I have heard a few references to the Tet Offensive lately and Im just wondering in what ways you see similarities or if you think its utterly ridiculous.
2006-10-29 16:54:26 · 11 answers · asked by mandakathryn02 3 in Politics & Government ➔ Military
The main reason I wanted to ask was because when asked if our involvement in Iraq could be compared to the Tet Offensive, Bush said "It could be." So it doesn't really have anything to do with being for or against Bush.
2006-10-29 18:06:29 · update #1
And Im actually asking to learn, rather than discuss the brilliance/ignorance of liberals vs. conservatives.
2006-10-29 18:09:09 · update #2
There almost no similarities between Iraq and Vietnam. Why this attempt to drew correlations between the two. Just politics to mislead the uninformed I suppose.
2006-10-29 16:58:11 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 2⤋
The Tet Offensive of 1968 was a synchronized and simultaneous attacks of all bases and nonmilitary places to destroy effectively with efficiency plus to demoralize every non-communist. It was planned for a small scale to experiment whether it should stay small and irregular e.g. guerrilla warfare or go bigger. The failure of Rolling Thunder(aerial bombardment of mainly North Vietnam from 24 February 1965 through the end of October 1968) motivated the planners to make it BIG:South Vietnam itself. {Rolling Thunder failed because of ignoramuses like President Johnson and Secretary of Defense McNamara did not allow the military to do its job. The US military was micromanaged,but that is another discussion and becomes a Red Herring if I write in more detail.} Khe San is what most people remember. As you know that it was thwarted by massive aerial attacks,the B-52 Stratofortress gained its famed especially at Khe San,and coordinated ground with some naval bombardment by US Navy Battle-wagons.
In Iraq they are not well planned since cells have a harder way of communicating so the do hit and run and/or hit and see what works. These are monitored a lot more than their counterparts of the Vietnam conflict. Electronics and human intelligence has become a lot better that the 1960s and the 1970s. It's method and and related cannot be discussed here and I should have to state why. It is irregular and are small unit as in Vietnam.
The only similarities are the irregular and small unit attacks.
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2006-10-30 01:54:38 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Sure you can compare Tet to Iraq. You can also compate elephants to parrakeets.
The Tet offensive was specifically designed by North Vietnam fortwo reasons- to achieve a propaganda splash in media and to exterminate the Vietcong- who were getting far too independent for the liking of North Vietnam.
Militarily, it was an unmitigated disaster and ended with the almost complete anihilation of the vietcong underground.
Politically it was succesfull beyond all hope. The anti-war campaigners inthe US went absolutely ape and declared the war unwinnable- at the very moment that the Vietcong was practically eliminated. So instead of securing the territory, US cut and ran.
The long term result was the extermination of over 4 milion people in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos. In fact the extermination still continues even today. Milions more died in the "Boat people" exhodus. And we pretend it is all OK and build factories for the slaves to work in, and their masters to get rich.
So no, it is not a ridiculous comparison. It is simply a lesson of history that should never be repeated.
2006-10-30 17:02:22 · answer #3 · answered by cp_scipiom 7 · 1⤊ 1⤋
The Tet offensive in reality was seven years before the fall of South Vietnam. It was a huge U.S. victory since the VC lost hundreds of battles, lost 56,000 men and were forced back across North Vietnam. There was a slight problem. Walter Cronkite, the god of news during that time, reported that the VC was in South Vietnam and that they were still there and the U.S. was losing. The support of the war then vanished (helped with the KGB offering hippies drugs and money to fund anti-war and anti-nuke protests). So a great military victory was labled as a great American defeat for years, which caused the turning point of the Vietnam War.
There was also other problems with the "peace people" that flaired up. Vs the equal civilian male population averages, the Vietnam vets ended up with less deaths, suicides and homelessness. It was safer to be "shot at" in Vietnam than "crossing the street" in the U.S. Even today, more people die in the U.S. from car accidents in one year than Americans died in all of Vietnam.
The same thing is going Iraq. The number of American soldiers in Iraq and Afganistan are dieing at a slower rate than their civilian counterparts (per 100,000). The soldiers in Iraq are having a WTF moment everytime they read or listen to the American press, because the press seems to be covering a different war than what the guys in Afganistan and Iraq see. Blood and body counts rate higher than schools built, and police/soldiers trained. There is already an exit strategy. The British are leaving next year, over 50% of Iraq will be in the hands of Iraq by the end of this year with 75% or so handed over at the begining of next year. That's hardly a quagmire for U.S. forces which will probably be out of Iraq sometime in 2008 (starting at the end of 2007).
2006-10-30 01:25:08 · answer #4 · answered by gregory_dittman 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
it is utterly ridiculous. We are not fighting a war. We are OCCUPYING a nation. This is an occupation, not a war. We already won the war- a couple of years ago. It's amazing that the Bush cronies and the media keep distorting the truth. Any comparisons to Vietnam are absurd. We never won that war.
2006-10-30 01:23:37 · answer #5 · answered by Curious 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
ridiculous - Tet offensive was a mass attack on multiple targets rather than this run around in the night killing your own countrymen and then running away.
2006-10-30 02:02:30 · answer #6 · answered by Norman 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Ok people Iraq is only like Vietnam because teh media and its brainwashed followers say it is. We could wn Iraq if we threw every news man out of the country and killed any who refused to leave for treason. And just started blasting and shooting and dropping bombs. Yes civilians will die, but that is the only way to win Iraq with that stratgy they're using now, we should've just blew the place to **** and left.
2006-10-30 01:54:41 · answer #7 · answered by gook_mother 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋
No its completly different, at least in my ignorant observation.
2006-10-30 00:59:42 · answer #8 · answered by asmith1022_2006 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
that had to be a left wing tard! why would we kill our own? that is just so stupid and a ill informed liberal rant!
2006-10-30 01:25:48 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
we are not mowing down our own
2006-10-30 01:08:50 · answer #10 · answered by blue_eyed_southernman 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