America Won the Vietnam War ! - Yes you heard right.

With all due respect... This is just.... Awful...

We killed more so we won? Sorry, but that is just awful...

War is a horrible thing... People die....There are so many reasons for why we lost the Vietnam "police action"...

The victor is not determined by who killed the most.

Your theory is just.... horrible.

Politics, surrenders, outsmarting, rebellions, etc etc and on and on...So much more than who killed more... And it is gross that you tried to simplify such a horrible thing, in such a cold hearted and horrible way.

"This make me proud to be an American.

I hold up my head high when i walk the street.

My heart swells with pride."


There's probably another 500 million like him. I don't hold out much hope for most people and 2012's awakening. Oh well.

Well, I personally believe a few things.

Militarily we could not be beat. We took a few bloody noses, yes, but overall we won just about all military engagements of the war.

Where we lost was the stupid political games, and the influence of the media.

Like it or not, the war was the right thing to do. North Korea was invading South Korea and torturing and intimidating South Koreans.

I realize we are not the world's policeman, even then, but should we have turned our backs and not helped them? How would that have made us look to the world community? But the world community reputation is an extremely fickle thing and the world will easily turn on you.

You see, this was a case of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons and in the wrong ways. Just like the War On Drugs and Terror.

So I believe that, basically it was the right thing to do.

Originally posted by EvilSadamClone
Like it or not, the war was the right thing to do. North Korea was invading South Korea and torturing and intimidating South Koreans.

Mind you, we're talking about Viet Nam...

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck
Oh no not this thread resurrected again.

Guys can I remind you and for those that dont know, that the lunatic who posted this thread was kicked off and banned from ATS for writing stuff like this as well as some highly racist and offensive claims. Which pretty much speaks volumes about this particular deranged rant of his, once again not rooted in any form of reality you and I might know.

How about we just let this thread fade away and die as it deserves to do?

(Sorry Johnny, this wasn't meant to be a reply to you. I hit the wrong button I guess)

LEE.

i realized OP was making a sarcastic post ,

but it saddening to see so many americans still looking for silly excuses for their defeat in Vietnam , and to the extent of that the Defeat in Korea.

Some of these americans also think that US forces never lost a single battle in Vietnam (while they admits they lost the war), but looking in detail, there were so many defeat inflicted to the US forces that it become an exercise of propaganda-making to turn a defeat into a victory.

Some of you may remember the famous book 'We were soldiers.. and young' about Ia Drang Battle. It was also converted into a fictional movie that showed the beginning half of Ia Drang Disaster (they skip the 2nd half of Ia Drang disaster where NVA slaughtered US forces near LZ Albany).

This Ia Drang battle was touted as a victory for the american forces, but is it a victory or a massacre ? The fact remains that casualties from 1st battallion and 2nd battalion were so great they becomed combat ineffective.

And then there were those horrible DMZ battles where NVA supported by artilery decimated US marines in classic battle. US Marines used to guerilla style combat were confused and immobile after encountering NVA formations openly.

Let's not forget the thousands of aircraft shotdown by the vietnamese air defense all over vietnam , including a few aircraft shot down by the chinese air force.

And many more example..

When i was starting to research US Combat History in Vietnam and Korea, i was under impression that US will rolled over enemy opposition easily considering they got massive advantage in air ssupport, naval support and artilery support.. It was sobering to read how easily the North Korean and the Chinese slaughter and massacred whole US combat Divisions in korea, and how deadly the NVA/VC in jungle fighting where they hug the US units..

Yes, the OP's definition of "winning" was off-target. Battles and wars are struggles of will, and the "winner" is the one who gets his own way or blocks the opposition from getting their own way.
The outcome of the Vietnam war was not what America wanted, so not a victory.

Defining victory can be tricky.
In the first World War, the Germans claimed Jutland as a victory, on the same "greater casualties" argument, but the outcome was that the German fleet stayed in harbour for the rest of the war instead of being able to escape out into the open sea. Not what Germany wanted, not a German victory.
Pyrrhus famously won a battle which cost him so many casualties that his expeditionary force was fatally weakened.
Coming back to Vietnam, it's been argued that the Tet offensive was a military defeat for the VietCong, because their attacks on the towns were beaten off. However, it became a pyschological victory because of the effect on American public opinion.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
Yes, the OP's definition of "winning" was off-target. Battles and wars are struggles of will, and the "winner" is the one who gets his own way or blocks the opposition from getting their own way.
The outcome of the Vietnam war was not what America wanted, so not a victory.

