The statement still stands Laz...
VN was the greatest military victory over a super power the world could ever have imagined and was ill concieved from the start for a good many reasons , especially the installation of a hated Catholic puppet leader for a "democracy" in almost a completely Buddhist Country...which btw, was a complete stroke of genius wouldn't you say ?
( One too many scotch & sodas in the higher echelons if you ask me , which supports a previous statement of our "intelligence" during that time )
You know d*** well the US pulled out because of demonstrations back here, not any victiries over there.
Certainly that was one of the 3 chief reasons we lost the VN war , but remember also that many of the returning Vets beginning in 1969-70-71 themselves became some of the loudest organized voices against the conflict . The desertion rate starting in 1969 reached epidemic proportions of 100K later on , and recorded fraggings of NCO's were rampant in the 100's.
The Ho trail which surpassed Hannibal's crossing the Alps by magnitudes by the NVC and has become simply historical if not mythological .Even with dropping millions of tons of bombs on Cambodia which for political reasons we would not extend the ground War to, nor could we . The flow of weapons supplies were not just coming from the north but much off loading from Chinese & Russian suppliers thru the ports of Cambodia, who were more than happy to drain us . We certainly could have taken the path of taking the war to the north itself , but then again the political limitations & decisions presented themselves that fear of direct conflict with the Chinese themselves . There was also a strong desire among the American senior leadership to avoid any situation that might lead to a situation similar to the last years of the Korean War, and having to maintain an ongoing large military presence .
To win that War that very invasion of the North & Hanoi would have been the most military logical step and would have prolly have succeeded easily . Yet just like the ME now a very similar situation we find ourselves in. All would be settled briskly just to invade & liberate Iran and be done with it ... and all peace should prevail in short order ? But that brings you to the 1rst major reason the VN War was lost , an ultra~determined ground swell of ideologically opposing force , extremely motivated by extreme hatred that rivals that same nationalism of the NVC's but in the ME/Iraq/Iran is also on a religiously based scale .... (and they have the oil, which brings the focus home on ourselves and the dependency we have here )
Iraq conflict ... think was necessary but has been handled extremely poorly in some facets , there are great achievements still potentially there and no one can complain of the overall performance of the military personnel in the field which has been truely professional, but they cannot win the political maneuvers being played out here .
(One plus though is, we didn't try to install a catholic as
president of Iraq... seems we are "learning" after all).
* Now ask me if we should have invaded Afghanistan ?
Answer -->you betcha!
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