I can’t believe I’m doing this.
The conservative claims that:
1. The Communist side was really evil.
2. And we beat them. Or we could have.
My comeback is: And then what?
Look at Afghanistan or Iraq.
Were the Taliban evil? Yes. Did we beat them? Yes. Did we bring the war to a successful conclusion? No.
Was Saddam Hussein evil? Yes. Did we beat him? Yes. Did we bring the war to a successful conclusion? No.
To successfully conclude an overseas war, you need to be able to establish a government that can pacify the country. After World War II, we could do that in Japan. We could do that in Germany.
We could not do it in South Vietnam.
The people who were correct about Vietnam were the people who understood the difficulty of trying to establish a successful non-Communist government in South Vietnam. That stubborn feature of reality eluded conservative war hawks at the time. It eludes them today.
And please, don’t make me re-litigate the Diem regime. It had a stronger grip on Washington than on its own country.
Was there anything the Americans could have done in South Vietnam? Taking over the administration of the country directly until the war was finished doesn’t sound like it would have worked.
It’s worth taking a step back to assess our outcomes in Korea, for example; and China.
In South Korea, the government we backed and established was chosen from a short list of candidate governments which were vying for the role at the end of WWII. It turned out, overall, to be moderately corrupt and fairly economically successful. Arguably, the government is the least successful aspect of South Korea. The communist government, which we most decidedly did not favor, turned into a nightmare of global proportions. It’s hard to figure the counterfactual.
In Vietnam, the communist government was a nightmare for a while, but right now seems to be passably tolerable as a trade partner, etc.
China itself could have been a combat zone if the US had decided to unseat Mao earlier, but the Taiwanese exile government hasn’t been splendid; it has rather been like South Korea – moderately corrupt, somewhat unpopular at times, and economically very successful. What would have happened if we had tried that on the scale of the mainland, and importantly, without the pressure from the mainland to constrain it?
I have to quibble with the use of the word “war”. The stated wars against regimes ended. “Conflict” against undefined enemy combatants, whom objected to our military presence, did not end in Afghanistan. Eventually we pulled out of Iraq because their newly formed government demanded we do so in 2011 (seven years later). I tend to be more accepting of the concept of redone change and nation building in done circumstances, for what that’s worth (which could probably be guessed from this comment).
We were always on the wrong side when it came to Vietnam. We could have prevented communism in that country decades earlier.
Ho Chi Minh was schooled in the west and lived in the west for a number of years. He was not against western capitalism. He approached the Wilson administration – yes, that long ago – asking for help in getting the French out of Vietnam. He was told that though Wilson (and his cronies) agreed with him, the French were our allies and we were not going to go against them. He took the next best route and asked the communists to do so.
They subsequently got France to leave with its tail between its legs, which then led the U.S. to enter, first as advisors, then military support, and then into full-fledged war. We were on the wrong side because we were supporting colonization, which violated the ideals of a free society that we feigned to be upholding.
Ho Chi Minh was a founding member of the French Communist Party, private ownership of a business was apparently illegal until 1986, and to this day private ownership of real estate is illegal to this day. The idea that “they’re just nationalists bro” is a lie.
If the Wikipedia page is accurate, Ho Chi Minh was already a socialist even then:
“Many authors have stated that 1919 was a lost ‘Wilsonian moment’, where the future Hồ Chí Minh could have adopted a pro-American and less radical position if only President Wilson had received him. However, at the time of the Versailles Conference, Hồ Chí Minh was committed to a socialist program. While the conference was ongoing, Nguyễn Ái Quố was already delivering speeches on the prospects of Bolshevism in Asia and was attempting to persuade French socialists to join Lenin’s Communist International.”
And what, pray, was the difference between Japan and Germany on the one hand and Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan on the other? Wasn’t the main difference that in the case of the latter, Americans were no longer willing to actually govern the countries, because human rights or undemocratic or whatever? If anybody within 100 miles of decision making power ever had even proposed anything like JCS 1067 for Vietnam (a document well worth re-reading in this Year of Our Lord 2020), much less tried to execute it, I am certainly not aware of that.
