Vietnam War---alternative strategy

[Chinese Troubadour]

I wonder if US did not use the stupid old tactics in Vietnam, and instead use the famous Blitzkrieg invented by hitler, deploy massive air force control over all Vietnam, send elite mobile army force, special force, and seige the shore by submarines in a few days, like what hitler did to Poland, then US probably wouldn't lose Vietnam War. What do you think?

[indian~summer]

i think it was a stupid fucking war that should never have happened
win or not

[revolution_time]

yes, that may have worked. but the u.s. did not want to win vietnam. often times soldiers would move forward, take some areas, and then fall back. they wouldn't try to retain anything they took. it was a war meant to feed the military machine. but, in the end, it doesn't really matter, i agree with indian~summer, it was a stupid fucking war that should never have happened.

[Megara]

I dont see why it was dumber than any other war...

[revolution_time]

it was dumber (lol, i don't think that is a word, but, meh) because it had no point. the intention was not to win. it was to feed the military machine. the way america went about it ensured that the war was un-winnable. it's just sickening to think of all the unnecisary deaths.

[Peterness]

Not too mention the consequences of the American bombings in the rest of Indochina...Khmer Rogue in Cambodia...I will never ever forget my visit to S-21 in Phnom Pehn and the Killing fields...

[indian~summer]

and not just the casualties of the war over seas there were casualties in america too
it should never have happened

[Chinese Troubadour]

well i think if US used Blitzkrieg we would win it in 10 days at most. Johnson is a domb rogue.

[Peterness]

^^ No chance. Guerrilla warfare, the North Vietnamese had the backing from most the countryside, they outnumbered the US/Australian forces by at least 10 to 1...The terrain played probably the biggest factor...Have you ever been to Vietnam? If so you'll know what I mean.

[Lodui]

The US lost Vietnam on the public relations end, not a military one. People we're realising how stupid it was to be there, and how many more people would need to die to win.

We could have won in Vietnam, but we decided that it wasn't worth it. Probably for the best, although I would contend that just because we should have withdrawn from Vietnam, we shouldn't have let the Chinese instill the Cambodian government.

[Lodui]

And although Peterness 10-1 figure is way off base, I do agree that the terrain made a blitzkrieg type of strategy inneffective, as did the governments heavy political funding from China and to a lesser extent the soviets.

It was essentially more of a proxy war then a battle to capture land. Also blitzkrieg was a somewhat outdatted strategy by the end of World War 2, due to increases in allied air power, and the fact that most important targets in Vietnam were covered by a forest level impenetrable to heavy artillery.

[starkmojo]

How about this for a stradegy; we sided with ho chi mihn when he asked for our help, and told the French to get the fuck out or we'd let the Germans back into their country? The result; a unified socialist democracy in Vietnam with a pro-western oreintation.

[guy]

kennedy called it an unwinnable war and was trying not to get involved. unfortunately the american coup de tete of 1963 saw the death of kennedy and the never ending violence that has stayed since his death to present day. there are no patriots in the american government and they certainly aren't faithful to the constitution nor to human rights.

[Flight From Ashiya]

Apart from the appaling cost of human misery;this was a massive failure of U.S. foreign policy/strategy although millitarily the U.S. never lost the war at all.They crushed The 'Tet Offensive' but the media reported it as a victory for the Viet-Cong.
When you say "Use Blitzkrieg tactics" that was pretty much what the U.S. was doing with 'rolling thunder' blanket bombing of North Vietnam in the 'scorched earth' policy.
The U.S. dropped everything they had on the North Vietnamese except the kitchen sink.
The problem was that the U.S. were fighting a land war,a conventional war when they should have been fighting a jungle guerrilla war.
The British had the right idea in Malaya where they succeeded in a total victory over the communists in the 1950s.
Wasn't there a huge court case involving the CBS '60 Minutes' documentary news programme that accused of General Westmoreland of 'deliberately distorting the successes of engagements to President Johnson-creating a false sense of victory'.
I don't really want to even think about this war: - it left more than two million vietnamese civillians & combatants dead & 60,000 U.S. servicemen dead.

