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

To: Bruce L who wrote (148597)	10/22/2004 9:30:53 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Bruce, re: 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. I think you see the facts but misinterpret their import. If you study the tactics of the Viet Cong and the NVA during that war it's clear that there were many targets of opportunity that they passed on. They were not trying to terrorize the country, they were trying to kill Americans so that we would leave. They understood that once we were gone they would "win" the war. They were patient. If it took a decade they were prepared. If it took several decades, they were prepared to fight on. I think their strategy was never to wholesale attack the ARVN forces, just as the ARVN forces seemed to generally resist attacking them. That left them safer and left American units more threatened. I have read, somewhere, that we did sell out the S. Vietnamese in the Paris accords. The rumor is that Kissinger was simply buying time to get our troops out and save face, but that there was an implicit agreement that we would take no action when the North later invaded. As you know, the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces just walked through the South Vietnamese forces of "democracy" that we'd supplied and trained for years. What does that tell you? As far as "romantic" visions of people fighting to their death for big ideas, what do you think people voluntarily risk their lives for? It's usually for survival or for big ideas. What would you fight and risk your life for? Never dismiss as "romantic" those things which move nations to war and their average citizens to take up arms and sacrifice their lives. Pragmatic people understand the power of romance. Finally, you write; "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. Is that an example of procedure over substance? Maybe reality trumps the rule sometimes. For instance, how do you continue to "help" prop up a government when its people and its army will NOT fight for that same government. Don't forget that we'd fought and died propping up that corrupt, morally bankrupt puppet government for years. We should never confuse helping the "South Vietnamese" government with helping the South Vietnamese people. And we should never forget that the greatest military power in the history of the world cannot push a string. Ed