Here are the comparable documents related to occupation of Japan: the memorandum concerning the authority of SCAP (Gen. MacArthur) and the Basic Initial Post Surrender Directive to SCAP for the Occupation and Control of Japan (JCS1380/15). The memorandum is short enough to reproduce below:
1. The authority of the Emperor and the Japanese Government to rule the State is subordinate to you as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers. You will exercise your authority as you deem proper to carry out your mission. Our relations with Japan do not rest on a contractual basis, but on an unconditional surrender. Since your authority is supreme, you will not entertain any question on the part of the Japanese as to its scope.2. Control of Japan shall be exercised through the Japanese Government to the extent that such an arrangement produces satisfactory results. This does not prejudice your right to act directly if required. You may enforce the orders issued by you by the employment of such measures as you deem necessary, including the use of force.
3. The statement of intentions contained in the Potsdam Declaration will be given full effect. It will not be given effect, however, because we consider ourselves bound in a contractual relationship with Japan as a result of that document. It will be respected and given effect because the Potsdam Declaration forms a part of our policy stated in good faith with relation to Japan and with relation to peace and security in the Far East.
Wasn’t the main difference that in the case of the latter, Americans were no longer willing to actually govern the countries, because human rights or undemocratic or whatever?
I think pragmatism had no small part. Trying to establish a government, military or otherwise, in Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan would likely have led to uprisings. I doubt anyone was specifically thinking of the Mau Mau Uprising, but there was likely fear of exactly that situation.
No doubt sufficient rationalizations were available to not try to establish governments, but that’s circular. Why hadn’t this kind of pragmatism played a similarly unsmall part when occupations of Germany and Japan were decided upon? Apparently America at that time was either confident that no uprisings would result from its much harsher and thorough attempts to establish governments there, or that if uprisings did happen it could easily quash them. Experience has shown that this confidence was completely warranted and nothing I know of suggests that it was unfounded.
The War in Vietnam was morally identical to the war in Korea: a communist government was waging a war of conquest against its neighbor on the pretext that the neighbor were foreign running dogs, a charge that was not without some merit (though it was LESS true of South Vietnam than South Korea). This was widely recognized at the time; much of the poor management of the war early on, including the immoral and idiotic decision to fabricate the Gulf of Tonkin Incident rather than plainly making the case for defense of a regional ally was caused by Kennedy and later Johnson not wanting “another Korea”.
Vietnam could have been won without too much trouble by extending the DMZ to Thailand. This would have compromised Laotian sovereignty, but the North Vietnamese basically ignored the existence of the Laotian and Cambodian governments (overthrowing both after they’d successfully invaded their neighbor in 1975).
Vietnam could have been won without too much trouble by extending the DMZ to Thailand.
Maybe, but I doubt it. Once you’re dealing with something like the Viet Cong, your options are limited. And grim. The question stops being “How do we win” and becomes “Is winning worth what we have to do?” It can’t be a coincidence that the only American general (that I can think of offhand) to have definitively won against a native guerilla uprising was subsequently court-martialed.
The “native guerrillas” were pretty much gone after 1968 and played approximately zero role in the eventual fall of the Saigon government, which was the result of a national-scale combined-arms attack from across their borders. Even before then, the basic problem in the South no later than 1965 was that both RVN and American troops had to disperse in order to deal with the VC but also needed to maintain large formations organized to stop invasions by the PAVN.
Yeah, 550,000 American combat troops and the whole South Vietnamese army were spread too thin to be successful, in a country slightly larger than Washington and slightly smaller than Oklahoma.
Washington 66,582 square miles
South Vietnam 67,108 square miles
Oklahoma 68,679 square miles
WA and OK had about 1/5th the population of South Vietnam in the 1960s and weren’t sharing a lengthy border with a hostile state that was invading them. North Vietnam (60,960 square miles) had about 2 million troops devoted to internal security in 1966. So apparently they though that half that number would, in fact, be spread too thin.
In other words, they admitted that the war was unwinnable.
I’d also point out that there were “native guerrillas” in Korea as well. The “corrupt, collaborationist” national government dealt with them effectively enough; not everyone was happy with the measures used, but you’ll notice that the historical inevitability of communist rule in South Korea never got around to materializing.
