Lessons of Vietnam War?

Question

What do you think the lessons of the Vietnam War were? Do you think we have learned from them, with regards to the current war in Iraq?

Answer 1

The biggest lesson from the vietnam war should be that large empires don't always win (Russia also experienced this in it's Afghan campaign). The big powerhouses' military is only good for attacking and bombing. They can never conquer a country and remain in control if the people do not agree. Even the most advanced army can lose in a guerilla-war against the citizens. Therefore, any military campaign MUST come together with the support of the people.

This is the big problem with Iraq. The Iraqi hated Saddam and were happy when the Americans intervened. They never wanted the USA to stay. The Iraqi-people are against American troops in Iraq, therefore any American of Western presence in Iraq is doomed to fail, whatever the amount of guns or whatever the size of the bombs.

With this in mind, we have not learned from our mistakes. So we must relive them.

Answer 2

The main lesson of VN, should have been to stay out of another countries civil war. The US went in to try and keep a dictatorial government in power against the wishes of the ppl. The US invaded Iraq , with no justification whatsoever. Don't give me the "HUMAN RIGHTS" bit. The US only gets involved for personal gain.

"Panacea" After the defeat of the invaders of VN, the Viet army went into Cambodia and put an end to Pol Pots & the Khymer Rouge killing fields. Secured an elected government and left. We in the west knew the massacre was taking place and chose to do nothing.Same for the invasion of East Timor, Pres. Ford & Kissinger were visiting Suharto and were told of Indonesia's plans. By the time Ford arrived home in the US, the genocide had started. However Suharto was able to buy arms from the US.
There were millions killed in Vietnam & Cambodia but that was during the war. There were some , but very few reprisals taken against the ordinary ppl of Vietnam. You should stop reading the comic book version of history.I don't believe Ford was a liberal, I realize he didn't know his left from his right, but that's another matter.

Answer 3

I am quite sure that the true answers are not what you're looking for or are willing to hear. Vietnam was based on the domino theory. Unfortunately, there were two major problems in fighting that war.
1. The news media. They had almost instant access to just about everything. People would get to watch a fire fight taking place and watch Johnny get his head blown off during the evening meal -- before the family was given notifcation of the loss of their son. Left a VERY bad taste in everyone's mouth. Reagan knew this and basically called for a media blackout during the operations in Granada. The media and the liberals went nutz complaining that we were trying to hide something. Clinton and Reno didn't learn this and consequently a bunch of ATF guys were killed at Waco because the media was broadcasting live... In WW II, the media was given access to information and would be asked to not publish it yet, they would honor such requests. Now days, the media is purely on a mission to promote their own agenda and nothing is sacred -- even at the expense of both the truth and lives of our military forces.
2. We lost Vietnam in two respect, the first being the media as covered. The second was that President Johnson wouldn't let us do our jobs. He literally had to have final say on all matters and targets. We couldn't scratch our @sses without getting prior approval. Micromanagement shows a lack of trust. The people bought the farm without ever having gotten the full story. We pulled out prematurely -- as some would have us do now, and the governement fell.

People are not very realistic in their expectations. You cannot win a war without putting boots on the ground. And anytime you have those boots on the ground, people are going to die. WW I, the average death toll per month was 98,000 men. This does not include those who died after the battle or civilians. 98,000 men per month! In WW II, Patton drove the 3d Army across France after the D-day invasion. He lost on average 1,000 men per week. Can you just imagine where we'd be had the news weenies disclosed those statistics? We'd all be speaking German and praising Hitler.

If we pull out too soon, the Iraqi government will not be able to sustain itself and will fall. Iran and Syria both want us out and are doing everything under the sun to destabilize the situation because they know the American people have no spirit, stomach or spine. Play it long enough and they will leave, just as they did in Vietnam. Iraq will fall and then those two rouge states will have most of the world's oil to do with as they please. They sponsor terrorism and if given the chance will be a major economic force as well. The war then will be continued on our shores. You should read chapter nine of the Qu'ran to fully appreciate and understand the gravity of the situation. If we pull out now, then those 2,000+ men and women who've died, will truly have died for nothing.

