Did we win in Viet Nam?

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 04:48:07 GMT, Guy Alcala
wrote:

Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:28:34 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

You cite the 58,000 names on the Wall. The NVN lost (depending upon
your source) between one and three million. Since you like to only
use one source pick whichever one you want. That sort of loss ratio
doesn't imply a great victory.

Ed,, from http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html

"The Hanoi government revealed on April 4 [1995] that the true civilian casualties of
the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the south. Military
casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of war. These
figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North Vietnamese Communists
to avoid demoralizing the population. "

A chart on the same page shows 1.1 million NVA/VC dead versus about 276,000 US/ARVN
and allied itroops in combat. So, we've got 3.1 million North Vietnamese killed
during the war, vs. 2.24 million south Vietnamese. The majority of SVN civilian
deaths would have been due to allied firepower, especially US. So assuming
reasonably accurate numbers, the US and its allies killed somewhere between 2 and 4
million civilians, plus the 1.1 million combatants. Were you claiming the deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a great triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that matter).

C'mon, Guy, that sort of statement is beneath you.

If I had made the statement you seem to be imputing to me, that would be true.

I will assert
repeatedly, as will literally thousands of USAF participants that we
did not employ "counter-value" targeting. We studiously avoided towns,
population centers, dams/dikes, hospitals, cultural sites--hell, we
even avoided targeting their airfields and the ports for most of the
war.

Sure, to the extent of our ability to do so, but they still managed to be hit by
accident. Employing far more accurate weaponry than was available then, the U.S. and
Israelis still manage to kill high percentages of civilians as collateral damage without
any intent to do so. And we certainly bombed rail-lines, bridges, etc. that were being
repaired by civilian workers, factories (steel mills, power plants, bicycle shops,
textiles, etc.) that were being operated by civilians, bridges and roads that were being
transited by civilians, etc., not to mention all the ordnance that was jettisoned or
dropped by accident over a long period of time, a/c that crashed in populated areas, and
so on.

Ignoring the ordnance you were trying to drop on targets and which undoubtedly killed
civilians during the course of that, can you say that you know for a fact that a drop tank
(or an MER, loaded or otherwise) that you jettisoned didn't kill civilians on the ground?
Of course not. Can you even state with assurance where they might have landed, within say
10 sq. km? Nope. The likelihood of any one such incident killing someone may be small,
but multiply hundreds of thousands of such incidents over a 4.5 year period for North
Vietnam, and the total dead/injured will add up to a substantial number.

And then there's the old favorite cause of civilian deaths in wartime, even when they're
never in the path of ordnance; lack of shelter, poor nutrition and lack of clean water
followed by disease, and lack of medical attention. These causes tend to kill millions of
civilians in wars; just look at what's been going on in the various civil wars in Africa
for the last 20 years or so.

Civilians don't have to be targets to die in war in large numbers. As I said, killing (or
if you prefer, being the indirect or direct cause of deaths) of large numbers of civilians
is easy in wartime.

Don't give me that "killing civilians is easy" bull****.

See above. They tend to be far softer (and more numerous) targets than military forces.

I was refuting your assertion that when America withdraws, we lost.

You might want to consider the economy of Vietnam today. You might
want to look at their trade and tourism. You might even ask if they
are truly the great communist society that Marx envisioned, or if they
don't look a bit more like Adam Smith country.

Are you claiming that the war is what made that happen? If so, how do you explain
the same thing happening in all the former communist states in Europe and Asia,
including all the ones where we didn't kill several million of their people?
Communism was a dreary failure, and nobody needed several million dead to tell them
that some form of market economy with a private sector, with all its faults, provides
a better quality of life for the average person. Vietnam would be moving the way it
is now regardless of the war; perhaps the only thing the war did was delay that
movement (after all, people would be getting tired of communist inefficiency,
corruption and brutality that much sooner, if it had started earlier). Vietnam
probably would have been an Asian version of Tito's Yugoslavia in the '60s and '70s,
if we had recognized Ho Chi Minh back in 1945 (or even 1954) and the war hadn't been
fought. But we blew it, and blew it repeatedly, for what no doubt seemed like
compelling reasons (or at least, politically expedient ones) at the time.

Yes, Guy. I'm claiming that containment, the Truman Doctrine, the Cold
War, etc, etc. resulted in the eventual collapse of world communism.

No, you claimed that fighting the Vietnam War caused Vietnam to move towards embracing
capitalism. I agree that the containment policy worked, but nowhere is there any evidence
that fighting a hot war was necessary to cause the change you ascribe to Vietnam since
1975. Unless, as I asked Kevin, you believe that People's Army losses in the Korean war
was the cause of the PRC's move towards a more materialist society?

Today, there are only two Marxist-Leninist communist countries
remaining--N. Korea and Cuba. One is about to collapse economically
and seeks to reunite with the South while the other is awaiting the
death of their great leader so that they can convert.

We wouldn't have been better off if we recognized Ho and Pol Pot and
the others.

As opposed to recognizing Stalin, Mao, Tito, and Ceaucescu (not to mention Saddam
Hussein), just to name a few? Are you saying Vietnam presented a greater threat to the
U.S. than Mao's PRC did?! And who says Cambodia would have wound up with a nut job like
Pol Pot if they hadn't already put up with 15 yars of so of instability caused by the war?

Guy

MLenoch wrote:

From: Guy Alcala

wrote: Were you claiming the deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a great
triumph of
american arms, Ed?

I do not see where this was claimed. Do you have a specific line that asserts
this?

Ed is claiming that the U.S. killed between one and three million North
Vietnamese. Since the DRVN admits losses of 1.1 million dead PAVN/VC combined,
then any number North Vietnamese dead over 1 million or so has to be civilians
(North or South), unless Ed has very different figures for NVN casualties from the
ones I've seen. If he does, I'd love to see his source; I provided the one I was
using in my previous post.

The US didn't
achieve its goals because we ultimately decided the cost was too high for any
benefit
we might get, i.e. we lost.


Not an unreasonable conclusion. OK.

You might even ask if they
are truly the great communist society that Marx envisioned, or if they
don't look a bit more like Adam Smith country.
Are you claiming that the war is what made that happen?
If so, how do you explain
the same thing happening in all the former communist states in Europe and
Asia,
including all the ones where we didn't kill several million of their people?

The European former communist states are not at all the "same thing" as Vietnam
today. I do not think this is a good conclusion. The economic status of these
European states is not solely or mostly based on tourism.

Neither is Vietnam's, but I was thinking more of the PRC.

Guy

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:28:34 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

You cite the 58,000 names on the Wall. The NVN lost (depending upon
your source) between one and three million. Since you like to only
use one source pick whichever one you want. That sort of loss ratio
doesn't imply a great victory.

Ed,, from http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html

"The Hanoi government revealed on April 4 [1995] that the true civilian
casualties of
the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the south.
Military
casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of war.
These
figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North Vietnamese
Communists
to avoid demoralizing the population. "

A chart on the same page shows 1.1 million NVA/VC dead versus about
276,000 US/ARVN
and allied itroops in combat. So, we've got 3.1 million North Vietnamese
killed
during the war, vs. 2.24 million south Vietnamese. The majority of SVN
civilian
deaths would have been due to allied firepower, especially US. So
assuming
reasonably accurate numbers, the US and its allies killed somewhere
between 2 and 4
million civilians, plus the 1.1 million combatants. Were you claiming the
deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a great
triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that matter).

"Especially US", eh? OK, let's look at that and assume you mean that the US
only accounted for 50% of those 2 to 4 million civilian casualties you want
to chalk up. If we take a nice round figure of major US war participation as
being six years (not unrealistic, given truces, bombing halts, and the
like), you get 2190 days. Using that 50% figure, you would have to be
racking up between almost five hundred and one thousand civilian deaths per
*day*, depending upon whether you use the low or high ranges for your
"data". Color me skeptical, but that sounds way too high-- one-point-five My
Lai massacres every day at a *minimum*. Did you just grab these figures from
the air, or is your analysis that points to "especially US" responsibility
just completely out of whack?

see my other replies to both you and Ed, but I'd say your calendar total of days
is rather low. DRVN figures are for 21 years, i.e. from 1954 (Geneva) - 1975.
However, the U.S. provided the majority of the firepower in SE Asia, dating from
sometime in the 1962-65 timeframe (exactly where you wish to start I leave to
you) up through 1973. 'Especially U.S.' refers to the distribution of
firepower; the U.S. dwarfed everyone else in both availability and usage. Now
consider the widespread use of free-fire and free-drop zones in SVN (until
largely phased out by Abrams, who considered them not only wasteful of ammo but
also highly counterproductive in a counter-insurgency war). These were areas
nominated by the GVN as not under government control, with anyone living in the
area considered to be VC or at least a supporter, so the US (and other allies)
were for instance, free to fire blind H&I artillery fire in any time they chose,
anywhere they chose. Were there civilians killed on a regular basis? Damned
right there were, but since the universal policy (judging by numerous
independent memoirs of those who were there) was that any dead Vietnamese
civilians killed by allied forces were pretty much automatically classified as
VC or 'suspected VC', such dead didn't count as civilians. It's not as if the
GVN showed any great concern for their rural citizens' welfare.

Now, do I _know_ how many civilians were killed by the US? Of course not, but
having some idea how civilians die in wartime, and knowing that for the VC to
kill large numbers of the very civilians who were needed to maintain them would
be suicidal even if they had the ammunition or wish to do so, it isn't rocket
science to figure that the US had to have been responsible for the majority of
the civilian dead in SEA, directly or indirectly. If you disagree, I'll be
happy to read your analysis of how the PAVN/VC were responsible for the majority
of the deaths, given their lack of firepower and logistic problems.

Guy

In article , Dave Holford
wrote:



Probably the most succinct statement is a memo from Assistant Secretary
of Defense John McNaughton to SecDef McNamara. Key excerpt:


3/24/65 (first draft)

ANNEX-PLAN OF ACTION FOR SOUTH VIETNAM

1. US aims:


70% --To avoid a humiliating US defeat (to our reputation as a
guarantor).
20%--To keep SVN (and then adjacent) territory from Chinese hands.
10%--To permit the people of SVN to enjoy a better, freer way of
life.

