Those who don’t know history are doomed to believe in the news;
Media misreporting of Tet passed into our collective memory. That picture gave antiwar activism an unwarranted credibility that persists today in Congress, and in the media reaction to the war in Iraq. The Tet experience provides a narrative model for those who wish to see all U.S. military successes — such as the Petraeus surge — minimized and glossed over.
In truth, the war in Vietnam was lost on the propaganda front, in great measure due to the press’s pervasive misreporting of the clear U.S. victory at Tet as a defeat. Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight.
Kate
“Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight.”
History is written by the victors.
The propaganda worked and they won. They wrote the history. Why are you surprised?
There are two types of victors. Honourable and dishonourable. They are dishonourable and lied about the reasons for their victory. OTOH, if the honourable had won, they would have written the truth about their victory.
Wow. Simply WOW.
A story I have never been exposed too, and I am a voracious reader of news. Or at least I used to be until the advent of CNN. Lost all hope I could get reliable facts from the MSM when 24 hour news demanded volume to fill the airwaves.
I had no idea the spewing of pure crap had started in the 1960’s. I am embarrassed I did not know the truth of Tet until now.
h2o273kk9 – the problem with what you have written is that the history of Tet was written by the western MSM before it happened – not by the VC.
Not so coincidently – Afghanistan is following the same path.
Actually the truth lies somewhere inbetween, Kate.
The Tet Offensive proved to be a turning point in the war not because the U.S. lost the PR war. Yes, American forces killed around 37,000 NVC’s to only 2,500 Americans [and I think that ratio remains for Iraq as well]. It showed that the NVC had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of soldiers willing to die to defeat the Americans, and it was a major blow to morale with an enemy that had seemed would be defeated. This offensive showed that not only would the VC not go down without a fight, it would take the fight to America.
By March of 1968 President Lyndon Johnson heard from Bobby McNamara that the war was not winnable. Mr.MacNamara is still alive, in fact, and in a recent documentary, Fog of War, explains the reasons for this. The revisionist rhetoric that the Americans could have prevailed in Vietnam should stop. It’s untenable.
Sorry, Raphael, your version does not hold water. The Viet Cong were wiped out during Tet and in the months following. The wiping out of the VC was far from over in March 1968. In fact, it took until 1969 for the last nest of VC to be wiped out. But from that moment on, the fight was carried by the NVA. There was no more insurgency in South Vietnam. The war after Tet was entirely a war of invasion by the North. Do verify your sources – McNamara is about as unreliable as source as you can get on the whole Vietnam debacle. Laughable that you would even mention him. McNamara and the whole Washington brain trust had about as much of an idea of what was going on in Vietnam as you do, i.e. zilch. Trust historians, not politicians. The US not only could, but would have prevailed in Vietnam – all it needed to do was stop having its forces fight with one hand tied behind their backs. If you’re going to spout terms like “revisionist rhetoric”, do some reading. You are wrong. Period.
Friggin’ leftie moron. Go play with the rest of the smelly hippies in Berkeley.
America could prevail in Vietnam, or any country for that matter, when they determine the need to do so.
9/11 was not enough. If-or shall I say when-another attack occurs on US soil, with larger weapons and a larger number of death’s, then the full might of the US will come down and what happened after 9/11 will look like a swat team drug bust.
It was the media that contributed to the will of the people not having the will to complete the war in Vietnam.
And really, instead of asking why is America and NATO and the UN fighting in Iraq and Afganistan, should we not be asking why are they not fighting for democracy in North Korea, Iran and Libya and Rawanda and etc?
Sorry, that last part is off topic.
you’re missing the point raphael….if the left wing MSM had reported the facts…had been competent or ethically able to report the facts then several upon several millions of innocent people would not have been exterminated.
the much maligned domino theory was obviously 100% correct in it’s evaluation of what he future would bring under these communist ideologues.
you have a problem with doing the right thing with mankind’s eternal enemy raphael or are you just an impotent dreamy lefty ?
I’m with Caveman Raphael. According to Dean Acheson, Eisenhower and the their peers who planned and executed plans in Korea, WW II and lesser wars, Vietnam was quite winnable, though the Johnson had neither the vision or political capital to allow the military to get the job done. Macnamara and the whiz kids might have been able to build cars effectively, by they were out of their league in war planning.
