Did the US really lose the Vietnam war?
If yes, why?
>>901886
Did you actually go there to win anything?
>>901898
poon
Well, we sure as shit didn't win.
I don't know if I'd call it a "loss" as I'm not entirely convinced there was a real goal besides "let's see how much military hardware we can sell before people get tired of this"
I read that they were basically winning the whole thing, but for some reason retreated?
>>901886
Yes. The abstract objectives were accomplished through other means, the concrete objectives were given up on totally.
Spoiled boomer brats and pinko sympathizers formed a fifth column.
>>901933
Hippies man
America was at war with Vietnam?
When?
>>901933
Because it was a pointless and unjust war in which millions of young men were sent to die because the US government didn't believe the Vietnamese should have the right to determine their own government, regardless of how retarded said government may be
We must look at it in an International Relations lens and for that we will look at it using the Realist method.
When LBJ started the war, there was overwhelming pressure from political scientists of the time, who were mostly Realists, to not invade Vietnam as it was unnecessary and did not pose an immediate threat to American world security. LBJ, also a realist, saw that the victory of any Communist Party would inevitably lead to a shift in the balance of power of the world.
By the time Nixon was elected, and despite many victories to the US, the Realist perspective had changed and it was now clear that the Vietnam War was no longer in the American's national interest. Not only did Vietnam not prove a threat to world wide democracies, it was also a drain on American economic and political resources, thus making it a complete waste of time.
We can talk about how the US failed to meet their objectives, sure, but realistically the move to pull out of the war was done on purely realistic and calculated manner.
>>901959
This. Vietnam as a country was allied of the United States. North Vietnam and its NVA was a pseudo country created by the Reds. Bao Dai was the legitimate ruler of Vietnam at the time, despite having cooperated with the Japanese in WW2.
>>901970
THIS!!
America didn't invade Vietnam, we were supporting the legitimate government against a commie invasion.
>>902017
Too bad the people themselves didn't think it was all that legitimate.
>>902020
Lol even in modern Saigon people will only call it "Ho Chi Minh City" through gritted teeth.
>>901964
Sounds exactly like the Korean War
>>901970
So the Americans supported the dictator who helped the Japanese, and rejected the democratically elected leader who petitioned America for help removing the Japanese?
Wow. Americans realpolitik like you're doing life in a super-max prison.
>>901968
Well they sure as hell weren't winning. If they were absolutely kicking ass like most Americans claim, they would've reached Beijing in one month.
I'd say that yes, they lost a war of attrition.
>>902034
America loves dictators
>>902052
>Beijing
Wait a minute...
>>902056
MI GENERAL AUGUSTO PINOCHET
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9R4zPTpS9w
>>901886
Yes, because they got BTFO by the NVA's and Vietcong's guerrilla warfare strategy. Plus, they couldn't realistically hold off the NVA's supply line for more than a couple of days because the North Vietnamese government had workers on the Ho Chi Minh trail to repair it whenever it got bombed.
>>901886
No. The invasion was costly and long but it secured US goals pretty solidly. There was a real danger there for a while that Vietnam might develop on it's own independently of global capitalism and American business interests. Even worse, if they did so successfully neighboring countries might've copied their growth model. This obviously would've been a catastrophe for US business interests. After they flattened Vietnam to dust however there was no danger of that.
>>901933
Armies don't 'pull out,' they retreat. The US retreated because continuing the war had become politically unfeasible.
>>902017
Commie uprising you mean. The NLF was a pretty natural reaction to the US carving a country in two and setting up a puppet torture-state.
>>902059
170000 Chinese fought in the Vietnam War. You think they would've stopped fighting when us soldiers reached the border?
>>902064
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_violations_in_Pinochet's_Chile#Sexual_abuse
>Not only would military men rape women, they would also use foreign objects and even animals to inflict more pain and suffering. Women (and occasionally men) reported that spiders and live rats were often implanted on their genitals. One woman testified that she had been “raped and sexually assaulted with trained dogs and with live rats.” She was forced to have sex with her father and brother—who were also detained.
