No, there is no such consensus. At least, the article linked in the OP does not indicate such a consensus, nor does any other source I have seen. Do you have a cite?
Oh and by the way, the communists have been in charge there now for about 30 years. What has happened in that time that we wish we could have prevented? What horrible tragedy did the sacrifice of our people fail to avert?
Oh, goodie! What I really need is a major pissing match over Vietnam at Thanksgiving. Tomorrow my first grandbaby will sit at my table. I can only prey that she and the babies that follow her are not caught as their grandparents were in a misconceived foreign policy adventure gone out of control. I can’t tell how many of the people participating on these threads were alive and aware for Vietnam let alone served in that conflict. Maybe it doesn’t matter any more. Maybe all that matters is that you have an opinion and the willingness to let other people have the benefit of it.
Vietnam was a costly mistake, a miscalculation of the extent of US power and prestige and of the nature of the monolithic Communist threat. The country got into it by gradual and almost imperceptible steps until 1965 when division size units were committed. Once we were in we did not know how to get out gracefully. We sacrificed some 58,000 American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines and Coast Guard looking for a graceful way to get out. In the end all the grace we could muster was the image of choppers lifting from the roof of the Saigon Embassy. Vietnam was not a evil war any more than any war is evil. Vietnam was not fought for a dishonorable cause if you think the cause was to prevent the expansion of Chinese influence into Indo-China. Vietnam was simply a mistake that turned into a trap.
A lot of the hostility at the time was not about the need to get out of Vietnam but the result of a simmering antipathy between “the Greatest Generation” and “the Baby Boomers.” To some extent we saw the same thing in the Civil Rights Movement and in the Free Speech Movement and in the nearly hysterical reaction to the Warren Court’s reform of criminal procedure. From the carry over of that old hostility we now get truly misinformed (or deliberately deceptive) comments about every one against the war being a hopped up hippy or self serving misrepresentations about the Winter Soldiers Rally or John Kerry’s statement to the Armed Services Committee.
At this point much of the argument about Vietnam is not about Vietnam at all. Just as M.A.S.H. was about Vietnam not Korea, the present Vietnam argument is more about Iraq and the Bush Administration’s policy in the Middle East than it is an informed and dispassionate historical analysis of the Johnson - MacNamara - Nixon - Kissinger - policy toward SE Asia in 1964- 1975.
My judgement? Both Vietnam and Iraq are hasty and ill considered foreign adventures that are doomed to failure. Consider if you please Napoleon The Little’s meddling in Mexico. Who will volunteer to be the Maximilian for this episode?
Mr. Moto nailed it.
When Senator Kerry decided to test the waters of a presidential run he started with his public mia culpa over his war crimes. He had to do this to clean out the skeletons in his closet. If memory serves me, he timed a book to the event, which included the talk show circuit. What he failed to do was make amends to the Vietnam soldiers who took GREAT offense to his behavior after his tour of duty.
His weakest voting block was with military and veteran voters. In an attempt to garner their vote he adopted an “I’m John Kerry, Vietnam Veteran” theme to his candidacy. It failed because he never resolved his image as traitor to Veterans, which in turn hurt his image with today’s soldiers.
Utter rot. Kerry appeared at the Senate hearings as a representative of Viet Nam vets, those 'Nam vets opposed to the war. Perhaps you’ve heard of it? Viet Nam Veterans Against the War?
Were all returning 'Nam vets opposed to the war? Of course not. What proportion of returning vets opposed the war? I don’t know. But neither do you, yet this does not prevent you from delivering your opinion on what they think, even to this day.
John Kerry served his country twice: once in combat, and once protesting combat. While GeeDubya was valiantly defending Amarillo from the Viet Cong Air Force.
Feh!
If Kerry simply had the balls to own up to his war protestor past, and actually elaborate on his anti-war views and what he said before Congress, I think he would have won. He should have said something like this:
**"My fellow Americans. Some of you may have seen audio clips against grainy black and white photos of my Congressional testimony back in 1972. As disturbing as it is to hear them, I fully believed and continue to believe my claims to be true and the evidence backs them up.
Some say that I was a traitor for speaking out against these atrocities. But I couldn’t disagree more. I’ve heard the claim that my testimony was used by the Vietcong against a couple of POWs. Perhaps this is true, and I sincerely regret that my testimony may have been used in such a way. But I decided to take the risk anyway. To learn of these horrors and not speak out against them would have been the greater sin in my mind.
I fully stand by what I said. I fully stand by my decision to throw my medals over the fence. And I’m not going to backpedal."**
He would have stood a much better chance.
He did. On more than one occasion. Didn’t matter, it was never about truth in the first place. If Kerry had walked on the water of Boston Harbor, Rush would have been saying “See? See? Kerry can’t swim!”
Rufus Xavier said:
Well, how about for starters that for 30 years people have been forced to live under Communist rule?
How about genocide in Cambodia?
How about the 95,000 political prisoners that died in Vietnamese labor camps after the war?
