Vietnam War, lost or not.

Please pick one of the two options.

  • The US militarily lost the Vietnam War.

    Votes: 25 45.5%

  • The US withdrew only due to the homefront protests, but they it never lost on the military level

    Votes: 30 54.5%
  • Total voters
    55
To BullDogg:

There always has been, and always will be, American opposition to war. The Revolutionary War had the highest, (estimated at 80 percent) and that was because it was fought on home soil. Opposition to WW I was 64 percent. During WW II it peaked at 32 percent. The number for Korea was 62 percent, and 65% opposed Vietnam.
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http://www.lindasog.com/military/vietnam.htm

This link says it all.
 
At no point did a grass roots movement with massive public protesting ever occur in American history against a war before or since Vietnam. Opposition is one thing, public protests are another. Right now polls show support for action in Iraq is at 32% but are 68% of Americans rioting, protesting, marching? Shake your head no... good boy, it was this public protesting that forced the politicians to respond the way they did. To not acknowledge this very singular event in American history is a gross error in judgement and demonstrates an extreme lack of understanding of the American political system. I would suggest you listen to the Vietnam vets and the other Americans who were alive at that time and witnessed this first hand rather than some online pundit with specious credentials.
 
Easy-8, it't not so much that 80% of the colonists opposed the Revolutionary War, it's more like at the beginning only 20% whole heartedly supported it, an equal number opposed the revolution, and the other 60% were caught in the middle and they really just wanted to go on living as they had, however support for the war grew with every victory for the Americans. Although I would like to think that 80% openly opposed the war, it only improves Washington's resume as the best commander in history and the greatest American president ever.
 
Easy-8 (Age 17)
You weren't even a glint in your daddy's eye when the Vietnam War was being fought in the jungles of Vietnam and on the streets of America. Don't even pretend to be an expert about what was going on in this country at that time ... while some of us were fighting and dying at the hands of the North Vietnamese, 80% of Americans at home were actually rioting in our own streets which had major repercussions in the halls of congress. By the way, this didn't have as much effect on our troops as you would think ... most of us did NOT know just how bad it was at home, we were too busy trying to stay alive and survive a war none of us really wanted to fight in.

As far as saying that Nixon was a strong president, most of us remember just exactly what his plan to get us out of Vietnam was ... cut and run and leave our South Vietnam allies in the lurch ... that was the kind of president he was and that was the kind of congress we had at that time. They were willing to abandon an allied country and to back out of the SEATO agreements of which we were signators.

BY the way, for your information, a truce isn't a peace treaty - we were still at war with North Vietnam at the time Nixon ordered all troops to be removed (he had to know that South Vietnam could NOT stand against the North without our help).

SO - the next time that you decide to get into an argument with those of us that were there, at least get your facts right.
 
Easy-8 said:
I don't believe the protesters had much to do with the defeat in Vietnam (the only thing they did was lower the moral of the troops). The United States of America has won very unpopular wars (The Revolution, Civil War, WWI and Korea). I believe anyone who believes that the protesters caused the defeat are dead wrong. Nixon was not a weak president however when Watergate happened we got Ford (who was very much a pansy) who refused to back SV when attacked by the North (after US troops had left once the truce was signed). The war was not lost at the tip of a gun but by the tip of a pen.
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Just to set the record straight, Easy-8, this is one Vietnam veteran whose morale was not lowered by the protesters. And another thing, you need to reread your history books. The Korean War was not won by the USA or the United Nations Command, in fact the war is still in effect. A cease-fire was entered by both sides on July 27, 1953. A truce was entered into by both sides, but a peace treaty has never been signed. Truce meetings were going on in 1965 & 1966 when I served in Korea and to my knowledge they are still meeting once a week.
The inability of the two sides to resolve their differences has meant that the two Koreas and their allies have had to remain on a war footing along the inter-Korean border ever since. Fifty years after the North Korean invasion, Communist and United Nations soldiers still glare at each other across the demilitarized zone established in July 1953. Together with the South Koreans, U.S. Army troops continue to make up the bulk of the UN contingent in Korea. The burdens of protecting South Korea from the threat of renewed Communist aggression over the past half-century have been great for the United States. Billions of dollars have been spent and some additional lives have been lost, the latter as a result of sporadic Communist violations of the cease-fire.
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source: http://www.kmike.com/CMH%20MilitaryHistory/YearsOfStalemate.htm
 
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The politcians will do what ever it takes to stay in Office, if a conflict becomes unpopular then they will try and wriggle out of it.
 
LeEnfield said:
The politcians will do what ever it takes to stay in Office, if a conflict becomes unpopular then they will try and wriggle out of it.
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God how I wish that were always true. Unfortnately as we see in Iraq, Politicians will try and cover their ass FIRST, even if a war is unpopular.
 
Wars should not be fought on the basis popularity for that action, they should be fought based on the beliefs of the nations fighting the war. I believe that invading Iraq was the right choice because I saw Saddam as an oppressive dictator who had butchered his own people as well as those of his neighbors and needed to be removed from office. I think it is sad that the military was forced to try and fight this was with one arm behind it's back because the people as a whole would not allow the Army and Marines to commit the numbers of troops necessary to ensure we could do what needed to be done. What we really need to do is take the politicians out of the equation, you know, once the bullets start flying just give them something shiny and put them all in one large room, they could entertain themselves forever.
 
