Vietnam

[343Guiltyspark]

post your thoughts


I believe we needed a better strategy , such as more arclight raids on the north as well as getting permission to persue the veitcong into cambodia to shut down their supply lines ( even though we did sometimes without permission)

I think we needed to be there aswell , these people needed help to overcome a force that would change their lives forever

[343Guiltyspark]

omg i spelled it wrong didnt I ?

[JonasDahlin]

haha yes, your thread fails

[343Guiltyspark]

haha yes, your thread fails:D

[Chukada]

The War could not have been won.

[enigma]

I dunno, i will be intrested to see peoples opinions on this though.

[Lt. Hanley]

I think Vietnam could have been won in a containment fashion (e.g. North/South Korea). In the two Linebacker campaigns in the early 70's under Nixon, which included the mining of Haiphong Harbor, North Vietnam was isolated, strangled, and pounded. In the meantime they expended a large amount of their SAMS and were receiving no where near the amount of supplies they had previously enjoyed. Had this approach been taken back in the 60's under Johnson, I think the outcome could have been very different. Granted, we would have most likely had to keep a presence there for quite awhile, like in Korea.

North Vietnam was a highly agrarian society, with very few industrialized centers, and therefore was more dependant on routes of supply for war material. I think these main supply arteries, such as Haiphong, should have been our main focus from the get go.

[Fallschirmjäger]

Well they could have bombed them to death,sent more soldiers there,and more would have died.Then they might have been there still like in sth korea,the remants of the north if there where any would have fought some guerilla war like the afghans did agaisnts the russians and that is happening there still with the taliban and in iraq with the insurgents etc...
Its hard to tell sometimes with these things,the people at home in the u.s would have protested over the u.s casulaties there,just like they did at the height of the war in the late 60's.

[enigma]

I dont know much of the Vietnam bombing campaigns, but basing this off the evidence of the WW2 statergic bombing campaigns.

Bombing doesnt work, factories can be reloacted and built, it doesnt stop supplies it just slows them down and the same with movment, it doesnt effect morale in the way one hopes.
I believe "experts" concluded that statergic bombing can and will only work with nuclear bombs.

May i ask what the Americans were doing differently to what seems to have an effect upon the NV conduct of the war?

[Ardito]

A view from Europe. :)

A main problem with bombing campaigns in Vietnam was there were not much to bomb but rice paddies...

No less, could the war have been won?

Maybe, but not with the strategies in effect and political goals proclaimed. For instance, it would have taken an invasion of North Vietnam and full occupation of the country, something neither Johnson nor the Nixon White House were prepared to consider. It would also have cost more US blood, including the continuation of an impopular occupation based on brute force with no end in sight.

The real question needs asking is at what price could an engagement in Vietnam still be considered a gain? Was Vietnam a vital security interest to the United States? Obviously, not ever.

The US were there to preclude transgressions across an "international boundary". What was this boundary? Only a provisional division line dating from 1956 meant to be lifted as soon as free elections could be held in the whole country. These were never held. Why? Because the South Vietnamese regime would never have survived the election.
So while the Vietnamese were fighting a nationalist struggle for independence and the power to rule their own fate (dressed up as communism), the United States said they were doing exactly the same for them, while propping up a number of local tyrants the nation in question never wanted (calling it democracy). The inability or unwillingness on part of America to recognize this basic state of affairs was the fatal flaw in the US relationship with Vietnam. At least, it was predeterming the futile approach of "limited war".
Had the US thrown the mask and admitted to itself it was actually only an occupant and oppressor pure and simple, who had taken over a foreign country, be it motivated by the need to stop further spread of communism (actually rather illusionary as far as the South East Asia was concerned), then maybe the US might have prevailed.

But then again, what true America had ever wanted that scenario to unfold, all implications considered?

[enigma]

ok then :)


The term invasion was not even used. But the same thing is in the States- the invasion of South Vietnam, for example, is never called an "invasion".

Considering they were fighting along side the Southern Vietmanese, one cannot see exactly how they invaded the south...

[Jensen]

For any war to be won, the winning side of it needs to be prepared to take any action. However radical or extreme it might be.

A war cannot be won unless radical measures are used to suppress insurgents!

[Corporate Ignorance]

2enigma
All right here I try to give what I belive in about Vietnam war:it was a brutal act of agression and was very predictable- it was perfectly fitting the conception of U.S. foriegn policy at that time. Vietnam is ended up in desruction of entire eco-system of Indochina-even until now the land, the air and ground are poisend, and children are being born with severe anomalities, illness is spreading, not to say of thousands upon thousands of innocent lives, including chidren, women and old, died in horrible curcamstances and now forsaken by everyone. Napalm , Agent Orange- it's one of the most shameful and gruesome acts of war after WW2. Only El Salvador massacre was worse, it seems to me and Cambodia.
But look at official point of view.