Or the roughly 100,000 people who were summarily executed by the North?
Or the 500,000 Vietnamese boat people who drowned trying to escape from that hellhole?
Or the three million people who died in the subsequent wars between neighbors and slaughters of civilian populations in occupied territories?
Yep. The activists were the most sober people I knew. Really boring at parties. Ever wanna strangle somebody because they won’t shut up? That was them.
I am reminded of a baseball story. Don’t worry, I’m going to make a parallel to this thread. Just follow along.
Many years back - I’m getting this secondhand from Bill James - the Houston Astros were in an arbitration hearing with a player named Denny Walling. Now, in baseball, when a team and a player go into arbitration, what happens is the team offers Salary X, and the player demands Salary Y. Then they go before the arbitrator and argue about what salary the player should be awarded, generally by comparing the player to other players of equivalent worth and what those players make. The arbitrator has to pick either Salary X or Salary Y - he can’t pick something in between.
Anyway, the Astros and Walling went into arbitration. Walling was a decent player but nothing special; he could play a lot of positions and hit a little but couldn’t hit lefthanded pitchers at all so he was kind of a part-time player. According to James, Walling’s representative suddenly stated, in talking about Walling, that Walling had “the best infield arm in the National League.”
Now, this was frankly a ridiculous statement; Walling threw pretty well, but this is in a league with Mike Schmidt, Tim Wallach and Ozzie Smith. So the Astros said, no, there’s no way that’s true. And Walling’s representative said it was, and dredged up some quote by some dork from a second rate newspaper raving about Walling’s throwing arm, the Astros said it was still bullshit, etc. etc.
But of course, Walling’s agent had already won. Because now they weren’t talking about how Walling compared to other lefthanded hitting part time infielders or guys who’d never hit more than 13 homers in a year, or platoon third basemen who were slow runners. No, they were arguing about whether Denny Walling had the best infield arm in the league. So to the arbitrator, suddenly Denny might be the best throwing infielder in the league. Walling’s agent had successfully framed the entire debate in terms of an argument of whether Walling was the BEST at something, rather than whether he could hit .260.
Walling won the case.
In reverse, John Kerry is the Denny Walling of the 2004 presidential race. The notion that George Bush in any logical way has an advantage over Kerry in terms of service to their country is just asinine. There is no way, none whatsoever, that you can possibly support such a preposterous claim. The FACTS of the matter, which cannot be disputed, are as follows:
- John Kerry risked his life in war for America.
- George Bush did everything he could to avoid it.
It is simply beyond any sort of defensible argument to suggest that Kerry does not have a tremendous moral advantage here. When America called, Kerry was there. George Bush was not. It’s not a matter of debate.
The brilliance of the Republican party here is that they reframed the debate to exclude George Bush and include only John Kerry by asking ludicrous questions like “did he earn his medals?” and “what about the guy who knew the guy who said he might have talked to someone who thought Kerry wasn’t as brave as this after-action report said he was?” So instead of seeing things in the stark light of “Kerry Served, Bush Dodged The War,” it’s entirely questions about Kerry’s bravery and loyalty. Doesn’t matter if they’re 31% accurate or 66% accurate; all that matters is that you’ve taken Bush out of the equation and created controversy around Kerry. That Kerry’s service was far riskier and more meritorious than the VAST majority of men who served in Vietnam, most of whom saw far less action, is irrelevant. It wouldn’t matter if Kerry was the second coming of Audie Murphy. You can always find someone to say this or that claim is inaccurate. I really, truly believe that nothing Kerry could have done in Vietnam would have made any difference.
It worked, too. My best friend’s Dad is a Vietnam vet and according to my buddy earned FIVE Purple Hearts. (Chopper pilot, 1st Cav.) He expressed displeasure that Kerry was lionized as a hero for three “one of which he shouldn’t have gotten” when his Dad got five. The conversation went like this:
SCOTT: Three, big deal. My Dad got five. My uncle got SIX. Kerry’s no hero. Why is Kerry bragging…
ME: So how do you think your Dad’s gonna do in the election?
SCOTT: Uh, he’s voting for…
ME: No, I mean, will he win or lose?
SCOTT: Huh?
ME: Well, he’s running for President, isn’t he? Must be one of those third parties.
SCOTT: Uh, no, he’s not running.
ME: Oh. So nobody can vote for him, so who cares? So who’s running against Kerry?
SCOTT: Bush, you know that.
ME: How many Purple Hearts did George Bush win? The younger one.
SCOTT: Well, none.
ME: Oh. Isn’t three more than zero?
SCOTT: Yeah, but he wasn’t there.
ME: I see.
SCOTT: But Kerry didn’t earn the one, the grenade…
ME: Isn’t two more than zero?
SCOTT: Yes, okay.
ME: So who was braver?
SCOTT: Well, he went before Congress…
ME: And what was George Bush doing while veterans of Vietnam were arguing that Vietnam was the wrong thing to do?
SCOTT: I don’t know. I guess he was in the Guard.
ME: How brave of him. When did North Vietnam invade Texas again?
