Viet Nam.. What is your opinion?

[grandfather]

Lincoln was most certainly an abolitionist, but he had to play the politics of the time.

If you read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, “A Team of Rivals,” she presents parts of the draft that Lincoln wrote for his inauguration speech, and how he included words calling for the end of slavery. That speech however, was edited by his staff, and he was advised not to include anti-slavery in his speech. She also presents much evidence on how much Lincoln loathed slavery.

Jim

Isn’t it interesting how there are different versions of history? It should be about events that happened, objective historical facts. Yet it is colored. It has a strange way of being colored, depending on who has the crayons. Individuals adopt the version that most appeals to their biases.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Isn’t it interesting how there are different versions of history? It should be about events that happened, objective historical facts. Yet it is colored. It has a strange way of being colored, depending on who has the crayons. Individuals adopt the version that most appeals to their biases.

I don’t think there are different versions of history on this subject, and there are the few southern apologist, and even some African American activist, who over the past 25 years, attempted to down play Lincoln’s goal to end slavery. But the written documents, letters and congressional records support history as we were taught, that Lincoln indeed brought an end to slavery.

Credible historians leave bias out of their research, and Doris Kearns Goodwin, a professor of history at Harvard University, is credible.

We learn more about history as new artifacts and documents are found and, when it comes to the issue of slavery, have no doubt about it, Lincoln, detested slavery and made every attempt to end it through the political means of the day.

Those who have attempted to rewrite this version of history over the past 25 years, aren’t even historians, but political activist with an agenda of their own.

Jim

 

[grandfather]

Those who have attempted to rewrite this version of history over the past 25 years, aren’t even historians, but political activist with an agenda of their own.

I meant history in general. The Vietnam war was controversial. As it was happening there were two versions, so historians trying to maintain the facade of objectivity present one side or the other. After WWII every Jew on the planet thanked Pius XII for his help. Today he is an object of scorn and complicit with Hitler.

When I grew up I was taught about an ideal of objectivity that was supposed to govern reporting of the news. It is pure fiction and pretty much everyone admits it. So not only do we get a skewed view of history, but we don’t even have an objective view of the present. There were polls of a few years ago where over 70% of Americans said they thought the media did harm, was a negative influence on the country. Getting at the truth is more and more difficult. Political figures are viewed extremely negatively. The trust that holds together the social fabric is gone. The banking and finance scandals have caused more distrust and anxiety.

Where does anyone think this is headed?

 

[JimG]

I meant history in general. The Vietnam war was controversial. As it was happening there were two versions, so historians trying to maintain the facade of objectivity present one side or the other.

Yes, there have always been two versions. But the generation of generally leftist journalists and academics who began to assume power in the 1960’s held the controlling version for most of the past decades.

The American defeat in Vietnam was mainly a result of a defeat in the war for U.S. public opinion—a war which was pursued just as vigorously by North Vietnam and its allies, China and the USSR as the war on the ground. But the groundwork for the perception of American weakness had been laid much earlier.

A few quotes:

“The United States fought the war in Vietnam because of geopolitics, and forfeited the war because of domestic politics.”

“America cannot defeat little Korea,” Stalin remarked to Zhou Enlai… “No, Americans don’t know how to fight. …They are fighting little Korea, and already people are weeping in the USA. What will happen if they start a large scale war? Then perhaps everyone will weep.”

“U.S. public opinion, then, was a key factor both in the disastrous outcome in Vietnam and the successful outcome of the Cold War.”

“The Vietnamese people as a whole were losers. The loss of around two million Vietnamese on both sides, and the devastation of much of the landscape, was followed by extension of the brutal and irrational Stalinist system of North Vietnam throughout the entire country in 1975. All Vietnamese suffered from the communist victory—those who stayed, and the nearly two million who fled. The Laotian people suffered similarly. The greatest agony befell the Cambodian people, who endured mass murder and large scale starvation under the rule of Cambodian communists.”

All quotes are from the book Vietnam The Necessary War, by Michael Lind.