I’ve just finished Conrad Black’s tome on Nixon and he covers the much discussed plan to cut off the VC supply line by invading and bombing Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam and carpet bombing the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Tet was a mere skirmish and the lazy, liberal press who were scared sh*tless in their Saigon hotel rooms, and never had experienced war before, created the news and did not report it.
The WSJ article is a timely reminder of the “long war” the liberal elites and media have dominated and shaped opinion in the West. But it didn’t stop Nixon from being elected in 68 and again 72 [in a landslide] against a noisy minority of anti-war zealots and a flaky US Senator named McGovern.
The Dems can bring Obama as the anti-war candidate but history won’t be on their side!
raphael…if McNamara and the MSM is the only thing you’ve used to learn about Vietnam,then you may perhaps be forgiven a bit about knowing nothing about it. The Tet offensive was a major blow to the NVA,and if the politico’s in Washington had had any cajones,they would have pressed on into the North,and Cambodia,and Laos,and the U.N. and the French be dammed. By trying to appease the lefties and the world,the U.S committed a grave crime against the peoples of that area. Have you never heard of even one of the results of the troops pulling out? Just look/google Cambodia + killing fields. Otherwise,please keep your uninformed rhetorical comments to UCLA/Berkley.
Laughable that I would mention the Secretary of Defense during the Vietnamese war? And I suppose Donald Rumsfeld is immaterial to Iraq?
As for the leftie pejorative, I’m an affiliate of the Blogging Tories. But thanks for your interest.
“And really, instead of asking why is America and NATO and the UN fighting in Iraq and Afganistan, should we not be asking why are they not fighting for democracy in North Korea, Iran and Libya and Rawanda and etc?”
Yes, that is a good question.
“You have a problem with doing the right thing with mankind’s eternal enemy raphael or are you just an impotent dreamy lefty ?”
No, but I believe in pragmatism. There’s no historical evidence the war in Vietnam was winnable, and Iraq is fairly debatable, but we’ll see what happens when troop levels are reduced by the next Presidency. If indeed there is a war with Iran, it could easily inspire another counter-insurgency in Iraq again. Even the marine corps doesn’t feel prepared for a sudden emergency.
As for the important war of the day, it should be being fought with more fervency in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
Hey Raffie… whenever you go into the military domain on your blog, your comments are waaaay out in left field, dude. Yeah, mentioning McNamara in respect to Vietnam is laughable. The whole Washington braintrust during the late 60s was laughable. Not one of them had a clue. And no, neither did Rumsfeld two generations later. He is material to Iraq, in that he missed the whole point in how to defeat an enemy. McNamara didn’t have a clue either. Both of them are stunning examples of why civilians shouldn’t interfere in operational matters. They should set the strategy and let the guys who actually have a clue get on with it.
I wouldn’t trust his self-serving recollections either. ANYONE who trust what a politician says to cover his ass, especially when the action isn’t over yet (as it wasn’t in March 1968), is an idiot. You’re a case in point right now, dude. Your membership in the bloggingtories has nothing to do with your grasp of military history – which is zilch.
“The Tet offensive was a major blow to the NVA,and if the politico’s in Washington had had any cajones,they would have pressed on into the North,and Cambodia,and Laos,and the U.N. and the French be dammed.”
That sort of option was proposed by General MacArthur, I believe, after Japan surrendered. The refutation was, I believe, when China intervened during the critical turning point of the Korean war.
“Hey Raffie… whenever you go into the military domain on your blog, your comments are waaaay out in left field, dude.”
That’s interesting to know, since much of my research is based on Canadian military web sites to keep me apprised of operational matters and military opinion on political moves. Where would you propose one find better information on military matters?
Raffie, don’t try to pretend you know a damn about history. Name dropping makes you look like a cretin. The fact remains undisputable – the US wiped the VC out on the ground. The war from 1969 onwards was very much a conventional war between sovereign states and not the guerilla war it had been until the VC immolated themselves. Support for the communists melted away with the disappearance of the VC.
Heck, check the NVA sources. You’ll find that I’m right. South Vietnam ultimately became a communist nightmare thanks to left-wing propaganda declaring Tet a defeat, and Richard Nixon’s lack of cojones – not because of military defeat in the field. Considering that China fought its own war with Vietnam in 1979, your little quip is immaterial. China didn’t really figure in the equation, Kissinger’s nightmares notwithstanding.
