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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:27:29 PM EDT
Someone made the point (here, I think) that we actually "won" in SE Asia, since we actually did stop the spread of that vile, putrid, always-fatal disease known as commienism.
 While China fell, India and Japan never did, and they are free to this day b/c of that (and us, and our sacrifice of blood).Granted, I would say we did a MUCH better job of pulling out of Korea, since we gradually de-escalated & turned it over to those who were most willing to fight & die for their freedom, the South Koreans. In Vietnam, OTOH, it looks to me like we ran like cowardly dogs w/ our tails between our legs, and left all the records behind so's our South Vietnam friends were left dangling in the wind, and of course were  I would say (with my admittedly VERY imperfect understanding of these conflicts) that this was the fault of Nixon, who was so eager to score political points, that he was perfectly willing to leave good men to die, so long as it made him look good.   Or am I all wet? Am I wrong? Did Nixon do it right, and made the best of a shitty situation, where the best you could do was hope the shit on the stick didn't end up getting all over your hands? Certainly, I couldn't say one American boy who died/was wounded in those conflicts died for a good reason...  Or was it a good cause? |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:27:54 PM EDT
[#1]
We didn't win. We left
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:30:33 PM EDT
[#2]
"Made in Vietnam" is a thing now.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:31:24 PM EDT
[#3]
Nope, the only way to win those would have been to ass fuck china.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:32:07 PM EDT
[#4]
How Chi Minh said, I will lose ten men for every one of yours, but you will tire of it first. He was right.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:32:50 PM EDT
[#5]
Yes. We won. McDonald's are in both.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:33:24 PM EDT
[#6]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We didn't win. We left Neither one was "our" war to begin with. I'd say we should have supplied the native freedom fighters, and never risked the life of a single American boy to secure their freedom. You want freedom? You fight for it, then; we'll just back you up, with the manufacturing might that is America. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:33:52 PM EDT
[#7]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Yes. We won. McDonald's are in both. And now china is about to get our booty. You sure? |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:37:16 PM EDT
[#8]
No and that was never the plan. According to my dad, a VN Vet, we were there to make a few fat cats rich buning up hardware..........
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:38:53 PM EDT
[#9]
Quote HistoryQuoted: No and that was never the plan. According to my dad, a VN Vet, we were there to make a few fat cats rich buning up hardware.......... Just like every bullshit war after |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:39:32 PM EDT
[#10]
The Korean 'conflict' (not a war) ended in a cease fire that is still in effect. The Vietnam Police Action (again not a war) ended after we left and gave the country to the communists.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:40:02 PM EDT
[#11]
We broke even in Korea.
The politicians lost Vietnam. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:40:09 PM EDT
[#12]
A politician, a defense contractor, the media, other special interests all have a different meaning of win, vs those in the field.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:40:26 PM EDT
[#13]
Quote HistoryQuoted: No and that was never the plan. According to my dad, a VN Vet, we were there to make a few fat cats rich buning up hardware.......... That's the crux. What is "war?" Is it making ourselves safer, defending an ally, making the world a better place, or is it throwing our best young men into a wood chipper to enrich a small cabal of defense insiders and pentagon officials? Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the small minor ones in between sure seem like the latter |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:41:01 PM EDT
[#14]
Vietnam - stop the spread of communism in southeast Asia. Did that.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:41:56 PM EDT
[#15]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Vietnam - stop the spread of communism in southeast Asia. Did that. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:42:33 PM EDT
[#16]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Vietnam - stop the spread of communism in southeast Asia. Did that. Does that include when China takes over Taiwan, the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Japan? |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:42:57 PM EDT
[#17]
Quote HistoryQuoted: How Chi Minh said, I will lose ten men for every one of yours, but you will tire of it first. He was right. Which gets back to the point: we should never have had even one American boy in front-line combat. As Gen. Omar Bradly said, logistics wins wars; supply the South Koreans/South Vietnamese (who had the most to lose) with all they needed to win that fight, while never sacrificing one drop of American blood. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:45:39 PM EDT
[#18]
We failed to achieve our objectives in either one.