[starkmojo]

I believe that it left 2.4 million Vietnamese dead.

[Peterness]

we shouldn't have let the Chinese instill the Cambodian government.
Sorry to nit-pick but the Chinese didn't 'install' Pol Pot and the Khmer Rogue.

They may have supplied them with weapons and supplies but they certainly didn't install them. The KR came to power on their own accord taking advantage of the American bombardment and the anger this generated in combination with the US backed military regieme at the time that controlled the Khmer state.

[Peterness]

And although Peterness 10-1 figure is way off base
Maybe, maybe not...It depends how you define a 'soldier'...if you count a angry villager with a grenade looking for revenge then its probably not such a wild figure.

[Peterness]

Apart from the appaling cost of human misery;this was a massive failure of U.S. foreign policy/strategy although millitarily the U.S. never lost the war at all.They crushed The 'Tet Offensive' but the media reported it as a victory for the Viet-Cong.
When you say "Use Blitzkrieg tactics" that was pretty much what the U.S. was doing with 'rolling thunder' blanket bombing of North Vietnam in the 'scorched earth' policy.
The U.S. dropped everything they had on the North Vietnamese except the kitchen sink.
The problem was that the U.S. were fighting a land war,a conventional war when they should have been fighting a jungle guerrilla war.
The British had the right idea in Malaya where they succeeded in a total victory over the communists in the 1950s.
Wasn't there a huge court case involving the CBS '60 Minutes' documentary news programme that accused of General Westmoreland of 'deliberately distorting the successes of engagements to President Johnson-creating a false sense of victory'.
I don't really want to even think about this war: - it left more than one million vietnamese civillians & combatants dead & 60,000 U.S. servicemen dead.
Not too mention the post-war death toll caused by 'agent orange' and unexploded ordinance.
And also , something that historians almost always ignore, the massive destruction to Vietnams natural environment.

US presence in Vietnam , Cambodia and Lao only lead to more support for the NVA, Khmer Rogue and Pathet Lao and lead to all of those ceasing power of those countries in quick succession...Only a matter of weeks after Saigon fell so did Phnom Penh and Vientiane. This lead to the Cambodian holocaust, a mass exodus in Lao and another 2 conflicts for Vietnam (the invasion and occupation of Cambodia and the short Chinese 'invasion' of the north)...The loss of life in the Cambodian holocaust was bad enough, some estimate it goes into the millions (of a country of only something like 6 million at the time), but the consequences of that lead to the Khmer Rogue continuing to terrorise the nation from there jungle strongholds planting mines all across the countryside to 'demmoralise' the government (twisted logic indeed) up until the turn of the century. Cambodia remains one of the heaviest mined countries in the world and if you go to any city in Cambodia you'll see amputees begging on the streets, just one of many grim reminders of the nightmares Khmer people have been through (and continue to some extent to go through). The other eerie reminder is the fact that an entire generation is missing, I saw very few old people...

Anyway, enough of the ranting...Just it really hits you when you actually spend time in these countries and talk to the people on the 'other side' who lived through it.

[Chinese Troubadour]

If Gen. of the Army Douglas MacArthur was in Vietnam, it would be totally different, look what he did in Japan.

[Justwow]

The US should have invaded the North. That was where all their resources were located. Top former North Vietnamese generals have admitted that if such an attack had came, they might had very well lost.

Of course, there was the fear of retaliation from the USSR that held us back. If Reagan or Bush had been president then, we would had faced down the Soviets and won the war in Vietnam, because either man would have thought we SHOULD have won it.

[Justwow]

Not too mention the post-war death toll caused by 'agent orange' and unexploded ordinance.
And also , something that historians almost always ignore, the massive destruction to Vietnams natural environment.

