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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (148462)	10/21/2004 5:41:14 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 281500

I agree that the ARVN often lacked passion and will and maybe skill. I would say that we realized that the war "could not be won." I wouldn't. And I say that knowing that in the extreme "nuke em" or "do it no matter what the costs" sense, we might have destroyed their will to fight on. I'm not talking "nuke em" either in the literal sense of using nukes, or in the more figurative sense of just trying to kills as many Vietnamese as we could. But it only would have been possible to win without the political restrictions on the war that kept us from taking the initiative. After Tet (and maybe even before) it would have been difficult to lift such restrictions and use a more aggressive strategy. It might have even proved impossible, and if so then in that sense its possible the "war could not be won". My point was, however, that even in the south we had tremendous difficulties in digging them out of the jungle or separating them out from the local populations. The Viet Cong/NLF had been hit very hard during Tet and probably never really recovered. Further attrition of them (and of NVA acting as guerillas) was certainly possible and in time the government in the South might have became more stable and their military more capable as happened in the South in Korea. What finished the chance of that happening was a large conventional invasion from North Vietnam, and invasion that we could easily have smashed. We should face the fact that we were fighting an idealistic, nationalistic and determined resistance that wasn't going to quit until we'd won or they were ALL dead. That's a tough one to "win." The communists were unusually determined but not that determined. Few are. Armies of enemies almost never are. It was only political expediency that kept us there, kept our young men in harm's way and extended that meat-grinder of a fruitless war. I think that's inexcusable and if there's a hell I hope Nixon and Johnson share a room there. It was political expediency that kept us from either really trying to win the war, or getting out. We should have done one or the other. We didn't. I think we should have been pragmatic and understood human nature better. I think we should have seen the realities on the ground long before tens of thousands of men died there. I suspect that you think we could have saved more men by extending and expanding the war and fighting harder. It's two sides of the same coin. I respect that. Ed I think the war could have been won by extending and expanding it and fighting harder, however I don't think victory would have been guaranteed and I don't find the argument that it wouldn't have been worth it to be unreasonable, even if I'm not sure that I agree. But most of all I don't think we should have done what we did. Against an enemy who's power and determination are week you can use half measures and blunder along for awhile without much cost. Against a reasonably powerful and very determined enemy you have to seriously try to win or you will lose. Whether any military win we could possibly have had in Vietnam stood as a long term political win would depend on the evolution of South Vietnam's government. What would have happened in South Vietnam if it had more years, and decades to improve itself is something that will never be known. If it didn't make any improvement in terms of military effectiveness and reducing corruption, possibly even becoming democratic then the communist threat would still be there (even if we applied enough force to get them to stop attacking and sign a peace treaty). If the government, the economy, and civil society improved anything like South Korea's improvement, then even if North Vietnam remained communist and a theoretical threat the situation would have stabilized and would have been much better for all concerned (except I guess the committed communists). Such a change didn't happen while we were in Vietnam and wasn't going to happen in the next few years. It might have happened by now but there really is no way of knowing. And without knowing we can't really know if Vietnam would have been worth it even if we did win. Tim

To: cnyndwllr who wrote (148462)	10/21/2004 9:00:19 PM
From: Bruce L	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<< I would say that we realized that the <Vietnam>war "could not be won." And I say that knowing that in the extreme ..... we might have destroyed their will to fight on. But..... the ideas wouldn't have died no matter how many of them we killed.>> Hi Brother: In the context of the Iraq conflict, you said on 8/22/04 that if Sistani issued a fatwa to kill Americans and drive them from Iraq, "I believe it would be a bloodbath and the number of Shiites that would take up arms would be remarkable." You spoke of a "hive" that has been riled, of people "who bleed and sweat their lives away," of Bush's disdain for the "power and pride" of the average Iraqi people. I responded: " (Y)ou have a romantic, "Frank Herbert" type vision of a courageous Iraqi people, united in a jihad against the United States" and that this was crap. I also wrote a long post on HOW AND WHEN a People find the valour to fight. <http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=20463837> You promised a response which still has yet to come. My belief is that you are still engaging in a romantic, Frank Herbert type vision of a united Vietcong/North Vietnamese People who would fight to the last man; that their "idea" would not have died until we killed the last man holding that idea. In fact, the evidence is against you. From March 1973, when the Paris accords were signed, until 10 days before the fall of Saigon in 1975, there were few, if any, INTERNAL disturbances in South Vietnam. The South Vietnamese Army was defeated in a conventional war by mainforce NVA battalions. Finally, the fact that North Vietnam may now be friendly does not support your argument that it was right in 1975 for the United States to ignore the NVA violation of the Paris Accords and refuse to help the South Vietnamese: the happenstance of the result can not justify the morality of the original decision. Bruce