how did the vietnam war end? what would end the war in Iraq??

[UberNeuman]

Originally posted by: Blueychan
Lemon law,

I never said it was all Jane Fonda and activists, but they were part of the reason why the North Vietnamese won. The main reason why the Americans lost because we weren't aggressive enough and let the war drag on too long.

The Vietnamese war ended because of liberal hippies like Jane Fonda and friends.

 

[Blueychan]

UberNeuman,

The US withdrew and thus ended the war mostly because of the pressure at home. The US lost the war over a decade they were not aggressive enough.

Not sure where you going with the quotes. Ending and losing the war is two different things.

 

[Blueychan]

Why does it matter how old I am?

 

[Pliablemoose]

Peace with dignity my ass

If you really want to get a feel for what the withdrawal was like, just google "the fall of Saigon"

I've met several people that were involved in the evacuation of Saigon, it humiliated everyone involved.

We'll leave Iraq screwed just as we left Vietnam, with our tail between our legs. The poor SOB locals that were sympathizers and their families will be executed, there'll be cleansing, yep, it'll be real smooth.

 

[UberNeuman]

Originally posted by: Blueychan
UberNeuman,

The US withdrew and thus ended the war mostly because of the pressure at home. The US lost the war over a decade they were not aggressive enough.

Not sure where you going with the quotes. Ending and losing the war is two different things.

The quote was to show that you've tried to duck an early claim that you've made, and now are trying to make back peddle from...

As for Vietnam - they are a trading partner with the U.S. today...

So, we have normal relations with them today - so what candyland are you living in to proclaim that the U.S. lost?

The troops did their job - but with folks like you, we'd still be in Vietnam.....

 

[UberNeuman]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
Peace with dignity my ass

If you really want to get a feel for what the withdrawal was like, just google "the fall of Saigon"

I've met several people that were involved in the evacuation of Saigon, it humiliated everyone involved.

We'll leave Iraq screwed just as we left Vietnam, with our tail between our legs. The poor SOB locals that were sympathizers and their families will be executed, there'll be cleansing, yep, it'll be real smooth.

The same country/trading partner that the U.S. has normal relations with today....

/you can keep screwing the pooch
//but the in the end - it comes down to the money.....

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: Blueychan
UberNeuman,

The US withdrew and thus ended the war mostly because of the pressure at home. The US lost the war over a decade they were not aggressive enough.

Not sure where you going with the quotes. Ending and losing the war is two different things.

What you don't seem to understand, from what I'll assume is a lack of knowledge of Southeast Asian colonial history, is that the war was lost the day it started. What Vietnam had was a national hero with massive popular support versus a continuation of an old colonial power structure which propped up incompetent and unstable authoritarian rulers. France got the hell out with their tail between their legs and we got dragged into that mess in large part because of our own lack of leadership continuity. I'm not sure Eisenhower or Kennedy would have single-handedly taken us from start to finish in that war, but each succeeding president upped the ante more and more until we had suddenly found ourselves with an objective that needed "winning" and to not escalate was "losing" and a waste of the resources we'd already spent. So you had an overconfident LBJ going out full scale, being more aggressive, and accomplishing nothing but more bloodshed.

Now you can say had we stayed, had we been more aggressive, we could have "won," whatever that means. The fact is we sent a half million U.S. troops to Vietnam, we won most every battle, and we had more resources to keep fighting them to their graves, but what we did not have was popular support. Without that, even if you manage to win militarily, all you are is an occupying force that the captive native population is waiting to leave so they can revert back to their revolutionary hero. The problem with being there in the first place, aside from the blood shed and money spent, is that you allow a revolutionary hero to come along in the first place--and revolutionary heroes in general are opposed to whatever you as the occupying force stand for.

 

[Blueychan]

Originally posted by: UberNeuman

Originally posted by: Blueychan
UberNeuman,

The US withdrew and thus ended the war mostly because of the pressure at home. The US lost the war over a decade they were not aggressive enough.

Not sure where you going with the quotes. Ending and losing the war is two different things.

The quote was to show that you've tried to duck an early claim that you've made, and now are trying to make back peddle from...

As for Vietnam - they are a trading partner with the U.S. today...

So, we have normal relations with them today - so what candyland are you living in to proclaim that the U.S. lost?

I am not back peddling from anything. If you read my first post, I clearly said that the war ended because of Jane Fonda and Friends. I also said the US could've won if they were more aggressive.

