WI The US won in Vietnam

[PhoenicianLegacy]

How would've history been affected afterwards?

I think that maybe for one thing, Ho Cho Minh would not be viewed as a saviour and the father of his country, but rather a communist fiend by the Vietnamese.

 

[LtNOWIS]

We bombed North Vietnam with impunity, we raided the coasts with impunity. We bombed and invaded and destroyed neighboring countries Laos and Cambodia.

Um, what? The US lost hundreds and hundreds of aircraft over North Vietnam. Impunity is not the right word.

In any event, it's not about the tonnage, it's about the targeting and density of the bombing and so forth. When the US finally launched an all-out B-52 bombing campaign, it forced the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, because they couldn't sustain their losses and were running out of SAMs. That and a blockade done earlier could've turned it around, along with more effective COIN tactics by the Army.

 

[oudi14]

The OP asked how America could win. I took that to mean how the war could be won militarily, not whether it was genocide or not.

Unlike many here, who were not even born during the Vietnam War, I was almost old enough to be drafted for it. I can remember hearing the count of American dead every week on the news, and in 1968 and 1969, it upset me greatly. I liked to hear about the high numbers of dead VC and NVA, [I know now about how inflated the body counts were] they were the enemy, the bad guys.

I am also aware about how corrupt the South Vietnamese govt. was, and that ARVN was mostly useless, with poorly led, unmotivated, and often cowardly soldiers.

If one goes on the assumption that communist North Vietnam was 'Evil', in the way that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were 'evil', why was it immoral to bomb North Vietnam back to the stone age, when it was apparently OK to do it to Germany and Japan? Or were they due some special consideration that the Germans and Japanese were not?

If they were going to go to war at all, they needed to go in to win outright, which meant treating North Vietnam's cities no different to Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, etc. Or they should have stayed out, and just let South Vietnam go. And it is very easy to say all that now, decades later. I'm aware of the domino theory, and the fear of China getting involved, and all that.

 

[Librarian]

Actually, I think that might count as a genocide.

Jesus Christ, there's no "Might" about it. The USA's going to kill about five million people if it goes with that plan. Talk about international pariah-hood. No way the media's going to be able to hide the countless pictures of human slaughter this will cause; The USSR will get a huge boost in publicity with such an obviously genocidal course of action taken by the USA, chosen to destroy communism. It'd be a huge tragedy, and I think the USA needs more respect for not doing it.

 

[Jozon]

[...]If one goes on the assumption that communist North Vietnam was 'Evil', in the way that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were 'evil', why was it immoral to bomb North Vietnam back to the stone age, when it was apparently OK to do it to Germany and Japan? Or were they due some special consideration that the Germans and Japanese were not?

How about we go on the assumption that the assumption that North Vietnam was in the same league as Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan is bullshit.

If they were going to go to war at all, they needed to go in to win outright, which meant treating North Vietnam's cities no different to Dresden, Hamburg, Tokyo, etc. Or they should have stayed out, and just let South Vietnam go. And it is very easy to say all that now, decades later. I'm aware of the domino theory, and the fear of China getting involved, and all that.

So, all out war, or nothing? Let the nukes fly!

 

[Paul V McNutt]

If the victory come 1965 -1967, that means Lyndon Johnson gets another term. Humphrey or RFK wins in 1972 defeating Ronald Reagan.

 

[altwere]

Some of the problems were caused by trying to put in place solutions which while sounding good didn't work because the technology wasn't quite ready yet.
My father worked for a company which did a lot of work for the Air Force. I remember several times while listening to the news him yelling at the TV,"I told the bastards it wouldn't work". The one I remember most was when we dropped radio linked microphones along the Ho Chi Minh trail and then sent out bomber when we heard marching feet.

 

[amphibulous]

How about some sanity to the US bombings of North Vietnam? By this, I mean not having the President chose the day's targets and also elminating the "do not bomb these obvious military targets because those pukes back in DC think they're too politically sensitive" bombing restrictions.

Firstly, the US murdered about 4 million people in SE Asia. Murdering a few more isn't going to increase the terror factor.

Secondly, the targets that the US had to avoid were those that were liable to bring China or Russia into a war with the USA. Starting WW3 - or facing Chinese manpower - were nightmares that no sane person would contemplate without good reason. Remember that the USA had already blinked first and backed down during the Cuba Missile Crisis (although part of the settlement was that JFK was allowed to claim victory to gain votes, in return for giving the Politburo their entire shopping basket of demands.)