ALSO--To emerge from crisis without unacceptable taint from methods
used.
NOT--To "help a friend," although it would be hard to stay in if
asked
out.


For the full memo and context (from the Pentagon Papers), see
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel...on3/doc253.htm


Wow, that has to be the longest "succinct" statement in the history of
the English language.

Do you have the actual memo, rather than the (first draft)?

Dave

I suspect that this stayed at the draft level, even though it was a
basic policy document. That's not uncommon in government -- people tend
to stamp "draft" on all manner of things.

You'd have to search through the Pentagon Papers (see link) to see if
there was a sequel. MacNamara has described this memo as one of the key
policy statements. McNaughton was killed in an airline crash relatively
early in his tenure, so he may not have been around to finalize it.

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Been busy this week, so apologies for the delayed reply.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..


A chart on the same page shows 1.1 million NVA/VC dead versus about
276,000 US/ARVN
and allied itroops in combat. So, we've got 3.1 million North
Vietnamese
killed
during the war, vs. 2.24 million south Vietnamese. The majority of
SVN
civilian
deaths would have been due to allied firepower, especially US.

Where do you get that from? It would take quite a few collateral damage
events to equal the number of RVN civilians executed by the VC/NVA at
Hue
during Tet 68 alone--what kind of reliable data do you have that
supports
your assertion that we were responsible for most of the RVN civilian
deaths?

In the immediate aftermath of the battle for Hue, U.S./South Vietnamese
forces
reported digging up 2,800 bodies that appeared to have been executed,
hands tied
behind their backs with bullet holes in the back of their heads, or in
some
cases just buried alive. Douglas Pike, at that time an intell officer in
SVN,
wrote a report (1970) about the executions because their scope and scale
was so
unlike anything the VC had practiced prior to Tet (or since), and arrived
at a
figure possibly as high as 5,700. However, those figures have been called
into
question, because apparently they were supplied to him by a South
Vietnamese
intell unit, the 10th Political Warfare Battalion, whose whole charter was
to
discredit the NLF, and Pike apparently had noi way of checking the totals
himself. Then again, its possuible that at least some of the executions
were
carried out by the South Vietnamese; a U.S. intell officer told a U.S.
reporter
(who had been at Hue during the battles and who returned twice more to do
interviews) that South Vietnamese Intell units had sent in some hit squads
themselves to kill collaborators while the battle was still continuing.
In any
case, let's assume a range of 2,800 - 5,700 were executed by the VC in
Hue - no
one is ever likely to know the true number.

So you are talking a range of between nine and nineteen times the My Lai
debacle--but you are confident that the US was somehow responsible for most
of the civilian casualties? And while Pike may have been commenting on
single-event scale, don't forget that the VC and NVA had (and continued to
after Tet) a pretty good reputation for using murder as a tool for "winning
hearts and minds"--Hue would not account for the sum total of civilian
casualties attributed to them.


Saying, "I saw it in an Oliver Stone movie" ain't gonna cut it,
either...

Oh please, Kevin - you really don't think that I'd base claims on a movie,
do
you, whether "Platoon" or for that matter, "The Green Berets"?

I should have put a ":-)" after that...but it does seem as if you have
bought into Mr. Stone's philosophy with that "especially US" bit...


And how many of those deaths actually occured in the infamous
"reeducation
camps" after the actual combat was over (it would be kind of convenient
to
slip those tallies into the war casualty count, just to make things look
nioce and tidy for folks later)?

Certainly possible that some of them did, although if they just wanted to
kill
people wholesale why bother to ship them to a 're-education' camp, when
they can
just take them into the jungle, dig a trench and mow them down? Worked
for the
Einsatzgruppen and the NKVD.

You must have forgotten that the NKVD also had this
not-so-good-for-your-health concept labled as the "Gulag"?


So assuming
reasonably accurate numbers,

That would be quite an assumption in this case.

Sure, but we don't have any better ones. Ed is the one claiming the U.S.
killed
between 1 and 3 million _North_ Vietnamese.

the US and its allies killed somewhere between 2 and 4
million civilians, plus the 1.1 million combatants.

Using that model, you are assuming that the NVA/VC were just really
swell
guys who never dared to harm RVN civilians?

Of course not - they were considerably more brutal and ruthless than the
GVN
governments, who weren't exactly known having much concern for their own
citizens themselves. After all, it was the GVN who designated Free-Fire
zones
for the U.S. military.

And it was the DRVN that sent so many "civilians" trekking down the HCM
Trail with their bicycle-pack load of ammo...do you count those as civilian
kills in the US tally?


Just how do you think we managed
to kill those *millions* of noncombatants?

Simple firepower. See below.

I note that the number you are
touting is on-par (at a minimum--your max figure is about twice the
German
total) with the number of civilian casualties the Germans sustained
during
WWII--that with the spectres of the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin,
etc., ad nauseum, not to mention the effects of the Red Army onslaught
in
the eastern portion of that nation--which leaves me a bit suspicious of
your
figures.

I'm glad you brought up Germany. Kevin, I can't give you the source
because I
saw it many years ago, but it was a credible one. I don't remember
whether it
referred to bombs alone, bombs and artillery shells, all ammunition, and
included the casing weights or just the HE equivalent, but the total (of
whatever metric) used by ALL the combatants in World War 2 was ca. 3
megatons.
By comparison, the U.S., over the 1964 -1973 period dropped/fired 8
Megatons
(same metric) on SE Asia. SVN received either the first or second
percentage of
this tonnage, with Laos holding the other place. The DRVN was in either
third
or fourth place for tonnage (can't remember if they came in before or
after
Cambodia).

The vast majority of this firepower was quite inaccurate; it's the nature
of war
that civilians get killed just by being in the way, even when they're not
deliberately being targeted. We employed the vast majority of the
firepower in
the south, so clearly we would have killed the vast majority of the
civilians.
The VC and NVA certainly killed their share, but they just didn't have the
logistics to kill relatively indiscriminately in large numbers, as the
U.S. and
to a lesser extent our allies could, even if they'd wanted to (and for the
VC,
that would be counter-productive). Yeah, they fired a few rockets into
the
cities on occasion, and civilians certainly died during the invasions in
1968/72/75, but the sheer firepower was lacking to kill large numbers of
civilians indiscriminately. The VC tended to kill civilians deliberately
and
discriminately, targeting government representatives, uncooperative
village
leaders etc. for assassination/execution. They didn't do it by bombing a
village.

Yeah, and they never did any "indiscriminate" mining or boobytrapping,
either, I guess. Your figures indicate we were killing off innocents at a
prodigious rate indeed-- one-point-five or more My Lai equivalents every
*day*? I don't think so.


Were you claiming the deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a
great
triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was
repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that
matter).

I believe Ed was pointing to the fact that it would be difficult to
lable
the final outcome in 1975 (and the years following) as much of a
"victory"
for the North--and events since then point to his observation being more
accurate than not.

Since they achieved their aims, at a cost that was grievously high but one
they
were prepared to pay, they definitely won.

Guy, you know what was meant. They won what, a ticket to being one of the
last communist failures in the world? A standard of living for the most of
their populace that lags that of their neighbors? A country so great that
thousands upon thousands were willing to risk dying trying to escape it?
What exactly did they "win"?

Unless you believe that Germany
defeated the Soviet Union in WW2, or Japan defeated China ditto? And as I
pointed out to Ed, he has presented no evidence that the subsequent tilt
towards
a more material society by Vietnam was a result of the war. China has
been
progressing in that direction at an even faster pace than Vietnam, and I
haven't
seen anyone claiming that was because of their losses in the Korean (or
Vietnam;
the PRC employed a lot of workers on the NE and NW railroads) wars.

Of course, all of this is really moot, and smacks of McNamara's
numbers
war. If you
wish to claim that the number of dead on each side defines which side
won
and lost,
then you must believe that the Axis powers won World War 2, because
they
killed far
more of the citizens of the allied powers than vice versa. The DRVN
achieved their
goals at a cost they were both willing and able to pay, i.e. they won.
The US didn't
achieve its goals because we ultimately decided the cost was too high
for
any benefit
we might get, i.e. we lost.

Only if you assume that the US had some sort of irrevocable requirment
to
stay in the thick of the fight in perpetuity. When we decamped in 72-73,
the
RVN had the tools to perform their own security mission and we had
handed
that responsibility off to them,

With the promise that our airpower would bail them out if they got in
trouble,
yes, but we _as a country_ weren't prepared to keep that promise.

Come on, now--airpower alone would not have stemmed the tide of the 75
invasion. We had handed off to the RVN and let them carry their own ball--an
d they fumbled. By 1973 the RVN's air assets were none too shabby; lots of
F-5's, A-37's, A-1's, helo gunships, AC-47's, etc. That they did not
effectively use that force advantage in 1975 is their own responsibility
(though I admit I have always blamed Ford and the congress then in-power for
not having the gumption to launch an air campaign against the NVA--but as I
said, hindsight indicates that it would probably have not made a big
decisive difference).


the VC had been eliminated as a major
factor (and had been since the days following Tet 68, vastly different
from
the situation in the mid 60's),

Yup.

and the NVA had been for all intents and
purposes pushed out of RVN territory.

Nope, indeed that's why Thieu dragged his feet so much at signing the
accords,
_because_ large NVA forces were allowed to remain on the ground in SVN,
which he
knew would just serve as the launching pad for another invasion.

Yeah, they did have a chunk of Quang Tri province IIRC. Which is not saying
much--they had jumped off from those same general areas during the 72 Easter
offensive IIRC and got schlocked (and US airpower was not the sole reason
for their defeat).


Two years later things went to hell in
a handbasket rather quickly, courtesy of a massive conventional invasion
of
the RVN by the DRVN--but you think that constitutes a defeat for the US
military?