America didn't lose the Vieman war. American just simply left this land where they spent one decade fighting against communist invasion.
I don't care why US left vienam to vie-com,but I really think US didn't lose vienam war. based on my limited knowledge about vienam war, it seemed that American military almost won every battle and defeated most of viecom's major attacks. the reason that viecom took the control of whole vienam was because American military was forced to leave by domestic pressure. it was very discouraged that viecom ruled this country after American left, but people should remember and respect those soldiers who sacrificed their own lifes for another people's democracy and freedom.
BTW, can anyone in here imagine what south Korea would look like if American didn't stand up and protect fragile democracy in south Korea from N Korean army controlled by Kim's family fifty year ago.
 
Yes so in the end most of us agree on the fact that the US militarily won the war against NV and the VC. Interestingly enough, 98% of the people overhere, if asked about it, would answer "The guerrilla kicked the GI's ass".
That is why I started this thread in the first place. All contributions have been interesting and I thank you for it.
 
We coldn't have won there, it was too much. Remember the tet offensive where the vietcong captured the american embassy in saigon. If you can't even defend the embassy then what are you doing there? The americans did a lot of damage, but no matter what they couldn't win. I don't like the way GIs were treated since it wasn't their fault, but no politician gave a clear answer as to why it was important to defend a poor a country halfway around the world where there few few US interests.
 
WarMachine said:
No politician gave a clear answer as to why it was important to defend a poor a country halfway around the world where there few few US interests.
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Domino theory, allied country.
 
Try Gulf of Tonkin and false pretense. All the other justifications proved false since all the states of former indochina became communist and it didn't spread to other countries. South Vietnam's govt was an ally, but the people really hated it and i think if you wanted to support democracy, a plebiscite should've been held whehter to change the govt or reconcile with the north.
Sadly, this wasn't about democracy but just anit-communism, which is why crap like this happened during the cold war that we're still feeling reprocussions for today.
 
WarMachine said:
Try Gulf of Tonkin and false pretense. All the other justifications proved false since all the states of former indochina became communist and it didn't spread to other countries. South Vietnam's govt was an ally, but the people really hated it
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Wrong. My best buddy is Vietnamese. Left his country by boat some years after the commies took over and is an American now (similar to 5.56's story). If you go to Orange County and meet and talk to some Vietnamese-Americans you will learn how no comparison could be done between the southern government and the northern one. The people did not hate their government in the South.
 
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If the South was sympathetic to the North, how do you explain the existence of ARVN? If they all loved the North so much then why did they all join up with ARVN to fight against them. They could easily slipped away at night to join up with the local VC unit if they really wanted to fight for the North.
 
A lot of the peasents joined the VC. It was a war that the peasents wanted to fight, not your city living vienamese you guys are referring to. In any of these countries like cuba or nepal where the govt up front looks good, the peasents are suffering. It was really land reform that they wanted since they were abused by landlords and the govt was no help. Factor in corruption and you have a nice place to set up marxism. That and i think a lot of people would have seen the north as a more legitimate govt than the south because they were the ones fighting the japanese and french for decades in order to gain independence.

I know vietnamese people too, the ones who came here are usually well taken care of either because there were professionals from vietnam or had families that hosted them in order to adapt. That's a case of the ones who didn't want to live in communists, but to a large segment of the population, communism seemed like salvation to them.
 
I was refering to the majority of South Vietnam. Wherever they lived is irrelevant. I know it's hard to grasp the fact that the majority rules in a day in age when people only car about the minority. The conception that the majority of South Vietnam was sympathetic to the North is yet another of the many myths surrounding the war in Vietnam. Even after the US pulled out, the South Vietnamese continued to fight the North until they had nothing left to fight with because America refused to send any more aid.
 
Warmachine
I dare you to make that statement to the hundreds of Montagnards that fought the VC at the side of our forces, and continued the fight long after Americans were pulled out of Vietnam. These jungle fighters would have spit in your eyes just before they slit your throat at the suggestion that they would even think of backing the North Vietnamese. They hated them with a fervor that had to be seen to be believed.

As far as the agricultural farmers, they only wanted one thing ... that was to be left alone. Most of these people did NOT willingly join VC forces ... they were forced at gunpoint to join or they and their families would be killed. I believe you could call that a very very good reason to fight for the North Vietnamese wouldn't you???
 
I think that the south vietnamese were distinct enough to have their own country, but the way north and south were seperated was done very poorly, even with constant aid the south would eventually lose since the north was hellbound to reunite the two sides.

There were soldiers that helped the americans but there were many more that fought against them. I honestly don't believe that vietnam was a strategic priority since there was nothing in the region that was very strategic at that time. It was political and when soldiers die for politics that's the worst kind of war you can conjure up. Not dying for their beliefs or defense of their country thousands of miles away, but because it was important for some serious men.

You know what? I think the vietnamese as a whole would be better off now if they weren't communist, but that wasn't how things were played out and i wish that war never happened since it would have prevented a lot of death and grief that occured for a decade blemishing the US in the eyes of the world.
 
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