Yeah I am happy that Vietnam is making progress, but they are still 20 years behind where they should have been.

 

[seemingly random]

The age of a person who believes that "The Vietnamese war ended because of liberal hippies like Jane Fonda and friends." and other propaganda of the day is significant. A young age might excuse such naivety.

The real reason is that the morality of the war came into question and U.S. voters no longer had the stomach for it.

 

[Farang]

Originally posted by: Blueychan
Yeah I am happy that Vietnam is making progress, but they are still 20 years behind where they should have been.

Decades of war and reconstruction might do that to a country. Had we continued the war for another year, they'd be 21 years behind, for two more years, 22 years, etc...

 

[Siddhartha]

Originally posted by: Blueychan
The Vietnamese war ended because of liberal hippies like Jane Fonda and friends. All the Amercans have to do was continuously pounding the Vietcong with airtrike and that War would have ended 10 years earlies and Vietnamese would be a rich democracy country instead of 3rd world country.

There were are not enough "liberal hippies" to end that war. The US pulled out of Viet Nam because the US citizens decided that the cost in people and resources were too high.

 

[Lemon law]

I doubt Blueychan is old enough to remember just how super aggressive both LBJ and Nixon were regarding Vietnam. All those bombing campaigns, troop escalations at 50,000 a pop, as we tossed in more troops and more troops until we had 500,000 troops. And the mantra was they can't take much more of this, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and there was many a week where 300 troops died.

There is another reason we lost and that had to do with a Nixon campaign promise. He promised to end the war during his first term but actually ended it early in his second term. And in terms of aggression, Nixon had even widened the war into Cambodia in an effort to cut the supply lines without achieving anything other than angering everyone.

We did not lose the Vietnam war over a lack of aggression. If anything we lost because aggression had no effect.

 

[dennilfloss]

I remember that carpet bombing Hanoi did have quite an effect. That was the main reason the North Vietnamese government sued for a ceasefire in 73. One reason the war was lost is that they did not invade North Vietnam for fear of getting the Chinese involved like had happened in Korea. the enemy could always retreat and regroup north of the border to come back refreshed later.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Lemon law
I doubt Blueychan is old enough to remember just how super aggressive both LBJ and Nixon were regarding Vietnam. All those bombing campaigns, troop escalations at 50,000 a pop, as we tossed in more troops and more troops until we had 500,000 troops. And the mantra was they can't take much more of this, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and there was many a week where 300 troops died.

There is another reason we lost and that had to do with a Nixon campaign promise. He promised to end the war during his first term but actually ended it early in his second term. And in terms of aggression, Nixon had even widened the war into Cambodia in an effort to cut the supply lines without achieving anything other than angering everyone.

We did not lose the Vietnam war over a lack of aggression. If anything we lost because aggression had no effect.

The lack of aggression was due to the political handicap.

We were not allowed to have troops officially operating outside of South Vietnam.
We were not allowed to put the screws to Hanoi but cutting their supply lines.

The politicians kept wanting to show N Vietnam that we had the capability to do something; however, they refused consistently to use the big stick. And the NV leadership were also being provided with "guidance" that completely matched the results that they were seeing.

They believed (and were proved out) that the US would eventually give up due to the cost of the war with no visible positive results. The NV just had to wait us out while continually increasing the cost. The SV leadership had no real support from the population (as evidence by the quick fall) when the US left.

It was a political war that the politicians had no stomach to fight or win.

 

[GarfieldtheCat]

Originally posted by: Blueychan

Originally posted by: GarfieldtheCat

Originally posted by: Blueychan

Originally posted by: ebaycj

Originally posted by: Blueychan
The Vietnamese war ended because of liberal hippies like Jane Fonda and friends. All the Amercans have to do was continuously pounding the Vietcong with airtrike and that War would have ended 10 years earlies and Vietnamese would be a rich democracy country instead of 3rd world country.

Epic Fail.

Quality post. At least you got another post count.

He's right.....do you know anything about the vietnam war?

Try reading some real history books about Vietnam before posting such total BS.

Why don't you tell me what is incorrect about my statement. I am good listener.

Try reading a few books about Vietnam, I'd suggest:

A Bright Shining Lie by Sheehan
Vietnam: A History by Karnow
Street without Joy by Bernard Fall

Then you might have a clue about what you are talking about.

