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Posted: 9/20/2005 10:01:05 AM EDT
[#1]
Should've kept going. Can you imagine President Reagan taking over as CIC during Vietnam? Oh yeah baby! Remember, more people died in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and neighboring areas AFTER the US military left.
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Posted: 9/20/2005 10:01:44 AM EDT
[#2]
communism was alive and well so we had to fight it wherever it threatened freedom...
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Posted: 9/20/2005 10:05:40 AM EDT
[#3]
Im glad to see a few people share my thoughts . . . .
And yes it would have bee sweet if Reagan (one of the, if not the greatest president ever . . . ) - would have been sweet to see him take over . . . . |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 10:07:36 AM EDT
[#4]
Communism was there.
Containment was our policy. We had to fight - I can't say I would have volunteered, but if I was drafted, I would have served without any bitching. FWIW - I am 20, was not alive during Nam. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 10:09:36 AM EDT
[#5]
we should have kicked the french out after WW2...
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Posted: 9/20/2005 10:32:46 AM EDT
[#6]
I think the main goal of the war was to stop the spread of communism - and not necessarily to stop communism in Viet Nam. If the US didn't fight that war, more countries would've fell to communist rule and we would've had a bigger problem to deal with.
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Posted: 9/20/2005 10:39:04 AM EDT
[#7]
I did some study into the begining of the war, even before the Viet Mihn defeated the french. It's very interesting how that went down....
From what I've read Ho Chi Mihn desperately asked for help from the US to help win independance for his country. He even asked the US state dept. to help write their consitution. But, there were concerns that communists might take control of France. So the ruling party in France said they would keep the communists out if we helped them in Vietnam. So we did, and Ho Chi Mihn was forced to seek help from Communist China, and the soviet union. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 11:27:59 AM EDT
[#8]
The North was ready to quit from the constant bombing of the cities in the North. The commies in America cried so loud we quit bombing. They should have kept up the bombing and wiped out their infrastructure.
I'm glad America went to Vietnam. If they didn't I would be living in Communist Vietnam or dead. I got out in 1975, I was 6 months old. Thanks to all the vets, especially Vietnam vets. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 11:31:52 AM EDT
[#9]
The VC ceased to exist after 1968 Tet. NVA was ready to give it up, but the NV leaders knew they were winning the PR war in the US. One general actually said that people like Fonda encouraged them to continue. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 11:34:44 AM EDT
[#10]
some theorize that the entire war could have been avoided had we just helped NV create the democratic replublic(based on the US constitution) they wanted back in the 50s. But NOOOO we wanted to keep the god damn French happy.
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Posted: 9/20/2005 11:45:44 AM EDT
[#11]
I wish the USA had not gone to Vietnam, would have liked to known my father (died in Vietnam). I don't see that we accomplished anything there other than lots of dead american soldiers. To fight communism? Where is communism now? Stocking our Walmart shelves... makes me sick, one day communism is our enemy, we must fight it to the death, the next day the leader of communism on earth (China) has favored nation trading status and fills our stores with crap. I'm sick of losing relatives and friends for bullshit political whims that don't amount to anything. And to think I volunteered for the Marine Corps, WTF was I thinking?
Don't mind me, just having a bad day - best friend got himself killed last night on his 3 week old motorcycle. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 11:47:07 AM EDT
[#12]
that's why they say hind sight is 20/20 |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 11:57:16 AM EDT
[#13]
I checked the "not sure" because there has been a lot of finger pointing "he said, she said" sort of thing. The problem started with JFK(his track record isn't all that hot considering his fiasco at the Bay of Pigs, but he's the darling of the leftist and news media), and LBJ(he wasn't a general, but practically controlled the whole Vietnam war from the Oval Office), when Nixon came along, the anti-war fever pitch, and Nixon did the only honorable thing which was get the USA out of the Vietnam. But from then on, the news media switch it's focus from the war to the President because he was a republican.