>—“Vietnam could have been won without too much trouble by….”
That’s what we heard throughout the entire war. But somehow it was a lot of trouble and they always got it wrong.
This kind of analysis reminds me of the few remaining Marxists who insist that Communism could still work. All those disastrous real world attempts to get it right weren’t really evidence it was a bad idea…just evidence it should have been tried their way.
Yes. The idea that it would not be “too much trouble” to establish and maintain a no pass zone across the top of South Vietnam and then through the south-center of Laos (splitting the country) is laughable.
It is as unrealistic as saying, “How can we stop war? Get every government to sign a treaty outlawing war.” We know how the Kellogg-Briand treaty worked out.
Sorry that was uncharitable. At least I didn’t repeat the economist can opener joke.
You have to distinguish the military’s tactics under Westmoreland 1964-1968 from its tactics under Abrams 1969-1973. The military had real success under Abrams. You should read Lewis Sorley’s *A Better War: The Unexamined Victories and Final Tragedy of America’s Last Years in Vietnam*.
Abrams certainly ran a better war than Westmoreland but by 1973, “Vietnamization” meant that Americans were pretty much limited to doing things from the air. There were almost no American combat troops left in the country. No American administration was going to send a substantial number back, whether the Paris Accords were violated or not.
North Vietnam had indeed weakened itself with its “last gasp” offensive in 1972 and the South Vietnamese army had done surprisingly well (a major reason Le Duc Tho was finally willing to give Kissinger a deal). But I don’t think they could have resisted for many more years, and there was no way the North Vietnamese government was going to give up its drive for unification.
Just ran across this in Barry Gewen’s very good The Inevitability of Tragedy: Henry Kissinger and His World. This is after it has become pretty clear that the US is getting out of Vietnam one way or another:
“George Herring detailed how American troops responded once they had lost their sense of purpose, ‘Many GIs became much more reluctant to put their lives on the line. Discipline broke down in some units, with enlisted personnel simply refusing to obey their officer’s orders.’ Drug use escalated, racial tensions escalated and ‘fragging’, the assassination of officers by their own men, was becoming almost a daily occurrence. ‘I need to get this Army home to save it,’ wailed General Creighton Abrams, the commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam.” (p. 277)
I mean if you want a lengthier, and pretty simple, analysis you can always read Harry Summers’ book on the matter. I think it makes a convincing case. “We did X and it didn’t work but you’re saying that if Y occurred instead it probably would have turned out differently” yes, that is what I am saying. Bombing of the North probably should have been intensified earlier as well, although the difficulty of assessing such a campaign’s effect makes the the US’s actual behavior fairly understandable.
>but you would have to Split Laos
It doesn’t violate the laws of physics. There’s a number of ways it could have been done, plenty of which were no more difficult morally or physically than NV’s strategy of just telling the Laotians to go fuck themselves and doing whatever they wanted. You could always compromise on the Cambodian border, I guess, even if it meant Vietnamese partition had to be adjusted — this happened in Korea too.
As far as NV’s unstoppable drive towards reunification, again, you can just copy-paste it onto North Korea, which I assume you don’t believe was inevitably fated to govern all of that particular peninsula in 1949.
>but you would have to Split Laos
It doesn’t violate the laws of physics. There’s a number of ways it could have been done, plenty of which were no more difficult morally or physically than NV’s strategy of just telling the Laotians to go fuck themselves and doing whatever they wanted.
Physically, I think it would be several million times more difficult. In fact, impossible to do in this imperfect world in which we live. Even the much shorter DMZ that existed between North and South Vietnam was pretty permeable.
Any particular reason you think a 175-mile Indochinese DMZ would be “millions of times harder” to secure than a 140-mile Korean DMZ?
A million times harder than “NV’s strategy of just telling the Laotians to go fuck themselves and doing whatever they wanted.” The North was militarily strong and ruthless. So they pushed around the Laotian and Cambodian governments.
Why would an Indochina DMZ be hard? For one thing, the climate. Korea is temperate and it isn’t too hard to remove tree cover and keep it removed. Indochina is jungle. There’s a lot of stuff and it grows really quickly. The US tried all sorts of “defoliation” during the Vietnam war and the results were disappointing.