 

[wjb67]

i admit i don’t know as much about the Vietnamese war as i would like… but in light of what i have heard/read… it occurs to me that we could have won that war and that we should have kept trying…

I feel that the war was stopped because of pressure by war demonstrators, who, frankly, probably didn’t know much about the whole issue: the evils of Communism, how awful it is to live under that kind of rule… etc,

I hate war as much as anyone… but i feel that if an evil dictator is trying to take over a country and force its evil designs on them… (Communists don’t seem to have much respect for human life, much less human freedom…) and also when this form of government is spreading… and could become a greater threat to US… then something should be done…

Again, i admit i don’t know as much as others do on this subject… which is why i am asking… I would particularly like to hear from those who have BEEn there…

The key thing to remember about the Vietnam War is what happened after the Americans left in 1974.
More people were abjectly slaughtered all across South East Asia in the first year after the war “ended” than had been killed in the previous 14 years of military operations.
nearly 1.7 million people killed in Vietnam
nearly 3.5 million people killed in Cambodia (fully 1/8th of the total population)
hundreds of thousands were killed in Laos
All at the hands of of their communist “liberators”. The slaughter was so horrific that people were fleeing by boat into the South China sea in anything that would float…facing sharks, dehydrations, starvation, storms, etc… rather than continue to survive under the communists. Not to mention the continuous border clashes between China and Vietnam and Cambodia and Vietnam that kept the warfare going and going well after the was “ended”.
This killing is exactly what the U.S. miltary operation was intended to stop. It was called the “Domino Effect”…the idea was that if Vietnam fell the other South East Asian countries woud fall to communists one right after the other. That is exactly what happend. The problem is that the people who opposed the U.S. action in Vietnam denied that any of this slaughter would happen…and were directly and actively involved in helping the U.S. lose the war and retreat from Vietnam. The American left as well as the Soviet Bloc helped ensure America’s defeat and are complicit in the mega-deaths that occurred there after 1974.
The problem is in the details though…because aside from the abvious and noble intentions of the U.S. (that is stopping the spread of atheist communism), there was much corruption throughout South Vietnam, as well as an unwillingness of many South Vietnamese to fight for their own country because of the corrupt leaders who were in place. Bascially Johnson got us stuck in a bad situation where there was no easy way out.
You are correct is saying that the protestors helped bring the war to an end…but they knew EXACTLY what was going on and for the most part they wanted a “progressive” socialist government in place in South East Asia…and that’s exactly what they got with all the horror and death that goes along with it. These people were at war with their own government and country…they sought an end to US democracy, free market economies, and the role the US had in opposing the Soviets (what the protestors would have called “US Imperialism”).

 

[onetimeposter]

i admit i don’t know as much about the Vietnamese war as i would like… but in light of what i have heard/read… it occurs to me that we could have won that war and that we should have kept trying…

You make it seem like the Vietnam Conflict was a football game, and if the Americans had just shown some grit, they could’ve won the football game!

Let’s put this into perspective.

Close to 60,000 Americans died in this conflict.

It is estimated that 223,748 ARVN died ( South Vietnamese soldiers)

It is estimated that 1.1 million North Vietnamese were killed.

So you have close to 1.3 million people killed over the duration of the conflict and what was accomplished? (other than families losing their loved ones)

How many more Americans and Vietnamese would have to die if America had kept trying?

No, America could not have won this conflict, short of using Nuclear Arms.

 

[Ridgerunner]

It would be interesting to know what effect the VN war had, if any, on the ultimate demise of the Soviet Union. The Soviets put a lot of rersources into it; arms of all sorts, oil, supplies of every kind, shipping to deliver it.

I am sure that’s not the onlly economic hemorrhage that led to its economic collapse, but it certainly cost them. Perhaps someone has already researched that, but if no one has, someone should.

 

[Al_Masetti]

The key thing to remember about the Vietnam War is what happened after the Americans left in 1974.
More people were abjectly slaughtered all across South East Asia in the first year after the war “ended” than had been killed in the previous 14 years of military operations.

nearly 1.7 million people killed in Vietnam

nearly 3.5 million people killed in Cambodia (fully 1/8th of the total population)

hundreds of thousands were killed in Laos

All at the hands of of their communist “liberators”. The slaughter was so horrific that people were fleeing by boat into the South China sea in anything that would float…facing sharks, dehydrations, starvation, storms, etc… rather than continue to survive under the communists. Not to mention the continuous border clashes between China and Vietnam and Cambodia and Vietnam that kept the warfare going and going well after the was “ended”.

This killing is exactly what the U.S. miltary operation was intended to stop. It was called the “Domino Effect”…the idea was that if Vietnam fell the other South East Asian countries woud fall to communists one right after the other. That is exactly what happend. The problem is that the people who opposed the U.S. action in Vietnam denied that any of this slaughter would happen…and were directly and actively involved in helping the U.S. lose the war and retreat from Vietnam. The American left as well as the Soviet Bloc helped ensure America’s defeat and are complicit in the mega-deaths that occurred there after 1974.