>>902069
So Germany didn't lose the second world War because they razed Russia to the ground?
The gauls didn't lose because they sacked Rome?
Carthage didn't loose...
You get my point
>>902071
But Beijing is 2,000km from Vietnamese border.
Nobody would march there from Vietnam, but Korea and Japan and it wouldn't take even a Month, but Days.
The actual outcome, I will not even speculate on.
Tactically? Yes
Strategically? No
>>902101
>tactically
>strategically
Do you even know what these words mean?
>>902034
Calling Ho Chi Minh democratically elected is a bit of a stretch.
He wasn't shy about killing anyone who stood in his way, including most of the people who fought the Japanese but weren't communist.
>>902097
Yes of course the Chinese would let someone they dislike on their borders
Because that totally is not what is and has happened since the 50s
Which is why China is reasonably handling the whole
One theory why the British could win in Malaya and America lost in Vietnam was to do with the lack of ability for the US military to 'learn' as an organization how to conduct a counterinsurgency campaign. Read "Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam: Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife."
>>902069
They pull out when it isn't a war. You pull out of an occupation. It sounds worse when you say 'we will cease to support the regime in the South', it sounds better when you say 'pull out of Vietnam'.
If they were pushed out of the country militarily, it would be a retreat.
>>902097
It was a hyperbole to show the unlogical thought process of someone who says "Hur America kicked gook ass" while they went forward at a grueling pace if they did at all
>>902033
The Korean War was a whole lot different in that South Korea was a democratic republic with popular support and UN recognition, whereas South Vietnam was a military dictatorship and essentially just puppet of first France and later the US.
>>902110
Kennedy fucked up and LBJ never managed to establish a quarantine of South Vietnam after supply lines were established through Laos desu
>>902104
We made the north sign a treaty and then left, therefore tactically a success.
The north invaded after we pulled out and lost all influence in the area, therefore a strategic failure.
What are you trying to do here
>>902110
There's this saying that in counterinsurgency, you're only as strong as the government you represent.
In Malaya, the government was directly run by seasoned British civil servants.
In Vietnam, it was an effectively feudal state governed at the top by whatever general officer had managed to get in charge of that month's junta.
Also, in Malaya the guerrillas were geographically and ethnically isolated, and never numbered more than a few thousand.
In Vietnam, there was a land border with a belligerent state, and convenient smuggling grounds through Laos and Cambodia. The total number of guerrillas involved in the Tet Offensive alone was probably 10 to 20 times as many were active in Malaya at any given time.
I'd put it down to numbers, and effectiveness of the local government.
>>902121
>Responding to posts like that seriously
When a poster claims that external military invasion is "the will of the people", you should safely disregard their opinions.
>>902121
>South Korea was a democratic
lolno
South Korea didn't achieve democracy until the late 80s.
One of the reasons that the insurgency in South Korea never reached a critical mass is because most of the Southern government had collaborated with the Japanese, and were thus used to hunting out and killing dissidents.
>>902121
>South Korea was a democratic republic
North Korea is also democratic republic, actually, democratic people's republic, which is like democratic x2
>>902121
Yeah accept that the south was doing sprt of anarchosyndicalism before the US came and said "lolno" and instated a horrible government that wouldn't begin to be slightly humane in the 1990's.
The south was losing the war badly before UN intervention, partly because nobody wanted to be a South Korean
>>901921
wasn't the goal to stop communist north taking the south?
>>902090
>You get my point
You have no point. Now re-read my post until you understand it so you won't make any embarrassing posts like this in the future.
>>902112
There was a war, one which the US retreated one. Why are you being so dogmatic about the PPA? Those meaningless talks had no purpose except for allowing the US to surrender while saving some face.
>>901886
They didn't have the means to complete objectives and the war itself became unpopular politically, so they left.
You can lose a war without getting your ass kicked.
>>902062
>Even with us support they lost badly man.
They held ground with US support. They lost after the US withdrew support.