Younger people, like you and me, who are being indoctrinated into the contemporary system of falsification -- they really have to do some research to find out what is the truth. In the general population, people forget or don't care that much. And gradually what you hear drilled into your head everyday comes to be believed.

People don't understand what you're talking about any more if you discuss the American war on South Vietnam. But this is crucial for understanding this conflict.

As far as the opinion makers of official U.S history are concerned, they have been doing exactly what it was obvious they would do. Every book that comes out, every article that comes out, talks about how -- while it may have been a "mistake" or an "unwise effort" -- the United States was defending South Vietnam from North Vietnamese aggression. And they portray those who opposed the war as apologists for North Vietnam. That's standard to say.

The purpose is obvious: to obscure the fact that the United States did attack South Vietnam and the major war was fought against South Vietnam. The real invasion of South Vietnam which was directed largely against the rural society began directly in 1962 after many years of working through mercenaries and client groups. And that fact simply does not exist in official American history. There is no such event in American history as the attack on South Vietnam. That's gone. Of course, It is a part of real history. But it's not a part of official history.


War against countless American intellectuals, at first, and mere citizens of U.S. afterwards, were opposed to was the war on South Vietnam which destroyed South Vietnam's rural society. The South was devastated. Until now, poor people of Vietnam face the consequences. But now anyone who opposed this atrocity is regarded as having defended North Vietnam. And that's part of the effort to present the war as if it were a war between South Vietnam and North Vietnam with the United States helping the South. Of course it's fabrication. But it's "official truth" now.


First of all, let's make absolutely certain that was the fact: that the U.S. directed the war against South Vietnam. There was a political settlement in 1954. But in the late '50's the United States organized an internal repression in South Vietnam, not using its troops, but using the local apparatus it was constructing. This was a very significant and very effective campaign of violence and terrorism against the Vietminh -- which was the communist-led nationalist force that fought the French. And the Vietminh at that time was adhering to the Geneva Accords, hoping that the political settlement would work out in South Vietnam.
And so, not only were they not conducting any terrorism, but in fact, they were not even responding to the violence against them. It reached the point where by 1959 the Vietminh leadership -- the communist party leadership -- was being decimated. Cadres were being murdered extensively. Finally in May of 1959 there was an authorization to use violence in self-defense, after years of murder, with thousands of people killed in this campaign organized by the United States.

As soon as they began to use violence in self-defense, the whole Saigon government apparatus fell apart at once because it was an apparatus based on nothing but a monopoly of violence.And once it lost that monopoly of violence it was finished. And that's what led the United States to move in. There were no North Vietnamese around.

Then the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam was formed. And its founding program called for the neutralization of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. And it's very striking that the National Liberation Front was the only group that ever called for the independence of South Vietnam. The so-called South Vietnamese government (GVN) did not, but rather, claimed to be the government of all Vietnam. The National Liberation Front was the only South Vietnamese group that ever talked about South Vietnamese independence. They called for the neutralization of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as a kind of neutral block, working toward some type of integration of the South with North Vietnam ultimately.

Now that proposal in 1962 caused panic in American ruling circles. From 1962 to 1965 the US was dedicated to try to prevent the independence of South Vietnam, the reason was of course that Kennedy and Johnson knew that if any political solution was permitted in the south, the National Liberation Front would effectively come to power, so strong was its political support in comparison with the political support of the so-called South Vietnamese government.

And in fact Kennedy and later Johnson tried to block every attempt at neutralization, every attempt at political settlement. This is all documented. There's just no doubt about it. I mean, it's wiped out of history, but the documentation is just unquestionable -- in the internal government sources and everywhere else.

And so there's just no question that the United States was trying desperately to prevent the independence of South Vietnam and to prevent a political settlement inside South Vietnam. And in fact it went to war precisely to prevent that. It finally bombed the North in 1965 with the purpose of trying to get the North to use its influence to call off the insurgency in the South. There were no North Vietnamese troops in South Vietnam then as far as anybody knew. And they anticipated of course when they began bombing the North from South Vietnamese bases that it would bring North Vietnamese troops into the South. And then it became possible to pretend it was aggression from the North. It was ludicrous, but that's what they claimed.

Well, why did they do it? Why was the United States so afraid of an independent South Vietnam? Well, I think the reason again is pretty clear from the internal government documents. Precisely what they were afraid of was that the "takeover" of South Vietnam by nationalist forces would not be brutal. They feared it would be conciliatory and that there would be successful social and economic development -- and that the whole region might work.