The problem is in the details though…because aside from the abvious and noble intentions of the U.S. (that is stopping the spread of atheist communism), there was much corruption throughout South Vietnam, as well as an unwillingness of many South Vietnamese to fight for their own country because of the corrupt leaders who were in place. Bascially Johnson got us stuck in a bad situation where there was no easy way out.

You are correct is saying that the protestors helped bring the war to an end…but they knew EXACTLY what was going on and for the most part they wanted a “progressive” socialist government in place in South East Asia…and that’s exactly what they got with all the horror and death that goes along with it.

These people were at war with their own government and country…they sought an end to US democracy, free market economies, and the role the US had in opposing the Soviets (what the protestors would have called “US Imperialism”).

I added some white space to make this previous post easier to read.

This post is essential because it states what happens when you stop the war.

Hundreds of thousands died in the war and millions died after the U.S. pulled out.

Another poster asked “How many more Americans and Vietnamese would have to die if America had kept trying?”

And the obvious answer is this: “Millions FEWER people would have died if the United States had continued the fight”.

The true issue is that the United States refused to win. The idea of winning was never part of the American strategy. Robert McNamara and Lyndon Johnson were essentially playing a “potlach” game, in which posturing and logic were thought to be sufficient to convince the enemy to quit the fight.

The U.S. military knew how to win, but American military force was frittered away by bombing worthless targets over and over (making the rubble bounce), and by refusing to allow the military to attack worthwhile targets (North Vietnamese ports were not mined until the very end; the ports should have been blocked at the beginning; sanctuaries were allowed to be used by the North Vietnamese and the Soviets; rules of engagement protected airfields, aircraft and other useful enemy combatant assets; and, false ideas of neutrality allowed enemy sanctuary.)

Just as a few examples.

Basically, the United States convinced the Communists and all of its other enemies that the U.S. was AFRAID to win … that somehow, winning was poor sportsmanship and that the whole concept of winning was, in some way, bad.

And the idea that losing was ok permeated U.S. policy ever afterwards. During the Carter years, 11 countries went Communist without a single peep out of the Americans.

Reagan made victory a viable strategy … Read “Victory” by Peter Schweizer.

amazon.com/Victory-Administrations-Strategy-Hastened-Collapse/dp/0871136333

But during the Bill Clinton presidency, continuous attacks on the United States by certain militants that I dare not name here, convinced them that once again, the United States would do nothing. And that weakness led directly to the attacks of September 11, 2001.

 

[SCALCO]

You make it seem like the Vietnam Conflict was a football game, and if the Americans had just shown some grit, they could’ve won the football game!

Let’s put this into perspective.

Close to 60,000 Americans died in this conflict.

It is estimated that 223,748 ARVN died ( South Vietnamese soldiers)

It is estimated that 1.1 million North Vietnamese were killed.

So you have close to 1.3 million people killed over the duration of the conflict and what was accomplished? (other than families losing their loved ones)

How many more Americans and Vietnamese would have to die if America had kept trying?

No, America could not have won this conflict, short of using Nuclear Arms.

I was just about to respond when I saw Al Maseti’s post that sort of sums up some of what I was thinking. The millions of lives lost after we left far exceeded the number of lives lost during the war. We paid an extremely high price in losing. I think we are still paying and will continue to pay for many years to come. I believe it was worth fighting for.

If we HAD won in VN…hmm…yes, I think we could have won without using nuclear arms. That would have been a huge mistake.

If we had won, would we have another Japan or South Korea today? I imagine that we would have. At least we would have a much stronger VN and another model of democracy and freedom in Asia.

We have to be careful with the “what if’s”, but I strongly believe VN, the U.S. and the world would have gained so much more if we had won.

 

[Al_Masetti]

I can see where you come from. But arguably a more important measure is The Human Development Index (HDI). …"a comparative measure of life expectancy, literacy, education, and standards of living for countries worldwide. It is a standard means of measuring well-being, especially child welfare.

The scandinavian countries (and more socialist leaning countries -strong arbeidepartie/labor party/unions etc) have always been high on this index.

The scandinavian model is a special mix of socialism and a free market economy. It seems to work, and many of the newer EU contries such look to this model. ’

But this passage from the Economist sums it up:

The Nordic region …] has the world’s highest taxes and most generous welfare benefits. And yet Sweden, Finland and Denmark (Norway’s oil sets it apart) have delivered strong growth and low unemployment, and rank among the world’s most competitive economies. Nordic companies are strong in technology and research and development. Their health-care and educational systems are much admired. And, unlike other European countries, most Nordic states run healthy budget and current-account surpluses. Sweden, whose 9m people make it by some way the biggest Nordic country, is a particular favourite. A year ago the Guardian, a British newspaper, said it was the most successful society the world had ever known.”
The Economist (2006)

This was not your original argument … In fact, you even called my statement … the Scandavian and other socialist countries are, in fact, lagging … “rubbish” … your word.

