What was learned from the Vietnam war?

Question

War analogy strikes nerve in Vietnam By BEN STOCKING, Associated Press Writer
President Bush touched a nerve among Vietnamese when he invoked the Vietnam War in a speech warning that death and chaos will envelop Iraq if U.S. troops leave too quickly.
People in Vietnam, where opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is strong, said Thursday that Bush drew the wrong conclusions from the long, bloody Southeast Asian conflict.
"Doesn't he realize that if the U.S. had stayed in Vietnam longer, they would have killed more people?" said Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran of the communist forces that fought American troops in Vietnam. "Nobody regrets that the Vietnam War wasn't prolonged except Bush."
He said U.S. troops could never have prevailed here. "Does he think the U.S. could have won if they had stayed longer? No way," Trieu said.

Vietnam's official government spokesman offered a more measured response when asked at a regular media briefing to comment on Bush's speech to American veterans Wednesday.

"With regard to the American war in Vietnam, everyone knows that we fought to defend our country and that this was a righteous war of the Vietnamese people," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said. "And we all know that the war caused tremendous suffering and losses to the Vietnamese people."

Dung said Vietnam hopes that the Iraq conflict will be resolved "very soon, in an orderly way, and that the Iraqi people will do their best to rebuild their country."

Although Vietnam opposed the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Dung stressed that ties between Hanoi and Washington have been growing closer since the former foes normalized relations in 1995, two decades after the war's end.

In his remarks to U.S. veterans, Bush said a hasty retreat from Iraq would lead to terrible violence.

"One unmistakable legacy of Vi

Many people in Vietnam said Bush's comparison was ill-considered.

The only way to restore order in Iraq is for the United States to leave, said Trinh Xuan Thang, a university student.

"Bush sent troops to invade Iraq and created all the problems there," Thang said.

If the U.S. withdrew, he said, the violence might escalate in the short term but the situation would eventually stabilize.

"Let the Iraqis determine their fate by themselves," Thang said. "They don't need American troops there."

Ton Nu Thi Ninh, former chairwoman of the National Assembly's committee on foreign affairs, said Bush was unwise to stir up sensitive memories of the Vietnam War.

"The price we, the Vietnamese people on both sides, paid during the war was due to the fact that the Americans went into Vietnam in the first place," Ninh said.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070823/ap_on_re_as/vietnam_iraq_bush&printer=1;_ylt=AgEj9v0q8x754XCdDzw.aSH9xg8F

its all BS if it doesn't support Bush's agenda isn't it?

Answer 1

When did bush EVER made sense?!!

People's will and determination is not vanquishable.

So, when a country get invaded for the most false reasons, it doesn't matter how strong and powerful your army is, YOU'LL BE DEFEATED.

US obviously hasn't learn the lesson from Vietnam!

Answer 2

I guess 50,000 American lives weren't enough for some people. They think that staying on in Viet Nam and losing 100,000 or more Americans would have led to victory. Let us also not forget that a million Vietnamese lost their lives, and that many people became millionaires because of that 10-year conflict.

Viet Nam today is a successful country, prosperous and stable. It has a good relationship with the United States, thanks to the efforts of John Kerry and John McCain. The only remnant left of that war is the various ailments suffered by our veterans afflicted by Agent Orange who have spent their lifetimes trying to get the government to admit that those high tech weapons damage human beings! Only recently has the government conceded that this is so!

These Gung Ho war supporters ought to be subjected to a few months...or perhaps years...in a jungle being defoliated by exploding flames, the smell of napalm in the air, and the Viet Cong existing on a sockful of rice, familiar with the climate and terrain, while our soldiers tried to combat the climate, the jungle, and the fact that any man, woman or child in any village could be the enemy.

Add to that the fact that the Republican leaders were doing the same as they are doing now, lying, distorting, changing fiction into fact, and making money in the process.

The second best thing we ever did was remove ourselves from Viet Nam. The best thing will be the day we remove ourselves from Iraq. The two wars are similar and both are crimes against humanity. Some wars are necessary. Neither of these are included in that category. One was a bid for political supremacy over communism. The other is a religiously-supported oil grab.

