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re: Did the us really lose the war in Vietnam?
Posted on 11/11/25 at 1:34 pm to bobBoxer
Posted on 11/11/25 at 1:34 pm to bobBoxer
Almost impossible to win. Every time we would do heavy bombing, they would either go underground or head over to laos. We couldn't touch them in laos. Should have never been there to begin with. The soilders were treated like crap when they did come home. Just an awful war and needless loss of life. Prime reason Eisenhower said to beware of the military-industrial complex. A lot of people got rich off the blood of our soilders.
1
Posted on 11/11/25 at 2:10 pm to thumperpait
No insurgency with an allowed sanctuary has been defeated, to my knowledge.
Posted on 11/11/25 at 2:13 pm to bobBoxer
Defeating a power is about defeating their will to fight. We no longer had a will to be there.
Modern warfare, especially for countries like the U.S., is strange. Had we wanted to "conquer" Vietnam, old school style, replacing their population with our own, we could have. Even with all of the shite we did there, we were still not fighting a war of annihilation. If we chose to fight like Russia, attempting to conquer territory regardless of the cost to the local population, we could take many countries down without breaking a sweat.
Modern warfare, especially for countries like the U.S., is strange. Had we wanted to "conquer" Vietnam, old school style, replacing their population with our own, we could have. Even with all of the shite we did there, we were still not fighting a war of annihilation. If we chose to fight like Russia, attempting to conquer territory regardless of the cost to the local population, we could take many countries down without breaking a sweat.
Posted on 11/11/25 at 2:35 pm to bobBoxer
quote:
was it worth 60,000 dead
No
Posted on 11/11/25 at 2:36 pm to yakster
quote:
It was a money endeavor for certain people in our government.
The dreaded Military Industrial Complex.
Posted on 11/11/25 at 2:43 pm to bobBoxer
The US had no business going there and sacrificing 60K US soldiers in order to protect the interests of the French, or to take over their interests.
Our military should be for defensive purposes only, not colonialism and imperialism.
Our military should be for defensive purposes only, not colonialism and imperialism.
Posted on 11/11/25 at 2:45 pm to ActusHumanus
quote:
We no longer had a will to be there.
our military absolutely kicked their arse in every conceivable way, as we usually do, despite being held to bullshite rules meant to hamstring carrying out the mission
Posted on 11/11/25 at 2:47 pm to bobBoxer
We certainly didn't fricking win.
Posted on 11/11/25 at 3:00 pm to Stevo
quote:
Imagine not being allowed to bomb Hanoi
Imagine seeing cargo ships in the port at Haiphong loaded down with artillery shells, missiles and millions of rounds of ammunition and not being able to bomb them. Imagine not being able to mine the entrance to Haiphong. Imagine seeing a parking lot with hundreds of SAM missiles stacked like cordwood. And not being able to bomb those. And then sending your airmen out the next day to face AA batteries loaded with those missiles. LBJ was the biggest fricktard this nation ever produced. And Nixon didn't have the balls to untangle his bullshite.
Posted on 11/11/25 at 3:13 pm to No Colors
Imagine not being allowed to bomb their airfields.
Posted on 11/11/25 at 4:29 pm to cypresstiger
quote:out
US Goal---stop communist N Vietnam from taking over S Vietnam.
Result: communist N Vietnam took over S Vietnam.
Therefore: The US lost the war.
Correct... the simplest way to put this and the most accurate. People are hemming and hawing about our military killing more of them, and being hamstrung by politicians, blah, blah, blah. These are merely REASONS why we lost the war, but as you say, the US did not achieve it's objective (goal).
Posted on 11/11/25 at 4:32 pm to nealnan8
quote:
the US did not achieve it's objective (goal).
well, a lot of entities did, looking at you Monsanto, Dow, GE, Colt et al
Posted on 11/11/25 at 9:18 pm to 777Tiger
quote:
our military absolutely kicked their arse in every conceivable way, as we usually do, despite being held to bullshite rules meant to hamstring carrying out the mission
That is the power of communism. You are a cog. You mean nothing as an individual. Zealots who buy into this are damn hard to stop, because they will keep coming regardless of losses.