Vietnam could have been won without too much trouble
WHAT???
I’m pro-victory, and willing to fight against commies, but it’s stupid to say “without too much trouble”. I joined the US Naval Academy in ’74 (voted for Carter in ’76; never again for a Dem). Ready to fight for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. (Preferring cherry pie over apple)
Anywhere US troops are fighting on the ground is a huge amount of trouble. It means our (so often corrupt) allies are failing to fight effectively enough to avoid losing.
Extending the DMZ … what was needed was public air superiority and huge quantities of bombs on the invading N. Viet forces, to stop them. US bombs. In 1972 the North had tried an offensive that cost them many casualties, and battles they lost, badly, because of US air and mostly S. Viet soldiers. Who were getting better, but slowly. And still needing US air support. Possibly including some planes getting shot down, and maybe even new POWs to be held and tortured, against Int’l law, by the commies.
This was a high, tho uncertain cost the US politicians chose not to pay to avoid losing at that time. (Over 58k total)
https://www.militaryfactory.com/vietnam/casualties.asp
’71 2,357
’72 641
’73 168
Had the US used air power, perhaps another 500 more would be killed fighting back the ’74-75 invasion. It’s quite possible there would additional invasion attempts in later years – but against more S. Viet experience and, at some point, S. Viet air power.
It’s important to note that war winners are those willing to fight when the other side stops fighting. Is avoiding ’75 commie victory and bloodbaths worth risking hundreds, maybe thousands (but likely no longer army soldiers) of volunteer soldiers lives? Nixon had ended the draft in ’73.
I volunteered, would have gone. Glad for me I didn’t go, very very sad for the millions murdered because the US didn’t go.
We couldn’t establish governments in Iraq and Afghanistan because they are low IQ clannish shitholes incapable of self governance. In Japan and Germany all we had to do was take out the head assholes, and the self sufficient high IQ people of those countries could take it from there after a little while.
Vietnam is somewhere in between the two.
What worked in most of these East Asian countries is the US stuck around as supreme military dictator for awhile, killed all the communists, and installed semi corrupt, semi undemocratic regimes that nonetheless were competent enough to turn their countries into Asian Tigers. Once they were rich and had a middle class they were allowed a bit more real democracy.
Maybe it would have proved impossible, but comparison with occupation operations in Germany and Japan show that it was not even attempted. Instead locals were immediately given sovereignty and encouraged to set up democratic governments, while the ostensible victor reduced itself to ineffectual carping and advising and pouring in aid by the billion (again a big contrast with post-WWII operations, the commanders of which were specifically directed to avoid any imports unless required to prevent mass starvation and to operate local economies so as to effectuate this instruction). Incidentally, some neighboring countries with similar mean IQs (Afghanistan 80, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan 83, Iran 84) do have reasonable self government. It’s nothing to write home about to be sure but how would one not consider making Afghanistan into a second US-friendly and jihad-averse Uzbekistan a shining success compared to what actually transpired.
Shouldn’t low-IQ clannish shitholes be the easiest to govern, though? Pick a clan or group of clans, put ’em in charge, shower them with money and guns, and let them do what they want within whatever limits you want to prescribe.
1) They’re not going to respect “whatever limits you want to prescribe”. You’ll be relying on them to do what you want AND to tell you if they’re obediently carrying out your policies. Good luck with that.
2) There will be your clan and all the other clans, and the other clans aren’t going to meekly go along and become model citizens.
If the Persians and the Romans could pull it off, why can’t we?
Yeah, but who’s done it lately?
Why did the US abandon the Shah of Iran, and SAVAK, in ’78-’79?
Why did the Int’l Court punish Pinochet for his takeover in Chile in ’73?
Because these local dictators were killing a few of their own people AND trying to create market capitalism in their countries.
HEEs in OECD countries decided “we” are better than that, thus human rights abuses and torture by US capitalist authoritarians are judged as far worse than killings by non-capitalist countries. Like the Ayatollah did, or Castro.
Pinochet was fighting against a Hugo Chavez type of Latin America socialist, Allende. Had Allende won, it’s likely he would have followed the terrible Chavez socialist policies, thus keeping Chile poor rather than assisting in its economic growth to become perhaps the richest Latin America country.
