Why do some people say that the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam?....?

Question

Didnt anyone ever hear of Agent Orange? Viet kids are being born deformed every day over there! the U.S. is still killing the Vietnam people till this day! agree or disagree?

WOW! alot of good answers here so i am in no postiton to give anybody a "best answer"...i will leave this question to be answered by our peers on yahoo-answers!

Answer 1

What does Agent Orange have to do with winning or losing a war? Our politicians are the ones who lost that war. The military won all battles over there. The politicians need to let the military do what the military does best.

Answer 2

Theoretically, the US lost the war in Vietnam simply by not
controlling the countryside. Mostly, US troops controlled only
the big cities and towns of S. Vietnam, whereas the Vietcong
got the sympathy of the people in the rural areas which they
used as staging areas for forays and raids. Also, the US
failed to neutalized North Vietnam whose army helped in
arming and training the Vietcongs and fighting the Americans. As for agent orange, this is a big folly that the
US military made in Vietnam, for it not only destroyed
large areas of fertile land but bought immense suffering
to civilians as well, that until now these poor people still
show the ill effects of this biological chemical.

Answer 3

I guess you could say that we lost by default by pulling out instead of annihilating North Vietnam. Political and social pressures at home wanted an end to the long running conflict. Ironically, it was the meddling of the congress that had actually prolonged the war. If the war would have been managed solely by the sitting President(s) and military chiefs, I'm sure that there would have been a different outcome.

As far as Agent Orange is concerned, unfortunately that was one of the nasty tools of war. Through the centuries there have been many that were just as terrible. BTW: How many South Vietnamese did the Viet Cong kill, torture, and maim after the US pulled out? Do you think that they did it humanely?

Answer 4

We didn't lose in Vietnam. We didn't win, either. We lost interest as a nation, and we left. We were never there to win. We were there to help fend off communism and bolster South Vietnam in its effort to do the same. However, South Vietnam was never able to hold its own in the fight against North Vietnam, especially when it had few friends in the region. The U.S. was doing all the major fighting and planning, and literally prodding the South Vietnamese into battle. Within days after we left, North Vietnam took over. We were indeed holding of the north, but we were never able to "Vietnamize" the war, which is what Nixon wanted. in fact, I feel that the U.S. DID win for many years, but as soon as we handed the war over to the South Vietnamese, they quickly lost. Winning that war in the sense that communism was permanently prevented in South Vietnam would have meant a permanent American presence in that region. It also would have meant indirectly engaging the Soviet Union, as they were supporting the north with both advisors and materiel, and such an engagement could have easily escalated into a major armed conflict between the US and the USSR. Agent orange was a terrible, misunderstood chemical, and like many things, both military and civilian, its long-term effects were either not known or ignored. It is still having effects on both sides, just like the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, just like the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Russia, just like Saddam's chemical weapons used on the Kurds, just like morning-sickness medications from the 1960s, just like x-ray Flouroscopes, cocaine-laced remedies in the 1800s and early 1900s, asbestos, lead-based paint, and all manner of things. Unfortunately, you have asked two distinctly different, totally unrelated questions. Your first question, if the answer is yes, we did lose, effectively pisses off hundreds of thousands of servicemen and women, both active duty and retired, and drags almost 60,000 soldiers who were killed there in the service of their country and in the defense of their fellow troops through the mud. They do not appreciate either. Your second question assumes that the U.S. is actively engaged in a policy of killing and deforming people in Vietnam, when what is actually happening is that the aftereffects of the war are carrying on much longer than anyone had expected. On both sides.

Answer 5

Just because people are still dying over there doesn't make it a win. I'm not sure if I would chalk Vietnam as a loss, but it sure wasn't a victory. It's sort of the same situation as is going on right now in Iraq. It couldn't be won because they didn't know for sure who or where the enemy was and the military's hands were tied in terms of what they could do.

Answer 6

Agree. The US lost the Vietnam war because, at the end communist USSR won and Vietnam became a communist governed nation. It's all about the Cold War and world domination, basically like Iraq. And I agree about the agent orange.

Answer 7

You lost for 3 reasons

1/ You tried to fight insurgents with bombs and tanks (sound familiar?).
2/ The visual TV scenes of you escaping Saigon at the last minute should have left you in no doubt.
3/ Vietnam became totally communist and happier. My friends have all been on holiday and loved it. I am going this Christmas.

The fact that your evil method of using Germ Warfare, against the Geneva Convention I might add, is still killing innocent kids to his day means that not only you lost but you lost badly and left your evil legacy behind.

Answer 8

Man! What a question!

One thing I would like to relate about this, is that after all that happened the Vietnamese do not hate the US or Americans.
They have been very gracious with letting people look for the US missing in action.

Answer 9

It was considered a loss because we were over there for so long, lost so many soldiers, and nothing especially good came from the entire situation. The chemicals hurting those people isn't "winning" either, it's just an after-effect...

Answer 10

disagree. Before going to war, there needs to be an outline of objects that must be obtained before it is considered that the war is won. If those objectives are not met, then the war effort is not a success.