Defining victory can be tricky.
In the first World War, the Germans claimed Jutland as a victory, on the same "greater casualties" argument, but the outcome was that the German fleet stayed in harbour for the rest of the war instead of being able to escape out into the open sea. Not what Germany wanted, not a German victory.
Pyrrhus famously won a battle which cost him so many casualties that his expeditionary force was fatally weakened.
Coming back to Vietnam, it's been argued that the Tet offensive was a military defeat for the VietCong, because their attacks on the towns were beaten off. However, it became a pyschological victory because of the effect on American public opinion.

By your definition then afghanistan and iraq also can be considered a failure and a defeat

America had its own version of Dunkerqu, (French spelling) but it still won? ( and American film makers were only too happy to mock the British about that in WW 2 films). All that money spent on high tech, to be beaten by people who used bicycles to transport their food and ammo!
The poster is twisted, perhaps upset that he's not getting the stars he thinks he should?

originally posted by: pikestaff
America had its own version of Dunkerqu, (French spelling) but it still won? ( and American film makers were only too happy to mock the British about that in WW 2 films). All that money spent on high tech, to be beaten by people who used bicycles to transport their food and ammo!
The poster is twisted, perhaps upset that he's not getting the stars he thinks he should?

Just read the book 'We were soldiers.. and young' and compare it with the Hollywood movie 'We were soldiers' based on the same book..

Notice how the book tells the truth as much as possible from the point of a reporter , and the movie tells a war fiction with US as good guys and always win at the end ? and the movie only tell 1st half if IADRANG battle.. where's the 2nd half of the book ?

let me tell you (and you can check the book yourself), the second half of the battle consist of the rest of the force walking in column to their LZ (Codename ALBANY) for pickup. Walking in COLUMN in the middle of TALL ELEPHANT GRASS FIELD , with the enemy still know in the location... This 'column' stumbled on rest area of NVA and the NVA surrounded this column, overrun it , divide it and destroy it piecemeal. It was a massacre worthy of the 7th Cav's history in Little Big Horn.

Do you now understand why this 2nd half of the battle wasnt put on the movie ?

It is because the american public CANNOT ACCEPT DEFEAT , their fragile psyche have been formed by countless decades of goverment propaganda saying 'american exceptionalism' and 'ameircan military superiority'.. they cannot accept a backward people wearing sandals and pajamas can defeat their mighty army supported by the most modern weapons and air-power and navy...

Specialist 4 Jack Smith (son of legendary CBS commentator Howard K. Smith ) was sure he would die:

There were PAVN with machine guns hidden behind every anthill. The noise was deafening. Then the men started dropping. It was unbelievable. I knelt there staring as at least 20 men dropped within a few seconds...

We were even being fired at by our own guys. No one knew where the fire was coming from, and so the men were shooting everywhere...

The noise of firing from all directions was so great that I couldn’t even hear a machine gun being fired three feet in front of me and one foot above my head...

Bullets by the thousands were coming from the trees, from the L.Z., from the very ground, it seemed...

The sound of those voices, of the enemy that close, was the most frightening thing I have ever experienced. Combat creates a mindless fear, but this was worse, naked panic.

These recollection of panicking soldiers firing without discipline, did they sound like a professional soldiers ? they just overrated boyscouts thrown into the vietnam meatgrinders where the average soldier of NVA have more experience than the whole battalions of US soldiers

www.warandtactics.com...

a reply to: milomilo

Yup the film we were soldiers fails to mention the massacre of the sister battalion a few days latter......

Well thats Mel Gibbson for you. Half surprised he didn't replace the Vietnamese with Brits in that film

By the logic of the OP if all 400 million Americans were killed and the US fail to exist as a country but it killed 700 million Chinese but that country continued it would therefore be a US victory ?

originally posted by: milomilo
By your definition then afghanistan and iraq also can be considered a failure and a defeat

Yes, possibly.
They succeeded in short-term goals, but whether they succeeded in long-term goals is open to debate.

originally posted by: Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


What did the US have to do with NVA vs SVietnam before Gulf of Tonkin? I was pointing out the reason how the US got itself involved, and the reason why was to stop the spread of global communism. I'm quite aware that the NVA was already fighting before the US got involved, otherwise the US wouldn't have much of a reason to interfere (common sense I assumed).