Countries need markets to get successful economies. It looks like market capitalism is more important than democracy or human rights for normal people having good lives. But that possible truth is hated by most HEEs.
In Washington, they still believe Reconstruction was a success.
There is also Noam Chomsky’s unconventional perspective, which is that despite the way it felt at the time of withdrawal, the US actually won the Vietnam War in the grand scheme of things.
That must have called for some creative interpretation of facts. Maybe Chomsky, like Kim Philby, considered himself a citizen of the future United Soviet Socialist States of America?
Indeed, Arnold. I can’t believe you are doing this.
Just one question: do you think that Bob McNamara was a conservative?
“What then?”
Not commenting on the Vietnam War itself, but the comments from Candide III above about the USA occupation of Japan are apropos. The US establishment was not always the province of yahoos and buffoons. For several decades the USA was competent. In addition to the Berlin Air Lift and Marshall Plan and the occupation of Japan, the USA presence in countries like the Dominican Republic, South Korea, and Tibet was relatively benign. Sure, in hindsight it is easy to look at Vietnam through the lens of Iraq and Afghanistan, but in the early 60’s a bit of optimism about USA competence would have to be excused. And what about containment? What would the world look like if the Chinese had not been tied up in Vietnam for those years?
Looking forward, my general impression is that the Democrat and Republican establishment as well as libertarians are indifferent to Chinese territorial expansion by military means. Support for Hong Kong’s Basic Law rights with China has been largely symbolic. Taiwan has been abandoned. So in the event of a Chinese invasion of say, Australia, one might reasonably expect the USA to abdicate its mutual defense treaty responsibility, and leave the Queries to their fate. I am guessing this would be entirely fine with libertarians who appear to be sinophiles at heart. Nevertheless, none of this passivity lends itself to an optimistic view of the future.
Ugh, I know I am going to regret taking the bait, but: what libertarian could possibly be a sinophile at heart?
Honest question. Are there any libertarians who would be willing to fight to protect Australia from a Chinese invasion? I can’t think of any other than Glenn Reynolds who seems more populist to me now than libertarian.
And isn’t the libertarian party line on Uighur slave labor “Nothing to see there and definitely not something to justify tariffs or other trade consequences.”? Honest question. If the top libertarian priority with respect to China is not eliminating tariffs and subsidizing imports, then what is it? Curious.
I agree with you. I fed up with calling people socialists, liberals, conservatives, libertarians. I laugh at Bryan Caplan’s position on immigration and other issues because in his intellectual world the social order of our real world is government-free. Most discussions of ideologies are useless to understand that order.
I think Glenn Reynolds has changed little. I have been reading his blog for many years, and in the past 5 years, the relevant political issues have changed greatly. Like or not, it’s hard to find any time in the U.S. history in which the Old Guard of the two parties have been so rotten and corrupt as that of the D-Party in the last 12 years (Trump “destapó la olla”). In terms of foreign policy, I have not been surprised by the changing attitude toward China because (a) the persistent ignorance of most U.S. intellectuals about the causes and consequences of China’s great transformation since 1980 (Tyler Cowen represents the typical American ignorant), and (b) the persisten distrust of many Chinese government officials about the Western, and the U.S. in particular (in a previous comment I refer to McNamara– I met him in Beijing in 1996 and it was pathetic how he was willing to let the Chinese use him to attack the U.S.). Although I’m not worry about China’s territorial expansion beyond its current borders (including HK), I believe the Chinese government has already built a quite large base of foreign politicians, intellectuals, and businessmen to support their plan of controlling international organizations.
“And then what?”
You read Garett Jones’s *Hive Mind* but fail to see how it applies here. Does the underlying human capital of South Vietnam more closely resemble Germany, Japan, and Korea or Afghanistan and Iraq? That decides this question. I think it more closely resembled the level of human capital found in South Korea in ~1953, but I am open to my mind being changed. Look at Vietnam’s current PISA scores: it scores 4th in the world on science, 13th in the world on reading, and 24th in the world on math, ahead of the United States, France, and Australia. Getting involved in Iraq and Afghanistan were colossal mistakes–clannish nations with lots of cousin marriage and low levels of human capital.