The data are very clear that these socialist paradises are not as economically successful as the assertions state. A subjective comment that Sweden is the most successful society does not successfully contradict the actual data.

Now, the argument has been shifted to some “human development index”. Originally, the argument was that the economics were superior.

But, perhaps someone could provide some back-up for the “human development index”.

I did find this:

data360.org/graph_group.aspx?Graph_Group_Id=357

All of the countries on the chart are closely clustered.

But among the high ranking countries are Croatia and Bahrain.

So, the HDI sounds a little “squishy”.

There are a lot of indexes that evaluate and rank countries.

For example, there is the Freedom House index. Croatia is not top ranked on the Freedom House list:

infoplease.com/ipa/A0930918.html

Sweden is ranked highly, but then so are a lot of other countries.

One of the google searches said Sweden has eight million people. Which makes it sort of like a medium sized city.

But then I found this;

hdrstats.undp.org/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_SWE.html

So the more criteria that are added in to the mix, the lower that Sweden scores.

Hmmmmm.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Got timed out, but here is some birth-rate data that is relevant:

In Europe 2.1 children per woman is considered to be the population replacement level. These are national averages:

Ireland: 1.99
France: 1.90
Norway: 1.81
Sweden 1.75
UK: 1.74
Netherlands: 1.73
Germany: 1.37
Italy: 1.33
Spain: 1.32
Greece: 1.29

Source: Eurostat - 2004 figures

The more you look at the data, the more “squishy” the advantages of socialist paradises seem to be.

For example, according to the BEA (see bea.gov/regional /gsp/), the 2006 capita GDP in Louisiana was $34,702 (in 2000 dollars) while according to the BLS (see ftp://ftp.bls.gov /pub/special.requests/ ForeignLabor/flsgdp.txt) that of Sweden for the same year was $31,621 (in 2002 dollars – so in fact the disparity is even greater).

Hmmmm doesn’t look too good does it … when a socialist paradise can’t even compete with a state comprised largely of post-Katrina swamps?

 

[wjb67]

I would disagree with this. Over 50,000 Americans lost their lives, as well as millions of Vietnamese.

The transformation of Vietnam into an open democracy will take time, but its better to achieve the goal through peaceful means, not war.

The Vietnam war was a horrible war.

Jim

so you would advocate the “long way around” that involved the slaughter of MILLIONS of people and the abject misery and poverty of the past 40 years in Vietnam under communist rule?

 

[wjb67]

You make it seem like the Vietnam Conflict was a football game, and if the Americans had just shown some grit, they could’ve won the football game!

Let’s put this into perspective.

Close to 60,000 Americans died in this conflict.

It is estimated that 223,748 ARVN died ( South Vietnamese soldiers)

It is estimated that 1.1 million North Vietnamese were killed.

So you have close to 1.3 million people killed over the duration of the conflict and what was accomplished? (other than families losing their loved ones)

How many more Americans and Vietnamese would have to die if America had kept trying?

No, America could not have won this conflict, short of using Nuclear Arms.

Wrong. America could have won the war and won it in far less than 14 years. Nuclear Arms would never have been an issue.

Again…1.3 million people (in your estimate…I find your numbers impossibly inflated) killed across the span of 14 or so years. In less than two years after America left and North Vietnam invaded the South and the Khmer Rouge invaded lower Cambodia how many people were killed? 6-7 million?

 

[Ed_Rand]

so you would advocate the “long way around” that involved the slaughter of MILLIONS of people and the abject misery and poverty of the past 40 years in Vietnam under communist rule?

The slaughter came through war. Jim is advocating the opposite. To say that all the casualties of war were caused by Communism is to ignore history. The US attacked Vietnam and greatly increasd the death and destruction in that whole region. You cannot blame it all on the Communist forces (who were supported by the majority of Vietnamese, btw).

 

[onetimeposter]

Another poster asked “How many more Americans and Vietnamese would have to die if America had kept trying?”

And the obvious answer is this: “Millions FEWER people would have died if the United States had continued the fight”.

Then the ultimate question.

Would you have volunteered your own children to fight for the cause as an infantry soldier in Vietnam after 1974?