The MSM of the late 60s was reflecting the zeitgeist coming from the Korean conflict. The Korean conflict was the US’s first “limited” war. The populace of the US lost its willingness to fight when its political elites insisted they fight for limited objectives. If communism needed to be stopped then why did it not apply to North Korea, China and Russia as well as South Korea? Why were the US soldiers stopped from going on the offence and restricted to defence.
If the US was going to sacrifice its young men it had better be to achieve some goal. The limited war idea carried on into Vietnam, the Gulf war and now the Iraq war and the effect is the same. If the conflict isn’t important enough to win then lives are too important to lose.
Hey Raffie, how about serving in uniform for a few years and developing some professional knowledge? You know, like some of us have done…….
“Hey Raffie, how about serving in uniform for a few years and developing some professional knowledge? You know, like some of us have done…….”
Right, because every student of history is a veteran.
Raphael,
You are a winner if you drop the history and build on the present…
This is great stuff!
**As for the important war of the day, it should be being fought with more fervency in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.**
Posted by: Raphael Alexander at February 9, 2008 11:11 PM
Yes, welcome to the real world. = TG
Rapheal; Mr.McNamara should have been jailed for what he did in Vietnam.U.S. planes could’nt cross the Yalu river,what crap.If a country can,t fight to win then why go? The U.S. fought that war like they wanted it to continue,in fact,Kennedy got them into the war,Johnson expanded it and they were hero’s.Nixon got them out and he was impeached.
The turning point in Vietnam was the Tet Offensive of February, 1968. It was a crushing defeat for the Viet Cong.
“Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise,” said North Vietnamese Army Col. Bui Tin in a 1995 interview. “Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out. It took until 1971 to re-establish our presence.”
“The Tet Offensive proved catastrophic to our plans,” said Truong Nhu Tang, minister of justice in the Viet Cong’s provisional government, in a 1982 interview. “Our losses were so immense we were unable to replace them with new recruits.”
The news media. Following Walter Cronkite’s lead, reported this overwhelming American victory as a catastrophic defeat.
“Donning helmet, Mr. Cronkite declared the war lost,” recounts UPI’s Arnaud de Borchgrave. “It was this now famous television news piece that persuaded President Lyndon Johnson…not to run for re-election.”
Shaken by Tet, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap planned to seek terms for a conditional surrender, the North Vietnamese commander wrote in his memoirs. But our news media’s complete misrepresentation of what had actually happened “convinced him America’s resolve was weakening and complete victory was within Hanoi’s grasp,” Mr. de Borchgrave says.
As every objective commentator and historian has noted, America won the Vietnam War militarily but lost it politically. Perhaps the most famous example is the Tet Offensive of 1968, which was an incredible military defeat for North Vietnam — yet spun by liberal journalists like Walter Cronkite of CBS into a defeat for the US. The biased liberal reporting and televising of the Vietnam War turned so much public opinion against the war that the political will to win was lost.
The liberal Media is once again doing its best to snatch American defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq. This time, however, there is a very big difference:
In the intervening 30 years between the Vietnam and Iraq wars, the liberals have lost their media monopoly.
With Vietnam, you had three choices to watch the first “televised war” — CBS, NBC, ABC. Things are different today.
Raphael, please explain if your so up on history who, I ask who started the whole bulls..t in Viet Nam. What country started the whole mess that the Americans had to go and clean up like they always have to, thankfully they are always there whenever there is any disaster anywhere on this planet, the victims don’t cry out “Oh where are the French or the Saudis or the Argentinians”, no they ask “where are the Americans”, and as always they are on their way to help. I am so sick of idiots with short memories.
After the first few hours of panic, the South Vietnamese troops reacted fiercely. They did the bulk of the fighting and took some 6,000 casualties. Vietcong units not only did not reach a single one of their objectives — except when they arrived by taxi at the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, blew their way through the wall into the compound and guns blazing made it into the lobby before they were wiped out by U.S. Marines — but they lost some 50,000 killed and at least that many wounded. Giap had thrown some 70,000 troops into a strategic gamble that was also designed to overwhelm 13 of the 16 provincial capitals and trigger a popular uprising. But Tet was an unmitigated military disaster for Hanoi and its Vietcong troops in South Vietnam. Yet that was not the way it was reported in U.S. and other media around the world. It was television’s first war. And some 50 million Americans at home saw the carnage of dead bodies in the rubble, and dazed Americans running around.