US presence in Vietnam , Cambodia and Lao only lead to more support for the NVA, Khmer Rogue and Pathet Lao and lead to all of those ceasing power of those countries in quick succession...Only a matter of weeks after Saigon fell so did Phnom Penh and Vientiane. This lead to the Cambodian holocaust, a mass exodus in Lao and another 2 conflicts for Vietnam (the invasion and occupation of Cambodia and the short Chinese 'invasion' of the north)...The loss of life in the Cambodian holocaust was bad enough, some estimate it goes into the millions (of a country of only something like 6 million at the time), but the consequences of that lead to the Khmer Rogue continuing to terrorise the nation from there jungle strongholds planting mines all across the countryside to 'demmoralise' the government (twisted logic indeed) up until the turn of the century. Cambodia remains one of the heaviest mined countries in the world and if you go to any city in Cambodia you'll see amputees begging on the streets, just one of many grim reminders of the nightmares Khmer people have been through (and continue to some extent to go through). The other eerie reminder is the fact that an entire generation is missing, I saw very few old people...

Anyway, enough of the ranting...Just it really hits you when you actually spend time in these countries and talk to the people on the 'other side' who lived through it.Indeed, it is beyond horrifc what happened in Cambodia. I think they have the American left of the 60's/70's to thank for their plight.

[Flight From Ashiya]

Not too mention the post-war death toll caused by 'agent orange' and unexploded ordinance.
And also , something that historians almost always ignore, the massive destruction to Vietnams natural environment.

US presence in Vietnam , Cambodia and Lao only lead to more support for the NVA, Khmer Rogue and Pathet Lao and lead to all of those ceasing power of those countries in quick succession...Only a matter of weeks after Saigon fell so did Phnom Penh and Vientiane. This lead to the Cambodian holocaust, a mass exodus in Lao and another 2 conflicts for Vietnam (the invasion and occupation of Cambodia and the short Chinese 'invasion' of the north)...The loss of life in the Cambodian holocaust was bad enough, some estimate it goes into the millions (of a country of only something like 6 million at the time), but the consequences of that lead to the Khmer Rogue continuing to terrorise the nation from there jungle strongholds planting mines all across the countryside to 'demmoralise' the government (twisted logic indeed) up until the turn of the century. Cambodia remains one of the heaviest mined countries in the world and if you go to any city in Cambodia you'll see amputees begging on the streets, just one of many grim reminders of the nightmares Khmer people have been through (and continue to some extent to go through). The other eerie reminder is the fact that an entire generation is missing, I saw very few old people...

Anyway, enough of the ranting...Just it really hits you when you actually spend time in these countries and talk to the people on the 'other side' who lived through it. The decision of President Nixon to extend the war into Laos & Cambodia in 1970 started a whole new ball game to coin a phrase.
The massive B52 bombing campaign of Christmas 1972 was the most destructive concerted bombing mission in the history of ariel warfare.
Was a single bomb dropped in 1972 necessary?.
Some of these questions should be asked although 'The Pentagon Papers' published in 'The Washington Post' revealed the criminal execution of that war.
Then on the other hand Vietnam & Cambodia are slowly developing stable economies from manufacturing & tourism & food surpluses because,guess what,they have discovered a new political system that creates the right conditions for economic stability & growth.It's called: Capitalism.

[Flight From Ashiya]

I believe that it left 2.4 million Vietnamese dead.Appallingly ,sounds about right.

[polecat]

What exactly would our blitzkrieg have attacked? We didn't invade South Vietnam....

Attacking North Vietnam would have done exactly the same thing that invading North Korea did a decade earlier, gotten China involved.

Use MacArther?!?!?! of course, he did so very well in Korea.http://www.hipforums.com/forums/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

Ho Chi Minh was a communist since the 1920's, he never would have alligned himself with the US and established a democracy. He was a fanatical supporter of the Lenist-Marxist version of communism.

[dd3stp233]

Total U.S. bomb tonnage dropped during:
World War II = 2,057,244 tons
Vietnam War = 7,078,032 tons (3-1/2 times WWII
tonnage)

Bomb tonnage dropped during the Vietnam War amounted to
1,000 lbs. for every man, woman and child in Vietnam.

