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"Fair enough, but where is this line?" That's the difficult part, indeed. In WW2, the U.S. was attacked. The U.S. did not initiate aggression. Of course, it ma

by TriinT 17y ago

"Fair enough, but where is this line?" That's the difficult part, indeed. In WW2, the U.S. was attacked. The U.S. did not initiate aggression. Of course, it may be argued that the American foreign policy in the Pacific in the 1930s forced Japan to war. In WW2 it was quite obvious there was a threat to the U.S., and to the entire world. I don't want to claim that it was "the good war", but the U.S. won it without losing moral authority. Being the world police is an ungrateful job. If you act, people will accuse you of interventionism. If you don't act, people will accuse you of siding with genocidal thugs. It's tough. But look at what happened in Somalia in 1993. The trauma of that incident led the Clinton administration to avoid intervening in Rwanda. In the 1990s the Europeans were unable to solve the mess in the Balkans until the U.S. intervened. There are many ways of intervening, some smarter than others. The intervention in Vietnam was poorly-led. Both sides adopted an insane "war of attrition" doctrine. The U.S. needed to kill the entire population to win that war. It's kind of stupid to kill the people one's supposed to be defending. Some claim that it would have been wiser to invade North Vietnam and engage in a more conventional warfare in which the U.S. military power could be leveraged. I suppose the U.S. government was too afraid that China would intervene if that were the case, as it happened in Korea. Sometimes one needs to choose the lesser of two evils... Europe owes its stability to 50+ years of American protection. The European anti-Americanism is blasé, ungrateful, and naive. Right after 9/11 the western world was with the U.S. and approved the war in Afghanistan. It all changed when the U.S. decide to invade Iraq unilaterally. The perception of the U.S. as a thug is not entirely unjustified.

anamax 17y ago
> In WW2, the U.S. was attacked. Not by Germany or Italy. (Yes, they were attacking ships that were supplying the UK, but that's not really an attack on the US.) > In WW2 it was quite obvious there was a threat to the U.S., and to the entire world. Revisionist twaddle. I think that WWII was a "good war", but by the standards you asserted above, you don't. If you don't like the results of your standards, you have to change them, not ignore them. > It's tough. It was easy just a message ago. Decisions can't be made in hindsight. > The U.S. needed to kill the entire population to win [the Vietnam] war. Nope. The US merely needed to consolidate the Tet gains, which wiped out the VC. The NVA wasn't ready at the time. (What? You think that Tet was a US military defeat? It wasn't. It was a US political defeat in the US, but that's a different argument.) I'm not going to call you on the back-pedaling but I do suggest a bit of research.
- TriinT 17y ago
  "Nope. The US merely needed to consolidate the Tet gains, which wiped out the VC. The NVA wasn't ready at the time." That seems over-optimistic to me. Yes, the VC took a beating during the Tet Offensive, but Khe Sahn was close to ending up like Dien Bien Phu. There was combat inside the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The U.S. soldiers were demoralized and did not want to fight in Vietnam because they saw no point in doing so. The flow of NVA soldiers and supplies along the Ho Chi Mihn trail was never stopped though it was bombed to hell. Sure, the U.S. military could have consolidated the Tet gains, but at what political cost?! Instead of fighting at a tactical level and failing, the U.S. military could have fought at a strategic level. One great idea would be to destroy the enemy's logistics. Though they bombed the railroad in the North, the U.S. only mined the Haiphong harbour in 1972, when the war was already lost. They should have focused on mining harbors in 1965 so that the Soviet SAM missiles, AK-47s, RPGs and land mines could never get to the VC and NVA forces. Instead, the U.S. decided to fight at a tactical level. Burning villages and villagers. Spreading agent orange all over to kill vegetation, and condemning generations to come to cancer and other illnesses. Last but not least, there's no comparison between WW2 and Vietnam. The U.S. fought the Nazis and the Japs to liberate occupied countries. In Vietnam there was no occupation by an external country. The U.S. messed up with a sovereign country's internal problems, and it lost the war it could have won. Sure, the Soviets were playing a role behind the curtains, but the U.S. did the same during 1954-1965.
  - anamax 17y ago
    > Yes, the VC took a beating during the Tet Offensive, but Khe Sahn was close to ending up like Dien Bien Phu. There was combat inside the U.S. embassy in Saigon. So? There are always some close calls. The overall result is what counts. Tet destroyed the VC and the NVA wasn't ready. > The U.S. soldiers were demoralized and did not want to fight in Vietnam because they saw no point in doing so. That didn't happen/start because of conditions "on the ground". That happened in the US. You remember the US - it's where the troops came from. > Sure, the U.S. military could have consolidated the Tet gains, but at what political cost? You're assuming that the politics flowed from Vietnam back to the US. It didn't. Tet was judged a loss in the US while it was happening. Cronkite called it a loss. Now, if you want to argue that the US would have won except for US politics and that would have been better, fine, but that's a very different argument. > Last but not least, there's no comparison between WW2 and Vietnam. Sure there is. Neither one was any of our biz. > In Vietnam there was no occupation by an external country. Where do you think that the NVA came from? It was an invasion just like the North taking back the South during the US Civil War.