Scott is smarter than this makes him seem - he’s smarter than me - but the debate had been so well positioned that he didn’t realize the absurdity of it. It was a truly brilliant move. It doesn’t matter what the REAL dillemma is; you have to make sure the public is looking at the RIGHT dillemma.
You have to admire a PR machine that managed to make a combat veteran look worse than a chicken. But they did.
Do you ever think about any of ths stuff, Sam? 500,000 drowned boat people? Half-a-million! Guessing roughly ten people to a boat, that’s 50,000 boats! Did Viet Nam even have 50,000 boats to go missing?
I got this feeling if I were to stroll over to the Freeper web site, I bet I would find exactly these numbers. Pretty good guess, Sam?
So what? In most cases being a rice farmer under the commies wasn’t worse than being a rice farmer under the corrupt non-commies.
Beyond some heavy bombings (and we who have studied strategic bombing know how effective THAT is :rolleyes: ) and a few small-scale incursions we did nothing that could’ve slowed, much less prevented, that.
Again, at best we delayed those things from happening. We could not have prevented them by fighting the war the way we did and we might have made things worse by radicalizing the North. This is just conjecture, but had they been able to take over the South in the early 50s much of that might not have happened.
Sam, just a question: How old are you? I ask because I’ve noticed how happy you are to send American boys off to fight and die, in Vietnam and Iraq, yet I do not recall you ever volunteering for the American military. We are happy to hire foreigners, you know.
As much as I sympathize with your position, Drop, that last bit isn’t quite kosher. If a craven coward tells you the truth, its still the truth. Likewise, if a guy with a chest full of medals lies through his teeth, its no improvement. Sam’s wrong 'cause he’s wrong, not because of who he is, or what he’s done.
Kerry found out what a lot of men find out: the moral crisis isn’t about dying for your country, its about killing for your country.
Just want to know, Luc. He talks it so much I’d be interested in hearing why he doesn’t walk it, too. I guess I’ve known too many people who were unafraid to put their lives on the line for something they believed in.
elucidator:
I wouldn’t know about the freepers. I was there once about three months ago. You’ll have to ask them yourself.
The 500,000 number came from memory. I’ll admit it may be on the high side of available estimates, but certainly it’s in the ballpark. For example, the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees gave an estimate of 250,000 lost at sea. Perhaps you’re not aware of just how monumental the boat person problem was?
Before you call something ridiculous on its face, you should make sure you know what you’re talking about, m’kay?
Yeah, Sam, you’d be the one to lecture on that. You bethca.
Prove it, Sam. You’re so damn sure, prove it.
Only thing I’ve been able to find at all on the subject of what happened to the boat people, which was in fact pretty horrific, is here.
The numbers from everywhere else I went, as far as the number who left, wound up ranging all over the place. Far as I can tell, a million is a decent estimate.
The percentage on this page for dead and missing, part of which I had to do a projection on, was 8.75%. Of a million, that would be 87,500 deaths. Even if two million hit the waves, you’d still be well south of this 500,000 estimate.
For the record, Microsoft’s Encarta site says 500,000 left in total, and the one place that had what looked like halfway decent figures that I found came close to that if I added up all their reported figures (587925 to be exact). So I’m being generous by saying a million even left.
All of which means the number of deaths is just slightly less than what you allege, in other words, as best as I can determine.
It takes nerve I don’t have to come up with wildly unsupported figures, and then accuse someone else of not knowing what they’re talking about. Do a little research, come up with something. Anything.
elucidator:
Hey, you’re the one who went for the cheap shot, not me. Turns out you were just guessing, weren’t you? It just didn’t ‘seem’ right to you, so you thought you had enough evidence to warrant a snotty little message accusing ME of not doing my research. Then you found out you were being foolish.
dropzone: I tried to sign up for the Canadian Armed Forces, if you must know. Flat feet, bad eyes, no dice. That was back when Canada was carrying the brunt of peacekeeping duty around the world, and I had friends in places like Cyprus and later, Bosnia. Later I worked in a civilian flight school at Canadian Forces Base Edmonton, helping to teach flying to forces personnel. Do I pass muster? Not that my personal situation should ever have a damned bit of relevance on this board. I don’t know a thing about you, and don’t care. But people sure seem to ask me for my resume on this board, that I might be judged worthy of speaking my opinion.
Well, you did better than I did, Pantom. I googled on High Commissioner, Boat People, all like that, didn’t get any numbers at all. Did see something at Wikepedia that suggested the bulk of the VN boat people were ethnic Chinese, moved to flee due to tensions between the Vietnamese and the Chinese, who have a long, long history of tension.
- Wikepedia
Those numbers may connect, or may not, hard to say. But 500,000 drowned? That’s really hard to buy.
Balls in your court, Sam Whaddaya got?
Yeah, Sam, I never said I wasn’t guessing. Just said 500,000 is one hell of a lot. And it is. Never claimed to have the numbers. You claimed to know. So bring it on. Whaddaya got?