Kevin, at no time have I stated or implied that the U.S. military was
defeated;
that was the argument of others, which I don't subscribe to. They weren't
defeated, and indeed they couldn't be, which was explictly recognized by
that
PAVN Col. who was talking to Col. Harry G. Summers (that is who I've seen
the
anecdote that Paul J. Adam quoted, attributed to). OTOH, the U.S.
military was
equally unable to win. But, as the DRVN leadership recognized, they
didn't have
to defeat the U.S. military, they just had to not lose and make the price
higher
than the U.S.A. was willing to pay, which has been the strategy of many
weaker
powers -- it worked for us in the Revolutionary war.

I disagree. The US military could have won decisively, but at what ultimate
cost, and for what ultimate gain? In the end it was better that the Viets
themselves determined the final outcome--and their northern brethren instead
reaped the whirlwind they had sown. Better them than us.


And they did. They lost every battle except the last one, and won the
war.

That would be the one that occured after we had turned over affairs to the
RVN a couple of years prior.


I don't think so. It was indeed a blow to the previous US foreign
policy objectives, but it was no defeat of US military power, which had
withstood the best the DRVN could hurl at them and ended up departing an
RVN
still controlled by its own sovereign government.

As the North Vietnamese realised, It wasn't a war of military against
military,
it was a war of country against country, and their country defeated ours.

No, they defeated the RVN. We had embarked upon Vietnamization in 1969, and
pulled pitch with our own forces in 72 for the most part (and no later than
early 73 in-toto).

Whether we were defeated by default is irrelevant; that the U.S. did not
achieve
its aims in SVN, is while the DRVN government did, is obvious. That's a
defeat
for the U.S., and a win for the DRVN in my book.

We must read different books. :-)

Brooks


Guy

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:28:34 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

You cite the 58,000 names on the Wall. The NVN lost (depending upon
your source) between one and three million. Since you like to only
use one source pick whichever one you want. That sort of loss ratio
doesn't imply a great victory.

Ed,, from http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html

"The Hanoi government revealed on April 4 [1995] that the true
civilian
casualties of
the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the
south.
Military
casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of
war.
These
figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North
Vietnamese
Communists
to avoid demoralizing the population. "

A chart on the same page shows 1.1 million NVA/VC dead versus about
276,000 US/ARVN
and allied itroops in combat. So, we've got 3.1 million North
Vietnamese
killed
during the war, vs. 2.24 million south Vietnamese. The majority of
SVN
civilian
deaths would have been due to allied firepower, especially US. So
assuming
reasonably accurate numbers, the US and its allies killed somewhere
between 2 and 4
million civilians, plus the 1.1 million combatants. Were you claiming
the
deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a
great
triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was
repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that
matter).

"Especially US", eh? OK, let's look at that and assume you mean that the
US
only accounted for 50% of those 2 to 4 million civilian casualties you
want
to chalk up. If we take a nice round figure of major US war
participation as
being six years (not unrealistic, given truces, bombing halts, and the
like), you get 2190 days. Using that 50% figure, you would have to be
racking up between almost five hundred and one thousand civilian deaths
per
*day*, depending upon whether you use the low or high ranges for your
"data". Color me skeptical, but that sounds way too high--
one-point-five My
Lai massacres every day at a *minimum*. Did you just grab these figures
from
the air, or is your analysis that points to "especially US"
responsibility
just completely out of whack?

see my other replies to both you and Ed, but I'd say your calendar total
of days
is rather low. DRVN figures are for 21 years, i.e. from 1954 (Geneva) -
1975.
However, the U.S. provided the majority of the firepower in SE Asia,
dating from
sometime in the 1962-65 timeframe (exactly where you wish to start I leave
to
you) up through 1973. 'Especially U.S.' refers to the distribution of
firepower; the U.S. dwarfed everyone else in both availability and usage.

Nope. The major committment of US forces and their firepower did not begin
until 1965, and it most certainly did not extend "through 1973". Application
of US firepower ended in January 1973 with the ceasefire that accompanied
the final Paris peace talks. Go from mid-1965 (as we did not just snap our
fingers and *presto*, massive amounts of US firepower came instantly to bear
in 1965--the first major US offensive operation did not take place until
June of that year) to 1973 and you get some 2600 total possible days;
subtract out the various ceasefire periods, adjust for bombing halts, etc.,
and I don't think that roughly 2200 number is too bad.

Now
consider the widespread use of free-fire and free-drop zones in SVN (until
largely phased out by Abrams, who considered them not only wasteful of
ammo but
also highly counterproductive in a counter-insurgency war). These were
areas
nominated by the GVN as not under government control, with anyone living
in the
area considered to be VC or at least a supporter, so the US (and other
allies)
were for instance, free to fire blind H&I artillery fire in any time they
chose,
anywhere they chose. Were there civilians killed on a regular basis?
Damned
right there were, but since the universal policy (judging by numerous
independent memoirs of those who were there) was that any dead Vietnamese
civilians killed by allied forces were pretty much automatically
classified as
VC or 'suspected VC', such dead didn't count as civilians. It's not as if
the
GVN showed any great concern for their rural citizens' welfare.

You are still counting beaucoup civilians per day using your math. And what
did the DRVN numbers have to say in regards to COSVN/VC casualties--were
they just rolled into the "civilian" total (I did not note a distinction for
them, and they were pretty high in the 65-68 timeframe, peaking with Tet and
then declining)?


Now, do I _know_ how many civilians were killed by the US? Of course not,
but
having some idea how civilians die in wartime, and knowing that for the VC
to
kill large numbers of the very civilians who were needed to maintain them
would
be suicidal even if they had the ammunition or wish to do so, it isn't
rocket
science to figure that the US had to have been responsible for the
majority of
the civilian dead in SEA, directly or indirectly.

Oddly enough, it appears they did indeed resort to direct targeting of many
thousands of South Vietnamese civilians: "From 1957 to 1973 the National
Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 South Vietnamese and abducted 58,499.
Death squads focused on leaders that included schoolteachers and minor
officials."

www.vietnam-war.info/facts/

That, of course, does not include those civilians merely caught up in the
application of firepower by the VC/NVA side of the house--just the ones
specifically targeted for elimination of abduction.

If you disagree, I'll be
happy to read your analysis of how the PAVN/VC were responsible for the
majority
of the deaths, given their lack of firepower and logistic problems.

My argument is with your blase acceptance of the Vietnamese claims, and your
further assignment of the majority of the blame to the US, ignoring the fact
that the DRVN was counting casualties from well before any significant, much
less major, US application of firepower, overlooking the absence of a
category for the actual VC losses, overlooking the fact that the DRVN
routinely sent civilians into harm's way (porters on the HCM Trail, repair
crews on same, etc.), and accepting that we were slaughtering folks at a
truly prodigious, sustained rate that defies any similar US experience
before or since.

Brooks


Guy

Sorry again for the delayed reply. My replies are likely to be delayed for some
time.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Been busy this week, so apologies for the delayed reply.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..


A chart on the same page shows 1.1 million NVA/VC dead versus about
276,000 US/ARVN
and allied itroops in combat. So, we've got 3.1 million North
Vietnamese
killed
during the war, vs. 2.24 million south Vietnamese. The majority of
SVN
civilian
deaths would have been due to allied firepower, especially US.

Where do you get that from? It would take quite a few collateral damage
events to equal the number of RVN civilians executed by the VC/NVA at
Hue
during Tet 68 alone--what kind of reliable data do you have that
supports
your assertion that we were responsible for most of the RVN civilian
deaths?

In the immediate aftermath of the battle for Hue, U.S./South Vietnamese
forces
reported digging up 2,800 bodies that appeared to have been executed,
hands tied
behind their backs with bullet holes in the back of their heads, or in
some
cases just buried alive. Douglas Pike, at that time an intell officer in
SVN,
wrote a report (1970) about the executions because their scope and scale
was so
unlike anything the VC had practiced prior to Tet (or since), and arrived
at a
figure possibly as high as 5,700. However, those figures have been called
into
question, because apparently they were supplied to him by a South
Vietnamese
intell unit, the 10th Political Warfare Battalion, whose whole charter was
to
discredit the NLF, and Pike apparently had noi way of checking the totals
himself. Then again, its possuible that at least some of the executions
were
carried out by the South Vietnamese; a U.S. intell officer told a U.S.
reporter
(who had been at Hue during the battles and who returned twice more to do
interviews) that South Vietnamese Intell units had sent in some hit squads
themselves to kill collaborators while the battle was still continuing.
In any
case, let's assume a range of 2,800 - 5,700 were executed by the VC in
Hue - no
one is ever likely to know the true number.

So you are talking a range of between nine and nineteen times the My Lai
debacle--but you are confident that the US was somehow responsible for most
of the civilian casualties? And while Pike may have been commenting on
single-event scale, don't forget that the VC and NVA had (and continued to
after Tet) a pretty good reputation for using murder as a tool for "winning
hearts and minds"--Hue would not account for the sum total of civilian
casualties attributed to them.

Never said it would. FWIW, "The Vietnam War: Day by Day" summary for 1965,
after giving the US and ARVN losses for the year, states "Increasing numbers of
South Vietnamese civilians are also being killed by air raids and other military
actions." The 1966 summary includes the statement "Another study reveals that
during one seven month period this year, 3,015 Rural Development personnel were
murdered or kidnapped by the Vietcong." The 1967 summary states "The Vietcong
reportedly killed 3,820 South Vietnamese civilians and kidnapped 5,318 during
the year." The page for 1968 is missing (library book); for 1969 the relevant
sentence is "at least 6,000 South Vietnamese civilians were killed in 1969 by
terrorist actions alone." The 1970 summary states "At least 25,000 South
Vietnamese civilians are killed, and another 6,000 are reported by the Vietcong
as having been executed for serving in the Saigon government." The 1971 summary
doesn't include any numbers for SVN civilian casualties, just the usual US/ARVN
and NVA/VC. The 1972 summary only includes US casaulty totals. The note for 27
January 1974 states "Since the January 1973 truce, . . . 2,159 SVN civilians . .
.. have died in the fighting."

