Vietnam Win or Loss?

A friend at luch today said that we won the Vietnam war, I said we did not and we got into a big agruement. I wanted to see the other opinons about this war. I only do this to prove to him that most agree that we lost.

He said the liberal media was "brainwashing" me in order to belive that we lost.

PEACE IS THE VICTORY

[Edited on 17-4-2003 by Nans DESMICHELS]

we got our arses kicked a lot of the time. my father was in vietnam and belives it to be a loss. did we unite vietnam under democratic gov't? nope? then by our standards it's a loss.

militarily-victory
politically-big loss
read "No more Vietnams" by Richard Nixon, I finished a few weeks ago, it was a good book

The powers that be didn't fully commit the forces needed to achieve the objectives...so, we got our asses kicked. Similar smaller instances of this happened fairly recently, such as Somalia, and Mogadishu...

Bottom line is, when you go to war...don't pussyfoot around!

that is 110% true

i agree that it was a loss. however it shouldn't of been one. in my opinion the reason it went so terribly is because the politicians got in and micromanaged every little thing the troops were doing. when you are in a military conflict you have to let your generals and comanders do the things that they know how to do. just like what was done in Iraq. the politicians asked "what do you need to win?" and gave it to them and let them do their jobs.

I view as a los, not becuase of the army but because of the liberals. Their protests lowered the moral of our boys over there. Plus we had Jane Fonda .

Militarily, you could say it was a win, if you looked at it as a continuous scrimmage. That isn't what war is about, though. Its supposed to be a policy enforcement or a means to an end when diplomacy fails, depending on what nation's viewpoint from which you are looking.

Obviously it was a dismal policy failure as far as attempting to support the South Vietnamese government and lead it toward a free democracy. I think there is a lesson there that America just can't grasp, and that is not every country can or wants to be a democracy.

There is one other objective that was the cause for the continuous conflict, and that objective was in fact met. It engaged the Soviet government in a war by proxy and was a way to drain the Communist government of resources, an economic sort of battle that our free-market economy could sustain for a longer period of time, and at the same time slow the expansion of the Soviet Empire in that region. So in that respect, the conflict was a sort of battle victory in a larger war, the Cold War.

The U.N. played a bigger part in that conflict than most realize as well, and IAW an agreement, we weren't supposed to obtain a total "victory". There was more to it than perceived incompetence of a micromanaging executive administration trying to play general and fouling things up. While I have no doubt that Johnson was an incompetent foul-up, alot of that was merely for public consumption so as not to allow the American public to realize just how little the government we think is in charge actually controls this nation.

Yet unfortonatley like Nans said, "Peace is the Victory." and no one really won anything out of it. We esspecially as Americans got NOTHING out of it. We needed reasons for going and reasons for getting out. We always need a reason. The reasons we use are never reasonable. Reason is rationality. Rationality is not fighting a proxy war at the expense of the the civility of your nation. If anyone here wants to dispute that the infractionment of our unity as people is neccasary to fight wars of boasting and bluffing with massive and relentless force is worth all the trouble it causes then speak now and I will debate you.


As for every other reason for every other war, well I say diplomacy is always raped to the occasion of the opportunities for peace. That is the art of the underground agents. Those agents work for money, drugs, power and weapons. They know a life bigger proportions. They know the diamond wars and the drug trade. They know the black market and the mafia. I think that Vietnam is a perfect example of a massive covert operation that created a overt massive conflict. I think that Vietnam is only the tip of the iceberg. I would lean towards Thomas and his view on this one. He seems to think this is bigger then it seems. It always is. It always is.

The US lost, not because of the military. Politicians ruined any chance of a victory. If we were going to be there in the fist place, we should have leveled the place.

We may have lost the battle but corporations won the war Mwhaaaa...
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Nobody can stop Ronald and the Colonel

Is it just me, or do peace keeping operations always fail horribly? I mean, every time we try to send in a few guys to do something that seems simple at the time, it fouls up. Therefor, I have a future military plan for the US. Dedicate the entire american war machine to abosolutley decimating a country in a vicious show of power. People think we're getting weak because we keep swinging the axes handle, so to speak. However, if we send the entire army, aifroce and navy to fight in Iraq, theres gonna be whole different view on us. Screw 'units' sent to patrol, send out men by the brigade with full armor and air support for two weeks and the whole country will be one of two things: An outstanding democracy, or a smoking little crater.

