| From: | Marc Renouf renouf@********.com |
|---|---|
| Subject: | [Very OT] Vietnam |
| Date: | Tue, 23 Nov 1999 11:48:22 -0500 (EST) |
> >1) The US was not defeated in Vietnam, Yes the North won the war but not
> >in 69 or 70 when the US was still involved.
>
> The US was involved until 1972, pulled out then, and three years later the
> North renamed Saigon "Ho Chi Minh City".
>
> They got what they wanted, the US didn't - that's the definition of
> "winning".
>
> If the US didn't care whether North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam,
> why did it shove 55,000 young men through a meatgrinder to delay that
> outcome?
A few points here; 1) We didn't care if North Vietnam conquered
South Vietnam per se. We cared if a *communist backed* North Vietnam
conquered the South, much like in Korea. It is of significant note that
initial American rhetoric on the issue focussed on "stemming the red tide"
and "stopping the domino effect." The US was very concerned with what it
perceived as the aggressiveness of communism.
2) The US didn't have a clear goal going in. There was an
incredible amount of political ballyhoo going on, and decisions that
should have been made by military commanders were made by politicians.
3) The US was trying to "send a message" to old Uncle Ho and the
rest of the world. The US shied away from becoming committed to defending
South Vietnam because we wanted to show the world that with proper
support, the South Vietnamese could do it for themselves.
4) We picked the wrong horse to back. Thieu was a crook and his
people knew it, which only added to the ranks of the Viet Cong.
5) Further, his military and political hierarchies were
compromised to the highest level. There's a significant body of evidence
that indicates that one of his chief military advisors was actually
working for the North. The US was pretty sure that this was the case, but
was prevented (politically) from acting on it. This is one of the reasons
that US and ARVN actions were coordinated so poorly (the US didn't want to
tell the ARVN commanders anything because they knew it would get leaked,
and leaked operational details cause casualties with reckless abandon).
6) After the US pulled out, it took *3 years* for the North to
marshal the forces to make another attempt at conquest of South Vietnam.
Why so long? Because Vo Nguyen Giap had his ass handed to him (by the
Americans) the first time he tried it, and was being very cautious for
political reasons of his own. Further, after US involvement in the region
ended, the Chinese and Russians *drastically* cut the level of support
they had been giving. They knew that the South was weak, and let Ho
handle it on his own.
7) With the loss of that kind of backing, the US's major reason
for involvement was gone. Why didn't we go back in '75 like we promised
we would? We didn't need to.
8) Finally, there is a substantial body of evidence that indicates
that the US was interested in supposed offshore oil reserves in the Gulf
of Tonkin. When the survey that indicated that there might be oil there
was followed up (and showed that there wasn't) it took about six months
for the US to "get the hell out of dodge" as it were. Cause and effect?
Remember that the early seventies saw the formation of OPEC and the first
serious gas shortages.
> The VC destroyed, the NVA gutted... you'd think South Vietnam could
> survive in those circumstances.
No, they were pretty much doomed from the start on their own.
They didn't have the will, the know-how, or the allocation of resources
that North Vietnam did. Remember that Ho effectively bankrupted the
country to conquer his southern neighbor.
> True, but they served their purpose by doing so. The US public had been
> told that North Vietnam was defeared and helpless... and then came Tet.
>
> A military disaster, a political triumph.
And due largely to the US media. The 1968 Tet offensive was
probably the worst military disaster that the North had ever suffered.
The sheer number of casualties and expended material assets was
staggering. Yet in places like Hue, where the fighting was very fierce
and there were heavy casualties all the way around, the American media
didn't look at what the US had accomplished against an entrenched,
numerically superior foe. They looked at the number of boys in bodybags.
In an after action report where military folks were debriefing the media,
they were describing what a stunning victory it had been. Walter Cronkite
looked the MACV J2 dead in the face and told him he didn't care whether we
beat the NVA or not, he was going to report Tet as a crushing defeat.
How can we hope to prevail with that kind of biased reporting?
Most Americans *still* think we lost badly during the Tet Offensive.
There's a reason that successful military campaigns are those that
typically shut the media out. In Vietnam, the media could quite literally
go *anywhere*, so long as they could hitch a ride there.
> As the Russians later found in Afghanistan and Chechenya, you can't win a
> war with "body counts" and "casualty ratios", and your young men
are still
> dead no matter what gloss you put on their loss. If the enemy's more
> hardened to casualties than you, a "favourable loss ratio" doesn't mean
> much if anything.
This is far and away your best point. Again, the US wasn't
prepared to fight an actual war. Had we done so, it would have been over
much more quickly. However, without a clear goal, there can *never* be a
victory, no matter how "favorable" your loss ratio is.
Unfortunately, we don't seem to have learned our lesson. Kosovo
was a perfect example of political stupidity trying to use military force
inappropriately.
Marc Renouf (ShadowRN GridSec - "Bad Cop" Division)
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