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Posted: 9/20/2005 12:04:59 PM EDT
[#14]
I don't believe this argument anymore. If stopping the communists from taking over Vietnam was critical to stopping Communism from taking over SouthEast Asia, then you would sort of think that Communism would have spread like wildfire in 1973, when it became obvious that the US would NOT be able to fight a war to stop it. But hindsight is 20/20... There should actually be another option in your poll. The correct strategy was probably not to "go on the offensive" but rather to actually fight a real guerilla war. Throughout most of the Vietnam war, the US was preparing to fight a conventional war against the North. In doing so, the US neglected the strategy that it used during the Philippine insurrection (which was a guerrilla war that the US actually won). In the Philippine inserruction, the US concentrated on placing troops in villages, and ensuring the safety of individual villages, then gradually expanding this control. Westmoreland dismissed this strategy in Vietnam, insisting that the major threat was the massive invasion from the North. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 12:05:25 PM EDT
[#15]
Viet Nam is now less Commie than NY,CA,and MA,plus a few otheres
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Posted: 9/20/2005 12:20:10 PM EDT
[#16]
Someone will dispute me about this....But: HCM travelled to France in 1917 and studied Karl Marx doctrine and became one of the founder members of French Communist Party in 1920), to Russia in 1924...and continued to study commie doctrine in Russia...So he was a commie...way before US involvement in VN in 1940. BTW...US involvement in VN was a right thing to do to stop the spreading on commie. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 12:42:43 PM EDT
[#17]
I was alive then but not old enough to be there.
It was a war fought in a nearly inconsequential part of the world, fought half ass by us, and led by incompetent socialist politicians who unwittingly almost desroyed the Republic from within. Those of you who think it was good we went there should ask the 58,000 left there how they feel about it. Or their families. I might feel differently about it if we had actually tried to win and not just thrown some of our finest young lives away. Of course part of the reason I got out of the Marines was because I didn't like being a pawn to be sacrificed at the whim, or mistake, of some asshole socialist poltician. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:08:19 PM EDT
[#18]
btt
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:11:07 PM EDT
[#19]
I must agree partially with you here - My fiance's grandfather was in WWII (fighting the japense in the navy) He REFUSES! to buy anything not made in america - And my Fiance just cant seem to understand why . . . . . well would you wanna support the people that shot at you and killed your friends ? It does sicken me . . . . Im starting to hate china . . . . I dont know if this is true - But supposedly on china leader once said "we will take over america with out ever firing a shot" |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:17:53 PM EDT
[#20]
I think we went there to stop the spreading of Communism.
FWIW, my dad was an Army Ranger who fought in the war and he thinks that we shouldn't have been there. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:18:22 PM EDT
[#21]
sounds about right |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:30:08 PM EDT
[#22]
I had no problem with our reason for going to war there, just the asinine strategy used by LBJ and McNamara. If we'd had Nixon in office in 1965, he would have won that war. But by the time he was in office, the war was already hopeless.
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:34:18 PM EDT
[#23]
I think the reason we fought the war the way did was for one reason and one reason alone. If we had declared all out war against North Vietnam, then China and the USSR would have been involved with more than just weapons and training. The US Gov at the time decided that to prevent WWIII that the way we were fighting it needed to be done.
Do I agree with the way the war was fought? Hell no. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:42:37 PM EDT
[#24]
I spent a year walking a beat between Nui Ba Ra and Nui Ba Den, went on the Incursion (know what that was?) so maybe can throw in my 2 cents...
1. The Incursion was a great thing, but too little too late. Once we gained the advantage, we retreated. During the Incursion we destroyed more munitions than I ever dreamed were possible! 2. Bush lets the field commanders do their job. LBJ micromanaged EVERYTHING, so did Nixon. McNamera was a real pencilhead. If we had been blessed with Bush, Chainey and Rumsfeld, WOW! 3. They were primitive with less technology but absolutely no qualms about what they needed to do to win. We were technologically very advanced but with many rules and a public that had lost the desire to support the effort. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:43:32 PM EDT
[#25]
3
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:44:39 PM EDT
[#26]
Thank you for your service to this country. 