North Vietnam was still being backed by the USSR/China.
Daily reminder that there was no reason for this war to happen other than "muh commies!" and military-Keynesianism.
>>902223
Of course, I forgot you are the god emperor of opinions and don't need an argument to discard my comment, I'm sorry your eyes are tainted by my super embarrassing comment. I will reread your comments in the hope of catching a glimpse of your enlightenment.
>>902123
Clearly you don't know what these words mean.
>>902069
>Armies don't 'pull out,' they retreat.
t. retard
>>901933
>I read that they were basically winning the whole thing
A total lie spread due to the psychopathic 20th century American war philosophy that if you get a higher k/d ratio then you win. That same idea made the American commanders and soldiers of the war be more concerned with killing as many Viet Cong as possible rather than actually achieving their military goals because then they would be taking casualties instead of the commies.
>>901886
The US lost the stated goal of the Vietnam War which was keeping the desired regime of South Vietnam in power.
Ultimately it didn't have the domino effect that was feared in regards to the greater Cold War so it wasn't a total loss in that regard.
Still the US lost the Vietnam war.
>>902252
desu you did miss his point, the Germans lost WW2 because their violence did not achieve their goal of an Aryan Caliphate. The American violence in Vietnam mostly achieved the goal of stopping the spread of communism in the region...
>>902840
Am I missing something here? Half that part of the continent is communist
>>901964
Exactly this
>>901886
Yes, Vietnam became a communist country.
>>902859
Vietnam isn't.
Well we outlasted those dirty reds. So I'd say we won didn't we?
>>901886
Vietnam became a communist country and US ended up helping Khmer Rogue(hyper commies) with fighting them.
Total disgrace.
>>903348
Hyper commies
Hmmmmm only in name
I would call it hyperretarded murdergooks
>>902065
>BTFO
>rape the Vietcong so hard they cease to exist as a fighting force
>NVA only succeed after American forces have left.
>>901886
Long term, def no. Short term, sort of. Really it was ARVN that lost the war and the U.S. gained extremely favorable peace terms at the Paris Peace Accords so, eh. The real loss came through national consciousness and loss of unity, not through any real war loss.
>>903343
They're still communist.
The US 'lost' as the NVA in 1975, captured Saigon the capital of South Vietnam. Which reunited the two sides and effectively established a communist regime in Vietnam.
>>901964
>millions
Cmon now. the US only sent around 500 000 and only around 50 000 thousand died.
>>903569
In name only. Vietnam is a democarcy.
>>901886
>The morale, discipline and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at anytime in this century and possibly in the history of the United States. By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and noncommissioned officers, drug-ridden, and dispirited where not near-mutinous.
>Intolerably clobbered and buffeted from without and within by social turbulence, pandemic drug addiction, race war, sedition, civilian scapegoatise, draftee recalcitrance and malevolence, unsupported in their travail by the government, in Congress as well as the executive branch, distrusted, disliked, and often reviled by the public, the uniformed services today are places of agony for the loyal, silent professions who doggedly hang on and try to keep the ship afloat.
>The responses of the services to these unheard-of conditions, forces and new public attitudes, are confused, resentful, occasional pollyanna-ish, and in some cases even calculated to worsen the malaise that is wracking. While no senior officer (especially on active duty) can openly voice any such assessment, the foregoing conclusions find virtually unanimous support in numerous non-attributable interviews with responsible senior and mid-level officer, as well as career noncommissioned officers and petty officers in all services.
>Historical precedents do not exist for some of the services' problems, such as desertion, mutiny, unpopularity, seditious attacks, and racial troubles. Others, such as drugs, pose difficulties that are wholly NEW. Nowhere, however, in the history of the Armed Forces have comparable past troubles presented themselves in such general magnitude, acuteness, or concentrated focus as today.
