Vietnam, why didnt politicians play it to win?

Question

And no play is not a typo, that is what I feel literally they were doing with our boys lives.

Answer 1

Simple, greed, war makes people like the politicians wealthy.

Answer 2

The peace movement of the time. There was a great up rising, especially the youth (16 to 25 years old) saying that war will only end if we become passive and do nothing. So much pressure from these groups caused the Government to back down. Also images where shown on tv of how the people we were fighting were just misunderstood and actually quit nice and passionate people. So our involvement in the war was abandoned from all this. Then once we left Vietnam the fighting continued and thousands of people were killed. So much for peace after we left there. Before the 1960's the peace movement did not exist, of if it did was not as prominent. Plus the media did not show waring countries as the poor misunderstood victims. Wolves in sheeps clothing can play that image up to their advantage. I think we should do nothing either, and just let them all fight each other. Trying to talk with them has done no good either, or very little good. We will just stay here and get along with Canada. Do you just try and talk to them all the while watching as these countries fight among themselves. Or do you get involved and eliminate the problem more aggressively. So I guess do nothing is the solution.

Answer 3

Because EVERY time a politician tries to 'play general' they get it wrong. Even (or perhaps especially) Rommel would tell this.

Because America seems to be believe that we should 'play fair' instead of fight to win and this is translated into not putting sufficient troops on the ground and not continuing the battlefield into the supporting countries (which in this case means North Viet Nam and in Korea meant China.)

For these same reasons, the Congress and Presidential candidates should take heart and listen to the professional generals and battlefield commanders. The politicians role is to define the desired end state, the political goal, NOT to determine the military's strategy into how to achieve it.

It appears that a former secretary of defence may have not realized this. It appears that our current candidates and congressmen have ignored this.

Answer 4

Winning would have drawn a line at the boarders of Vietnam inviting Cambodia and other regional powers to align militarily with the then communist China to a greater degree than the conflict was designed to do, which was to destabilize the regional powers and provide corporate revenues and thus tax dollars into the coffers of the United states Research and development programs.My opinion.

Answer 5

Your question is accurate. The politicians were not engaged in the war with the goal of winning. They had a set of objectives that had little to do with the actual combat:

1)containing communism
2)maintaining relations in Asia with friendly powers,,
3)embarrassing the French and
4)inflating the military defense budget.

Many of their decisions reflected a desire NOT to win:

1)not invading the North,
2)not permitting large military maneuver warfare,
3)removing the battleships from the theatre,
4)removing the B-25 Mitchell bombers
5)limiting bombing allowing enemy sanctuaries.
6)preventing the combat leaders from controlling their own troops.
7)finally, no clear objective. (Objective is the wrong word. They had no clear Strategic goal.)

The politicians seemed to be more committed to avoiding the appearance of defeat than actual victory.

To the contrary, today's Democrats want to avoid the appearance of victory to keep Bush from looking good. They are still playing games with our troops' lives.

Answer 6

They did. Richard Nixon wanted to train the South Vietnamese and supply them. The South Vietnamese were trained and so the U.S. military left. Things worked for about 3 years and then the Democrats cut off funding for South Vietnam and then it fell.

This cost the Democrats big time even after Nixon's implosion. Before that, the Democrats had a lock on defense and the military, but they have since been labled as weak on defense and foriegn policy.

Answer 7

Nam started out as "advising" until the North invaded. Then it became a "police action". As Heinlein pointed out, though, a corpse killed in a police action stinks just as bad as a corpse killed in a war, if left in the jungle for a few days. It is my humble opinion that our politicians were very much afraid of China at that time. China was providing supplies to North Vietnam, and we were not trying to stop them. For us in the Mekong Delta Yacht Club, though, it was simply going up and down the river, reporting movements and actions, and trying to stay alive. The democrats surrendered to North Vietnam in the 1970s, and now they want to surrender to Al Quaida. Liberal democrats never have the guts to finish anything

Answer 8

What is winning? Does that mean the US would keep the country? We have enough to deal with and most of the wars have been part of world politics (power).

Answer 9

Democrats started the war, but ended up wanting us to Lose.
Democrats thought if we Lost in Nam, it would get them More Votes, More Money, & More Power.

Now, they are doing the same thing in Iraq.
Wanting us to Lose. They think it will get them More Votes, More Money, & More Power.

It's DE-JA VU all over again.

Answer 10

I was one of the "boys"... talk to me...
I am listening...