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Posted: 9/20/2005 1:51:23 PM EDT
[#27]
Agreed. If we'd hit Laos and Cambodia in 1965 (cut off Uncle Ho's trail) as well as started the Linebacker type bombing strikes against Hanoi and Haiphong also in 65, then things could have been dramatically different. By the time we did the things that would have won the war, it was too late. The public outcry was simply too much, because so much of the nation was anti-war by the time 1970 rolled around. But in 1965, there wasn't a huge anti-war movement. The handling of the war in it's first few years created more anti-war people than just the regular hippies. Many of these people would have been pro war with the proper strategy. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 2:02:30 PM EDT
[#28]
I was in vietnam in 68 and 69. My brother was also there. I don't think we ever really lost a battle there, but that doesn't really matter. When we won, we'd pull back and they would take over again.
My feeling is that we could have won the war only if we were willing to kill every man woman and child in North Vietnam. We weren't. Bottom line..They were a very very determined foe and we weren't. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 2:08:12 PM EDT
[#29]
If they ask your opinion of Secretary of Defense McNamara. The proper response would be -
He was a self serving doosh bag. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 2:22:00 PM EDT
[#30]
AND THAT WAS OUR HUGE POLITCAL MISTAKE!!!!!!! If we would only support those who believe in our principles....Wow! I'm gald we saved France so that they could be the wonderful friends they are today! Only 58,000 young Americans, but to a politician....well, who cares! Wasn't their kid dying. |
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Posted: 9/20/2005 7:12:01 PM EDT
[#31]
yes, and then at the end of the war with the french he specificaly requested the US help him write a constitution based on the US constitution. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 10:59:46 AM EDT
[#32]
Sure. He asked for the help to write the constitution...but we don't really understand the underlying motive from the guy. IMO...Maybe his connection with US gave him a leverage and legitimated/stamped him as an official leader at the time where there were so many nationalist factions during the time. HCM was an old fox, very cunning and tricky. He didn't hesitate to kill and would do anything to achieve his goal. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:03:40 AM EDT
[#33]
No.
It was easily the biggest mistake our country made in the 20th century. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:07:56 AM EDT
[#34]
Well, unfortunately I am old enough to have been a part of that little confict and was there in '71-'72. In retrospect, I don't think we should have been involved. We got involved because of a paranoia about communism that wasn't real in this case.
However, at the time I did think it was the right decision. Problem was, we didn't fight to win - what a waste. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:08:30 AM EDT
[#35]
They didn't want democracy they wanted independence. Communism was well established by that time and the revolution was underway shortly after France had its possessions returned. I do agree that no colonies should have been returned to the original owners after WWII (France or otherwise). Roosevelt and Truman dropped the ball. Pentagon Papers BTW we didn't give up. That war was won but the Church Amendment (thanks Demorats!) prevented us from defending the infant democracy.  Shok |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:11:45 AM EDT
[#36]
We should have done EVERYTHING we could've to destroy the VC and NVA.
HH |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:15:19 AM EDT
[#37]
Anyone who thinks we should have gone to Vietnam should take a look at the series "Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War".