Col. Robert D. Heinl, Armed Forces Journal, June, 1971
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/Vietnam/heinl.html
>>903877
>Shortly after the costly assault on Hamburger Hill in mid-1969,the GI underground newspaper in Vietnam, "G.I. Says", publicly offered a $10,000 bounty on Lt. Col. Weldon Honeycutt, the officer who ordered(and led) the attack. Despite several attempts, however, Honeycutt managed to live out his tour and return Stateside.
>"Another Hamburger Hill," conceded a veteran major, is definitely out."
>The issue of "combat refusal", and official euphemism for disobedience of orders to fight -- the soldier's gravest crime – has only recently been again precipitated on the frontier of Laos by Troop B, 1st Cavalry's mass refusal to recapture their captain's command vehicle containing communication gear, codes and other secret operation orders.
>As early as mid-1969 an entire company of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade publicly sat down on the battlefield. Later that year, another rifle company, from the famed 1st Air Cavalry Division, flatly refused -- on CBS-TV -- to advance down a dangerous trail.
>While denying further unit refusals the Air Cav has admitted some 35 individual refusals in 1970 alone. By comparison, only two years earlier in 1968, the entire number of officially recorded refusals for our whole army in Vietnam -- from over seven divisions - was 68.
>That "search-and-evade" has not gone unnoticed by the enemy is underscored by the Viet Cong delegation's recent statement at the Paris Peace Talks that communist units in Indochina have been ordered not to engage American units which do not molest them. The same statement boasted - not without foundation in fact - that American defectors are in the VC ranks.
>Symbolic anti-war fasts (such as the one at Pleiku where an entire medical unit, led by its officers, refused Thanksgiving turkey), peace symbols, "V"-signs not for victory but for peace, booing and cursing of officers and even of hapless entertainers such as Bob Hope, are unhappily commonplace.
>>903899
>As for drugs and race, members of a Congressional investigating subcommittee reported that 12% to 15% of our troops in Vietnam are now using high-grade heroin, and that drug addiction there is "of epidemic proportions."
>Only last year an Air Force major and command pilot for Ambassador Bunker was apprehended at Ton Son Nhut air base outside Saigon with $8 million worth of heroin in his aircraft. The major is now in Leavenworth.
>Early this year, and Air force regular colonel was court-martialed and cashiered for leading his squadron in pot parties, while, at Cam Ranh Air Force Base, 43 members of the base security police squadron were recently swept up in dragnet narcotics raids.
>All the foregoing facts – and mean more dire indicators of the worse kind of military trouble – point to widespread conditions among American forces in Vietnam that have only been exceeded in this century by the French Army’s Nivelle mutinies of 1917 and the collapse of the Tsarist armies in 1916 and 1917.
>>901933
They were winning battles. Not the war. Their objectives were not met. They lost support from both internal and international public. They lost support from vietnam public and the public would not support the corrupt puppet government.
>>902110
Nixon hit this problem on the head with Vietnamisation. Once they started putting South Vietnamese garrisons across the country, the North Vietnamese couldn't carry out the terrorist tactics that forced villages into harbouring and supplying the Vietcong.
Vietnam was only conquered by the Reds when Congress stopped helping after they came to a ceasefire.
>>902033
>Sounds exactly like the Korean War
>>902121
>The Korean War was a whole lot different
It's similar in the sense that American doctrine was based on misguided and often racist ideas about fighting the fanatical oriental. Most notably the importance and use of body count as a metric of war fighting, an idea forged in WW2 on Iwo Jima and Peleliu; islands that held little to no strategic value other than the extermination of the Japanese garrisons that defended them. The idea that Asians did not value life was accepted doctrine in both Korea and Vietnam.
Westmoreland writes about meeting with MacArthur in his memoirs, “[MacArthur] urged me to make sure I always had plenty of artillery, for the Oriental, he said, ‘greatly fears artillery,’” and suggested that Westmoreland might have to employ a “scorched earth policy” in Vietnam. In September 1965, Westmoreland issued MACV Directive Number 525-3, which states;
>“Free strike zones should be configured to eliminate populated areas except those in accepted VC bases...”
Essentially allowing Harassment and Interdiction artillery missions on populated areas in a frontless environment.