Answer 3

We learned that wars are often fought for reasons that have nothing to do with 'exporting democracy' or making the world safer. We learned that wars can't be won simply through vastly superior firepower, and that our high-tech 'shock and awe' tactics don't work against a guerrilla force supported by the people. We learned that when the enemy doesn't wear a uniform it's impossible to tell the good guys from the bad guys so you end up just killing a lot of people indiscriminately. And we learned that it's -much- easier to get into a war like this than to get out, and that even a president elected on a promise to end an unpopular war might keep it going several more years for his own purposes. And that the best way to keep support up for a war is to demonize anti-war people as traitors or 'appeasers'.

Leastwise we -should- have learned these things. 8^<

The Vietnam war was justified by the 'domino principle', the idea that if Vietnam fell to communism, the rest of Southeast Asia would also fall--Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Thailand, etc. To justify the Gulf War the Bush admin. used an interesting version of the domino theory in reverse. They said if we established a democracy in Iraq then other Middle East countries would go democratic. In retrospect we can clearly see that this domino theory was as much horsepuckey as the first one. We had no intention of establishing a free democracy in Iraq.

Answer 4

"With regard to the American war in Vietnam, everyone knows that we fought to defend our country and that this was a righteous war of the Vietnamese people," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said. "And we all know that the war caused tremendous suffering and losses to the Vietnamese people."
Just change the name of the country the result Will be the same.
In Afghanistan and Iraq people are fighting to defend their country and that is a righteous war of the people.
History repeats and it says, ultimately the invaders always lose the war.

Answer 5

Depends on what you were open to learning in the first place. I learned the theory and practice of revolution, the basics of handling high explosives, some of shooting at long range and that the answer to the Patty Hearst dilemma is to go along with them until a chance comes to seize a loaded weapon and then open fire, regardless of circumstances even if there are innocent people present. Otherwise your own people will call you a traitor. I learned that I will not take orders from the likes of Richard Milhouse Nixon. I also learned that no country can free another and create a democracy if the people there are not ready for it and want it themselves. I learned that the difference between freeing people who want to be free is easily confused with the path of Imperialism and it can be difficult to separate the two. This is apparently the lesson that Bush and especially Cheney haven't learned.

Answer 6

I saw this really interesting documentary entitled "Fog of War." Robert McNamara--finally admitting all his errors after so many decades--traveled to Vietnam and actually talked to one of the men who had led the Viet Cong forces. He told McNamara that they would have fought until the last man was standing because it was their country and they saw the U.S. as occupiers. I think the same holds true in Iraq.

Tragically, Americans elected a president who not only doesn't read history, he doesn't read at all. And we are seeing the results today. Let's elect a reader next time!

Answer 7

These are the lessons I see in the history of the Vietnam war, don't know if anyone's really 'learned' them, though:

1) Don't get involved in a civil war.
2) Don't de-facto cede the power to declare war to the President.
3) Don't use conscripts to fight an unconventional/asymetric war.
4) Don't let civilian officials micromanage a war.
5) Don't do body counts.
6) The government can start a war, the military can win the battles, but the Media can still loose the war for you.
7) Don't make cynical 'peace' with your enemies and abandon your allies.
8) If you do abandon your allies, at least accept them as refugees, don't leave them to die.
9) Don't hate the soldiers who fought the war.

Answer 8

Well, millions of people died when we pulled out of Vietnam...
that's a fact. The question would be would the same happen
if we pulled out of Iraq....the answer is probably. It is hard
for even the most ardent liberal to argue that pulling out of
Iraq now would somehow lessen the violence. I mean
think about it....Expect to be in Iraq for awhile....see Korea, Germany, etc.

Answer 9

Thanks for the info. I started writing an article on the historical inaccuracies of Bush's speech my self. I guess it's been done, now.

Still, the article does not mention the gross mistake committed by Bush when he attributed a million deaths to the US withdrawal. 4M Vietnamese died during the Second Indochina War. About a million died during the first, which was funded (78%) by the US. Then the Khmer Rouge murdered another million with Kissinger's support.

Fact is, one thing learned from Viet Nam is that the US murders millions. The sooner we get them to stop the better for all.

Injustice anywhere is injustice everywhere. Injustice against one is injustice against all
(MLK paraphrased)


edit: I am tired of saying this. The people who died after the American pullout were in Cambodia with US support. N Viet Nam did not murder very many people when it reunited Viet Nam.
Americans could not differentiate Vietnam and Cambodia then and they cannot now. The world learned very much from Viet Nam... did Americans even learn some geography?

Answer 10

Never get involved in a land war in Asia. If you go to war in Asia, be prepared to use Nuclear weapons. Never plan to occupy any territory once you have destroyed the land and annihilated its inhabitants.