Posted on 11/12/25 at 12:05 am to LemmyLives
quote:
Based on McNamara metrics? You can love Vietnam (and GWoT) vets and admit that they did their jobs excellently, and we accomplished jack shite.
Based on the fact that the communist pieces of shite never won a single fricking skirmish over there. Our military beat the holy hell out of those motherfrickers. We were stabbed in the back on the home front and fought with one hand and a foot tied behind our back. Much like GWOT as well. Fact of the matter is the US hasn’t lost a single battle since Korea. Maybe even WWII, depending on how you look at Chosin.
quote:
Meanwhile, Marxists have taken control over every city over 250k in the country, and the outright socialists have control of the financial hub of the US, but yeah, we beat the absolute shite out of them.
That isn’t a byproduct of Vietnam.
Posted on 11/12/25 at 5:24 am to bobBoxer
No, it was a total success. We’ll be back any day now to complete the job. Consider this a realllllllllly long halftime.
Posted on 11/12/25 at 6:45 am to bobBoxer
It was a lost cause from the onset. Saigon was a corrupt regime that couldn't control the rural areas. They, along with the US, tried to mitigate the North's control via the Strategic Hamlet program, which was a disaster.
The book, A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan, really illustrates what a clusterfrick Vietnam was.
Militarily we would have defeated the North. The VC was badly wounded after the 68 Tet Offensive. However, at what cost? We were constantly propping up new regimes and doing frequent rebuilds of ARVN. After pulling land units out, we saved them from defeat in the 72 Easter offensive. That was really a pyrrhic victory as the PAVN steamrolled south in 75 after all aid was pulled out.
Personally, my dad was affected by it. He suffered shrapnel wounds and terrible PTSD that he treated with alcoholism in the 70's and 80's. It was well known that you never woke up dad up in his sleep. The trauma that he endured in Vietnam was offloaded on our family for years, as was the case with thousands of other combat veterans.
I have nothing good to say about Vietnam. It was an awful time of US history and it was a war that achieved absolutely nothing.
The book, A Bright Shining Lie, by Neil Sheehan, really illustrates what a clusterfrick Vietnam was.
Militarily we would have defeated the North. The VC was badly wounded after the 68 Tet Offensive. However, at what cost? We were constantly propping up new regimes and doing frequent rebuilds of ARVN. After pulling land units out, we saved them from defeat in the 72 Easter offensive. That was really a pyrrhic victory as the PAVN steamrolled south in 75 after all aid was pulled out.
Personally, my dad was affected by it. He suffered shrapnel wounds and terrible PTSD that he treated with alcoholism in the 70's and 80's. It was well known that you never woke up dad up in his sleep. The trauma that he endured in Vietnam was offloaded on our family for years, as was the case with thousands of other combat veterans.
I have nothing good to say about Vietnam. It was an awful time of US history and it was a war that achieved absolutely nothing.
Posted on 11/12/25 at 7:44 am to ActusHumanus
quote:
You are a cog. Y
I know
Posted on 11/17/25 at 6:22 pm to RollTide1987
quote:
The French were likewise our allies against the Japanese and Germans in the Second World War. Indochina was theirs prior to losing it to the Japanese. It stands to reason they wanted it back. And unlike the French, Ho Chi Minh was a communist in an era where it wasn't popular to be one.
France wanted to assert authority over Indochina because they were embarrassed from getting rolled up so fast by the Germans. The red scare bullshite wasn't a thing until De Gaulle started crying about it to the American public when he realized we weren't going to help.
We were guilted into providing air support to the French. Then McCarthy started his bullshite and the CIA got their war.
Posted on 11/17/25 at 6:29 pm to bobBoxer
"communist in name only" says someone who has never tried to be noncommunist in Vietnam. They hate China, we don't like China...it's a marriage of mutual hate for a common foe. It's not like they love us or hold any values that would be considered free or democratic.
Posted on 11/17/25 at 6:29 pm to Da #1 Stunna
quote:
open a book.
do research on your own
consider multiple perspectives
draw your own conclusions
The Best and Brightest by David Halberstram and A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan.
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