 

[SickBeast]

I have a few questions about the Vietnam war:

1. Did chaos erupt after the US withdrew? (as the fear-mongerers suggest will happen in Iraq)

2. What difference do you think it would have made if the US had stayed the course in Vietnam and "won"?

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I have a few questions about the Vietnam war:

1. Did chaos erupt after the US withdrew? (as the fear-mongerers suggest will happen in Iraq)

2. What difference do you think it would have made if the US had stayed the course in Vietnam and "won"?

This seems like a setup but I'll take the bait.

chaos on withdrawal? just a couple of million murders in re-education camps. Things were pretty chaotic before the withdrawal also for different reasons - loyalists/profiteers running for cover...

different outcome if course was stayed? just like iraq, the course was murky.

 

[evident]

Originally posted by: Blueychan
The Vietnamese war ended because of liberal hippies like Jane Fonda and friends. All the Amercans have to do was continuously pounding the Vietcong with airtrike and that War would have ended 10 years earlies and Vietnamese would be a rich democracy country instead of 3rd world country.

you're an idiot

unfortunately after ho chi minh's offer of a democratic vietnam ended when the americans decided to give french indochina back to the french and he turned to soviet russia for aid, and then after the corruption of the southern government, many didn't care for the americans to be there anymore, and they gradually lost support of the people.

 

[piasabird]

Start Drafting Liberals.

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: Jhhnn
Vietnam? Basically, we got the other side to quit shooting so we wouldn't have to take any lead in our backsides, then declared victory and left. From there, N Vietnamese victory was inevitable. I suspect it was inevitable all along, given that the US really doesn't have the stomach for the level of mass murder involved to have "won".

The Vietnamese really didn't have anything we wanted, anyway. It wasn't about resources, but rather about geo-political ideology.

Iraq is different- they do have something we want, no matter how strongly anybody tries to deny it, and there's no centralized entity we can negotiate with in order to create any illusion of victory whatsoever...

The reasons for going in were all lies, so I suspect that'll really be the way out, too. Somebody just has to show the chutzpah to declare victory and leave, that's all... It'll sell- the public will gladly buy it, whatever it is... and the chips will fall where they may after we're gone... likely where they'll fall anyway,,,

Bush declared victory long ago... LINK

'THE PRESIDENT: Thank you all very much. Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. (Applause.) And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.'

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: seemingly random

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I have a few questions about the Vietnam war:

1. Did chaos erupt after the US withdrew? (as the fear-mongerers suggest will happen in Iraq)

2. What difference do you think it would have made if the US had stayed the course in Vietnam and "won"?

This seems like a setup but I'll take the bait.

chaos on withdrawal? just a couple of million murders in re-education camps. Things were pretty chaotic before the withdrawal also for different reasons - loyalists/profiteers running for cover...

different outcome if course was stayed? just like iraq, the course was murky.

It wasn't a setup or bait.

It does, however, seem that the deaths you are referring to actually occured in Cambodia, and that the Vietnamese army actually invaded them to try and stop the killings.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
It wasn't a setup or bait.

It does, however, seem that the deaths you are referring to actually occured in Cambodia, and that the Vietnamese army actually invaded them to try and stop the killings.

Sorry for being overly sensitive - it's easy to step on a landmine in p&n.

I wasn't there but, in addition to the murders in Cambodia and Laos, I read that there was considerable cleansing in the former South Vietnam.

 

[maddogchen]

Originally posted by: luv2liv
i just saw "across the universe." never liked the Beatles till now....
anyway, im really curious what would end the war in Iraq! how did the vietnam war ended?

with the liberals blowing themselves up with a homemade pipe bomb.

i liked the main character's singing in that movie. Other than that it felt too long, too much druggy psychadelic crap.

 

[Lemon law]

As I recall the South Vietnamese government existed for quite a while after the US left. Then Nixon got his butt in trouble over watergate and North Vietnam basically took over with hardly a shot being fired as the South Vietnamese government basically collapsed of its own corrupt weight.

 

[JS80]

Originally posted by: SickBeast
I have a few questions about the Vietnam war:

1. Did chaos erupt after the US withdrew? (as the fear-mongerers suggest will happen in Iraq)

2. What difference do you think it would have made if the US had stayed the course in Vietnam and "won"?

1. Yes.

2. Vietnam would probably have been an Asian tiger (like South Korea).