First line cracked me up
The problem is with your assumption that we have to fashion a functional post war government. That is only one possible policy choice. Another is “we are going to kill your leaders, destroy your military, and smash a bunch of your infrastructure. Then it is up to you to pick up the pieces,we don’t care what comes after. But if your new structures give us trouble again, we’ll destroy you again.”
Would Kling argue that the Korean War was bad? It was a similar scenario. The other side was evil, we could have (and did) beat them. Kling could ask the same question, “And then what?”. Well, South Korea turned out a lot better than North Korea. That’s a positive outcome that would seem to justify US intervention.
People like Mark Steyn argue that even in hindsight, Iraq is much better off due to US intervention than it would have been otherwise. The Iraq War is very unpopular today, particularly here, but I’m not convinced that Steyn is wrong.
https://www.ocregister.com/2013/03/22/mark-steyn-iraq-less-unwon-than-other-wars/
To me, both the Vietnam war and Desert Storm — and Korea as well — are the direct result of two problems whose solutions are simple, but can only be solved in ways the present public won’t accept.
(1) In all three wars, our country operated under United Nations institutional control, and thus were prevented from either conquering the aggressor countries or occupying them long-term as the Allies did in Germany and Japan. And I agree with what I think you’re saying, which is that if we are not willing to commit to and insist on one of those endings, any war is a complete waste of our nation’s blood and treasure and should not be begun.
(2) Also in all three wars, we were handicapped because hostile TV networks showed our people our casualties on the evening news on a daily basis — a practice which was forbidden by wartime censorship during both World Wars and rightly so, or we would have given up on those, too, before we could win them.
The US attempted to occupy North Korea, and was unable to; the UN had nothing much to do with it. The indefinite occupation of North Vietnam was clearly beyond the military capability of the US, and was readily understood by everyone — American power was not and is not limitless. Fortunately wars can be waged without completely occupying every square inch of some state’s territory and executing or “rehabilitating” every single one of their government functionaries.
How To Fight Communism, by John Fitzgerald “Missile Gap” Kennedy.
Vietnam, said JFK, “represents the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike. Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and obviously Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the Red Tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam. In the past, our policy-makers have sometimes issued contradictory statements on this point–but the long history of Chinese invasions of Southeast Asia being stopped by Vietnamese warriors should have removed all doubt on this subject.”
He said this in 1956. Here he is in 1961: “The threat is worldwide. Our effort must be equally wide and strong, and not be obsessed by any single manufactured crisis. We face a challenge in Berlin, but there is also a challenge in Southeast Asia, where the borders are less guarded, the enemy harder to find, and the dangers of Communism less apparent to those who have so little. We face a challenge in our own hemisphere, and indeed wherever else the freedom of human beings is at stake.”
And this is from a speech he would have delivered November 22, 1963: “Our security and strength, in the last analysis, directly depend on the security and strength of others, and that is why our military and economic assistance plays such a key role in enabling those who live on the periphery of the Communist world to maintain their independence of choice. Our assistance to these nations can be painful, risky and costly, as is true in Southeast Asia today. But we dare not weary of the task.”
“To successfully conclude an overseas war, you need to be able to establish a government that can pacify the country. After World War II, we could do that in Japan. We could do that in Germany. ”
No, you have to utterly and absolutely defeat the enemy, as happened with Japan and Germany. See the Victory Project of Daniel Pipes and the Middle East Forum re the situation in the Middle East. That alone successfully concludes a war. The ancient world solution of killing or enslaving all males between 15 and 35 is no longer viable.
Sorry, Michael. You are supposed not to say that total victory is a necessary condition. It offends some libertarians because they are against all wars, regardless of why and how they happen. BTW, the same necessary condition applies to civil wars but we should remember it isn’t a sufficient one.
My wife was born in Saigon in July of 1975. She basically thinks that the boomers are nuts for continuing to discuss this topic. They didn’t live there nor did they have to suffer through the intervening years to Doi Moi (late 1980s). No one in Viet Nam thinks about the war years any longer and perhaps it’s time for the sanctimonious boomers to move along as well. The U.S. lost and Viet Nam is likely better off as a result.