ITT : Cherry picking at its finest.
>please allow me to completely ignore your post and only pick three words upon which I'll base my counter argument as to why you're wrong
Sometimes it's truly a pain in the ass to deal with you guys, especially on historico political subjects.
>>901886
Well first the US never declared war on North Vietnam. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution just gave LBJ a blank slate to use military force to meet US objectives. As to the fighting itself, the US won every battle, but lost the war. The fighting was so brutal that the American public turned against the war, making it politically unfeasible to continue. It wasn't a complete blowout though, South Vietnam managed to hold out for a couple of years after the US withdrew.
If it weren't for the hippies and communists holding the America hostage to political whims we would have won and saved Vietnam
>>902247
>war needs a reason meme
war is humanity's purpose
>>901886
Won the war, but lost the overall goal.
I mean, we killed the fuck out of Vietnam, and we did get an armistice. But South Vietnam was shit and never worth backing. We could never have hoped for it to stand, honestly
>>905506
based on?
>>901886
South Vietnam lost the war. We killed 3,500,000 dinks.
>>905516
the point of life is to grow more powerful and weed out weakness, which we do through the glory of war.
>>905507
>"won the war"
>Saigon is now called Ho Chi Minh City
Uh huh
>>903348
>hyper commies
The Khmer Rogue literally had nothing to do with socialism.
>>901886
There are only losers in wars anon
>>902213
No, the goal was to remove the communist from the north, they failed.
>>902247
Muh commies seems like a decent reason.
>>905759
>"sir, we have this largely anti-colonial socialist movement who wants our help"
Get this faggot out of here! Lefty Libcucks like you cost us China!
>"2bh i don't know much about ching-chongs, but looks like we've got another czechoslovakia on our hands! bomb the fuck out of these gooks!"
Now that's more like it!
Hey /his/
>>901886
Ridiculous war started by a FALSE FLAG. All because the US gov. wants the whole world to be under their influence. Does anyone still think the US is the moral exemplary of the world?
https://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/gulf_of_tonkin/articles/rel1_skunks_bogies.pdf#page=2&zoom=auto,0,765
>>901968
Basically this. They lost in every sense of the word, since Indochina as a whole became commie. Not only that, US became discredited as the capitalist hegemon (coupled with the end of the gold standard and the rise of west germany and japan).
However, it was a positive defeat due to based nixon - by the end of the 1970s, america's defeat in vietnam was irrelevant. Also, it inspired the systems that made the us the military juggernaut of 1991.
>>905869
Plus, they really lucked out in Indonesia - they could have abandoned the domino bullshit by 1965.
Vietnam Police Action*
FTFY
>>902279
Not him but he's using the words correctly.
Tactical = small-scale, battles, skirmishes
Strategic = large-scale, campaigns, logistics
So basically, fuck off animeposter
>>905897
Not the other guy, but you are right - he is not
>>905877
Strangely enough, Lee Kuan Yew believed in domino theory and thanked the US for fighting in Vietnam, because he believed it allowed his country to survive.
>>903768
>Socialist One Party State
>Headed by the Communist Party
>Uses Socialist Law
>Only 4 seats aren't Communists or radical Left Wing of a 500 seat Congress
What a wonderful democracy.... You're an idiot.
>>905912
us fighting was a great thing for local allies back then.
still, domino logic ended with the fall of sukarno (konfrontasi being the biggest threat to singapore). he was a statesman though, it was not in his position to say so. As he says, wait for the singaporean documents to be declassified.
>>902279
different anon. fuck off. hes right. youre wrong.
>>905522
>Implying life has meaning save for what people give it
*Tips fedora*
>>905999
He said this in the 90s.
The American butthurt about admitting they lost the war comes from people form other countries trying to play the loss off as a complete loss, like what happened to Japan. Not reaching mission goals and having your government taken down and built back up again by a foreign power are both "losses", but nonetheless qualitatively different. It's semantics.