[Peterness]

The decision of President Nixon to extend the war into Laos & Cambodia in 1970 started a whole new ball game to coin a phrase.
The massive B52 bombing campaign of Christmas 1972 was the most destructive concerted bombing mission in the history of ariel warfare.
Was a single bomb dropped in 1972 necessary?.
Some of these questions should be asked although 'The Pentagon Papers' published in 'The Washington Post' revealed the criminal execution of that war.
Then on the other hand Vietnam & Cambodia are slowly developing stable economies from manufacturing & tourism & food surpluses because,guess what,they have discovered a new political system that creates the right conditions for economic stability & growth.It's called: Capitalism.

And this is the obvious piece of evidence suggesting that the American presence in Indochina was a complete waste of time and actually made things 20 times worse.
Communism would've failed eventually anyway because it doesn't work. The prescence of the the US forces only added fuel to the fire and helped the Khmer Rogue, Pathet Lao and VC recruitment drives!
The fact that the US supported ultra-right wing 'governments' (in some cases they behaved more like juntas...) who were probably almost as bad as the subsequent communist regiemes in all the 3 SE asian countries and the indiscriminate bombing campaign stirred up so much anger and hatred, which was exploted by the communist fighters and directed at the Americans.
Talk to people in north Lao now and many still don't really have a clue what the war was all about or who the Americans even were! They were just told by the Pathet Lao that the people bombing and levelling there villages were people called the Americans and that if they joined and fought for the Pathet Lao the bombs and death would stop...

I hope people here understand this point.

Should've just used trade embargos against the countries and eventually the communist regiemes wouldve crumbled away anyway and left with exactly the same as we are seeing now in these countries except maybe the death toll would be dramatically less...But of course we'll never know.

[sourdiesel06]

This thread is pointless for multiple reasons

1. The tactics you described are not much different from the strategy the US used in Vietnam. There WAS a massive air campaign, but a war cannot be won with an air campaign alone. The special forces DID play a relatively large roll in the war and there WAS naval bombardment.

2. You are comparing two completely different war efforts. The German army was fighting a traditional standing army with a clear line between members of the opposing military and innocent civilians. The United States was fighting against a rag tag guerilla army with little to no formal structure. It is impossible to destroy an unknown enemy and that is exactly what the United States was trying to do in Vietnam.

3. Hitler was merely fighting an army( a concrete opponent), while the United States in Vietnam was fighting against a ideology(an abstract opponent) which is nearly impossible to defeat in a population of poor, uneducated people who are easilly manipulated by supporters of the opposing ideology.

4. The Polish miltary in World War II was an unorganized, inexperienced shitshow that barely put up a fight. The North Vietnamese, on the other hand, were a battle hardened combat with decades of conflict with France before the United States was ever involved in Vietnam.

5. The United States was also fighting a war against the anti-war media, which is protected by the constitutional rights(something Hitler didn't need to worry about). As someone already pointed out, the United States won the Vietnam War in terms of casualties and traditional military victories, but could not sustain the war because of the effect that the media's negative bias towards the war.

[Peterness]

very true

[Occam]

There is no acceptable strategy to defeat north vietnam starting in 1965.
Yes it could have been done.
But would require the destruction of much of southern china and a very risky showdown with the USSR.

IE: an expansion to a theater conflict with nuclear weapons.
easy to go 'ballistic' [excuse the pun]

The US could have 'won' such a war if 10 to 15% deaths to US citizens is
'acceptable' [while 'carparking' southern china and the USSR]
'another victory like that and we are fucked' [see, phyyric victory]

The world would be a far sader place now if it had of happened.

Occam

PS..Anyone wants to speak of specific points in this analysis..pm me

[bamboo]

Total U.S. bomb tonnage dropped during:

World War II = 2,057,244 tons
Vietnam War = 7,078,032 tons (3-1/2 times WWII
tonnage)




Bomb tonnage dropped during the Vietnam War amounted to
1,000 lbs. for every man, woman and child in Vietnam.