My grandfather wasn’t even old enough to have fought in Vietnam. The fact that the current Vietnamese government doesn’t want people to think too hard about their actions in the 20th century beyond “of course we won and that was the best outcome possible” is neither surprising nor relevant to whether people should discuss American involvement in the war there.
Until you’re able to introduce the average person’s view in Viet Nam into the equation, then you aren’t really reflecting anything new or useful – it’s just a typical colonist point of view.
Thank god that Bill Clinton was able to get over it and visit in the 1990s.
Here’s a bonus track for you:
https://youtu.be/988jS6_Knko
“White-collar conservatives flashing down the street, pointing their plastic finger at me.”
Anyone care to translate?
My Cherokee wife was born in Oklahoma in 1850. She thinks boomers are nuts for continuing to discuss this topic. They didn’t live there nor did they have to suffer through the War Between the States (1860s). No one in the Nation thinks about the Trail of Tears any longer and maybe it’s time for the sanctimonious palefaces to move along as well. The Yankees won, and the Indians are better for it. Move On Dot Org.
https://youtu.be/oXnpaBVmvLk
“If Old Hickory didn’t like a thing someone had done or said
He coolly looked them in the eye, then hit them on the head”
Anyone care to translate?
Translation: the sex must be mostly awkward.
But, you are on to something…
Sincere Thanks for doing this, Arnold. It’s important.
For the culture war.
Most Trump supporters believe, as do I:
2. And we beat them. Or we could have. [by support in ’75]
… Then what?
Then S. Vietnam can compete with S. Korea and Taiwan as a market economy Asian Tiger.
INSTEAD of over 2 million murdered by commies in united Vietnam and commie takeover in Cambodia.
Most Trump haters believe, have the opinion (NOT fact):
We could not do it in South Vietnam.
Absolutely false – we DID do it. See 1974 news reports of Vietnam. Similar, at the time, to S. Korea. It’s telling that Japan & Germany are cited, but NOT S. Korea.
Many intellectuals treat this opinion as a fact – and even claim that those with this highly disputed opinion are “correct”. It was true that S. Vietnam couldn’t defend itself against invasion.
However, in 1972, most people thought that leaving Vietnam would mean commie takeover and a bloodbath. They voted Nixon … [FBI #2 against Nixon]
After the anti-War folk won the ’74 elections, and voted to stop Pres. Ford from helping the South defend against North aggression, the South lost.
a) the “small” Viet bloodbath of 50k – 100k killed with thousands more as prisoners in re-education camps.
b) the genocide murder of 2.1 million Cambodians, including every intellectual, by commies supported by China.
The anti-war folk predicted peace and only a few thousand killed after America runs away. The pro-victory folk predicted commie murders. Which prediction is more factually correct?
I, like many pro-victory folk, continue to be outraged at the refusal of Kerry and other anti-War folk to accept the reality of their successful efforts. Get America to leave, accept commie victory. I even suspect many Trump supporters, if asked, would agree that they are outraged at the dishonest PC folk who refuse any responsibility for accepting the genocide. One unmentioned above by ASK.
Commie genocide in Cambodia was real.
That stubborn feature of reality eluded naive peace doves at the time. It eludes them today.
Trump voters here, especially my Vietnamese wife. Zero allegiance for what you support (or what you did support) in Viet Nam. Move on dot org.
The anti-war folk predicted peace and only a few thousand killed after America runs away.
They were deluding themselves, believing that what they wanted to be true was actually true. But you are doing the same thing if you think, “And we beat them. Or we could have. [by support in ’75]” We didn’t beat them, any more than the Germans beat the allies because of the Battle of the Bulge. And what sort of support could have been given in ’75? No American administration was going to send ground troops. Maybe they would do bombing from offshore. Money could have been sent, maybe lots of money. But I’m not at all sure how much that would have accomplished. We would have bought a lot of politicians and officers and bureaucrats but I don’t think they would have been successful against a determined North Vietnamese government.
The only way to win the Vietnam war was to invade the North. If that brought China into the war, then you defeat China, just like in Korea.
If not willing to do that, don’t bother.