
flag --
they even
changed the name. We and our allies had to flee. That's defeat.

Walt

You should try reading a history book sometime so perhaps you won't
look like such an idiot.

The last combat units left Vietnam on March 29 1973. The only
American
forces remaining in Vietnam after that date were the Marine guards
at
the embassy and the Defense Attache Office. When the NVA units
seized
the capitol, US forces had been gone more than two years. It's hard
to
flee or suffer a defeat when you are not even there.

So overall then you would say the US intervention in Vetnam was a
success?
The lives lost worthwhile?

Just interested in how far you would go with this...

John

Of course it was not a success; the country fell to communist rule, but
it is wrong to call it a "defeat". Words mean things, and the U.S.
military was not "defeated" in Vietnam, we withdrew for political
reasons. On March 29, 1973 we had a nice parade, retired the colors of
the US Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, boarded chartered and
military aircraft, and left in an orderly fashion. We were not
"defeated" and we did not "flee". Those are the facts, plain and
simple.

Ok, so you say it was not a success, but it was not a defeat either. What
*would* you call it?

A decision by a bunch of democratic politicians in Washington to ignore the
guarantees made to the South Vietnamese by North Vietnam, the Nixon
Administration and Congress. The democratic political hacks appeared to have
had a problem with the idea that the Nixon Administration could be seen as
having succeeded, where the policies implemented by the democratic
administrations of Johnson and Kennedy were viewed as failures, especially
after the minor incident that occurred in the Watergate hotel.

How would you say it compared with say the USSR withdrawal from
Afghanistan?

It was a decision by Gorbachev to withdraw without any guarantees from the
forces opposing the Soviets to respect the Afgan administration the Soviets
had entered the country to support.

"BUFDRVR" wrote in message
...
sharkone wrote:

How many think we won in Viet Nam?Lost?


What was the score in Vietnam? If you can tell me what the final score
was,
then I'll tell you if we won or lost. Don't forget to tell me what
metrics
and
methodology you employed to determine that score. eg. national
objectives,
political objectives, military objectives, etcetera.

Can you reply with this information by tomorrow?

According to people in both the Kennedy and Johnson aministrations, the
reason
we fought in SE Asia (initially espoused by Kennedy in our support for the
Laotian government) was to prevent all of South Asia from coming under
communist rule and seriously threatening our position in the Pacific.

You're recollection on the stated reasons for the U.S. involvement in SEA
are correct but you're pinning it on the wrong administrations.
The "domino theory" that fomented the U.S.'s involvement originated in the
Eisenhower/Nixon administration. In fact, the first public use of the
"dominos falling" terminology to defend involvement in SEA was in a
presidential news conference in April 1954. Troops and the CIA were there in
'53.
Kennedy inherited the failed foreign policy and Johnson ran with it.

Excerpted essay by John O'Sullivan (editor, National Interest):

Vietnam on the Mind

HANOI, SAIGON, NHA TRANG — ... [i]f Vietnam is to be the comparison of first
resort in whatever conflict the U.S. finds itself, we need a better
understanding of its general significance.

Vietnam was really two wars — a war between the Communist North and the
anti-Communist South, and a local skirmish in the Cold War that pitted the U.S.
and its allies against the Soviet Union and its allies. North Vietnam won the
first of those wars in 1975 — or so it seemed at the time. But the ruthless
imposition of a Stalinist straitjacket on the whole of Vietnam led not only to
the forced departure of hundreds of thousands of "boat people" but also to
hopeless economic stagnation. Victory brought not prosperity but poverty and
isolation.

Eventually the North Vietnamese political leadership realized that reform was
necessary and in 1988 embarked on a program of liberalization on the Chinese
model — that is, a gradualist program of free-market economic reforms under a
continuing one-party "socialist" government.

Market reforms were slow, reluctant and inadequate at first, but they have
accelerated sharply in the last three years. While Vietnam is still a very poor
country — its annual per capita income is only $477 compared to South
Korea¹s $18,000 — it is growing rapidly. A visitor to the cities like Hanoi
and Saigon is overwhelmed by signs of economic vitality, of small business
growth, of a building boom, and above all of a youthful, Westernized, energetic
population.

About 70 percent of the Vietnamese were born in the aftermath of the war of
which they have little memory and apparently less resentment. ...

[A] Martian landing in Saigon or Hanoi today with no knowledge of history since
1970 would assume that the South must have won the war. These cities have all
the boutiques and designer labels of London or Venice — and more homegrown
entrepreneurial vitality than both. (He would probably dismiss the occasional
hammer-and-sickle in neon lights or Red Star poster as the kind of kitsch
nostalgia for Marxism-Leninism found also in Manhattan night-clubs or on
Paris¹s left Bank.)

A few years ago, the more far-sighted Vietnamese had a saying: "Our past is
French; our present is Russian; our future is American." That future is almost
here — with foreign investment beginning to feel secure, with Vietnamese
exiles in France and the U.S. returning to establish businesses, ...