Saying, "I saw it in an Oliver Stone movie" ain't gonna cut it,
either...

Oh please, Kevin - you really don't think that I'd base claims on a movie,
do
you, whether "Platoon" or for that matter, "The Green Berets"?

I should have put a ":-)" after that...but it does seem as if you have
bought into Mr. Stone's philosophy with that "especially US" bit...

As I've explained elsewhere, the 'especially US' referred to the preponderance
of US firepower and nothing else.

And how many of those deaths actually occured in the infamous
"reeducation
camps" after the actual combat was over (it would be kind of convenient
to
slip those tallies into the war casualty count, just to make things look
nioce and tidy for folks later)?

Certainly possible that some of them did, although if they just wanted to
kill
people wholesale why bother to ship them to a 're-education' camp, when
they can
just take them into the jungle, dig a trench and mow them down? Worked
for the
Einsatzgruppen and the NKVD.

You must have forgotten that the NKVD also had this
not-so-good-for-your-health concept labled as the "Gulag"?

Haven't forgotten it, but AFAIR (it's been a long time since I read the Gulag
Archipelago), political re-education wasn't an issue there. You were sentenced
there and worked off your time, living or dying as the case might be, but they
could care less about self-criticism sessions, plitical indoctrination and the
like; you were an enemy of the state, and that was that. The Vietnamese
re-education camps seem to have had a different philosophy.

So assuming
reasonably accurate numbers,

That would be quite an assumption in this case.

Sure, but we don't have any better ones. Ed is the one claiming the U.S.
killed
between 1 and 3 million _North_ Vietnamese.

the US and its allies killed somewhere between 2 and 4
million civilians, plus the 1.1 million combatants.

Using that model, you are assuming that the NVA/VC were just really
swell
guys who never dared to harm RVN civilians?

Of course not - they were considerably more brutal and ruthless than the
GVN
governments, who weren't exactly known having much concern for their own
citizens themselves. After all, it was the GVN who designated Free-Fire
zones
for the U.S. military.

And it was the DRVN that sent so many "civilians" trekking down the HCM
Trail with their bicycle-pack load of ammo...do you count those as civilian
kills in the US tally?

If they did, sure, although from what I recall it was PAVN soldiers and maybe
civilian truck drivers (can't remember if they were civil or military) who made
the journey down south. Otherwise it would be seem to be so many more useless
mouths to feed, to send large numbers of civilian porters down.

Just how do you think we managed
to kill those *millions* of noncombatants?

Simple firepower. See below.

I note that the number you are
touting is on-par (at a minimum--your max figure is about twice the
German
total) with the number of civilian casualties the Germans sustained
during
WWII--that with the spectres of the bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin,
etc., ad nauseum, not to mention the effects of the Red Army onslaught
in
the eastern portion of that nation--which leaves me a bit suspicious of
your
figures.

I'm glad you brought up Germany. Kevin, I can't give you the source
because I
saw it many years ago, but it was a credible one. I don't remember
whether it
referred to bombs alone, bombs and artillery shells, all ammunition, and
included the casing weights or just the HE equivalent, but the total (of
whatever metric) used by ALL the combatants in World War 2 was ca. 3
megatons.
By comparison, the U.S., over the 1964 -1973 period dropped/fired 8
Megatons
(same metric) on SE Asia. SVN received either the first or second
percentage of
this tonnage, with Laos holding the other place. The DRVN was in either
third
or fourth place for tonnage (can't remember if they came in before or
after
Cambodia).

The vast majority of this firepower was quite inaccurate; it's the nature
of war
that civilians get killed just by being in the way, even when they're not
deliberately being targeted. We employed the vast majority of the
firepower in
the south, so clearly we would have killed the vast majority of the
civilians.
The VC and NVA certainly killed their share, but they just didn't have the
logistics to kill relatively indiscriminately in large numbers, as the
U.S. and
to a lesser extent our allies could, even if they'd wanted to (and for the
VC,
that would be counter-productive). Yeah, they fired a few rockets into
the
cities on occasion, and civilians certainly died during the invasions in
1968/72/75, but the sheer firepower was lacking to kill large numbers of
civilians indiscriminately. The VC tended to kill civilians deliberately
and
discriminately, targeting government representatives, uncooperative
village
leaders etc. for assassination/execution. They didn't do it by bombing a
village.

Yeah, and they never did any "indiscriminate" mining or boobytrapping,
either, I guess.

Of course they did. Here's a few examples, again from "The Vietnam War: Day by
Day":

"14 February 1966. Fifty-six South Vietnamese civilians re killed by three
separate mine blasts along a road near Tuy Hoa, 225 miles NE of Saigon."

"21 October 1966. A terrorist mine explodes in the marketplace in Traon, a town
in the Mekong delta . . . killing 11 persons and wounding 54."

"24 October 1966. A bus detonates a Vietcong mine on a road 18 miles north of
Hue', killing 15 Vietnamese civilians and injuring 19."

Your figures indicate we were killing off innocents at a
prodigious rate indeed-- one-point-five or more My Lai equivalents every
*day*? I don't think so.

Now here's a few examples of our mistakes which resulted in civilian deaths:

"9 August 1966. Two USAF jets mistakenly attack the villages of Truong Trung
and Truong Tay . . . 63 people are killed and nearly 100 wounded."

"27 September 1966. Two US Marine jets mistakenly bomb the village of Hom Be,
five miles from Quang Ngai, killing at least 35 civilians."

"28-29 January 1967. During an operation against the Vietcong in the Mekong
river delta, US helicopters accidentally kill 31 Vietnamese civilians and wound
38. The civilians, apparently mistaken for Vietcong, were attacked as they
crossed the bassac river in 200 sampans at 2345 in violation of a curfew."

"1 February 1967. US Marine artillery and planes accidentally hit a South
Vietnamese hamlet 12 miles southwest of Danang, killing eight civilians and
wounding 18."

"2 March 1967. The village of Languei, 15 miles south of the DMZ, is
accidentally hit by bombs dropped by two US F-4C Phantom jets, killing at least
83 civilians and wounding 176."

Now here's an example of civilians getting killed just because they happened to
be in the way of the war, which I believe is the way the majority of civilians,
north and south, were killed by US firepower.

"2 August 1967. Two US helicopters return[ing] fire against a group of Vietcong
in a Mekong delta village near Phu Vinh, 60 miles south of Saigon, killed 40
South Vietnamese civilians and wounded 36."

No one was targetting them specifically - they just got hit because they
happened to be there, and we and the ARVN used a lot of bombs and shells on SVN
hamlets, villages, towns and cities, ignoring the small arms fire. Most of the
time they would die in fairly small numbers, but this sort of thing was going on
throughout SVN, every day. We can undoubtedly add to these numbers of admitted
civilian dead, large numbers who were erroneously (either deliberately or not)
recorded as VC or suspected VC; there were undoubtedly some incorrectly recorded
the other way, but the numbers would have to be smalle, just by the law of
averages. Please note that I've only included South Vietnamese civilian
casualties, as numbers for those in the north are much more tenuous, and public
wartime claims tend to be highly suspect on both sides. A January 1967 CIA
study estimated that up to that time, there had been 24,000 casualties from
bombing in North Vietnam, 80% of whom were civilian.

Were you claiming the deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a
great
triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was
repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that
matter).

I believe Ed was pointing to the fact that it would be difficult to
lable
the final outcome in 1975 (and the years following) as much of a
"victory"
for the North--and events since then point to his observation being more
accurate than not.

Since they achieved their aims, at a cost that was grievously high but one
they
were prepared to pay, they definitely won.

Guy, you know what was meant. They won what, a ticket to being one of the
last communist failures in the world? A standard of living for the most of
their populace that lags that of their neighbors? A country so great that
thousands upon thousands were willing to risk dying trying to escape it?
What exactly did they "win"?

Pretty much exactly what the Soviet Union won in WW2, at a similar cost and with
similar results. Again, do you think that Germany defeated the Soviet Union in
WW2? Whether you or I think that the resulting country is a garden spot or a
dirty armpit is irrelevant; the people calling the shots succeeded in what they
were what they were trying to achieve. Granted, it's likely that it won't last
another generation, but there's no guaranty of an unchanging result for any
country/creed.

snip

The DRVN

achieved their
goals at a cost they were both willing and able to pay, i.e. they won.
The US didn't
achieve its goals because we ultimately decided the cost was too high
for
any benefit
we might get, i.e. we lost.

Only if you assume that the US had some sort of irrevocable requirment
to
stay in the thick of the fight in perpetuity. When we decamped in 72-73,
the
RVN had the tools to perform their own security mission and we had
handed
that responsibility off to them,

With the promise that our airpower would bail them out if they got in
trouble,
yes, but we _as a country_ weren't prepared to keep that promise.

Come on, now--airpower alone would not have stemmed the tide of the 75
invasion.

Never said it would, but in 1972, it was airpower that kept the balance from
tipping irreparably towards the PAVN, and gave the GVN/ARVN the time to recover.

We had handed off to the RVN and let them carry their own ball--an
d they fumbled. By 1973 the RVN's air assets were none too shabby; lots of
F-5's, A-37's, A-1's, helo gunships, AC-47's, etc. That they did not
effectively use that force advantage in 1975 is their own responsibility
(though I admit I have always blamed Ford and the congress then in-power for
not having the gumption to launch an air campaign against the NVA--but as I
said, hindsight indicates that it would probably have not made a big
decisive difference).

While I have serious doubts that SVN could have pulled through on their own,
while we'd given them lots of stuff we had been steadily reducing the money we
gave them for ammo, spares, etc. In addition, as far as their air force goes,
we hadn't equipped them to operate in a SAM environment, and in 1975 even more
than in 1972, that's what they were facing. I disagree, though, about how
important a bombing capmaign might have been; it was decisive in stiffening SVN
resistance in 1972, and certainly would have boosted their morale in 1975.
whether that would have been enough given their other problems, we'll never
know.

snip

and the NVA had been for all intents and
purposes pushed out of RVN territory.