Two important points. First, Ho Chi Minh wanted to get the French out of their colonial rule way back in the 1920s. He figured there were only two countries on earth that could help him do that. The first was the US. The second was the USSR. He went to the USSR only after the US turned him down. Second, they had an interview with one of the top North Vietnamese officials after the war. As he explained it, the US military beat the hell out of them. Militarily, there was no contest, he said. "But," he said, "so what? We were getting beat for thirty years before you guys showed up and, if necessary, we will get beat by someone else for thirty years after you leave." There were also some interesting interviews with some of our former "allies" who were working "on our side" throughout the whole thing. Turns out, lots of them were really agents for the other side and had no more love for us than they did for the French. If we were still there the situation wouldn't be much different than it was when we left. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:15:36 AM EDT
[#38]
Just as we promised Ho Chi Mihn we would do. He wanted us to be an occupier of his country for 2 years or so to get on thier feet, just like the Phillipenes. Then wanted us to hang around to keep any one else out (French). We caved cuz DeGaulle said if we didn't help him Stalin would. Ho Chi Mihn was a small c Communist but a Capital N Nationalist, Kinda like Tito in Yugoslavia, Tito was an undercover ally of the US in the cold war. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:24:58 AM EDT
[#39]
www.videoflicks.com/titles/1032/1032336.htm?SHOW=1&TYPE=3&ASSN=20482 Watch this and call us back. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:37:22 AM EDT
[#40]
And there's the problem...we didn't. Micromanagement from McNamara and LBJ got a lot of men killed. Yes, I think we should have been there, but not fought it the way we did. Keep the politicians in DC, let the military worry about how to fight. I was too young, but my Uncle was a Major. He always said we could have won it in 6 months if we were allowed to fight. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:41:34 AM EDT
[#41]
Have you ever seen "Vietnam: The Ten Thousand Day War"? I am guessing that neither you nor your uncle have seen it. Winning the military fight wasn't the problem. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:41:38 AM EDT
[#42]
I totally agree with you, would the US continue bombing North Viet Nam one more week, Hanoi would have surrendered. North Viet Nam should have been brought back to the stone age. As a south vietnamese veteran, I feel deeply sorry that we have lost this country to the commies and that so many galant soldiers, both US & south vietnamese have given the ultimate sacrifice in vain. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 11:43:28 AM EDT
[#43]
So what would their surrender have meant when many of our own allies in South Vietnam were working against us? |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 12:05:37 PM EDT
[#44]
Obviously they were not your allies but VC infiltrators. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 12:10:21 PM EDT
[#45]
Yep, Ho Chi Mihn was a staunch and true ally of the US in WWII, fought the Japs, rescued downed airmen, admired the US immensely. Vietnam War II. Background From the 1880s until World War II (1939-1945), France governed Vietnam as part of French Indochina, which also included Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam was under the nominal control of an emperor, Bao Dai. In 1940 Japanese troops invaded and occupied French Indochina. In May 1941 Vietnamese nationalists established the League for the Independence of Vietnam, or Viet Minh, seeing the turmoil of World War II as an opportunity to overthrow French colonial rule. The Viet Minh, a front organization of the Indochinese Communist Party, sought popular support for national independence, as well as social and political reform. The United States demanded that Japan leave Indochina, warning of military action. The Viet Minh began guerrilla warfare against Japan and entered an effective alliance with the United States. Viet Minh troops rescued downed U.S. pilots, located Japanese prison camps, helped U.S. prisoners to escape, and provided valuable intelligence to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Ho Chi Minh, the principal leader of the Viet Minh, was even made a special OSS agent. When the Japanese formally surrendered to the Allies on September 2, 1945, Ho used the occasion to declare the independence of Vietnam, which he called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (DRV). Emperor Bao Dai had abdicated the throne a week earlier. The French, however, refused to acknowledge Vietnam’s independence, and later that year drove the Viet Minh into the north of the country. There they regrouped as the Lien Viet Front, which sought a broader base of support, including moderates; it was replaced in 1955 by the Fatherland Front, which served as the Communist-front organization of the DRV. (The NLF later served as the southern front.) However, the term Viet Minh continued to be commonly used for supporters of the movement for a unified Vietnam. Also in 1951 some Vietnamese nationalists created the Lao Dong (Workers’ Party) as the successor to the Indochinese Communist Party, which had been operating clandestinely since 1945 in the war against the French. The Lao Dong was conceived as a nationwide, united party, and it was formally based in the DRV capital of Hanoi. By 1953 most Viet Minh were members of the Lao Dong. Immediately after Ho declared the formation of the DRV, he wrote eight letters to U.S. president Harry Truman, imploring him to recognize Vietnam’s independence. Many OSS agents informed the U.S. administration that despite being a Communist, Ho Chi Minh was not a puppet of the