Whether this progress continues will depend, of course, on whether the Hanoi
government continues to liberalize. Western investors need the security of the
rule of law, especially contract and property law, if they are to remain for
the long haul.
But the signs are promising. And if that happens, then the North's victory in
1975 will have achieved little more than postpone the rise of another
capitalist "Asian Tiger" by about 25 years.

What of the significance of Vietnam as a local skirmish in the Cold War? Here
we have the testimony of Asia's principal elder statesman, Lee Kuan Yew, First
minister of Singapore. He has pointed out that the American intervention in the
war halted the onward march of Communism southwards for 15 years — roughly
from 1960 to 1975. In that crucial period, the new ex-colonial states of
Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, maybe India itself, took advantage of this
incidental American protection to develop their economies from poor
agricultural and trading post economies into modern industrial and information
societies. By the time the war was over and North Vietnamese tanks were surging
into Saigon, these countries were prosperous NICs (i.e. newly industrializing
countries), more or less immune to the Communist virus and capable of resisting
external attack.

Nor does the story end with the safety of Singapore. In the late 1980s, when
the Soviet politburo was debating perestroika, Mikhail Gorbachev cited its
success — tiny Singapore, exported more in value than the vast Soviet Union
— as demonstrating the need to dismantle the socialist command economy. (At
the exact same moment, Hanoi was embarking on its own hesitant liberalization.
Coincidence?)

If Lee Kuan Yew is to be believed, then, the U.S. intervention in Vietnam was a
major factor is achieving the West's overall victory in the Cold War. It held
the line while freedom and prosperity were established in non-Communist Asia
— and that provided the rest of the world, including the evil empire itself,
with a "demonstration effect" of how freedom led to prosperity. ...


Chris Mark

Kennedy inherited the failed foreign policy and Johnson ran with it.

The first president to support that war was Harry Truman. He provided a US
airlift to move French troops back into "French Indo China" when the Japanese
lost the war and moved out. Every subsequent president escalated that
miserable goddam war -- some lots, some less. The biggest escalator was Nixon
-- but who conversely and eventually got our ass out of there.

(Apparently the French blackmailed HST to get the support. "If the USA won't
help us retake our colony, we won't join NATO.")

Quent

On 12 Jun 2004 19:28:28 GMT, (QDurham) wrote:

Kennedy inherited the failed foreign policy and Johnson ran with it.

The first president to support that war was Harry Truman. He provided a US
airlift to move French troops back into "French Indo China" when the Japanese
lost the war and moved out. Every subsequent president escalated that
miserable goddam war -- some lots, some less. The biggest escalator was Nixon
-- but who conversely and eventually got our ass out of there.

(Apparently the French blackmailed HST to get the support. "If the USA won't
help us retake our colony, we won't join NATO.")

Quent

Some fact so far, and some chronological inaccuracies.

First, while John F. Dulles, SecState to Eisenhower, ennunciated the
"Domino Theory", it was simply a continuation of the policy of
containment. Containment originated with George F. Kennan's "Mister X"
dispatches back to Harry Truman after the end of WW II. He postulated
(correctly) that communism was an inherently faulty system and would
eventually collapse of its own problems. All we needed to do was
contain it rather than confront it. This idea led to the Truman
Doctrine which was that the US would oppose the expansion of communist
regimes anywhere in the world.

To achieve containment, the US established alliances around the world
to oppose communism. Among them were SEATO, CENTO and the longest
lasting, NATO. The problem, of course, was that in resisting communism
we inevitably wound up supporting dictators, corrupt democracies,
monarchs, etc.

As for France "blackmailing" HST. Let's note that NATO was formed in
1949 and the French didn't withdraw until after Dien Bien Phu in
1954!!! Truman left the White House in '52. France had already been in
NATO for a lot of years before they withdrew let alone harbored
aspirations to retake Indochina. The Geneva Accord that led to the
breakup of Indochina into Laos, Cambodia, N & S Vietnam was 1954.

As for Nixon being the "biggest escalator"--He was elected in 1968,
taking office in Jan '69. The highest troop numbers came in '68 and
bombing of the N. was halted in the fall of '68 by Johnson. Nixon's
initial policy upon taking office was to commence Vietnamization--the
drawdown of US troops. By his election to a second term in '72, we
were down to about 150,000 troops remaining in-country.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
Smithsonian Institution Press
ISBN #1-58834-103-8

As for France "blackmailing" HST. Let's note that NATO was formed in
1949 and the French didn't withdraw until after Dien Bien Phu in
1954!!!

Exactly. Truman provided transport for the French to re-enter "French Indo
China" in about '45 -- before NATO was firmed up.

I have no idea how the French got OUT after Dien Bien Phu but any form of
transport (no matter how humble) was, I'm sure, highly welcome.

Quent