Nope, indeed that's why Thieu dragged his feet so much at signing the
accords,
_because_ large NVA forces were allowed to remain on the ground in SVN,
which he
knew would just serve as the launching pad for another invasion.

Yeah, they did have a chunk of Quang Tri province IIRC. Which is not saying
much--they had jumped off from those same general areas during the 72 Easter
offensive IIRC and got schlocked (and US airpower was not the sole reason
for their defeat).

They had a lot more than just part of Quang Tri province. They were also in
MR's II and IIRR III in force - one source estimates they had 160,000 troops in
SVN at the time of the accords.

Two years later things went to hell in
a handbasket rather quickly, courtesy of a massive conventional invasion
of
the RVN by the DRVN--but you think that constitutes a defeat for the US
military?

Kevin, at no time have I stated or implied that the U.S. military was
defeated;
that was the argument of others, which I don't subscribe to. They weren't
defeated, and indeed they couldn't be, which was explictly recognized by
that
PAVN Col. who was talking to Col. Harry G. Summers (that is who I've seen
the
anecdote that Paul J. Adam quoted, attributed to). OTOH, the U.S.
military was
equally unable to win. But, as the DRVN leadership recognized, they
didn't have
to defeat the U.S. military, they just had to not lose and make the price
higher
than the U.S.A. was willing to pay, which has been the strategy of many
weaker
powers -- it worked for us in the Revolutionary war.

I disagree. The US military could have won decisively, but at what ultimate
cost, and for what ultimate gain?

In the end it was better that the Viets
themselves determined the final outcome--and their northern brethren instead
reaped the whirlwind they had sown. Better them than us.

Which was exactly the conclusion that the US as a whole had reached -- the game
wasn't worth the candle. The point is that we could have reached that same
decision at any point from 1945 on, without the massive loss of life that ensued
in the following 30 years.




And they did. They lost every battle except the last one, and won the
war.

That would be the one that occured after we had turned over affairs to the
RVN a couple of years prior.

No, I was referring to the political battle they won against the US. They
repeatedly won battles against the ARVN over the years, although the ARVN was
certainly far better in 1972 than it had been in say 1966, and had won a few
battles of its own.


I don't think so. It was indeed a blow to the previous US foreign
policy objectives, but it was no defeat of US military power, which had
withstood the best the DRVN could hurl at them and ended up departing an
RVN
still controlled by its own sovereign government.

As the North Vietnamese realised, It wasn't a war of military against
military,
it was a war of country against country, and their country defeated ours.

No, they defeated the RVN. We had embarked upon Vietnamization in 1969, and
pulled pitch with our own forces in 72 for the most part (and no later than
early 73 in-toto).

Kevin, the DRVN defeated the US politically, before they defeated the GVN
militarily.

Whether we were defeated by default is irrelevant; that the U.S. did not
achieve
its aims in SVN, is while the DRVN government did, is obvious. That's a
defeat
for the U.S., and a win for the DRVN in my book.

We must read different books. :-)

I guess so. The DRVN leadership achieved all their initial major war aims, and
the US achieved essentially none of theirs. Sure sounds like a DRVN win and a
US loss to me.

Guy

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Ed Rasimus wrote:

On Mon, 14 Jun 2004 17:28:34 -0400, "George Z. Bush"
wrote:

You cite the 58,000 names on the Wall. The NVN lost (depending upon
your source) between one and three million. Since you like to only
use one source pick whichever one you want. That sort of loss ratio
doesn't imply a great victory.

Ed,, from http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html

"The Hanoi government revealed on April 4 [1995] that the true
civilian
casualties of
the Vietnam War were 2,000,000 in the north, and 2,000,000 in the
south.
Military
casualties were 1.1 million killed and 600,000 wounded in 21 years of
war.
These
figures were deliberately falsified during the war by the North
Vietnamese
Communists
to avoid demoralizing the population. "

A chart on the same page shows 1.1 million NVA/VC dead versus about
276,000 US/ARVN
and allied itroops in combat. So, we've got 3.1 million North
Vietnamese
killed
during the war, vs. 2.24 million south Vietnamese. The majority of
SVN
civilian
deaths would have been due to allied firepower, especially US. So
assuming
reasonably accurate numbers, the US and its allies killed somewhere
between 2 and 4
million civilians, plus the 1.1 million combatants. Were you claiming
the
deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a
great
triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was
repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that
matter).

"Especially US", eh? OK, let's look at that and assume you mean that the
US
only accounted for 50% of those 2 to 4 million civilian casualties you
want
to chalk up. If we take a nice round figure of major US war
participation as
being six years (not unrealistic, given truces, bombing halts, and the
like), you get 2190 days. Using that 50% figure, you would have to be
racking up between almost five hundred and one thousand civilian deaths
per
*day*, depending upon whether you use the low or high ranges for your
"data". Color me skeptical, but that sounds way too high--
one-point-five My
Lai massacres every day at a *minimum*. Did you just grab these figures
from
the air, or is your analysis that points to "especially US"
responsibility
just completely out of whack?

see my other replies to both you and Ed, but I'd say your calendar total
of days
is rather low. DRVN figures are for 21 years, i.e. from 1954 (Geneva) -
1975.
However, the U.S. provided the majority of the firepower in SE Asia,
dating from
sometime in the 1962-65 timeframe (exactly where you wish to start I leave
to
you) up through 1973. 'Especially U.S.' refers to the distribution of
firepower; the U.S. dwarfed everyone else in both availability and usage.

Nope. The major committment of US forces and their firepower did not begin
until 1965, and it most certainly did not extend "through 1973". Application
of US firepower ended in January 1973 with the ceasefire that accompanied
the final Paris peace talks. Go from mid-1965 (as we did not just snap our
fingers and *presto*, massive amounts of US firepower came instantly to bear
in 1965--the first major US offensive operation did not take place until
June of that year) to 1973 and you get some 2600 total possible days;
subtract out the various ceasefire periods, adjust for bombing halts, etc.,
and I don't think that roughly 2200 number is too bad.

I'd agree that mid-65 for large-scale commitment of US conventional ground
forces is correct, but as far as airpower goes, we were providing significant
amounts and ultimately the majority before 1965. Farm Gate was flying combat
missions in T-28s, B-26s and later A-1s from 1962 on, at a time when the SVNAF
was at a very early stage; since (officially) we weren't involved in combat,
only training or advising, SOP was to grab the first Vietnamese that walked by
the flightline, stick him in the back cockpit and tell him "Nguyen, you're now
in training" and then go bomb. The US had also introduced helo gunships (UH-1Bs
IIRR) by 1962 or 1963, at a time when the ARVN didn't have any, plus we were
providing the majority of the helo combat transport. Given the ARVN's hesitancy
in closing with the VC and actually engaging in infantry combat in the period
prior to the marines and 173rd's arrival, while we may not have made up the
majority of the _available_ firepower, I submit that we provided the majority of
the _effective_ firepower at some point in the 1962-1964 era (and not forgetting
the Tonkin Gulf retaliatory strikes, limited though they were). We were
certainly in combat during that time, although it was mainly air crews and
snakeaters. We were also _officially_ bombing Laos from 1964 on.

Now
consider the widespread use of free-fire and free-drop zones in SVN (until
largely phased out by Abrams, who considered them not only wasteful of
ammo but
also highly counterproductive in a counter-insurgency war). These were
areas
nominated by the GVN as not under government control, with anyone living
in the
area considered to be VC or at least a supporter, so the US (and other
allies)
were for instance, free to fire blind H&I artillery fire in any time they
chose,
anywhere they chose. Were there civilians killed on a regular basis?
Damned
right there were, but since the universal policy (judging by numerous
independent memoirs of those who were there) was that any dead Vietnamese
civilians killed by allied forces were pretty much automatically
classified as
VC or 'suspected VC', such dead didn't count as civilians. It's not as if
the
GVN showed any great concern for their rural citizens' welfare.

You are still counting beaucoup civilians per day using your math. And what
did the DRVN numbers have to say in regards to COSVN/VC casualties--were
they just rolled into the "civilian" total (I did not note a distinction for
them, and they were pretty high in the 65-68 timeframe, peaking with Tet and
then declining)?

No, they appear to be included in the PAVN/VC overall total of 1.1 million.

Now, do I _know_ how many civilians were killed by the US? Of course not,
but
having some idea how civilians die in wartime, and knowing that for the VC
to
kill large numbers of the very civilians who were needed to maintain them
would
be suicidal even if they had the ammunition or wish to do so, it isn't
rocket
science to figure that the US had to have been responsible for the
majority of
the civilian dead in SEA, directly or indirectly.

Oddly enough, it appears they did indeed resort to direct targeting of many
thousands of South Vietnamese civilians: "From 1957 to 1973 the National
Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 South Vietnamese and abducted 58,499.
Death squads focused on leaders that included schoolteachers and minor
officials."

www.vietnam-war.info/facts/

Sure, targetted killings of governemnt representatives, hostile village chiefs,
etc.

That, of course, does not include those civilians merely caught up in the
application of firepower by the VC/NVA side of the house--just the ones
specifically targeted for elimination of abduction.

Yup. And I suspect we agree that the majority of civilians killed by firepower
died purely as a side effect of firepower. That being the case, do you disagree
that the US and its allies had the majority of the firepower assets, and also
often employed it profligately? If so, then simple logic would seem to lead you
to the same conclusion that I've reached.

If you disagree, I'll be
happy to read your analysis of how the PAVN/VC were responsible for the
majority
of the deaths, given their lack of firepower and logistic problems.