Answer 4

I'm a Vietnam veteran (US Marines) and I can tell you this drawing on my own experience. We should have invaded North Vietnam at the end of 1966 when we had defeated the North Vietnamese Army. Lyndon Johnson's "limited warfare" policy was a tactical mistake. Short of invasion, we should have offered North Vietnam an ultimatum: withdraw from South Vietnam or we will drop the atom bomb on Hanoi. The same ultimatum should have been given to China regarding Peking.
What most Americans refuse to understand is that North Vietnam invaded a sovereign nation allied with the United States. The North also violated the ridiculous Paris Peace Accords in 1974 after we had withdrawn our combat troops from SVN. Yet, no one wants to admit this error. Why?
In addition, I'm sick and tired of hearing spineless crybabies ***** and moan about American atrocities during the war. I saw plenty of atrocities. They were all committed by the Viet Cong and the NVA, not Americans. We provided food and medicine to villages we liberated from VC control. You didn't hear about that from Walter Concrite, did you? No, you only heard the bullshit stories of backstabbers like John Kerry who had political aspirations built on liberal sympathies.

The mistake of Vietnam? We pulled out too soon and abandoned a sovereign nation to a genocide that equalled that of the Killing Fields under another communist dictator. Is it any wonder most nations wanting freedom distrust the United States as an ally?

War sucks and I'm the first to admit it. But subservience to an enemy is much worse.

Answer 5

1. Liberals are primarily about the promotion of genocide.

2. Americans are vulnerable to being politically manipulated.

3. Giving in to that manipulation makes our military impotent and invites our enemies to attack us. This is the ultimate goal of liberals. Liberals have incredible resources toward this end. They control the courts, the media and the educational system. Like in the book 1984, much of how they operate is via "good think".

4. Failure to resist liberal manipulation results in genocide. After vietnam, millions of people were cruelly put to death by the communists. Liberals did everything they could to make sure we didn't intervene. Those same exact people (example: John Kerry) are involved in the same activity with Iraq. If we are stupid enough to listen to them, history will repeat itself.....again.

5. The western world is in a struggle to set the tone for civilization into the next century or two. Our opponents are heinously evil and will plunge the world into darkness if we let them. They work through various puppets. Marxism and Islam are the two most serious enemies. They work through china, russia, north korea, and iran primarily. They are so crazy and evil that they just might burn the world to ash in a nuclear war if we don't beat them....and decisively.

6. The more we kick their ***, the more these forces retreat and stop their evil. The more we attempt to normalize, accept and capitulate to them, the more aggressive and dangerous they become. This was the primary lesson to be learned from Reagan.

7. The most important thing to understand is that many people in the western world are traitors. The reason is simple. We don't punish this behavior severely. Mostly, we don't punish it all. At most, we slap on the wrist where the traditional punishment for this was execution, for most of human history. The results are spectacularly bad. We end up with politicians like Kerry telling the vietnamese not to surrender because he and his friends are close to getting the US to give up under political pressure and slander. Years later, he gets caught telling the Mullahs in Iran not give in on their nuclear weapons goals as, when he gets into office he will make sure the US won't do a thing about it (he actually got caught doing this just before the election).


Anyway. These are the lessons of Vietnam. They highlight very clearly how our enemies use moral weakness of our people to attack us by abusing our democracy, in a way they could never succeed with militarily.

The real danger here is if democracy is no longer viable under that abuse. It invites fascism as its replacement. In other words, the first nuke detonated on american soil will be the end of our democracy because we will no longer be able survive under it. Expect idiot liberals to be executed for what they are doing with no trial and no fanfare.

God help us all.

Answer 6

We ( the government ) obviously learned NOTHING or we would not be at war in Iraq and actually think we can make a "new" country out of them!

Answer 7

Don't let politics, the media, or the American public's feelings dictate how you fight the war. We have not learned this lesson. If you want to win a war as an occupying country you may have to play a little dirty. ITS WAR! Let the armed forces do what they have to in order to win.

Answer 8

The big lesson of the Vietnam War was"don't let politicians run wars".We did learn,but politicians can not keep their slimy,partisan hands out of anything.We should learn a lesson and through them all out.

Answer 9

That when we, the U.S., declare "war" on an enemy- Let the military generals and commanders run a damn effective war, not micro-manage it on the executive level.
Conflict is a weird term, because in reality, a fight is a fight. Again, that term is a political statement I think.
Look at Pattons campaign in Europe, or Montgomery's market garden...fine instances where military brass did what they decided to do, following a plan to until the end.

Answer 10

You can not liberate a people that do not want to be liberated.
Just ask the USSR how well they faired at it in Afghanistan.

Or ask Georgy boy how well it is working in Iraq.