As the late veteran war reporter Peter Braestrup documented in “Big Story” — a massive, two-volume study of how Tet was covered by American reporters — the Vietcong offensive was depicted as a military disaster for the United States. By the time the facts emerged a week or two later from RAND Corp interrogations of prisoners and defectors, the damage had been done. Conventional media wisdom had been set in concrete. Public opinion perceptions in the United States changed accordingly.
http://tinyurl.com/yvd53m
I don’t doubt that Tet was misreported in the U.S., and yet there’s historical evidence the VC was still powerful in the countryside after Tet, and the NVA had little trouble bolstering lost troops even after losing up to 80,000 in the offensive. Obviously we can never know whether the propaganda alone defeated the Americans. I think as well one should add that historically we can see how devastating the losses were for the NLF but at the time the Joint Chiefs were reportedly stunned that the enemy could launch an offense of this magnitude, and then several more in rapid succession.
One might also make historical comparisons to modern Iraq. It certainly seems that the U.S. is prevailing in Iraq against the insurgency, and by all accounts it seems it will, but the bill for the cost against a mounting recession has given rise to populist leaders like Obama who want to leave Iraq at a time when nobody is sure whether a withdrawal will be timely. Similarly in the aftermath of Tet, the U.S. economy wasn’t in the greatest of shape, and the President had to ask Americans for billions more in war dollars against a growing unpopularity, particularly with the fact the Americans lost a lot of soldiers in Tet. Sure, the NLF lost exorbitantly more, but these were American lives splattered in the media.
It should be said that I agree that there’s a possibility the U.S. could have won in a protracted war of considerable unpopularity and devastating losses, and even U.S. military experts didn’t believe the NVA could be defeated without an all-out American military offensive. But so many hypotheticals exist on that front, I don’t know how one might begin to speculate.
And I don’t get this talk about McNamara when in fact Clifford came in and did an about-face on the war. It’s like Robert Gates suddenly saying that Paetreus isn’t convincing him Iraq is winnable.
Final comment: the MSM is blamed for propaganda on Tet leading to opinion change. Actually, LBJ didn’t say much after Tet to anyone [I guess he was depressed] and it led the people to kind of only have one source to listen to. Let this be a lesson to Harper. Ignore the MSM and the people come up with their own idea of the war…
“Oh where are the French ”
Bartinsky,
That is what I was thinking the other day. The French have always had a plan nobody notices
If my history is correct France made a deal with the most vicious raiders by giving them Normandy. The Normans protected France and were free to conquer most of the known civilized world. England, Italy, Spain, The kingdom of Sicily was Norman.
The French have been brilliant at re-inventing themselves. The guillotine cut both ways, first the accused and then the accusers, a work of art.
I don’t hear much about terrorism in France! Do you think?
No ethnic motive! I have a good French, Norman, and what I think is Attila-the-Hun, blood line.
BTW: There will “never” be another Hanoi Jane!
“Forty years is long past time to set the historical record straight.”
Up-hill battle. Walter Cronkite, Neil Young, Hanoi Jane and etc. are all still alive and still fighting the Vietnam war every damn day.
That’s the problem with lying though, you can never stop, never let up for a minute or it all comes unglued.
Raphael Alexander wrote “Actually, LBJ didn’t say much after Tet to anyone”
Not to put too fine a point on it but the Tet offensive happened in what year(s)? LBJ left as POTUS in what year? Related? Not to mention which LBJ was not very popular at the end of his term and had used up most of his political capital. Then of course the Media of the time had pretty much become anti-establishment feeling that they had an antagonistic role to play in keeping presidents in line.
Those who don’t know history are doomed to believe in the news
*Very* insightful and funny.
Keep kicking keister, Kate.
when-another attack occurs on US soil, with larger weapons and a larger number of death’s, then the full might of the US will come down and what happened after 9/11 will look like a swat team drug bust.
This is the scariest part. Does anyone expect the US to just tolerate another large-scale attack? They won’t and will get VERY angry.
I’d like to think that they’d not turn certain places to glass.
I saw (most of) the Fog of War on TVO (I think it was a few weeks ago and late at night). It is very interesting to hear Robert McNamara discuss the reasons for American failure in Vietnam.