We likely would have seen South Korea fall to the Communists the same way South Vietnam did had we not backed up the armistice with arms. The Paris Peace accords showed the Communists knew they had the upper hand, and they learned from Korea. Sure enough, they were able to provoke without reaction and then build and a massive invasion force to make a joke of the whole treaty. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:46:29 PM EDT
[#19]
Judging by current events they are winning.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:46:47 PM EDT
[#20]
Quoted: Someone made the point (here, I think) that we actually "won" in SE Asia, since we actually did stop the spread of that vile, putrid, always-fatal disease known as commienism. While China fell, India and Japan never did, and they are free to this day b/c of that (and us, and our sacrifice of blood).Granted, I would say we did a MUCH better job of pulling out of Korea, since we gradually de-escalated & turned it over to those who were most willing to fight & die for their freedom, the South Koreans. In Vietnam, OTOH, it looks to me like we ran like cowardly dogs w/ our tails between our legs, and left all the records behind so's our South Vietnam friends were left dangling in the wind, and of course were I would say (with my admittedly VERY imperfect understanding of these conflicts) that this was the fault of Nixon, who was so eager to score political points, that he was perfectly willing to leave good men to die, so long as it made him look good. Or am I all wet? Am I wrong? Did Nixon do it right, and made the best of a shitty situation, where the best you could do was hope the shit on the stick didn't end up getting all over your hands? Certainly, I couldn't say one American boy who died/was wounded in those conflicts died for a good reason... Or was it a good cause?We won the first Vietnamese Civil War. We made the north go away. We left. They invaded again a while later and Congress (not Nixon) refused to fund any action or allow troops to go. We declined to play in VCW II. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:46:58 PM EDT
[#21]
Quote HistoryQuoted: That's the crux. What is "war?" Is it making ourselves safer, defending an ally, making the world a better place, or is it throwing our best young men into a wood chipper to enrich a small cabal of defense insiders and pentagon officials? Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the small minor ones in between sure seem like the latter Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: No and that was never the plan. According to my dad, a VN Vet, we were there to make a few fat cats rich buning up hardware.......... Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the small minor ones in between sure seem like the latter The Founding Fathers had more than a little to say about getting involved in "foreign entanglements..." 
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:47:00 PM EDT
[#22]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Neither one was "our" war to begin with. I'd say we should have supplied the native freedom fighters, and never risked the life of a single American boy to secure their freedom. You want freedom? You fight for it, then; we'll just back you up, with the manufacturing might that is America. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: We didn't win. We left Neither one was "our" war to begin with. I'd say we should have supplied the native freedom fighters, and never risked the life of a single American boy to secure their freedom. You want freedom? You fight for it, then; we'll just back you up, with the manufacturing might that is America. I'd agree with that. Same with shithole countries in the middle east |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:50:11 PM EDT
[#23]
If by "we" you mean the military industrial complex, then yes.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:50:12 PM EDT
[#24]
These days, with our tech, I'd push a couple of buttons and then call them up and say, can you hear me now?
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:51:41 PM EDT
[#25]
Quote HistoryQuoted: The Founding Fathers had more than a little to say about getting involved in "foreign entanglements..." Don't worry, the gears of war will start grinding again. Biden gonna see to that. War pigging was slow business under Trump. Veterans, I got respect, but once you realize all those boys got mangled or killed or mentally broken for life, for life and it's all just to make other people richer, you'll never look at the service the same. You didn't serve your country, you served your military industrial complex and you got thrown away once it got theirs |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:53:04 PM EDT
[#26]
If the Chicoms try Japan they will be in for a fight
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:54:32 PM EDT
[#27]
Quote HistoryQuoted: If the Chicoms try Japan they will be in for a fight From who? China Joe Xiden? He's spent the last two days rolling out the red carpet for them. Japan is free for three slaughter at this point |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:55:31 PM EDT
[#28]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We failed to achieve our objectives in either one. We likely would have seen South Korea fall to the Communists the same way South Vietnam did had we not backed up the armistice with arms. The Paris Peace accords showed the Communists knew they had the upper hand, and they learned from Korea. Sure enough, they were able to provoke without reaction and then build and a massive invasion force to make a joke of the whole treaty. We failed in 'Nam because the government would never untie the military's hand to wage all-out war on the North, and to chase the Cong into the adjacent countries. However, it is also true that even if we had 'won', sooner or later the Reds were going to get the South. There is also the matter of the absolutely corrupt government of the South which was too far out of control to last. So, embarrassing as it was to watch those last days with our forces fleeing the country, it probably was for the best that it happened as it did. Okay, with that out of the way, where the hell are all the M1 Carbines that we left there? |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:55:49 PM EDT
[#29]
Nixon wasn't the one that got us into Vietnam and everyone killed. He's the one that got us out. He saw that we were never going to win anything over there, the way our politicians were running it (power of the purse and all).