My argument is with your blase acceptance of the Vietnamese claims,

Nothing blase' about it, I was using the figures that _Ed_ quoted, which agree
with the ones I've been able to find. I agree that at best these can only be
ballpark numbers, subject to numerous caveats.

and your
further assignment of the majority of the blame to the US,

For the reasons stated above, which AFAICT you also subscribe to.

ignoring the fact
that the DRVN was counting casualties from well before any significant, much
less major, US application of firepower,

Sure, and they were far less in that period.

overlooking the absence of a
category for the actual VC losses,

Damned hard to come by, I'd think, both because a guerrilla army's records are
apt to be a bit spotty, and because of the typical "any dead Vietnamese killed
by our side is assumed VC and recorded as such" (unless we get called on it,
which is pretty unlikely). After all, those killed at My Lai were so reported
initially, with hardly a question, even though it was obvious to the troops who
heard about it that the lack of captured weapons combined with the large body
count indicated that they were civilians. Which isn't to say that they probably
weren't supporters of the VC.

overlooking the fact that the DRVN
routinely sent civilians into harm's way (porters on the HCM Trail, repair
crews on same, etc.),

Sure, and they died because bombs don't discriminate. But we were the side with
the bombs, and the airplanes dropping them; the VC/PAVN didn't have them.

and accepting that we were slaughtering folks at a
truly prodigious, sustained rate that defies any similar US experience
before or since.

Considering that we were employing bombing at a truly prodigious sustained rate
that defies any similar US experience before or since, not to mention the
effects of malnutrition (in addition to the usual wartime causes we were
spraying herbicide on crops to prevent them from feeding the VC, which couldn't
have helped the growers who were also depending on that food) increasing
susceptibility to disease (in addition to the usual malaria, dysentery, typhus
cholera etc., attendant on most wars, did I mention the bubonic plague outbreak
in SVN?), I find the numbers reasonably credible. I recognize that they are
likely only 'accurate' within a very wide range of uncertainty, but consider the
conclusion that the US must have caused the majority of the civilian casualties
in the war, certainly those due to firepower, as a reasonable one and indeed the
only logical one.

Guy

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Sorry again for the delayed reply. My replies are likely to be delayed
for some
time.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Been busy this week, so apologies for the delayed reply.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..

snip

Your figures indicate we were killing off innocents at a
prodigious rate indeed-- one-point-five or more My Lai equivalents every
*day*? I don't think so.

Now here's a few examples of our mistakes which resulted in civilian
deaths:

"9 August 1966. Two USAF jets mistakenly attack the villages of Truong
Trung
and Truong Tay . . . 63 people are killed and nearly 100 wounded."

"27 September 1966. Two US Marine jets mistakenly bomb the village of Hom
Be,
five miles from Quang Ngai, killing at least 35 civilians."

"28-29 January 1967. During an operation against the Vietcong in the
Mekong
river delta, US helicopters accidentally kill 31 Vietnamese civilians and
wound
38. The civilians, apparently mistaken for Vietcong, were attacked as
they
crossed the bassac river in 200 sampans at 2345 in violation of a curfew."

"1 February 1967. US Marine artillery and planes accidentally hit a South
Vietnamese hamlet 12 miles southwest of Danang, killing eight civilians
and
wounding 18."

"2 March 1967. The village of Languei, 15 miles south of the DMZ, is
accidentally hit by bombs dropped by two US F-4C Phantom jets, killing at
least
83 civilians and wounding 176."

Now here's an example of civilians getting killed just because they
happened to
be in the way of the war, which I believe is the way the majority of
civilians,
north and south, were killed by US firepower.

"2 August 1967. Two US helicopters return[ing] fire against a group of
Vietcong
in a Mekong delta village near Phu Vinh, 60 miles south of Saigon, killed
40
South Vietnamese civilians and wounded 36."

Unfortuantely, those examples fall FAR short of the numbers you'd need to
have to make your total worl; remember, you need around 1.5 My Lais per DAY,
*every* day. Now, are you finally willing to admit that it a pretty darned
unrealistic figure you cited and attributed to US responsibility?


No one was targetting them specifically - they just got hit because they
happened to be there, and we and the ARVN used a lot of bombs and shells
on SVN
hamlets, villages, towns and cities, ignoring the small arms fire. Most
of the
time they would die in fairly small numbers, but this sort of thing was
going on
throughout SVN, every day. We can undoubtedly add to these numbers of
admitted
civilian dead, large numbers who were erroneously (either deliberately or
not)
recorded as VC or suspected VC; there were undoubtedly some incorrectly
recorded
the other way, but the numbers would have to be smalle, just by the law of
averages. Please note that I've only included South Vietnamese civilian
casualties, as numbers for those in the north are much more tenuous, and
public
wartime claims tend to be highly suspect on both sides. A January 1967
CIA
study estimated that up to that time, there had been 24,000 casualties
from
bombing in North Vietnam, 80% of whom were civilian.

Wow. 24K? How many more MILLIONS do you now need to come up with to make
your statement true?


Were you claiming the deaths of
civilians, those of both our allies and our enemies, represented a
great
triumph of
american arms, Ed? Killing civilians in a war is easy, as was
repeatedly
demonstrated in the 20th Century (and every other one, for that
matter).

I believe Ed was pointing to the fact that it would be difficult to
lable
the final outcome in 1975 (and the years following) as much of a
"victory"
for the North--and events since then point to his observation being
more
accurate than not.

Since they achieved their aims, at a cost that was grievously high but
one
they
were prepared to pay, they definitely won.

Guy, you know what was meant. They won what, a ticket to being one of
the
last communist failures in the world? A standard of living for the most
of
their populace that lags that of their neighbors? A country so great
that
thousands upon thousands were willing to risk dying trying to escape it?
What exactly did they "win"?

Pretty much exactly what the Soviet Union won in WW2, at a similar cost
and with
similar results. Again, do you think that Germany defeated the Soviet
Union in
WW2? Whether you or I think that the resulting country is a garden spot
or a
dirty armpit is irrelevant; the people calling the shots succeeded in what
they
were what they were trying to achieve. Granted, it's likely that it
won't last
another generation, but there's no guaranty of an unchanging result for
any
country/creed.

snip

The DRVN

achieved their
goals at a cost they were both willing and able to pay, i.e. they
won.
The US didn't
achieve its goals because we ultimately decided the cost was too
high
for
any benefit
we might get, i.e. we lost.

Only if you assume that the US had some sort of irrevocable
requirment
to
stay in the thick of the fight in perpetuity. When we decamped in
72-73,
the
RVN had the tools to perform their own security mission and we had
handed
that responsibility off to them,

With the promise that our airpower would bail them out if they got in
trouble,
yes, but we _as a country_ weren't prepared to keep that promise.

Come on, now--airpower alone would not have stemmed the tide of the 75
invasion.

Never said it would, but in 1972, it was airpower that kept the balance
from
tipping irreparably towards the PAVN, and gave the GVN/ARVN the time to
recover.

After which we left the ball in their hands--but you still chalk that up as
a loss for the US?


We had handed off to the RVN and let them carry their own ball--an
d they fumbled. By 1973 the RVN's air assets were none too shabby; lots
of
F-5's, A-37's, A-1's, helo gunships, AC-47's, etc. That they did not
effectively use that force advantage in 1975 is their own responsibility
(though I admit I have always blamed Ford and the congress then in-power
for
not having the gumption to launch an air campaign against the NVA--but
as I
said, hindsight indicates that it would probably have not made a big
decisive difference).

While I have serious doubts that SVN could have pulled through on their
own,
while we'd given them lots of stuff we had been steadily reducing the
money we
gave them for ammo, spares, etc. In addition, as far as their air force
goes,
we hadn't equipped them to operate in a SAM environment, and in 1975 even
more
than in 1972, that's what they were facing.

I don't think the serious SAM threat extended deep into RVN territory, even
in 1975.

I disagree, though, about how
important a bombing capmaign might have been; it was decisive in
stiffening SVN
resistance in 1972, and certainly would have boosted their morale in 1975.
whether that would have been enough given their other problems, we'll
never
know.

snip

and the NVA had been for all intents and
purposes pushed out of RVN territory.

Nope, indeed that's why Thieu dragged his feet so much at signing the
accords,
_because_ large NVA forces were allowed to remain on the ground in
SVN,
which he
knew would just serve as the launching pad for another invasion.

Yeah, they did have a chunk of Quang Tri province IIRC. Which is not
saying
much--they had jumped off from those same general areas during the 72
Easter
offensive IIRC and got schlocked (and US airpower was not the sole
reason
for their defeat).

They had a lot more than just part of Quang Tri province. They were also
in
MR's II and IIRR III in force - one source estimates they had 160,000
troops in
SVN at the time of the accords.

Most in Quang Tri, IIRC.


Two years later things went to hell in
a handbasket rather quickly, courtesy of a massive conventional
invasion
of
the RVN by the DRVN--but you think that constitutes a defeat for the
US
military?

Kevin, at no time have I stated or implied that the U.S. military was
defeated;
that was the argument of others, which I don't subscribe to. They
weren't
defeated, and indeed they couldn't be, which was explictly recognized
by
that
PAVN Col. who was talking to Col. Harry G. Summers (that is who I've
seen
the
anecdote that Paul J. Adam quoted, attributed to). OTOH, the U.S.
military was
equally unable to win. But, as the DRVN leadership recognized, they
didn't have
to defeat the U.S. military, they just had to not lose and make the
price
higher
than the U.S.A. was willing to pay, which has been the strategy of
many
weaker
powers -- it worked for us in the Revolutionary war.

I disagree. The US military could have won decisively, but at what
ultimate
cost, and for what ultimate gain?

In the end it was better that the Viets
themselves determined the final outcome--and their northern brethren
instead
reaped the whirlwind they had sown. Better them than us.

Which was exactly the conclusion that the US as a whole had reached -- the
game
wasn't worth the candle. The point is that we could have reached that
same
decision at any point from 1945 on, without the massive loss of life that
ensued
in the following 30 years.

I disagree, the "game was worth the candle", as you put it. But that does
not mean that *we* had to continue bearing the burden indefinitely.
Vietnamization was a rational outcome for our involvement, where we held the
tiger at bay until we had equipped and trained the RVN to defend itself. As
you noted earlier, it was the RVN's collective will that broke in the end,
and that break occurred some two years after we had decamped.





And they did. They lost every battle except the last one, and won the
war.

That would be the one that occured after we had turned over affairs to
the
RVN a couple of years prior.

No, I was referring to the political battle they won against the US. They
repeatedly won battles against the ARVN over the years, although the ARVN
was
certainly far better in 1972 than it had been in say 1966, and had won a
few
battles of its own.