The chief reason for the massive increase in tonnage of bombs dropped in Vietnam was the advent of the jet engine. Many modern fighter jets can carry nearly as much bomb load as the piston engine "heavy bombers" of WWII. This is all due to the massive increase in horse power brought on by the jet engine.

[fistermister]

I think the US lost the Vietnam War for a few reasons.

1. The Vietnamese didn't want the United States (as well as the other countries that sent troops such as Australia) in the country. The Vietnamese had just spent years fighting against French colonialism; they wanted to be independent of foreign meddling. No matter what the United States did they couldn't win the PR battle because most of the Vietnamese (even the non-communists) didn't want a foreign power controlling Vietnam. This meant that the Viet Cong had strong support from the Vietnamese public in both the North and the South.

2. The Viet Cong launched a guerrilla campaign against the United States and the geography of Vietnam greatly suits this type of warfare. The swamps, rivers, jungle etc... All made it much easier for the low tech Viet Cong to successfully attack the high tech US.

3. Because the Vietnamese had been fighting for so long they were already battle hardened and fighting in familiar territory. Many of the US troops were green and were unfamiliar with Vietnam.

4. The United States forces were largely based in the cities whilst the fighting was done in the Jungle. The Viet Cong were in the Jungle all the time and therefore maintained a strangle hold on the countryside.

5. Because of the length of the battle the US soldiers themselves began to wonder why they were in Vietnam in the first place. This drop in morale greatly reduced the effectiveness of the US campaign.

6. The Viet Cong received support from the Soviet Union. The Soviets fought against the United States via proxy.

7. The USA actually dropped more bombs on Cambodia than they did on Vietnam. Did the USA accidentally invade the wrong country?

8. And lastly, the anti-war movement in the United States took off and US politicians saw it as pointless to maintain a war that was both unpopular and un-winnable.

9. The US objective may have been to scare the shit out of any would be communists in the surrounding countries, not to actually win the war.

[Peterness]

7. The USA actually dropped more bombs on Cambodia than they did on Vietnam. Did the USA accidentally invade the wrong country?
lol

obviously

[Occam]

If u want a true alternative stategy

The US could have taken over N Vietnam in one day
[maybe 2 to allow for errors]
Actually quite easy

The problem is not doing it... but stopping NV from knowing it was going to happen
The greatest enemy lies within.

Occam

[AerialReaver]

i think it was a stupid fucking war that should never have happened
win or not
but it spawned the greatness that is Rambo....c'mon

[GermanLoveMachine]

I wonder if US did not use the stupid old tactics in Vietnam, and instead use the famous Blitzkrieg invented by hitler
In fact it was not Hitler, but Erich von Manstein, a brilliant strategic thinker. HE was the mastermind behind the victory over France. Hitler just had the brains to approve his plans.

[Occam]

yes... Manstein one of the greatest german commanders.
Hitler was an operational/tactical NOOB.

Manstein, Guderian, Kesslering, Rommel, Rundsted, Hoth, Balk,and many more

THEY.. gave germany the huge advances it gained in just 3 years. German operational leaders were FAR superior in practice than allies or soviets.
Especially .. say guderian... even patton wouldbe a child at his feet.

And the likes of montgomery.. that weasle, should be struck from history.


Occam

[MikeE]

Blitzkreig is a tactic designed for use against an industrialized foe. It depends on the existance of a fairly good system of roads.

It would not work in Vietnam.

[Occam]

Blitzkreig is a tactic designed for use against an industrialized foe. It depends on the existance of a fairly good system of roads.

It would not work in Vietnam. Mike

Agree. The US had everything they needed to fight well in vietnam...
Well trained men, good weapons, massive fire support...
Weild that in Bn level S&D units and they would have dominated the battlefield.
Yet US operational methods were scattered and obtuse.
You dont fight a mobile insurgent war with op/tac methods from a european
style frontline war.
Even excellent aircav were wasted in pointless ops.