Butt-hurt Merkans don't like to think of these things, but the reality was:

- The USA had no real strategic interest in Vietnam; it was there out of its own stupidity and because the Chinese and Russians saw a chance to hurt it at little cost

- The USA had no appetite for conflict with Russia or China

- And it would have been insane to have such an appetite

Quite simply, the way to win in Vietnam would been for the USA not to put its manhood in the strategic equivalent of a garbage disposal and to switch it on.

Also, as you call for greater levels of US brutality, you strain the US's relationship with the rest of the world more. Again, a Communist victory.

And to add the Stupidity Cherry to the Cake Of Morondom, if China doesn't have a communist buffer state on its flank then it is unlikely to break with Russia! So have strengthened the Communist Bloc!

 

[amphibulous]

The OP asked how America could win. I took that to mean how the war could be won militarily, not whether it was genocide or not.

Unlike many here, who were not even born during the Vietnam War, I was almost old enough to be drafted for it. I can remember hearing the count of American dead every week on the news, and in 1968 and 1969, it upset me greatly. I liked to hear about the high numbers of dead VC and NVA, [I know now about how inflated the body counts were] they were the enemy, the bad guys.

Sieg Heil!

If one goes on the assumption that communist North Vietnam was 'Evil', in the way that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were 'evil', why was it immoral to bomb North Vietnam back to the stone age, when it was apparently OK to do it to Germany and Japan?

Firstly, why would one make such a stupid assumption? The only genocide committed in the Vietnam War was that by the USA, so it was the Nazi analog.

Secondly, both Nazi Germany and Japan posed a threat to the USA. Northern Vietnam did not. It didn't even pose a threat to the Southern Vietnamese - all the evidence is that Ho Chi Minh was the overwhelmingly popular choice for national leadership,

In summary, you are, I am afraid evil - because you think that anyone who disagrees with you is evil and should be murdered. Nope.

 

[amphibulous]

Jesus Christ, there's no "Might" about it. The USA's going to kill about five million people if it goes with that plan. Talk about international pariah-hood. No way the media's going to be able to hide the countless pictures of human slaughter this will cause; The USSR will get a huge boost in publicity with such an obviously genocidal course of action taken by the USA, chosen to destroy communism. It'd be a huge tragedy, and I think the USA needs more respect for not doing it.

Ummm... the USA needs "respect" for not committing an obviously self-destructive war crime??? Are we going to start giving people awards for not being committing rape in front of police stations next?

Plus the US did commit substantial war crimes in Vietnam, and something like 4 million people died throughout SE Asia - for no strategic or moral reason at all. So actually we'd be giving an award for committing just a dozen or so public rapes instead of two dozen....

 

[DG Valdron]

In any event, it's not about the tonnage, it's about the targeting and density of the bombing and so forth. When the US finally launched an all-out B-52 bombing campaign, it forced the North Vietnamese to the negotiating table, because they couldn't sustain their losses and were running out of SAMs. That and a blockade done earlier could've turned it around, along with more effective COIN tactics by the Army.

Well, except that Kissinger's Paris Peace Talks were all about negotiating 'a decent interval' before the North Vietnamese took over. That's pretty clear from the transcripts.

There may be some argument that the near infinite levels of force that th US was deploying against Vietnam was poorly or inefficiently deployed. But seriously: Seven million tons of bombs were dropped on Vietnam, roughly the size of a New England state. Only two million tons were dropped in WWII on both Nazi occupied Western Europe and the Japanese Empire. On the scale of those numbers, deployment issues are damned near meaningless....

 

[DG Valdron]

Sieg Heil! ..........
In summary, you are, I am afraid evil - because you think that anyone who disagrees with you is evil and should be murdered. ....

Speaking with all courtesy, it is one thing to disagree strongly with someone, and to point out that their arguments may contain horrific or unsavoury components.

But it does cross over the line to mock someone or to characterize a person as evil. Let's try and be civil to each other.

Disagreeing with or attacking an argument, shouldn't lead to attacking a person.

