Alan, you're wrong. The NVA regular army didn't beat us. Yes, they were well trained and disciplined and, even more importantly, they were willing to die for their cause, but we could outfight them.
What we couldn't outfight was the fact that the people of S. Vietnam provided support for them as well as a fighting force that on it's own was capable of creating substantial casualties.
And what we really couldn't outfight was the FACT that our objectives in Vietnam were internal in nature and those people, that culture and those religions would not line up and march to our tune. That left us with an unrealistic and unachievable GOAL that we could never meet. Eventually we came to realize that the tremendous costs we were paying would NEVER lead to the results we wanted. We also came to realize that the results we sought provided limited benefits. The cost/benefit analysis was one that rational people would view as requiring only one decision, and that decision was to butt out and go home.
The clear parallels between Vietnam and Iraq aren't necessarily in the emergence of the insurgencies, although there are clear parallels there, the real similarities are that in each instance we occupied under flawed assumptions and, when that should have been clear, PROUD AND EGO-BLINDED PEOPLE DUG IN THEIR FEET, VOICED PLATITUDES AND SENT OTHERS TO DIE FOR AN ULTIMATELY PREDICTABLE AND DISMAL FAILURE.
A few days ago I posted the words of the then-in-power politicians. Most of them were democrats and their words about "will not fail" etc. eerily echoed the words of this administration and, to some extent, Kerry.
The truth is that when you start hearing from those in charge that "we cannot afford to fail and we will not fail," you'd better understand that failure is not only an option, it's a very real option. |