You can't play off the war like it had no real ramifications at home. The institution of our military was irrevocably damaged, not just its credibility.
It wasn't just hippies against the war, you had WW2 Generals including those who took part in the prosecution of the Nuremberg Trials publicly entertaining the idea of charging Westmoreland with the same crimes we executed Japanese commanders for.
>>906559
Well, US military power did rebound in time for the next serious combat engagement, in 1991.
And then, of course, another Texan got elected president, and fucked everything up again.
>>901933
it was costing us way more burgerbux than we had to spare, among other things
>>901886
Yes, America lost Vietnam.
Vietnam became a communist nation post 1975. America lost because the Rules of War hindered America from destroying north Vietnam. No *official* operations were conducted into the north.
The reconstruction of south Vietnam did not hold well. The people in power were very corrupt (Which didn't help propaganda for pro US imagery)
The War was reported wholesale back to the people of the united states where hippies and anti-war media movement took it in huge spades and ran with it to destroy pro-War propaganda back home (Best destruction was Tet Offensive)
The only real gain for the Vietnam War was hundreds of thousands of fresh combat hardened veteran soldiers in case of WW III popped off.
>>901964
You claim the vietenamese have the right to form their own government yet forget how the north invaded the sovereign south.
>>906565
>>And then, of course, another Texan got elected president, and fucked everything up again.
Yep. Sad how similar this is to the Pentagon Papers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mi9PKsiJ3Q
Not in the trailer but they were stashing captured weapons to plant on civilians, using grenades to cover up scenes, both right out of the Vietnam playbook.
>>906614
>The only real gain for the Vietnam War was hundreds of thousands of fresh combat hardened veteran soldiers in case of WW III popped off.
Institutional memory is fleeting, see Korea.
>>901933
We were winning tactical engagements without any real results, at least from our perspective. The US government was getting so desperate that they even launched a far more illegal war - the so-called "Secret War" - to strike at Communist supply lines in Laos.
By 1970, morale in the US Army had plummeted to near rock-bottom levels. Although Hamburger Hill was a victory for the US, some officers commented that any more "Hamburger Hills" and the officers involved in any such operation would be fragged for sure. It was a really fucked up time in America that most probably want to forget.
>>902020
You mean the people from the north or the farmers in the south that would get killed and their village destroyed if they didn't join?
>>906638
~15 years is a long time anon. Especially when most of your Korean Veterans are now in positions of E-7& O-5 positions and higher.
Without E-5/6 as well as fresh Officers of O-3 and higher, your combat effectiveness is limited.
>>905522
I mean, not really. The average soldier's strength, intelligence, etc., has absolutely no say on their chances of survival. Most often it has to do with the strength of the commander's strategy. But on the other hand the commander's strategy is very often informed by the resources and power of the state that is employing them. Like in the Civil War: Grant won because he knew how to abuse the fact that the north could just shit out soldiers. So is it the stronger country winning? Kind of? Not really. By this argument Great Britain was the most powerful country because it was able to defeat the weaker ones and take them over, but objectively weaker countries (the American colonies for one) were able to beat it back due to economic constraints.
War doesn't weed out the weak. War is an exercise in economics, and there are simply more efficient methods of getting the benefits of war.
>>906659
True, but I don't think the experience gained fighting in Vietnam would have much practical use in a conventional World war. Sending out patrols as bait then using your overwhelming advantage in firepower doesn't seem like it'd transfer over well.
>>901886
>If yes, why?
Hackworth is a bit controversial, Tiger Force committed a number of war crimes, but this is worth a listen. His thoughts on corporate generals are good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWJ0y6oiot8
>>906708
Just being able to remain calm and are used to being shot at is a positive effect. That is less soldiers cowering in fear and more pointing rifles down range whilst in cover.
Plus there was major improvements in Air Assault tactics, Squad Movement, medical, communications, using helicopters in combat, medivac in combat situations, ect.
Conventional warfare, this is pure opinion here, has gone out the window since 1950's. 1st World nations won't war with each other anymore. Insurgencies and gorilla warfare is pretty much the battlefield norm since 1960's.