So by your lights, the US was bound to have to stay indefinitely;
Vietnamization was not an acceptable solution. I disagree. The same can be
offered vis a vis Iraq; if we end up with a representative form of
government in Iraq by the time we finally pull pitch with our last troops
and hie out of there, and that government falls two years down the line to
some despot or faction, I don't count that as a loss for the US. At some
point we have to turn things back over to the locals and tell them, "Hey, it
is now YOUR responsibility to make what you will out of the opportunities
before you."



I don't think so. It was indeed a blow to the previous US foreign
policy objectives, but it was no defeat of US military power, which
had
withstood the best the DRVN could hurl at them and ended up
departing an
RVN
still controlled by its own sovereign government.

As the North Vietnamese realised, It wasn't a war of military against
military,
it was a war of country against country, and their country defeated
ours.

No, they defeated the RVN. We had embarked upon Vietnamization in 1969,
and
pulled pitch with our own forces in 72 for the most part (and no later
than
early 73 in-toto).

Kevin, the DRVN defeated the US politically, before they defeated the GVN
militarily.

There we disagree to some extent. The US can't garrison each and every
hotspot throught the world on an indefinite basis. Expecting it to do so is
rather shortsighted IMO.


Whether we were defeated by default is irrelevant; that the U.S. did
not
achieve
its aims in SVN, is while the DRVN government did, is obvious. That's
a
defeat
for the U.S., and a win for the DRVN in my book.

We must read different books. :-)

I guess so. The DRVN leadership achieved all their initial major war
aims, and
the US achieved essentially none of theirs. Sure sounds like a DRVN win
and a
US loss to me.

So you say. The rot was stopped before it spread further. We left there in
1973, having turned things over to the RVN, which then went tango-uniform
two years later. I don't really classify either of those conditions as being
indicative of a US "defeat".

Brooks


Guy

Well, I told you my replies were likely to be long delayed, and that's likely to
be the case for a while.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Sorry again for the delayed reply. My replies are likely to be delayed
for some
time.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..
Been busy this week, so apologies for the delayed reply.

Kevin Brooks wrote:

"Guy Alcala" wrote in message
. ..

snip

Your figures indicate we were killing off innocents at a
prodigious rate indeed-- one-point-five or more My Lai equivalents every
*day*? I don't think so.

Now here's a few examples of our mistakes which resulted in civilian
deaths:

snip examples

Now here's an example of civilians getting killed just because they
happened to
be in the way of the war, which I believe is the way the majority of
civilians,
north and south, were killed by US firepower.

"2 August 1967. Two US helicopters return[ing] fire against a group of
Vietcong
in a Mekong delta village near Phu Vinh, 60 miles south of Saigon, killed
40
South Vietnamese civilians and wounded 36."

Unfortuantely, those examples fall FAR short of the numbers you'd need to
have to make your total worl; remember, you need around 1.5 My Lais per DAY,
*every* day. Now, are you finally willing to admit that it a pretty darned
unrealistic figure you cited and attributed to US responsibility?

No, for the reasons I stated -- most civilian war casualties would happen during
combat, as a byproduct of that (rather than as pure mistakes such as the first
group I snipped above), and in SVN they would be reported as VC.

No one was targetting them specifically - they just got hit because they
happened to be there, and we and the ARVN used a lot of bombs and shells
on SVN
hamlets, villages, towns and cities, ignoring the small arms fire. Most
of the
time they would die in fairly small numbers, but this sort of thing was
going on
throughout SVN, every day. We can undoubtedly add to these numbers of
admitted
civilian dead, large numbers who were erroneously (either deliberately or
not)
recorded as VC or suspected VC; there were undoubtedly some incorrectly
recorded
the other way, but the numbers would have to be smalle, just by the law of
averages. Please note that I've only included South Vietnamese civilian
casualties, as numbers for those in the north are much more tenuous, and
public
wartime claims tend to be highly suspect on both sides. A January 1967
CIA
study estimated that up to that time, there had been 24,000 casualties
from
bombing in North Vietnam, 80% of whom were civilian.

Wow. 24K? How many more MILLIONS do you now need to come up with to make
your statement true?

I was using the CIA _estimate_ for its proportions, which are fairly typical for
civil/military losses while bombing cities, not its accuracy for the total
numbers. Mea culpa for not making that clear. CIA (and US military and other)
estimates are all over the map, and routinely wrong. The only people who _know_
what their losses were are the VC/PAVN and the DRVN government. One of the most
objective discussions I've found of the causes of civilian casualties in Vietnam
is in "America in Vietnam," by Guenter Lewy. Appendix I, "Civilian Casualties:
An Assessment" uses SVN hospital admission records, KIA claims of military
units, etc. He comments:

"The task of establishing accurate statistics on military casualties is a
formidable one in any war, and the difficulties are infinitely greater with
regard to civilian losses. there arise problems of classification, such as
whether to include casualties attributable to inadequate nourishment or disease
caused by war conditions or limit the count to casualties resulting from direct
military action [Guy note: I do include such casualties in my reasoning, and I
suspect the DRVN numbers released in 1995 do as well. Lewy doesn't] . . .
..[discusses totals of civilian war casualties admitted to US and SVN hospitals
during the 1965-74 period, totaling 475,488, mentions possibilities of
underreporting in some circumstances, and adds 20% to account for such, making
the new estimate approx. 570,600].

"If civilians were injured in large numbers, there must also have been many who
were killed outright. MACV required so-called backlash reports on the number of
civilians killed and wounded in a battle, but these reports were filed mostly
for special incidents such as when civilians were hit by short rounds or when a
military unit shot up an obviously friendly hamlet [Guy note: these would be the
type of 'accidents' that I snipped above]. In most cases villagers killed in
VC-dominated or contested areas were counted as enemy dead (see Chapter 3),
while others died without being counted. As the U.S. embassy put it in a
message to the State Department in March 1966: ' How can you determine whether
black-clad corpses found on a battelfield were VC or innocent civilians? (they
are inevitably counted as VC) . . . How do you learn whether anyone was inside
structures and sampans destroyed by the hundreds every day by air strikes,
artillery fire, and naval gunfire?'

He then goes on to show various number estimates and methodologies, showing how
widely they can and did vary. He debunks many of the wilder claims made by
anti-war activists as being almost wholly without proof, while providing both
his own estimate of civilian dead as a direct result of military action
(247,600) as well as that of the Kennedy Committee (430,000), which he believes
to be too high owing to an assumption in their methodology (i.e., that the
evacuation of SVN civilian casualties to hospitals was markedly poorer than
military evacuations).

Skipping ahead a bit, he writes:

"Who caused these civilian casualties? Critics of American military tactics in
Vietnam [Guy note: Which included General Abrams as well as myself] argued that
because of the allied superiority in heavy weapons, especially artillery and
planes, and becsause of the lavish use of this firepower the great majority of
CWC were caused by the allied side . . . Until 1971 the official U.S. position
was that there existed no reliable statistics on the causes of CWC. In December
1970 USAID learned that the Vietnamese Ministry of Health had been maintaining
such statistics since1967, and since a Newsweek reporter was on the verge of
discovering them, AID in January 1971 reported them to Senator Kennedy even
though they viewed them with reserve. According to MOH officials, they were
based on the appearance of the injury and the questioning of the patient and/or
his family. 'Both of these procedures . . . may be carried out by hospital
personnel below the physician level. This factor plus the obvious inability of
the wounded person to know exactly how he was wounded in many cases, casts real
doubt as to the validity of the figures. At most they might be used to show
broad trends.'

"CORDS chief Colby used these statistics in his appearance before the Kennedy
Committee in April 1971 (see table A-3). Injuries caused by mine and mortar
were attributed to the enemy, those by guns and grenades to either side, and
those by shelling and bombing to U.S. forces and RVNAF.

"Hence the broad trend appeared to indicate an increase in enemy-inflicted CWC
(from 35 to 58%) and a decrease in CWC caused by friendly forces (from 43 to
22%)."*

Here's the table, as follows: Year, Mine/Mortar number of casualties and %,
Gun/Grenade number and %, Shelling/bombing number and %, total casualties:

1967, 15,253, 35%. 9,785, 22%. 18,811, 43%. 43,849.

1968, 31,244, 42%. 15,107, 20%. 28,052, 38%. 74,403.

1969, 24,648, 47%. 11,814, 22%. 16,183, 31%. 52,645.

1970, 22,049, 58%, 7,650, 20%. 8,607, 22%. 38,306.

*There's a problem with his conclusion here, as it ignores the effect of Abrams
limiting the use of artillery and airpower from the time he took charge, because
he considered it caused too many civilian casualties. By itself this change
would imply a greater percentage of friendly CWC in the second category versus
the 3rd.

There's much more, but you can see it's a complex subject, and anything other
than broad stroke accuracy is impossible to achieve.

snip much back and forth on the same theme as below

The DRVN

achieved their
goals at a cost they were both willing and able to pay, i.e. they
won.
The US didn't
achieve its goals because we ultimately decided the cost was too
high
for
any benefit
we might get, i.e. we lost.

Only if you assume that the US had some sort of irrevocable
requirment
to
stay in the thick of the fight in perpetuity. When we decamped in
72-73,
the
RVN had the tools to perform their own security mission and we had
handed
that responsibility off to them,

With the promise that our airpower would bail them out if they got in
trouble,
yes, but we _as a country_ weren't prepared to keep that promise.

Come on, now--airpower alone would not have stemmed the tide of the 75
invasion.

Never said it would, but in 1972, it was airpower that kept the balance
from
tipping irreparably towards the PAVN, and gave the GVN/ARVN the time to
recover.

After which we left the ball in their hands--but you still chalk that up as
a loss for the US?

One of the prime objectives of our effort in Vietnam was to ensure the survival
of a viable, stable, independent, preferably democratic but at least
non-communist SVN which was able to defend _itself_ from internal and external
threats. Since we failed to accomplish that or any other of the major goals we
set for ourselves going in, while the DRVN did accomplish all its goals (a
unified Vietnam governed by the Lao Dong party, with no foreign countries
involved in governance), then damned right we lost.