by TriinT 17y ago

anamax 17y ago

> In WW2, the U.S. was attacked. Not by Germany or Italy. (Yes, they were attacking ships that were supplying the UK, but that's not really an attack on the US.) > In WW2 it was quite obvious there was a threat to the U.S., and to the entire world. Revisionist twaddle. I think that WWII was a "good war", but by the standards you asserted above, you don't. If you don't like the results of your standards, you have to change them, not ignore them. > It's tough. It was easy just a message ago. Decisions can't be made in hindsight. > The U.S. needed to kill the entire population to win [the Vietnam] war. Nope. The US merely needed to consolidate the Tet gains, which wiped out the VC. The NVA wasn't ready at the time. (What? You think that Tet was a US military defeat? It wasn't. It was a US political defeat in the US, but that's a different argument.) I'm not going to call you on the back-pedaling but I do suggest a bit of research.

TriinT 17y ago
"Nope. The US merely needed to consolidate the Tet gains, which wiped out the VC. The NVA wasn't ready at the time." That seems over-optimistic to me. Yes, the VC took a beating during the Tet Offensive, but Khe Sahn was close to ending up like Dien Bien Phu. There was combat inside the U.S. embassy in Saigon. The U.S. soldiers were demoralized and did not want to fight in Vietnam because they saw no point in doing so. The flow of NVA soldiers and supplies along the Ho Chi Mihn trail was never stopped though it was bombed to hell. Sure, the U.S. military could have consolidated the Tet gains, but at what political cost?! Instead of fighting at a tactical level and failing, the U.S. military could have fought at a strategic level. One great idea would be to destroy the enemy's logistics. Though they bombed the railroad in the North, the U.S. only mined the Haiphong harbour in 1972, when the war was already lost. They should have focused on mining harbors in 1965 so that the Soviet SAM missiles, AK-47s, RPGs and land mines could never get to the VC and NVA forces. Instead, the U.S. decided to fight at a tactical level. Burning villages and villagers. Spreading agent orange all over to kill vegetation, and condemning generations to come to cancer and other illnesses. Last but not least, there's no comparison between WW2 and Vietnam. The U.S. fought the Nazis and the Japs to liberate occupied countries. In Vietnam there was no occupation by an external country. The U.S. messed up with a sovereign country's internal problems, and it lost the war it could have won. Sure, the Soviets were playing a role behind the curtains, but the U.S. did the same during 1954-1965.
- anamax 17y ago
  > Yes, the VC took a beating during the Tet Offensive, but Khe Sahn was close to ending up like Dien Bien Phu. There was combat inside the U.S. embassy in Saigon. So? There are always some close calls. The overall result is what counts. Tet destroyed the VC and the NVA wasn't ready. > The U.S. soldiers were demoralized and did not want to fight in Vietnam because they saw no point in doing so. That didn't happen/start because of conditions "on the ground". That happened in the US. You remember the US - it's where the troops came from. > Sure, the U.S. military could have consolidated the Tet gains, but at what political cost? You're assuming that the politics flowed from Vietnam back to the US. It didn't. Tet was judged a loss in the US while it was happening. Cronkite called it a loss. Now, if you want to argue that the US would have won except for US politics and that would have been better, fine, but that's a very different argument. > Last but not least, there's no comparison between WW2 and Vietnam. Sure there is. Neither one was any of our biz. > In Vietnam there was no occupation by an external country. Where do you think that the NVA came from? It was an invasion just like the North taking back the South during the US Civil War.