Jane Fonda regrets her visit to a North Vietnamese gun site in 1972

[Richardols]

Franze:

To all, do you think that the Vietnam war was good or bad, and why?

Bad. It was a losing proposition from the start IMO. Even Secretary of Defense McNamara said in retrospect that we should have pulled out as early as 1963.

 

[Lance]

Richardols:

Kennedy’s focus was on Laos where he believed the war would be fought. And he send none but small teams of advisors there.

It was Johnson’s War because he is the one who expanded our involvement there.

I don’t think my battalion of engineers was a small team but then you and I don’t agree on anything.

 

[Richardols]

Lance:

I don’t think my battalion of engineers was a small team but then you and I don’t agree on anything.

Thanks for the information. I didn’t know that a unit that large was ever sent to Laos.

 

[Lance]

Richardols:

Thanks for the information. I didn’t know that a unit that large was ever sent to Laos.

We were not in Laos. We went to Nam in 1961 as advisors.

 

[JKirkLVNV]

Jane: We forgive you. It doesn’t alter the fact that as far as the overwhelming majority of Americans are concerned, you’re irrelevant, but we do forgive you. John

 

[Richardols]

Lance:

We were not in Laos. We went to Nam in 1961 as advisors.

Sounds right for Nam. I was pretty sure that only smaller units went to Laos.

 

[JimG]

Richardols:

You’re right on all counts except “the slaughter of millions.” The numbers were nowhere so high.

I can’t put my hand on exact numbers at the moment. According to the Michael Lind book, the Vietnamese lost about 2 million on both sides during the war. Ho Chi Minh had no qualms about throwing large numbers of NVA soldiers into the war effort–they were all expendable. Before the war, forced collectivization in the north caused thousands of other deaths. After the war, 2 million fled South Vietnam, thousands of those remaining were executed or sent to ‘re-education camps.’ In Cambodia, we commonly refer to the outcome of the Kmer Rouge regime as ‘genocide,’ but it is estimated that ‘only’ about ten to 100 thousand were directly killed by the regime. Many thousands more starved as a result of the regime’s disastrous economic collectivization policies, in their attempt to model Mao’s failed “great leap forward.”.

I don’t argue that the war was prosecuted without mistakes. But I do argue that abandoning the war effort was an abandonment of our friends and ensured a much worse outcome for all the people of Southeast Asia.

 

[Richardols]

JimG:

I can’t put my hand on exact numbers at the moment. According to the Michael Lind book, the Vietnamese lost about 2 million on both sides during the war. Ho Chi Minh had no qualms about throwing large numbers of NVA soldiers into the war effort–they were all expendable. Before the war, forced collectivization in the north caused thousands of other deaths. After the war, 2 million fled South Vietnam, thousands of those remaining were executed or sent to ‘re-education camps.’ In Cambodia, we commonly refer to the outcome of the Kmer Rouge regime as ‘genocide,’ but it is estimated that ‘only’ about ten to 100 thousand were directly killed by the regime. Many thousands more starved as a result of the regime’s disastrous economic collectivization policies, in their attempt to model Mao’s failed “great leap forward.”.

I have no qualms about accepting your numbers or history account.

But I do argue that abandoning the war effort was an abandonment of our friends and ensured a much worse outcome for all the people of Southeast Asia.

Okay as your argument, but there’s also no argument that all America was fed up with the war well before it ended, and I don’t mean just the Leftists. I can’t see how any President could have continued the war without risking impeachment by the early 70s.

 

[JimG]

Richardols:

America was fed up with the war well before it ended, and I don’t mean just the Leftists. I can’t see how any President could have continued the war without risking impeachment by the early 70s.

I think you are right about that. It shows both the success of the North Vietnamese strategy to influence American public opinion, as well as the global dangers of America’s perennial isolationism.