Communist-led Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and that he could potentially become a valued ally in Asia. Tensions between the United States and the USSR had mounted after World War II, resulting in the Cold War. The foreign policy of the United States during the Cold War was driven by a fear of the spread of Communism. After World War II Communist governments came to power in Eastern European nations that had fallen under the domination of the USSR, and in 1949 Communists took control of China. United States policymakers felt they could not afford to lose Southeast Asia as well to Communist rule. The United States therefore condemned Ho Chi Minh as an agent of international Communism and offered to assist the French in reestablishing a colonial regime in Vietnam. In 1946 United States warships ferried elite French troops to Vietnam where they quickly regained control of the major cities, including Hanoi, Haiphong, Da Nang, Hue, and Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), while the Viet Minh controlled the countryside. The Viet Minh had only 2,000 troops at the time Vietnam’s independence was declared, but recruiting increased after the arrival of French troops. By the late 1940s, the Viet Minh had hundreds of thousands of soldiers and were fighting the French to a draw. In 1949 the French set up a government to rival Ho Chi Minh’s, installing Bao Dai as head of state. In May 1954 the Viet Minh mounted a massive assault on the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu, in northwestern Vietnam near the border with Laos. The Battle of Dien Bien Phu resulted in perhaps the most humiliating defeat in French military history. Already tired of the war, the French public forced their government to reach a peace agreement at the Geneva Conference. France asked the other world powers to help draw up a plan for French withdrawal from the region and for the future of Vietnam. Meeting in Geneva, Switzerland, from May 8 to July 21, 1954, diplomats from France, Great Britain, the USSR, the People’s Republic of China, and the United States, as well as representatives from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, attended delegations to draft a set of agreements called the Geneva Accords. These agreements provided for a cease-fire throughout Vietnam and a temporary partition of the country at the 17th parallel. French troops were to withdraw to the south of the dividing line until they could be safely removed from the country, while Viet Minh forces were to retreat to the north. Ho Chi Minh maintained control of North Vietnam, or the DRV, while Emperor Bao Dai remained head of South Vietnam. Elections were to be held in July 1956 throughout the North and South under the supervision of the International Control Commission, comprised of representatives from Canada, Poland, and India. Following these elections, Vietnam was to be reunited under the government chosen by popular vote. The Viet Minh reluctantly agreed to the partitioning of Vietnam in the expectation that the elections would reunify the country under Communist rule. The United States did not want to allow the possibility of Communist control over Vietnam. In June 1954, during the Geneva Conference, the United States pressured Bao Dai to appoint Ngo Dinh Diem prime minister of the government in South Vietnam. The United States chose Diem for his nationalist and anti-Communist credentials. With U.S. support, Diem refused to sign the Geneva Accords. The United States, which acted as an observer during the delegations, also did not become a signatory. Immediately after the Geneva Conference, the U.S. government moved to establish the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), a regional alliance that extended protection to South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos in cases of Communist subversion or insurrection. SEATO, which came into force in 1955, became the mechanism by which Washington justified its support for South Vietnam; this support eventually became direct involvement of U.S. troops. Meanwhile, Diem announced he had no intention of participating in the planned national elections, which Ho Chi Minh and the Lao Dong were favored to win. Instead, Diem held elections only in South Vietnam, in October 1955. He won the elections with 98.2 percent of the vote, but many historians believe these elections were rigged, since about 150,000 more people voted in Saigon than were registered. Diem then deposed Bao Dai, who had been the only other candidate, and declared South Vietnam to be an independent nation called the Republic of Vietnam (RVN), with himself as president and Saigon as its capital. Vietnamese Communists and many non-Communist Vietnamese nationalists saw the creation of the RVN as an effort by the United States to interfere with the independence promised at Geneva. http://encarta.msn.com/text_761552642___17/Vietnam_War.html |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 12:20:25 PM EDT
[#46]
Call them what you want but it was obvious that 1) there were lots of them in high places and 2) there was no good way to tell the "good guys" from the "bad guys"; and 3) the "good guys" weren't any less corrupt than the "bad guys". Read the short history posted above. We could have approached Vietnam a dozen different ways that would have been better than war. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 12:24:33 PM EDT
[#47]
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Posted: 9/21/2005 12:34:46 PM EDT
[#48]
Dang computer....Triple posts... |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 12:40:31 PM EDT
[#49]
It is where his bread was buttered at the time. |
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Posted: 9/21/2005 12:43:06 PM EDT
[#50]
Absolutely we were right to intervene. Look what happened when we refused to win and left.
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