A lot of people seem to forget that communism was spread at the end of a gun barrel, and not through popular action of the people supposedly liberated by the communists.
For all ther terrrible things that happened during the conflict why is it that the communsits get a pass for all of the atrocities they commited, and against their own people.

I'm sure just as many people died at the end of gun barrels for the sake of "democratic liberation", specifically by the US. The only difference is that American democracy really means the rich get the power and Soviet communism is when the peasants have their turn to rule.

Without the almost impossibley huge amount of material assistance that the us gave the soviet union during the war, they would have lost.

I suggest that you do alittle reading about this little thing called the lend lease program.

I'm quite aware of the program. It did indeed provide assistance to the Soviets. However, you are very misguided if you think that American support was enough to even make a dent in the Soviet war effort. Whatever American assistance given to the Soviets was just a benefit from the Yalta conference and considering the big three all foresaw the cold war, no serious assistance was granted.

Did the US provide the USSR with its millions of conscripts? What about their massive tank forces? Their guns? The US gave the Soviets assistance just like how the Soviets gave the US assistance, but neither gave the other anything very important.

The Soviets survived being raped on their home soil by the Nazi elite armies and they managed to scramble as much war resources and soldiers together as possible and launched a bloody but effective counter strike to take back their ruins of cities. They won with their cheap and effective technology and brutal tactics, plus the occasional talents (Soviet snipers with over 500 kills, you can't go wrong with that).

On top of their counter attack, they regrouped with their new T-34 battle groups and steamrolled all the way to Berlin while the Nazis froze their balls off because they were not allowed to surrender to such "subhumans". The Russians proved their ability to match a much powerful enemy with specialized tactics that always adapted to the warzone, as opposed to a standard.

Interestingly enough the modern russian airforce acknowledges the contribution of lend lease
Russian airforce site about the Lend Lease.
lend-lease.airforce.ru...

Who said it never happened? It's part of history. It's just not a big of deal as you make it sound.

Yah right, what happened to soviet communism? Oh thats right it fell apart.

That 1/3 of the people you claim, didnt have a choice at being communists, or have you forgotten that the soviets absorbed several independant nations, formented violent revolutions in many others. And foced the sattelite states into submission through force of arms.

Or have you not learned that lenninist/stalinist ussr's goal was world domination.

Come on and stopp with the drivel.

Dude, you're being extremely hypocritical of your own American views. If you think the US does not regularly engage in violence to force it's unilateral views on the rest of the world, then I feel sorry for you.

The Soviets were top of their game until they got hung up trying to landgrab Afghanistan. They lost that conflict not because they were inadequate, but because Afghanistan will never be conquered by a single force. The Soviet politburo decided that it would be arrogant for their superpower to carry on with such outdated views (rebellion is so 20th century) and decided to reform their country.

They did not collapse, they simply restructured for the better of their people. Of course with the break up of something as major as the Soviet Union, there were many problems in the transition. Internal nationalist forces wanted to continue the Soviet wet dream, breakaway states wanted as much independence and weapons as possible, and external factors like the CIA destroyed the Russian economy to ensure that Russia would not become another threat to their global power.

So really, believe what you want. I believe that Russia designed itself to be more free and modern from obselete Soviet ideals. As I look at Russia today, I see the vision that was made 20 years ago coming true. It has a rising economy, it controls a vast amount of energy, it has a strong and traditional culture, it continues to develop new technology, and it is modernizing its vast military. To me, that is the rebirth of a modern superpower while its rival has hit its full potential years ago and is now starting to fall.

A bit off topic, but the Soviet Union would not have succeeded in WWII without material support form the US--Railroad stock, fuel, parts, raw materials, food, trucks, jeeps, machine parts, etc, etc. You can't make a T-34 without machines and steel and it won't run without oil and you can't make anything with your workforce in the battle and all of your major industrial cities either in ruin or in the hands of your enemy.