 

[onetimeposter]

Again…1.3 million people (in your estimate…I find your numbers impossibly inflated)

Get one thing straight…these aren’t my numbers…they are the numbers.

rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties

 

[Al_Masetti]

The slaughter came through war. Jim is advocating the opposite. To say that all the casualties of war were caused by Communism is to ignore history. The US attacked Vietnam and greatly increasd the death and destruction in that whole region. You cannot blame it all on the Communist forces (who were supported by the majority of Vietnamese, btw).

amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repression/dp/0674076087

The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression

There is also some controversy over the numbers The Black Book claims to have been killed by Communism.

Some say the introduction places the number too high (100 million, which is accepted by The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation:

www.victimsofcommunism.org.

Even some contributors to the book, former Communists who are obviously not ready to completely damn the poisoned ideology of Marxism, have denounced Courtois for inflating the numbers and said they would have settled for a total of 85 million.

The introduction places those killed by the Soviet regime from 1917-1991 at only 20 million. Many historians estimate that Stalin ALONE killed 20 million people (Robert Conquest, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Daniel Chirot, Adam Hochschild, Tina Rosenberg, John Heidenrich, etc). Alexander Yakovlev, author of the excellent new book on Soviet tyranny and mass murder entitled “A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia,” places the Soviet death toll at 30-35 million.

Others such as Norman Davies, R.J. Rummel and Gulag survivor Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn place the Soviet death toll at a whopping 50 to 60 million! Therefore I believe it is safe to say that Communism is indeed responsible for killing at least 100 million people in the 20th century, making it one of the greatest evils in the annals of human history.

We must never forget the 100 million.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Then the ultimate question.

Would you have volunteered your own children to fight for the cause as an infantry soldier in Vietnam after 1974?

We do not “volunteer our children”.

They are adults and can volunteer for themselves.

Every member of the U.S. military today is a volunteer. The draft was abolished decades ago.

The U.S. supported the South Vietnamese and together they defeated the North Vietnamese armored invasion of the South.

What finally caused the loss of South Vietnam was that the U.S. Congress pulled all the funding to South Vietnam. With no money to buy ammunition, fuel, parts and other necessary supplies, and with the North Vietnamese having unlimited funding from the Soviet Union and China, the South had no chance.

 

[Al_Masetti]

Wrong. America could have won the war and won it in far less than 14 years. Nuclear Arms would never have been an issue.

Again…1.3 million people (in your estimate…I find your numbers impossibly inflated) killed across the span of 14 or so years. In less than two years after America left and North Vietnam invaded the South and the Khmer Rouge invaded lower Cambodia how many people were killed? 6-7 million?

There are numerous examples of wars in which a strategy of victory resulted in success in a relatively short period of time.

For example … the Korean War.

The Soviet-back North Korean army invaded South Korea in June 1950. They rapidly pushed the South Korean Army and the U.S. military back to Pusan in only three months.

However, in September 1950, the U.S. conducted an amphibious landing behind the North Korean lines at Inchon.

The result was a complete collapse of the North Korean army.

[We got into a stalemate primarily because U.S. daily combat operations were betrayed by Soviet spies … the famous Cambridge Five … ] Our people complained that the Communists knew of our tactical operations in advance. It was only when the battle was so fast that the betrayals were in less than real time that we were able to counter the leakage of our plans to the Soviets.

In Washington and London, Donald Maclean and Guy Burgess, British diplomats, and some colleagues were able to provide the Soviets with detailed information from the highest levels about U.S. atomic bomb stockpiles, U.S. and British policy prior to the Korean War, war plans, and - perhaps most important of all - the restrictions on U.S. commanders in Asia which prevented them from carrying the war to Soviet or Chinese territory.

Maclean was exposed when cryptanalysts working on the VENONA project recovered and translated enough messages about his work to identify him. Harold “Kim” Philby, a co-conspirator with access to VENONA, warned him and Burgess; the two then fled to the USSR.

Read more here:

nsa.gov/publications/publi00022.cfm

The U.S. could have acted audaciously and decisively in the Vietnam War but was prevented from doing so by the timidity at the top. McNamara actually denied the Ho Chi Minh Trail even existed. He demanded our troops sneak in and take home movies, so he could see for himself.

We set up the Studies and Operations Group but they were betrayed. Read John Plaster’s book “SOG”.

amazon.com/SOG-Secret-Americas-Commandos-Vietnam/dp/0451195086

 

[onetimeposter]

We do not “volunteer our children”.

They are adults and can volunteer for themselves.

Every member of the U.S. military today is a volunteer. The draft was abolished decades ago.

There was a Vietnam Draft. You haven’t answered my question. 17 year olds can join the armed forces with parental consent.

I’m not playing games.

The question is simple. If you don’t want to answer, that’s your prerogative.

It’s fine to talk of how America could have won the conflict…but at whose children’s expense?