We had handed off to the RVN and let them carry their own ball--an
d they fumbled. By 1973 the RVN's air assets were none too shabby; lots
of
F-5's, A-37's, A-1's, helo gunships, AC-47's, etc. That they did not
effectively use that force advantage in 1975 is their own responsibility
(though I admit I have always blamed Ford and the congress then in-power
for
not having the gumption to launch an air campaign against the NVA--but
as I
said, hindsight indicates that it would probably have not made a big
decisive difference).

While I have serious doubts that SVN could have pulled through on their
own,
while we'd given them lots of stuff we had been steadily reducing the
money we
gave them for ammo, spares, etc. In addition, as far as their air force
goes,
we hadn't equipped them to operate in a SAM environment, and in 1975 even
more
than in 1972, that's what they were facing.

I don't think the serious SAM threat extended deep into RVN territory, even
in 1975.

There were SA-2s at Khe Sanh and in the Dong Ha region from 1973 or so, but I
was mainly referring to the SA-7s. IIRR the A-1s had been retired, but the
SA-7s plus the huge increase in AAA (the PAVN had brought down an AA _Division_
into SVN) seriously impacted the VNAF's effectiveness. Only the F-5 could be
described as a fast mover, while the A-37s, Puffs and helo gunships were forced
up to much higher altitudes above SA-7 and effective AAA range, as were the
FACs. We had equipped them to operate in a permissive environment, but SVN no
longer was one. This increase in AD also seriously affected the ARVN's
mobility, as the use of airmobility was much curtailed -- they had far fewer
helos than we did to start with, with poorer maintenance and logistics, and they
also lacked the other firepower. In 1972, the US had the ability to deal with
AD weapons by using standoff capability, Fast Facs, SEAD etc. In the 1972-1975
period the VNAF didn't. For further detail on the VNAF's deficiencies in the
1972-75 period I refer you to Volume III of the USAF Southeast Asia Monograph
series, "The Vietnamese Air Force, 1951-1975, An Analysis of its Role in
Combat."


I disagree, though, about how

important a bombing capmaign might have been; it was decisive in
stiffening SVN
resistance in 1972, and certainly would have boosted their morale in 1975.
whether that would have been enough given their other problems, we'll
never
know.

snip

and the NVA had been for all intents and
purposes pushed out of RVN territory.

Nope, indeed that's why Thieu dragged his feet so much at signing the
accords,
_because_ large NVA forces were allowed to remain on the ground in
SVN,
which he
knew would just serve as the launching pad for another invasion.

Yeah, they did have a chunk of Quang Tri province IIRC. Which is not
saying
much--they had jumped off from those same general areas during the 72
Easter
offensive IIRC and got schlocked (and US airpower was not the sole
reason
for their defeat).

They had a lot more than just part of Quang Tri province. They were also
in
MR's II and IIRR III in force - one source estimates they had 160,000
troops in
SVN at the time of the accords.

Most in Quang Tri, IIRC.

They still held Loc Ninh in MR III, 75 miles or so from Saigon, and by 1974 had
extended the fuel pipeline that had previously terminated in the A Shau valley
(in MR I) down that far. And they launched their initial assault in 1975
towards Ban Me Thuot in MR II from their positions there, to cut the country in
half across Route 19 (something that they'd planned to do in 1965, only to be
stopped by the First Cav in the Ia Drang). Once Ban Me Thuot fell, they swung
towards Pleiku and Kontum.
Just to give an idea of the effect the lack of US air interdiction post 1972 had
on the quantities of supplies the PAVN could move south, here's a quote from a
PAVN history:

"The quantity of supplies transported along the strategic transportation
corridor [The Ho Chi Minh Trail et al] from the beginning of 1974 until the end
of April 1975 was 823,146 tons, _1.6 times as much as the total transported
during the previous thirteen years_" (emphasis added). Further:

"Compared with 1972, the quantity of supplies was nine times as high, including
six times as high in weapons and ammunition, three times the quantity of rice,
and twenty-seven times the quantity of fuel and petroleum products." Which
gives an idea of just how overwhelmed the SVNAF was when on their own in 1975
compared to 1972, when the US had been responsible for interdicting this.

snip

OTOH, the U.S.
military was
equally unable to win. But, as the DRVN leadership recognized, they
didn't have
to defeat the U.S. military, they just had to not lose and make the
price
higher
than the U.S.A. was willing to pay, which has been the strategy of
many
weaker
powers -- it worked for us in the Revolutionary war.

I disagree. The US military could have won decisively, but at what
ultimate
cost, and for what ultimate gain?

In the end it was better that the Viets
themselves determined the final outcome--and their northern brethren
instead
reaped the whirlwind they had sown. Better them than us.

Which was exactly the conclusion that the US as a whole had reached -- the
game
wasn't worth the candle. The point is that we could have reached that
same
decision at any point from 1945 on, without the massive loss of life that
ensued
in the following 30 years.

I disagree, the "game was worth the candle", as you put it.

Not to the US people or government by 1973, it wasn't, which is why we got out
and then proceeded to make it impossible to resume bombing or any other US
combat activity in sEA effective August 15th, 1973, and why the Congress refused
to provide the requested levels of ammo and other types of support in the
1973-75 period. The attitude among many Americans (myself included) at the time
SVN was collapsing and the executive branch was trying to get Congress to
provide emergency funding, was either "good riddance to bad rubbish,' or the
somewhat less harsh but effectively equivalent "let's not throw more good money
down the toilet." Even among the majority like myself who had little patience
for the antics of the anti-war activists, when Saigon fell there was almost a
sense of relief, of the "at least it's over and done with" variety.

But that does
not mean that *we* had to continue bearing the burden indefinitely.
Vietnamization was a rational outcome for our involvement, where we held the
tiger at bay until we had equipped and trained the RVN to defend itself. As
you noted earlier, it was the RVN's collective will that broke in the end,
and that break occurred some two years after we had decamped.

Among our primary strategic objectives was to see the GVN established as a
viable state which could defend itself, in short another Korea; we clearly
failed in that endeavor (or any other of the major objectives we'd set for
ourselves when we entered the war or while we were actively engaged in fighting
it). That's a loss in my book.

And they did. They lost every battle except the last one, and won the
war.

That would be the one that occured after we had turned over affairs to
the
RVN a couple of years prior.

No, I was referring to the political battle they won against the US. They
repeatedly won battles against the ARVN over the years, although the ARVN
was
certainly far better in 1972 than it had been in say 1966, and had won a
few
battles of its own.

So by your lights, the US was bound to have to stay indefinitely;
Vietnamization was not an acceptable solution. I disagree.

So do I, since I don't hold that view. Vietnamization was an entirely
acceptable solution, indeed it was the only solution throughout the war, and our
diversion into trying to win the war ourselves during the Westmoreland "war of
the big battalions" was a big mistake. Indeed, Vietnamization is something of a
misnomer, and pretty insulting to the South Vietnamese who'd been fighting from
1956 on, and took far more casaulties than we did. There's no question, though,
that we needed to turn the war back over to them, having done everything we
could to assure ourselves first that they could survive on their own. We knew
that we failed to do that from the esperience of 1972, but Nixon figured
thathe'd be able to restart bombing if the DRVN violated the accords. But that
would have been a political impossibility, even without Watergate.

The same can be
offered vis a vis Iraq; if we end up with a representative form of
government in Iraq by the time we finally pull pitch with our last troops
and hie out of there, and that government falls two years down the line to
some despot or faction, I don't count that as a loss for the US.

It's certainly a failure of US policy, if one of the primary reasons you entered
the war was to help establish a government so that such a thing can't happen.

At some
point we have to turn things back over to the locals and tell them, "Hey, it
is now YOUR responsibility to make what you will out of the opportunities
before you."

Sure, but we also bear the responsibility, having broken the dish in the first
place, to take reasonable steps to put it back in working order until a new,
better version can evolve. We didn't do that in 1973. If we were going to do
that, and it was specifically stated as our ultimate goal in Vietnam from 1954
on. then we should have devoted far more attention to it than we did, or else
decide that we couldn't achieve it, and stay out.

snip

No, they defeated the RVN. We had embarked upon Vietnamization in 1969,
and
pulled pitch with our own forces in 72 for the most part (and no later
than
early 73 in-toto).

Kevin, the DRVN defeated the US politically, before they defeated the GVN
militarily.

There we disagree to some extent. The US can't garrison each and every
hotspot throught the world on an indefinite basis. Expecting it to do so is
rather shortsighted IMO.

Since I've never said that we should, we have no disagreement. If I were to
employ hindsight to Vietnam, assuming we had gone in in 1965 as we historically
did, then to give SVNthe best possible chance to become viable and defend itself
we should have devoted far more attention to pacification, training, leadership
development, law reform etc. from 1966 (things were too chaotic in 1965, we had
to go in then just to prevent the whole house of cards from collapsing), instead
of waiting until 1969 and then trying to do it at a rate that was impossible.

Whether we were defeated by default is irrelevant; that the U.S. did
not
achieve
its aims in SVN, is while the DRVN government did, is obvious. That's
a
defeat
for the U.S., and a win for the DRVN in my book.

We must read different books. :-)

I guess so. The DRVN leadership achieved all their initial major war
aims, and
the US achieved essentially none of theirs. Sure sounds like a DRVN win
and a
US loss to me.

So you say. The rot was stopped before it spread further. We left there in
1973, having turned things over to the RVN, which then went tango-uniform
two years later. I don't really classify either of those conditions as being
indicative of a US "defeat".

Kevin, what U.S. major policy objectives which we set out to achieve in Vietnam
did we achieve? I believe the answer is 'none'. One of our primary objectives
was to prevent the DRVN from achieving _their_ primary objective, the
unification of Vietnam under DRVN control. Their primary objective was in
direct conflict with ours, they succeeded, and we failed. You don't consider
that a defeat for U.S. policy?


Brooks


Guy