And suppose it worked. Suppose the country could separate itself from the American dominated global system and carry out a successful social and economic development. Then that is very dangerous because then it could be a model to other movements and groups in neighboring countries. And gradually there could be an erosion from within by indigenous forces of American domination of the region.

[Total_Overkill]

For any war to be won, the winning side of it needs to be prepared to take any action. However radical or extreme it might be.

Precisely, to do it any other way... would just be a waste of lives, time, and resources.

[enigma]

You have to look at it realistically ... wars are run by the polaticans, the puplic keeps them in power.
Photos of burning villages and posined people turn opinion agaisnt them... its navie to think that in a situation which does not require total war that the milatry would be allowed off the chain to do everything they can to win..

[Total_Overkill]

You have to look at it realistically ... wars are run by the polaticans, the puplic keeps them in power.
Photos of burning villages and posined people turn opinion agaisnt them... its navie to think that in a situation which does not require total war that the milatry would be allowed off the chain to do everything they can to win..

true, but thats also why all wars within recent memory have been "failures".
(WW1 to present day... were failures, with the exception of WW2, i'll let that one pass)

[aag567]

There were NVA troops in the battle for Ira Drang in 1965, Vietnam became one of the fastest growing economies in 1986, and I don't see anything wrong with napalm.

[lazlazlaz1]

*Warning what follows is based on zero research and very little knowledge or sense*

Britain could have won it easy. Heck, the SAS could have done it by itself

[enigma]

true, but thats also why all wars within recent memory have been "failures".
(WW1 to present day... were failures, with the exception of WW2, i'll let that one pass)

WW1 was not a failure, everything at each sides dispossel was used.

The first tanks made an apperance, planes got moved into new roles and an air war developed, strategic bombing via airships, naval blockades, posin gas ... and that was just the Western Front!

The only thing i can think off which you deem a failure is the peace agreement, which was too harsh which resulted in a German outlook that the "Jews had betrayed them" (iirc one of the members who signed the treaty was Jewish and it has been explaied by some thats where this started), a rise in nationalism and in the end WW2.

That was the polatcians fault, and the same outcome happened with WW2. A Cold War, half of europe being oppresssed and an arms race which nearly ended the world on so many occasions.

Saying all that, i dont think many consider the Falklands War to be a failure...

[Total_Overkill]

There were NVA troops in the battle for Ira Drang in 1965, Vietnam became one of the fastest growing economies in 1986, and I don't see anything wrong with napalm.

I wonder if America considered Napalm as "Chemical Warfare"? The only thing "wrong" about napalm is the fact that your burning humans alive... a particularly gruesome fate, but there are worse fates on the battlefield.



*Warning what follows is based on zero research and very little knowledge or sense*

Britain could have won it easy. Heck, the SAS could have done it by itself

o_O? oh i gotta hear this... plz explain :D

[Total_Overkill]

The only thing i can think off which you deem a failure is the peace agreement, which was too harsh which resulted in a German outlook that the "Jews had betrayed them" (iirc one of the members who signed the treaty was Jewish and it has been explaied by some thats where this started), a rise in nationalism and in the end WW2.

More-a-less, yes. Thats why i consider WW1 a failure. While the armed forces won/loss the war on their respective sides, its the outcome of everything that followed the battles...

That... and the fact that the "world" allowed the germans to come back, big, badder, and stronger then ever... leading to another war within a few years.

So, as such, how can a "war" be sucessful when you allow the enemy to come back and... in nerd terms... omgwtfpwn joo! :D

[Corporate Ignorance]

There were NVA troops in the battle for Ira Drang in 1965, Vietnam became one of the fastest growing economies in 1986, and I don't see anything wrong with napalm.


I think you missed the point. In 1965- of course, NVA was there. Vietnam is very poor now. "Bleeding Vietnam" tactics was used until 1983. Will write more detailed account later.

As for napalm, maybe you don't see anything wrong with napalm, but international law does.And international law is designed that way not because pink bunnies decided it to be that way, it's made this after terrible cost of human lives and international condemnation-

Even U.S.military higher-ups shuddered and said that it "was the most terrible, painful, cruel way to die. One of the most ruthless invention of conventional warfare."...And now imagine yourself a Vietnamise civilian in rural South Vietnam. Helps to bring a notion why one should respect international law. Because it's a result of direct expirience. Conventions and forbidding laws are made by sane people to prevent insanity. Often they are not working, but it's dosen't lessen their meaning and the pretext before their final appearence.

