58,209 Americans, Millions of Asians, but if the carnage had continued, the USA could have "won"?

Question

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_casualties

Answer 1

won a what?

there is something it won. It won a place in history. The US duly earned a place in the history of the world as the power which denied the Vietnamese people their right to self determination and democracy.

Bravo! 4m dead! the US proves a point: Democracy will not be tolerated.

Combine that with the massive help provided to Nazi and Japanese War criminals to escape the tribunals and their eventual deployment to Latin America in order to teach counterinsurgency to the fascists of the South and the US can truly said to have earned its international stature as the principal opponent to world peace, justice and self determination since the Hitler and Mussolini.

Anybody ever wonder why Francisco Franco, a fascist came out untouched in WWII?

As for Bush's comments yesterday, please tell me people know more history than that. Please tell me people noticed that Bush confused Vietnam and Cambodia. Please!
the Killing fields, the genocide, are the result of US indiscriminate bombing in Cambodia and the support given to the Khme ROUge gangster by the Kissinger and the CIA. Why? the US was willing o give weapons to anyone willing to kill Vietnamese. Just like they are willing to give bombs to anyone willing to commit terrorism in CUba. Just like the gave helicopters to Guatemala's dictator while he committed genocide againt the Maya. Just like when the US trained Argentinian, Uruguayan, CHilean and Brazilian torturers.

Bush is right. There are plenty of parallels between Japan, Korea, Viet Nam and Iraq.... the US is invading sovereign countries to take away their resources and claiming to "liberate" them. Shame is what they should have in common.

Anyhow, Hi, thanks for the link to Pilger's movie. I truly enjoyed it. A bit sensationalistic I have to say. I mean, Chavez is hardly our savior.... although he is a tyrant preferable to the cistatorship of the Washington Consensus. That is for sure.


Peace, Brother/Sister

edit: Can somebody give me a link so that i can see those millions of dead Vietnamese? or are you guys confusing Viet Nam and Cambodia again? IF you want to educate yourself about Viet Nam I can recommend a few titles which confirm there was no massacre following the US pullout. Please let me know of any book claiming the opposite. Disproving it would make a great doctoral thesis!

Answer 2

You should ask the Democrats...it was their war...they got the US into the war by the fear of the "Domino Effect"...you know the fear that if one country is Communist , then all of the ones around would be soon...it didn't work that way...Vietnam could have been avoided if Ike had accepted Ho Chi Minh's "Declaration of Independence" instead of giving the cowardly French back their colonies...HCM was a Nationalist, not a Communist...but Ol JFK and LBJ just wanted a war to fight...

Edit: Crabby I am a Historian...what party did JFK and LBJ belong to? They were Democrats...not Republicans...so it was the Liberal base that faked the Gulf of Tonkin (if it was faked) and got us into that war...it was a Republican who got us out...you know with Vietnamization...but the hippies got all pissy because we had to bomb Cambodia to stop the flow of supplies to the VC...but back then Deomcrats were not as whinny and child like as they are today...

Answer 3

In the mid 1950's General Matt Ridgeway (Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff) and other US military lleaders told the politicians the following--repeatedly:

>The Indochina (Vietnam) conflict was a civil war
>The war is not a "communist incursion" it was a war aimed at overthrowing the dictatorship put in place by the French colonial empire.
>The war, if the US did get involved, could not be won.

The right wing at the time refused to listen. Lacking any real evidence, they faked the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident to deceive Congress into authorizing funding so they could go (actually send somebody else--our troops) to "go kill gooks." While they stayed home and racked up the war rofits.

See "Street without Joy"--a contemporary (1960s) account that traced--and documented--the above.

Anybody want to guess why the neoconservatives hate us historians? LOL :)

Answer 4

Militarily, certainly. When the enemy is dying at 20 to 100 times the rate you are - even a vast enemy like the communist Asia of the day - you're winning. I think Americans just couldn't accept that kind of victory anymore.

Answer 5

With the exception of an attack on US soil (including US embassies), the US military needs to discontinue the policy of ground war/military occupation. Nobody responsible for 9/11 was or is in Iraq. I hate to say it but US troops do not die during mass air bombings and we need to think about preserving the lives of our troops before worrying about innocent civilians of hostile foreign countries who hate us already.

Answer 6

The VietCong would have given up long before we withdrew, but they knew that the public support for the war was diminishing and the US would eventually withdraw. That is why they stuck it out. unfortunately, after we left, S. Vietnam didn't have enough power to defend themseves, which resulted in millions of people dying.

I didn't read your link because it wouldn't let me in.

Answer 7

If your talking about Vietnam, the answer is no. The Dems saw to that one.
Thats the message Bush tried to spell out the other day in his comparisson w/ Iraq. Cut-and-run just won't cut it.

Answer 8

The US won each and every battle in Viet Nam... We lost being able to to occupy and control a portion of that nation.

Answer 9

If you talking about Vietnam then you need to understand that we were dominating the enemy when we pulled out...they could not have defeated us. War is awful but sometimes necessary.


edit:
Fed up American is cranky today...prove me wrong don't call names...I'm willing to listen to a different point of view. I will even admit when I am wrong...will you?

Edit update:
Apology accepted! Thank you.

Answer 10

I my opinion, US soldiers seem to be crueler and crueler in every new war. As a source, I would like to mention a shocking short movie about two US troops giggling while throwing stones at a wounded dog in Iraq.