 

[altwere]

I do find it interesting that so many people on this board are so willing to bash an get upset about past bad behaviors. I challenge anyone here to prove that they live in a place or had any ancestors who were all pure and innocent.
having said that I will freely admit that my country has often done things that were bad. They however need to be taken in the context of the time. Having done that many of them were still bad or at least stupid.
As for Vietnam all I have to say is thank god I was born in 1955 and not 1954.

 

[DG Valdron]

I think Vietnam rankles as 'the one we lost.'

As you can see on this thread, some people aren't even prepared to go so far as to admit that we lost, but start parsing technicalities.

Past that, as always, there's a sort of unresolved anger "woulda won" "coulda won" "shoulda won", "we didn't try hard enough" "we were stabbed in the back." This is ludicrous considering the near transfinite scale of the commitment.

The cultural legacies, decades later, are still alive and angry. Perspective is lost easily.

We probe Vietnam constantly, like a sore tooth. But as I've said, the key is that we needed a different South Vietnam. With the one we got, we were always going to be propping up a rotting edifice.

 

[altwere]

Yes we lost, but in a way so did China, They invaded Vietnam soon afterwards and got their asses handed to them.

 

[DG Valdron]

Yes we lost, but in a way so did China, They invaded Vietnam soon afterwards and got their asses handed to them.

Well, technically, they lost after we lost. Different thing, I guess.

 

[amphibulous]

Speaking with all courtesy, it is one thing to disagree strongly with someone, and to point out that their arguments may contain horrific or unsavoury components.

But it does cross over the line to mock someone or to characterize a person as evil.

No, there are no two ways about this:

- If you want someone killed or enslaved because their skin colour is different to yours, you are evil

- If you want someone killed or enslaved because their politics are different to yours, you are evil

..And why you are you telling me that I shouldn't tell someone that they are evil for calling for genocide, for no reason other than that they dislike the victims' politics, rather than reprimanding the would-be Hitler? I'm guessing it's because they are American, and were calling for Americans to kill non-American people (who are also rather brown and eat strange food..)

 

[Jozon]

Yes we lost, but in a way so did China, They invaded Vietnam soon afterwards and got their asses handed to them.

Point being?

 

[amphibulous]

Yes we lost, but in a way so did China, They invaded Vietnam soon afterwards and got their asses handed to them.

That belief might be Butt Hurt Cream For The US Soul, but it isn't really true. You might want to at least read the relevant wikipedia article before posting -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War

Basically, the war was intended as a raid to show that the USSR couldn't protect the Vietnamese; the Chinese accomplished this. Accomplishing your strategic goal is, by definition, victory. Otoh, the Vietnamese showed that they could make the Chinese pay a real price even without Russian help. But very far from "They got their asses handed to them" the way the US military, which near collapsed from the strain of Vietnam, did. For the cost of perhaps 10,000 dead (probably the most accurate figure - it comes from a Chinese democracy activist) the Chinese showed they could penetrate deep in to Vietnam and destroy most of what little infrastructure the penetrated region possessed, while killing a similar number of Vietnamese troops. (Which given relative populations is an attritional win for the Chinese.)

 

[DG Valdron]

No, there are no two ways about this:

- If you want someone killed or enslaved because their skin colour is different to yours, you are evil

- If you want someone killed or enslaved because their politics are different to yours, you are evil

..And why you are you telling me that I shouldn't tell someone that they are evil for calling for genocide, for no reason other than that they dislike the victims' politics, rather than reprimanding the would-be Hitler? I'm guessing it's because they are American, and were calling for Americans to kill non-American people (who are also rather brown and eat strange food..)

I appreciate your passion and conviction, but would still caution you to focus on arguments rather than persons. It's one thing to call an argument or assertion evil, another to actually denounce a person.

No one on this board has actually killed or enslaved anyone. So their evil, if you would have it at that, consists merely of having some perhaps poorly considered opinions. It might be better to argue against their opinions in the hopes of dissuading them from such.

In any case, this Board has an erratic policy with respect to such things. Advocating genocide can and will get a person kicked or banned, and if you feel so strongly, perhaps you should report them. But keep in mind that personal attacks such as yours can also fall into the category of kickable or banishable offenses.

I therefore urge you to take the high ground. You have a passionate voice, it would be disappointing to lose someone with your conviction.

Again, if you're that upset, don't attack them, report them.