[enigma]

Total Overkill

You have made the same mistake the politicians made after WW1. Your actions would have lead to WW2 also…

You cannot punish a country so much for there crimes that they will hate you for it...
The west punished Germany too harshly, taking there land, telling them were they could position troops (demilitarised zones), putting them into debt via war payments etc

Its the whole reason why a plan drawn up (by some American politician) was not acted after WW2 ended. This dude wanted to destroy Germany, turn it into a massive farming country with no modern factories etc
That would have lead to yet another war and gladly the British and American big wigs told him to STFU.



As for napalm, maybe you don't see anything wrong with napalm, but international law does.And international law is designed that way not because pink bunnies decided it to be that way, it's made this after terrible cost of human lives and international condemnation-
But its not banned is it?

[Total_Overkill]

Total Overkill

You have made the same mistake the politicians made after WW1. Your actions would have lead to WW2 also…

Actually, i guarantee you, i would have made vastly different mistakes. :D Although im sure they would have been harsh, none the less.


Its the whole reason why a plan drawn up (by some American politician) was not acted after WW2 ended. This dude wanted to destroy Germany, turn it into a massive farming country with no modern factories etc

.... not the approach i would have taken, but i wonder how it would have turned out in the long run.




But its not banned is it?

I dont think its so much "Banned" as it is "Restricted"

[enigma]

Regardless of the actions its the same mistake... ;)

[aag567]

South Vietnamese getting killed by napalm didn't make it a bad weapon, it was just the way it was used sometimes that was bad.

[Kaos]

Even if napalm is not actually banned by the UN or whatever, that still doesn't make its use alright, in my opinion. Cluster bombs are actually illegal but it didn't stop Israel using the against Lebanon in the war last year. Your own ethics and morals have to come into this and you believe that indiscriminately burning civilians alive, destroying their homes and livelihood is a positive then go ahead and use it. However I believe that even in war time we shouldn't let go of all our humanity otherwise how are we better then those we're fighting against?

Enigma made the point "We were fighting alongside the South, so we didn't actually invade them" True. The South Vietnamese government currently headed by non-elected President Diem did indeed ask for our help to help repel the North fearing invasion. But we never actually declared war on the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (AKA North Vietnam). After the Gulf of Tonkin incident, Congress granted the US President a blank cheque to carry out whatever action he believed necessary. This included bombing military (And later civilian) targets all over the country. But as it's already been pointed out, bombing simply does not work. In fact it emboldens the enemy and increases there numbers. How? Well if a North Vietnamese civilian was previously indifferent to the war, or at the least wasn't a supporter of Ho Chi Minh, and then he saw his home and family get blown up thanks to help of a B-52, chances are he's going to join the army to get some revenge.

This happened in the South as well. Twice as many bombs were dropped in South Vietnam then in the North throughout the course of the war. Not to mention the infamous "Zippo Raids" Where US Soldiers would burn whole villages to flush out the enemy. The result? A stronger Vietcong. It's estimated that by 1972, 70% of the South Vietnamese supported the Vietcong and the Communists. Why? They were sick of being bombed.

I don't know what the technical definition of an invasion is but dropping hundreds of thousands of tonnes of bombs, killing civilians, burning villages, destroying forests and overthrowing the government must count for something.

[lazlazlaz1]

Cluster bombs are actually illegal but it didn't stop Israel using the against Lebanon in the war last year. Your own ethics and morals have to come into this and you believe that indiscriminately burning civilians alive, destroying their homes and livelihood is a positive then go ahead and use it. However I believe that even in war time we shouldn't let go of all our humanity otherwise how are we better then those we're fighting against?

Weapons are designed to kill, whats wrong with one that kills effectively? Maybe using it in the middle of a populated area is not a great idea, but there is nothing wrong with a weapon, only the way it is used. The same is true of things like nuclear bombs, and all weapons for that matter.

[Kaos]

Weapons are designed to kill, whats wrong with one that kills effectively? Maybe using it in the middle of a populated area is not a great idea, but there is nothing wrong with a weapon, only the way it is used. The same is true of things like nuclear bombs, and all weapons for that matter.

Guns don't kill people, bullets do. I agree with you to a certain extent. Weapons which you can actually aim and control and maintain that unwritten (Or perhaps it's written?) rule that wars are between soldiers not civilians. Unfortunately napalm and defoliants that were used as well such as Agent Orange do not do this. The damage radius of napalm is huge. And it was being used in dense jungle areas which makes it difficult to see exactly what you're targeting. But coupling this with the general nature of US tactics at the time and the addiction to indiscriminate body counts, I don't think it'd be a stretch to say that napalm killed more civilians then enemy soldiers. The worst thing about Agent Orange is that as a dioxin it causes a huge number of diseases, as well as disfigurement, and these can continue on for up to three generations.