Option 2: Glass the damn country to remind people just how crazy we are.

well as far as i'm aware (after watching documentrys), BEFOREHAND as a nation most of the american people supported the war!!

america then started losing a lot of men, many things in vietnam went horribly wrong for them:-

1) many troops had low morale (counting days)
2) desertion rates were high
3) serious drug problems
4) underestmation of the enemy (could not stop the movement of the vietemnise).
5) poor intellgence
6) wasn't prepared for gorrilla warefare tactics
7) vietnamese conducted a 'peoples war' in which everyone played part
8) the american govenment didn't fully know the culture of the vietemnise, it was believed that they could buy the people (ie: - give chewing gum, pop, ice cream) etc.
9) wasn't prepared/and could not cope with the high casualties (injuried and fatalitys)
9) and last but not least, america wasn't prepared for a 'JUNGLE WAR'.

all in all, the american government let the troops down by underestmating the vietnamese and giving poor intellengence to the troops.

protests then started in america after (i think 60,000 american lifes had been lost), DEMANDING a pullout - the US govenment then had no choice!!

all that = a loss for a pointless war that should not have happened.


[edit on 28-3-2006 by st3ve_o]

Steve-O......

Although some of your points do have merit..... the protests against the war in Vietnam happened long before the 58,263 count of American Lives lost in the "undeclared" war ended in 1975. There were also over 1,800 Americans who are still unaccounted for that were POW or MIA. I did three tours in Vietnam and can assure you that there was discontent before my first one, which was back in 1968.

There are hundreds of articles and books written by military officers and enlisted who can attest far better than I.... but as was said by someone who had far greater wisdom than myself..... "WAR is an extremely PROFITABLE business...... and the only REAL LOSERS are the military men and women who are in HARMS WAY". I thought it was an extremely intelligent comment.... and still think so to this day.

There are NO WINNERS in WAR.... just survivors.

Dave

hi dave,

your right war is a very ugly but PROFITABLE business for govenments, and i truelly believe thats what we are seeing now in iraq/alfganistan/possibly iran.

a friend of mine as been to iraq (basra) twice...hes told me some storys about what hes seen over there, and some of the storys must stay with a solider for the rest of his/her life.

i can't imgen the storys you have from vietnam, but i suspect they are not for everyones ears.

i fully respect everyone who fights for their country (my grandad fought in WW2 from start to finish), but the govenments - how can they play 'toy soilders' and put their own citzens lifes at risk whist hiding behind words like 'war on terrorism?'.

anyway RESPECT man - i'm just looking at your location, are you living in vietnam now?


[edit on 29-3-2006 by st3ve_o]

I don't see it as being a war as such. I class a war as going into battle with an 'enemy', the Ameicans seemed to be going into battle wearing blindfolds.. there enemy slipping through their fingers or walking past them in the street. I'm almost certain that if it was a real enemy the war would be over but more often than not guirilla tactics were used.

In the same regard I feel the was may have only been lost because it showd that guirilla tactics were useful and no matter how big the enemy these tactics couldnt be stoped. I feel Iraq nowadays is in a very similar predicament. Hostile terrain fighting an invisible enemy, the media constantly reporting new deaths and building up public distrust of leaders/the war.

Only my opinion but I feel the Americans did a damn good job in Vietnam (and im from the UK so my viewpoint isn't too biased!). I just feel sorry for all the soldiers who faught bravely against an unknown enemy should be hounded by the 'loss' argument and how the war is pretty much forgotten for the good battles etc. Research WW2 and such battles as Normandy will be eternally remembered, as a whole i feel it should not be a forgotten 'war'.

USA WON vietnam...We entered vietnam to stop the spread of comunism, and at the time we withdrew our troops comunism had yet to pass the border. SO...at the time the objective had been done.

Yes so the overall objective didn't work then did it?!
Wont the battle lost the 'war'
All it did was slow the inevitable.

Clearly America got defeated in Vietnam. Just glad our primeminister at the time Harold Macmillan had the sense to pull us out. No doubt Mr Blair would of jumped at the oppertunity to lick Americas ring.