He said that the Johnson administration (including himself) had failed to empathize with the Vietnamese (i.e. they didn’t look at the issues from the Vietnamese point of view and just assumed it was part of a communist world dominance plan – the domino theory).
He contrasts this failure with the Cuban Missile Crisis (he was Kennedy’s Secretary of Defense as well). He says that Kennedy directly put himself in Khrushchev’s shoes (and Castro’s shoes) to understand what they were doing and why they were doing it and then how they would perceive American responses – before making a decision.
The Fog of War then interviews the head North Vietnamese guy (who’s name I can’t remember – but he is still alive) and he says that they perceived America as another invading regime (like the French and Chinese) – and this is why they were going to fight. He also says that China was a bigger enemy of Vietnam than America (and had been since over a thousand years ago – and still is today).
If you look at Vietnam as a battle in the war for freedom and democracy (the objective) then maybe the US lost a battle but if you look at Vietnam today – and see the rapid progression towards democracy – then they’re winning the war.
David Warren recently had a good article on this. It doesn’t resolve the argument above, but shows clearly the perfidy of those who purport to bring us the facts:
http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?id=841
“Then, enormous mass graves of women and children were found. Most had been clubbed to death, some buried alive; you could tell from the beautifully manicured hands of women who had tried to claw out of their burial place.
“As we stood at one such site, Washington Post correspondent Peter Braestrup asked an American TV cameraman,
‘Why don’t you film this?’ He answered, ‘I am not here to spread anti-communist propaganda’.
”
A good friend of mine volunteered for 2 tours in Nam(Canadian).
His single biggest complaint about his experience is not the weather(horrible), not the food(disgusting, to say the least), not the morale or motivation of the SVA(pathetic would cover it). No, his single biggest complaint was the leftoid, commie media. Hanoi Jane did more to advance the cause of communism, than any other player in that theater.
The people most perplexed by this were the locals. As they understood the barbarity that was in store for them if the Americans failed, many of them could not understand the hypocrisy of these idiots.
As Mike said on reflecting. “We might have lost another 4 to 5 thousand troops, but we could have saved millions”. To this day, he carries that sadness in is heart.
exactly kingstonlad…..
someone explain to raphael what is coming down the pike in the M.E. and elsewhere if the West doesn’t maintain it’s military presence there…..aside from overturning a despotic regime and changing the political dynamic between the other remaining despots and succouring our Israeli allies it allows the good guys from the USA to keep an eye on our friends in Iran who if they can pull it off intend to make adolf hitler look like a choirboy.
Bottom Line:
Politicians should never be allowed to conduct a war.
Witness Korea, Nam and now Iraq.
Let the military do their job.
here’s an article about how the media refused to report on ‘anti-communist propaganda’ in teh wake of the Tet ofensive:
http://www.ocregister.com/opinion/vietnam-tet-hue-1969463-vietnamese-south
Neil said
“the problem with what you have written is that the history of Tet was written by the western MSM before it happened – not by the VC.”
Please re-read what I wrote and you’ll see that I wrote precisely what you wanted.
BTW, VC and MSM are interchangeable in their ethics.
Great article. Yes the US, from a military point of view won Tet. Had they been there as an offensive force they could have waltzed into North Vietnam.
Politically, the US population was calculating on other matters. Essentially saying that it wasnt worht the price. You need political support to carry forward. There is no war that the west or US cannot win against any opponent on this planet, assuming sufficient motivation. But that is the point isnt it?
The US subsequently withdrew from South vietnam. But the South Vietnameses were unable and/or unwilling to defend themselves sufficiently. One wonders about Norht Korea and South Korea…are the South Koreans really willing to defend themselves, i have my doubts, but I dont doubt their capabilities.
As for Generals running wars….we dont want to talk about MacArthur and the Yalu river do we? Strategic decisions must be made at the civilian level, operational decisions are made at the military level (a gross suimplification but if thats the general rule it seems to work)
At the end of the day you have to decide if the fight you get in is the right one, given all of the fights you could get in. Domino Theory dictated that South Vietnam was the place to draw the line. Some other theory invoked Iraq. Afghanistan is a lot easier. The US was attacked from Afghanistan, absolutely the right thing to do, and now that the regime was toppled the next step was to stabilize and bring foth a government friendly to the US. NATO rights were invoked, legitimately and thats why Nato is there.