In Korea and Vietnam we were fighting mostly Chinese as I recall. Eta, JMHumbleO |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:55:53 PM EDT
[#30]
We lost in Korea cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp to let MacArthur go in there
and blow out those Commie bastards! |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:57:54 PM EDT
[#31]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We lost in Korea cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp to let MacArthur go in there and blow out those Commie bastards! America was also only five years removed from a global war that sent a lot of telegrams to a lot of wives and mothers at that point also |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 9:57:55 PM EDT
[#32]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We lost in Korea cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp to let MacArthur go in there and blow out those Commie bastards! There's that too. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:01:42 PM EDT
[#33]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We lost in Korea cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp to let MacArthur go in there and blow out those Commie bastards! Our stated goal in Korea was a return to pre-war borders. We never officially intended to violate the treaty by unifying the country. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:01:49 PM EDT
[#34]
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:02:01 PM EDT
[#35]
Quoted: Someone made the point (here, I think) that we actually "won" in SE Asia, since we actually did stop the spread of that vile, putrid, always-fatal disease known as commienism. While China fell, India and Japan never did, and they are free to this day b/c of that (and us, and our sacrifice of blood).Granted, I would say we did a MUCH better job of pulling out of Korea, since we gradually de-escalated & turned it over to those who were most willing to fight & die for their freedom, the South Koreans. In Vietnam, OTOH, it looks to me like we ran like cowardly dogs w/ our tails between our legs, and left all the records behind so's our South Vietnam friends were left dangling in the wind, and of course were I would say (with my admittedly VERY imperfect understanding of these conflicts) that this was the fault of Nixon, who was so eager to score political points, that he was perfectly willing to leave good men to die, so long as it made him look good. Or am I all wet? Am I wrong? Did Nixon do it right, and made the best of a shitty situation, where the best you could do was hope the shit on the stick didn't end up getting all over your hands? Certainly, I couldn't say one American boy who died/was wounded in those conflicts died for a good reason... Or was it a good cause?
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:03:19 PM EDT
[#36]
Won militarily then lost politically so we pulled our military out then won economically in the long run.
/thread |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:04:44 PM EDT
[#37]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We lost in Korea cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp to let MacArthur go in there and blow out those Commie bastards! MacArthur walked in to one if the biggest traps in the history of military operations, and for no reason other than his ego refused to let him consider it. He should have retired long before and been telling war stories at an old folks home. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:06:07 PM EDT
[#38]
Who is writing the book?
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:08:16 PM EDT
[#39]
Quote HistoryQuoted: MacArthur walked in to one if the biggest traps in the history if military operations, and for no reason other than his ego refused to let him consider it. He should have retired long before and been telling war stories at an old folks home. Why would he have retired, he was basically the Emperor of Japan. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:08:51 PM EDT
[#40]
I'm increasingly convinced that "win" hasn't been an exit condition to a major war since the 19th Century. Even the apparently clear victories were followed by division, brinksmanship, oppression, and the setup for the next war.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:09:16 PM EDT
[#41]
No. We were on the cusp of winning when the politicians decided that we needed to lose because of optics...
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:10:47 PM EDT
[#42]
Ask a South Korean who won. The goal of North Korea and the Red Chinese was a unified Korea under communist rule.
