No one has ever claimed it was the NVA that brought down the US.
I didn't claim the NVA brought down the US. I said it brought down South Vietnam.
But the NVA did account for most of the American casualties. The Viet Cong didn't really fight the US most of the time. The NVA tried to take built up American positions. It always failed but only after some hectic moments for the Americans. Also when it didn't want to or didn't feel up to attacking the US forces with a conventional attack the NVA could and did use guerilla warfare tactics. After Tet the indigenous Vietcong had been devastated, and most of the attacks on Americans where by NVA forces.
I am afraid we learned two different versions of Vietnam history:
"Viet Cong [veet' kông]
Pronunciation Key
Viet Cong , officially Viet Nam Cong San [Vietnamese Communists], People's Liberation Armed Forces in South Vietnam. The term was originally applied by Diem's regime to Communist troops (about 10,000) left in hideouts in South Vietnam after the Geneva Conference of 1954, following the French Indochina War (1946–54). Most Communist troops, according to the agreements, had withdrawn to North Vietnam. Supported and later directed by North Vietnam, the Viet Cong first tried subversive tactics to overthrow the South Vietnamese regime, then resorted to open warfare (see Vietnam War). They were subsequently reinforced by huge numbers of North Vietnamese troops infiltrating south, and aided in the reunification of Vietnam following the collapse of South Vietnam in 1975."
infoplease.com
Edit - Steve makes a good point. If your going to call anything "another Vietnam" you should know enough about the Vietnam war to know what the NVA was.
Huh? He throws out initials I had never seen before
If your commenting on the Vietnam war, or about parallels to that war, and you don't know what the NVA was its like commenting on the relative merits of INTC and AMD as investments without knowing what PC or CPU stand for. Its theoretically possible to understand the companies and their products without knowing these terms but its extremely unlikely.
I grew up in the US. English is my first language. I studied American history in American schools. In all the articles I have read about Vietnam, I have never once seen the initials NVA used to describe the North Vietnam army. In fact, in the definition of the Viet Cong above they don't use the initials NVA.
Insurgencies are notorious for bringing down an occupying, standing army [see Afghanistan]
The rebels in Afghanistan caused a lot of trouble for the Soviets but the situation was a lot different. The USSR was decaying at the time.
What makes you think we are not? Is it possible at least part of the cause of the Soviet's decay was due to Afghanistan?
The terrain in Afghanistan is more difficult then the terrain in most of Iraq. The Soviet army was comparatively poorly trained, and morale and discipline were not good (Soviet soldiers sometimes even sold weapons and supplies to their enemy), and the fighters in Afghanistan had help from a superpower in their fight against the Soviets.
You are so deluding yourself its not worth the discussion. I don't care if King Kong lived in Afghanistan and was helping the Taliban......we are not winning the war in Iraq. It doesn't matter if the terrain was worse or better in Afghanistan........the outcome is the same.
ted |