Tet did get reported as either a loss or surprise. More importantly it raised more doubts about why the US was involved. The fact that the American people couldnt muster a clear answer caused the erosion of support. Lessons for this countries participation in Afghanistan, if the mission isnt clearly explained “the people” will remove their support, not necessarily oppose, but remove their support.
The media may have a bias, but the government of the day has duty to explain and defend its policies. The politicians job is to ensure the best case is put forward for the use of military power.
I cant say this government has done that great a job doing it, and I am 100% in support of our presence, in its current form in Afghanistan.
Tet is an interesting case study, the proper lessons should be taken.
“Not to put too fine a point on it but the Tet offensive happened in what year(s)? LBJ left as POTUS in what year? Related?”
Tet in January 30, 1968 to mini-Tet and followups until August. LBJ had a 61% approval rating in Vietnam after Tet, but because he was so unsure of how to proceed he didn’t say much to the media. Popularity dropped to below 50% by 1969.
“someone explain to raphael what is coming down the pike in the M.E. and elsewhere if the West doesn’t maintain it’s military presence there…”
Why would anyone need to explain that to me? I support victory in Afghanistan [and invasion of Pakistan]. Undecided if Iraq is worth staying in. And Iran is more a regional player in power struggle, and I’m not convinced yet it poses an international threat, nor a threat to terrorism [other than supporting Hezbollah]. And if truth be told, the single greatest threat against the U.S. lies in Saudi Arabian aristocracy.
“The media may have a bias, but the government of the day has duty to explain and defend its policies. The politicians job is to ensure the best case is put forward for the use of military power”
I have asked this question many, many times – given the media’s bias – just how is the Government of the Day to actually get to the people. Right now, the major ways are through that biased news. Even if he speaks directly to the people, given the media’s penchant for “analysis” – his comments will be disected and analysed based on the reporters or newscasters or pundits bias. 30 Second news bites of the “explanation” will follow – edited to give a totally different impression of what was actually said.
If anyone has an idea of how a leader who is not popular with the press can get an explaination of an event that is not popular with that press to the people, please let me know.
Raphael,
My brother had a really up-close-and-personal 50 yardline seat for the Tet. I was getting accurate feedback from him because I was in the midst of getting my affairs in order. My birthdate was getting pretty close to the draw in the lottery.
Your attempt at a revision of the actual on-the-ground sit-reps is laughable.
What deserves even more derision is this comment of yours:
“And Iran is more a regional player in power struggle, and I’m not convinced yet it poses an international threat, nor a threat to terrorism [other than supporting Hezbollah].”
If Iran drops a couple of nukes in the heart of Israel how long will it take for the situation to become an international problem? I give it about one hour.
How many nukes does Iran need before you are convinced that the nuts there might be an international threat?
“If Iran drops a couple of nukes in the heart of Israel how long will it take for the situation to become an international problem? I give it about one hour.”
The same argument could be made for Russia, Pakistan, India, and any number of other states believed to have nuclear weapons or fuel. I don’t follow the Bush doctrine of preemption, particularly since we’ve seen where that got us.
Albertagirl,
Tehre are lots of alternatives to getting the message out. And while there is a bias it isnt about blocking messaging, be it government or otherwise.
The web opens up possibilities, there are ways to get interviews, go to community newspapers vs national media, buy ads, put out You tube, direct mail.
Lots of ways to get the message out…BUT you need politicians willing to do it and they must have it straight in their own head what they are doing and why. That is ultimately the question. If the politicians dont believe in the mission and are willing to explain it and take heat for it then why should the people believe it, and ultimately why should the military carry it out.
Cant blame the media if the government doesnt even try.
I have seen interviews with retired NVA generals that said: “We had nothing left after Tet, the US could have driven into Hanoi and we could not have stopped them”
The lessons of Vietnam are there, you just need to read and listen.
Is this another attempt to bolster support for the Iraq war by claiming that we almost won Vietnam? If only those pesky peace protesters would have shut up we would have won?
Lets look at the facts;
We lost nearly 60,000 young American men trying to win the Vietnam war. We spent many many billions of dollars and many years there and we didn’t win. But for those who are convinced we should have stayed there until we won let me ask you one question: How would the United States be better off today if we had won?