They failed to achieve that. Compare the two Koreas today. South Korea is a modern, economically secure, industrial and technologically advanced free country. North Korea is a starving, backwards totalitarian police state. I ask you; Who won the Korean War? |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:10:50 PM EDT
[#43]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We lost in Korea cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp to let MacArthur go in there and blow out those Commie bastards!  |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:14:55 PM EDT
[#44]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Our stated goal in Korea was a return to pre-war borders. We never officially intended to violate the treaty by unifying the country. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: We lost in Korea cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp to let MacArthur go in there and blow out those Commie bastards! Our stated goal in Korea was a return to pre-war borders. We never officially intended to violate the treaty by unifying the country. What Treaty? The legal documents of relevance were UNSCR 82 and 83, which call on he North to return to their side of the 38th parallel. But the mandate of the UN forces wasn't so limiting, calling for "such assistance to the Republic of Korea as may be necessary to repel the armed attack and to restore international peace and security in the area." That's a broad mandate, and can easily be interpreted as destroying the commie fucks who caused the problem to begin with. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:20:19 PM EDT
[#45]
the french got us involved in vietnam threatening to buddy up to russia if we didn't help with their rubber plantations/restore pre ww2 colonies to their control (ho chi minh read our constitution the day the Japanese were kicked out in 45)
we learned quickly of chinas "Mao" influenece in korea and vietnam and frankly ran from it at the end of ww2 (repeat of our involvement with the whites in 1919) we never win anything due to lying conniving politicians who just want to line their own pockets we were the only fully mechanized army in 1945 and we were using a bomb's we should have been better narrators of the futures direction especially after having been drugged into another european world war. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:20:55 PM EDT
[#46]
Quote HistoryQuoted: Neither one was "our" war to begin with. I'd say we should have supplied the native freedom fighters, and never risked the life of a single American boy to secure their freedom. You want freedom? You fight for it, then; we'll just back you up, with the manufacturing might that is America. We did supply the native freedom fighters in the central highlands. When our troops were pulled out, our government fucked over the Montagnards just like we fucked over the Kurds in Iraq. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:21:19 PM EDT
[#47]
If by "we" you mean the military industrial complex, yes.
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:23:46 PM EDT
[#48]
Quoted: Someone made the point (here, I think) that we actually "won" in SE Asia, since we actually did stop the spread of that vile, putrid, always-fatal disease known as commienism. ***Certainly, I couldn't say one American boy who died/was wounded in those conflicts died for a good reason... Or was it a good cause?Did we win WWII? We fought a Europe more or less united under german leadership. We've had that for about three decades now. In Vietnam, the US showed that it could fight a war on the other side of the world and still drive big cars, watch color TVs, and let anyone who wanted to go to college still go. In Vietnam, we also learned that having the domestic left all over the programming on those color TVs could have Congress pulling us out of a war we weren't losing. (Dems didn't just pull us out of Vietnam; they also outlawed any support for South Vietnam.) Then in Afghanistan, the soviets learned that they couldn't win in their own neighborhoods. Starwars missile defense was the cherry on top. It's a series of events that left the Soviets demoralized. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:24:10 PM EDT
[#49]
Quote HistoryQuoted: We did supply the native freedom fighters in the central highlands. When our troops were pulled out, our government fucked over the Montagnards just like we fucked over the Kurds in Iraq. Quote HistoryQuoted: Quoted: Neither one was "our" war to begin with. I'd say we should have supplied the native freedom fighters, and never risked the life of a single American boy to secure their freedom. You want freedom? You fight for it, then; we'll just back you up, with the manufacturing might that is America. We did supply the native freedom fighters in the central highlands. When our troops were pulled out, our government fucked over the Montagnards just like we fucked over the Kurds in Iraq. The U.S. is likely the only reason Kurds are still a thing. Without us, they'd be about as relevant as Circassians. |
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Posted: 1/23/2021 10:36:35 PM EDT
[#50]
It doesnt seem like we tried to win VN at all.
IIRC it came out in recent years that we were disclosing bombing targets ahead of time, and limiting attacks to ineffective targets anyway. I havent studied why that was, but how can you win a war with that strategy? |
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