Would the USA have won in Vietnam if not for the Hippies?

Question

Is that why the Right hates Hippies?

Answer 1

Remember Where You Heard It First


We were right about the war in Vietnam. Just like we said, it was all a big lie cooked up by the CIA and the military-industrial complex to enrich a lot of fat cat a**holes at the expense of thousands of American families and millions of Laotian, Cambodian, and Vietnamese families. We were right when we said it was illegal, immoral, and just plain wrong.

We were right when we said we couldn’t trust the government to tell us the truth.

We were right back in the 60s when we said we needed alternative energy, an environmentally sustainable life-style, and that we should stop trying to force everyone into the same mold.

We were right when we said we needed to curb the excesses of capitalism or the gap between rich and poor would become a divisive and oppressive nightmare.

We were right when we said that prohibition would not work and that the laws against drugs do more harm than the drugs themselves ever could.

We were right when we said that Nixon was a rat and a crook, and that the CIA was running heroin in Vietnam.

We were right when we said that Reagan was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and a disaster for America.

We were right when we said trickle-down economics was a bullshit rip-off of the poor.

We were right when we said they were torturing and murdering innocent people in SE Asia, South America, Central America and elsewhere, and that we were training foreign armies to do those things at the School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Georgia.

We were right when we said that Wall Street, the government, and the military-industrial complex had formed an evil iron triangle that has a stranglehold on our country and is pushing us inexorably into a state of total war to serve their own nefarious ends.

We were right when we said the mainstream media was becoming a propaganda machine.

We were right when we said the religious right was filled more with hatred and intolerance than with love or Christian charity.

We were right when we said love is the answer.

We were right when we said workers were being ruthlessly oppressed and unions neutered and pressured out of existence.

We were right when we said the government was spying on American citizens.

We were right when we said we were sending too many people to prison for all the wrong things.

We were right when we said pot wouldn’t hurt a flea, was in fact a damned fine medicine and should be perfectly legal.

We were right when we said that the government wants to take away our civil rights.

We were right when we said the Republicans were bible-totin’ fascists with fake smiles and daggers up their sleeves.

We were right when we said that we all deserve to be freer but that the government intended to make us less so.

We were right when we said that there is something bad wrong with a government that spies on Quakers, peaceniks, and the guy who wrote All You Need is Love.

We were right when we said Bush would be a disaster for America and that the Republicans were evil bastards.

We were right when we said the Republican Party stole the elections of 2000 and 2004 (a subject no one wants to discuss anymore).

We were right when we said Bushco should be impeached to keep them from doing further harm to our planet and our country (not to mention other peoples’ countries).

Where is the acknowledgement that we are the leading edge of thought and that eventually everyone sees our light?

When will we start listening to the smart people? When will we thank them for leading the way?

My advice to the uptight, the moderates, and the centrists is: Take a deep breath, wiggle your hips, and lighten up. Stop being so superficial and judgmental. Stop caring what the wingnuts think of you. Quit letting them set the agenda and call the shots.

There is no better way to support those fighting in Iraq than to guarantee that no more of them die in the service of political miscalculation. No acknowledgement ,of course, that we on the left have been saying the same thing for months and even years – actually ever since they ignored our advice not to do it in the first place. Welcome to the enlightened left.

And remember where you heard it first.

Answer 2

Probably not. We were fighting a war in terrain that we were not used to, and not given the proper equipment to clean the M16A1, which was the standard infantry rifle at the time, prone to jamming if not cleaned regularly. We were also against an experienced force with considerably higher morale, while U.S. troops did not even have a reason to be there. Hippies also did not help on the home front, or with US morale either. We certainly would have been in Vietnam longer if there were no hippies, but is that really a good thing?

Answer 3

Hippies have nothing to do with this! Drugs, well yes? But winning or loosing a war, certainly not.

There is a belief, proved by History, that any Aggressor, no matter how strong, may win some battles but would eventually and inevitably loose the war. That is the reason why the chances for GLOBAL peace are very low. Every attacked nation will eventually strike back and win over the its claims.

That is the reason why Jews went back to Palestine and formend the state of Israel, that is why the Greeks will return one day to Pontos, Thrapezounta and Capadokia, that is why the Serbs will again come back to Kosovo.

BTW, are there any hippies left in USA? In Europe they seem to have disappeared. Here in Brazil I havent seen a single one last four years.

Answer 4

No, I studied the Vietnam War extensively while I was in college.

The United States like the French before them, underestimated the Vietnamese. They were very resilient, and were determined to defeat occupation at any cost.

The strategy was very poor from the start.

After the Tet Offensive, they were no longer just fighting the Viet Cong, instead they were fighting the North Vietnamese Army who had come down the Ho Chi Minh trail.

The North Vietnamese Army was filled with combat veterans who had defeated the French.

Answer 5

The USA lost in Vietnam because it was a business venture, not a war.

Corporate Fascists did fine in Vietnam.

How many more American lives would have needed to be sacrificed to have "won in Vietnam?"

Another 60,000?

How about the Vietnamese?

1,000,000? 10,000,000?

The draft defeated Vietnam. Mothers defeated Vietnam.

ChickenFeces like Bush and Cheney and their hatchling followers hate hippies because they transfer there own cowardice and guilt onto people who stood up for what they believe.

Iraq is Bush and Cheney's revenge on America. They believe that you and I and our children are their servants.

They are miserable, cowardly, traitors to this great nation and they should be removed from office, convicted of treason and incarcerated in one of their undisclosed hell holes for the duration of their slimey, stinking lives.

Answer 6

No, the USA would not have won. There was no way they could fight a war that had no end. Other oriental countries kept sending in soldiers ie: Cambodia. All South Vietnamese did not favor the war or America. It is very interesting to read the history of Vietnam and the idoic management of that war. google vietnam war and read, read, read.
wife of 2 tour of duty vietnam vet

Answer 7

We did not win in Vietnam because it was a lose/lose situation for us. The ARVNs were a bunch of poorly trained kids that did not want to fight. The South Vietnamese government was corrupt. Many of the South Vietnamese supported and worked for the US forces during the daylight then supported and fought for the Vietcong at night.

Answer 8

Wow, so we had hippie politicians during the Vietnam war? Hehe. I don't mind hippies, I'm not one, but they are interesting if you ever dsit down and talk with one. But remember, the were anti-war. Maybe more of America should have been anti-war during that period.

War sucks

Answer 9

No, you can't win a war fighting a determined gorilla force. That's the reason we haven't won in Iraq. The British learned the same thing fighting the Continental Army. Of couse it didn't help that Johnson wouldn't authorize bombing ships in Hi Phong harbor. If we had bombed the ships re-supplying the north (british, french, Russian, etc.) we may have been able to bring the war to an end. But Johnson was worried about the domino affect. Another stupid idea from Henry Kissinger who is still advising Bush.

Answer 10

Well, if there were crowds of juiced-up right wingers out there shouted "Zeig Heil!" instead of doped-up left-wingers who knows what would have happened. Probably would have just lasted longer with more death, then again, if support had been overwhelmingly positive, those people running things may have gone as far as to use a nuke throwing the entire world into global Armageddon.

Good thing Americans aren't as bloodthirsty as the world tries to make them out to be.