>>901886
lost
they didnt achive any of their objectives
- stop the spread of communism
- keep southern vietnam as a 'democratic' puppet state
- remove communist influence all together
>>901959
wait are you serious?
>>901886
>Wage war on another country's teritorry for 17 years
>Manage to lose over 25 000 aircraft in the process
>Trillions dollars of tax payers money
>Brutalize the populace for so long to the point even your own people lose faith in their government
>Achieve nothing
>Retreat under fire
>60 years later
>Fucking Yurogays
>WE WUZ VICTORIOUS
>MUH TACTICAL RETREAT
>>901886
>If yes, why?
Godzilla
>>902151
Are you handicaped or has /his/ come to this shitposting?
>>903768
>implying Communism isn't inherently democratic
>>908297
That is exactly as much claim as the Republic of Korea had to being a democratic republic.
>>908276
/thread
>>902064
Fug this is catchy
good thread
>>902017
>supporting the legitimate government
>assassinate the S. Vietnam president leading to a power vacuum creating instability in the South
Good fucking support that was.
>>901886
The end result of the war was a strategic and political failure.
Failure at the most basic strategic level.
The Vietnam war happened because the US didn't want Ho Chi Minh to be the president
That's literally it.
>>902033
Yeah South Korea sure would have been better off if we just stayed out of it.....
Incidentally, when I went to Vietnam, there were a few people kind of disgruntled about the US retreating, as they think Vietnam would have ended up like Japan or South Korea, if the US had stayed there.
Vietnam is one of the only countries in the TPP where the citizens are super for the deal
>>901886
yes, we did
stop asking
>>902010
> So... Vietnam doesn't exist today?
Nope. It's a hallucination.
Also USA didn't lose. It was a victorious advance towards North American beaches..
>>906633
Why does everyone forget this? People are so quick to forget that the Americans were on the defensive side of the Vietnam war.
>>913584
Because viewed in the larger context, the war wasn't really about communist revolution so much as it was about throwing off the colonial yoke.
We got in there to serve the interests of the French and their vietnamese lackeys. Yes, it was good to show support for our allies, and I do think we needed to do that. However, the situation was unwinnable because Vietnam as a people was basically hellbent on throwing out the occupiers even if they got communized in exchange.
The demo-commie politics of the moment were simply banners under which the real colonial fight was happening, from the point of view of the people living there.
>>911562
Nice anecdote.
I'm sure if we just stayed in Iraq an extra few decades it would have turned out a lot better.
>>902121
>South Korea 1945-1950
>democracy
>>903309
This is bait
>>903768
...
Ever since America started sucking Vietnam's cock these last two years there's been a steady rise of...
>Vietnam supports human rights
>Vietnam is a democracy
>Vietnam is not a communist country
>Vietnamese wanted America to win
>>904441
>won every battle
>south managed to hold out a couple years by itself
>>914405
Yup. Just like Germany and Japan.
>>913584
>we wuz defenders!!!!
No.
>>914378
>throwing off the colonial yoke
>by becoming a colony of the USSR
Nice try red scum.
>>914434
Oh but staying 8 years wasn't long enough?
The US military occupations of Germany and Japan lasted 5-7 years. After that they were sovereign nations that easily could have forced us to leave, and almost did in the 70's.
>>903768
China is a democracy.
>>914446
We're still in both countries.
>>914443
listen, I'm not for one moment arguing that Vietnam made an intelligent choice. They chimped out and got what they had coming to them for their lack of political acumen. But in their eyes the whole thing was basically a "make vietnam great again by throwing out the furriner" thing.
>>906642
The majority of the Vietnamese people.
The Southern regime was largely viewed as an illegitimate continuation of the French colonial government, installed and propped up by foreign powers.
>>902080
>shit that happens in every war.doc
Only reason you know about this one is because she made it out alive somehow. If she's not a lying butthurt commie stooge that is.
>>903555
>what is the Tet Offensive.