The result. A country with less pop than california humiliates the
US millitary.

Occam

ps.. Have read that german units of the french foreign legion were especially feared by the viets..[ex wehrmacht]
Anyone know more on this?

[ryukahotpink]

There is one thing, everyone who argues about Vietnam seems to forget, in our country. And that thing is, that a movement, such as the Vietnamese Communist movement a.k.a. VietCong, do not, ever, win power and reunify nations without massive popular support. The US role was basically to do what we are doing in Iraq right now, to prop up a flimsy regime that we helped create, except the one in Saigon did not even have elections, and was an immensely corrupt military junta which was only able to control the major cities, through brute force. Sure, we could have obliterated the country by sheer force in a few days or weeks, and "won", by committing genocide, but that is not what the objective was. Because basically, even this nation's worst leaders (such as Nixon) were not Hitlerian madmen bent on conquering the world.

The VietCong did not win any war, the vietnamese people did. And the United States never could have beaten them because the Vietcongs guerillas were south Vietnamese, they supported the communist movement to unify the country. They wanted to reunify their nation under an indigenous movement, with their own leaders and their own utopian dreams. These dreams were of course warped by their unfair land management practices, their own tendency toward corruption at the inpenetrable higher levels of leadership, and the tendency for communist movements since the time of Stalin, to imprison or kill dissenters rather than argue with them as we do here. But the real reason so many people fled Vietnam is because, imagine ending a war in your country after the USA has burnt down all your forests and fields with chemical weapons, blown up most of your highways, bombed to death hundreds of thousands, and after thirty years of war, the country was in tatters, and the billions of $$ of US aid suddenly STOPPED.
The other reason was that a Chinese supported, and viciously hostile communist movement led by the Khmer Rouge had come to power in neighboring Cambodia, and the Khmer Rouge invaded Vietnam in 1977-78, committing massacres and causing thousands of people to try to escape the bloodbath. The war was not over, even after it ended...

[BuddyBuds]

Anyone who has a real intrest in this topic should read the book "On Strategy: a critical analysis of the Vietnam War" by retired USMC colonel Harry Summers. It addresses this topic exactly and is widely regaurded as the most important book on how the Vietnam War could have been won. A basic understanding of Clauswitz's trinity of war, as well as an understanding of attrition warfare and manuever warfare are required. I'm on my way to my Recent Military History class right now, so i don't have time to give a summary of his thesis, but if anyone has a true intrest in learning how the Vietnam should have been fought and why the United States lost I would be glad to give a run down. Otherwise I won't bother.

[dirtydog]

Evidently the arms routes into North Vietnam should have been cut more effectively. That includes overland rail routes, Haiphong harbor, and any other harbor in use. I never heard yet of Vietnamese planting a crop and having T-34 tanks sprouting up, home grown.

Failing that, the South Vietnamese, who were divided on the war but who in many cases fought to the death against the North, should have been given sufficient air power in the period 1973-1975 to smash a Northern armored offensive in the same way the offensive of 1972 was smashed. It is a well known fact that the U.S. cut off military support of the South from 1973 onward.

However, as even Robert McNamara concludes in his memoirs, the war had to be won by South Vietnamese effort, not American effort.

In Lodui's comment above, he may not be aware that at the time of the North's 1975 offensive, the North had 153 battalions in the field. That's not what I call public relations.

[dirtydog]

Indeed, it is beyond horrifc what happened in Cambodia. I think they have the American left of the 60's/70's to thank for their plight.Did I miss something here? Was it really Tom Hayden and David Dellinger and Joan Baez and George McGovern, not to mention ordinary protesters such as myself, that drove the Khmer Rouge to their atrocities?

You've been eating some of them funny sugar cubes, my friend.