Without US materiel support, the Eastern Front would have ended as a stalemate.

It's laughable to say that Soviet Communism was where "the peasant got to be in charge." There was no equality in the Soviet Union. Party Members took the place of those evil exploitive capitalists you hate and, instead of gathering wealth, one became "rich" in the Soviet Union by climbing up the ladder of party hierarchy. High ranking party members had the best food, didn't have to wait in line for anything, had cars, had vacations, could travel freely, could read western books and listen to western music, had large houses and country homes whereas the common person was faced with shortages, travel restrictions, cramped quarters without amenities, and restrictions on what he could read and see. To say that "the peasant was in charge" of the Soviet Union is not true.

The CIA did not orchestrate economic hardship in the Soviet Union...economic failure of the Soviet Union was a failure of their economic system and bloated bureaucracy--central planning is the most inefficient way to run an economy and the Soviet system crushed innovation and ingenuity.

The party did not restructure squat--the shift from a communist to a capitalist system was not a planned event. The Soviet Union failed and the people finally gave enough flack that the old system fell apart. The success of Russia today has much more to do with the youth rejecting the old Soviet system than any sort of "restructuring." To say so is such an incredible attempt at revisionist history in a reaching way to preserve one's steadfast belief in a failed system.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
Yes, the OP's definition of "winning" was off-target. Battles and wars are struggles of will, and the "winner" is the one who gets his own way or blocks the opposition from getting their own way.
The outcome of the Vietnam war was not what America wanted, so not a victory.

Defining victory can be tricky.
In the first World War, the Germans claimed Jutland as a victory, on the same "greater casualties" argument, but the outcome was that the German fleet stayed in harbour for the rest of the war instead of being able to escape out into the open sea. Not what Germany wanted, not a German victory.
Pyrrhus famously won a battle which cost him so many casualties that his expeditionary force was fatally weakened.
Coming back to Vietnam, it's been argued that the Tet offensive was a military defeat for the VietCong, because their attacks on the towns were beaten off. However, it became a pyschological victory because of the effect on American public opinion.

Valid points. The TET offensive was a military defeat for the NVA and VC. They lost any and all gains they made, they did not keep Hue even though they had a numerically superior force to the Marines, they used up all of their sleeper cells and agents and caches in that offensive. They blew their wad. They used up all of their hidden resources. They lost on the ground.

However, they won in the living rooms on the American people back home who were getting fed a lot of disinformation by a communist sympathetic media. The US media turned a military defeat into a political victory for the NVC/VC.

Thus, looking at results, one could argue TET was a victory.

I see that some deluded american thinking that their contributtion in world war 2 is what caused NAZI germany to fold..

the truth is so far from that fiction that it is an insult to the russian and the europeans who lost many many more people fighting the nazi to defeat.

without american 'materiel' or 'soldiers' , the russian already hitting the germans so badly that they regained all the territory they lost and killing the germans by millions. The 'thing' that made russian won battles after battles with germans was not 'american donation of materiel' as these deluded american thought.. it is russian's will to fight that won the war..

I know this is hard for american psyche to accept , but in reality the russian will destroy germany without any help from the america.. without the sacrifice of russians , american soldiers would be slaughtered by nazi germany when they landed in normandy and kicked back to sea. Germans have better soldiers , better generals and better armour compared to USA. The Germans who fought the americans in france was there because they are 2nd line units or 1st line units recuperating and yet it took the US months just to reach the Rhine..

a reply to: NavyDoc

Sure USA won TET but winning a campaign or even winning a theater of operations does not =winning a war.

NAZI germany won many batttles yet still lost, napolenic france won whole campaigns yet still lost, Britain crushef the American armys in all but a few battles in the war of indepedance but still lost.

a reply to: milomilo

Your post is as naive and infantile as I've seen. The fact of the matter is that if you remove ANY ONE of the US, Russian or British Empire forces from the allied triumvirate in WW2 then a German victory becomes very likely. That's why it's was called an allied victory and why people need to grow up about it.

a reply to: esecallum

Please tell me that the OP is being ironical. Because otherwise I fear for the future.

EDIT: Aha, it's a ZOMBIE THREAD! OM NOM NOM!!

a reply to: esecallum

You disgust me.
Also, learn to spell.