[palaeopeasant]

Flawed USA policy drove the misery engendered by the SE Asian debacle. Those in the USA who opposed the war for being unnecessary and immoral were patriots exercising their rights. USA policy fueled nationalism in nations with long histories of opposing foreign occupiers, including China, Japan and France. USA blindness kept this going like a meatgrinder for years for no purpose.

State USA goals were proven to be false when after N Vietnam had won and consolidated the country, the did NOT serve as the impetus for a "domino effect". Instead, when the Vietnamese Army invaded Cambodia to dislodge the Khmer Rouge, when the job was done they promptly left.

The Vietnam War was a chain reaction of error from start to finish. This was the result of some serious moral lapse in the planning and execution from Washington. Start with the Phoenix Program. Selective assassinations of locally powerful leaders? This is how the world's beacon of democracy should behave? This sort of thinking and action doomed the effort from the start.

The USA ignored morality, Vietnamese culture and history, and common sense. Two Administrations principally lied and manipulated and consistently produced bad policy which only dug the hole deeper. The blame lies with LBJ, McNamara, Bundy, Rusk, Nixon, Laird, Haig, Kissinger, etc. That is how history will see it.

The Antiwar Movement was right. The nation would probably be better off today if it could admit that. And then address the mess we're in in Iraq. Vietnam was easy to leave. There were no real negative consequences of it, in the geopolitical sense. Iraq is not that simple, however. How many lessons has the USA learned from the Vietnam experience? We shall see...

[dirtydog]

Vietnam was easy to leave. There were no real negative consequences of it, in the geopolitical sense. Iraq is not that simple, however. How many lessons has the USA learned from the Vietnam experience? We shall see...Only thing is, there were a lot of Viets who died opposing Communism as imposed by Pham Van Dong, Van Tien Dung, Vo Nguyen Giap and friends. Look at any Viet website today and you'll find one thing. The winners write the history.

What are we (the Free World) opposing in Iraq? Sunnis? Shiites? Who the fuck knows? Just ask George Bush or Donald Rumsfeld (sorry, Mr Rumsfeld took an early retirement, may I ask who's calling?) and they'll give you this week's version of what Americans are dying for. You might say it's a crude question.

Open letter to George W:
Dear George,
I got up in the morning and looked in the mirror. I didn't have a problem with that. Neither did you. Or did you?
David B.
Canada

[themnax]

what we couldhave shouldhave whouldhave done, if you want a REAL alternative stratagy, would have been to embrase 'unkle ho' as the allie he approched the u.s. to be, instead of spiting on him and showing him the back door and thus forcing him to turn to allies we did not favor.

nor did we really have any bussiness poking our noses in there in the first place. i think that's really the main thing. when we replaced the french, we really came in, as they had been, on the moraly wrong side.

that is why so many objected here to our being there.

=^^=
.../\...

[globalses]

I hate war.!

I hate USA and israel!

[polecat]

The U.S. and Isreal are also filled with hate. Aren't you glad you're on their level?

[The Scribe]

In his memoirs, "Mandate for Change," President Dwight Eisenhower acknowledged that 80% of the Vietnamese, north and south, supported Ho Chi Minh. That is why the United States lost, and why the United States deserved to lose.

[hipsage88]

the war was over before it even started. i studie ancient civs and their battles. NOBODY went in without a plan, backup plan, peoples support, knowledge of enemy and terain, ect. but the biggest problem was doing it without the peoples support. i found a quote of ancient chinese philociphy. "the will of the people is like water,halt it and it will eb, guide it and it will flow, let it settle and it will turn clear, and without it nothing will last".

[Airfern1313]

I wonder if US did not use the stupid old tactics in Vietnam, and instead use the famous Blitzkrieg invented by hitler, deploy massive air force control over all Vietnam, send elite mobile army force, special force, and seige the shore by submarines in a few days, like what hitler did to Poland, then US probably wouldn't lose Vietnam War. What do you think?

blitzkrieg wouldn't have worked. There was no single large enemy force or clear lines drawn. The terrain of vietnam probably wouldn't lend itself very well to blitzkrieg either.