If The USA Had Quit Vietnam in 1968?

Great Debates
21

Greatest crime, greatest evil. It needn’t be the worse suffering. Like it or not, we made a commitment to protect the Vietnamese from the worst of humanity. We wecledh, not because we were forced to but because we were just too pathetic. And eventually, we stopped aid because, frankly, our leaders were too busy trying to get have good feelings to worry about things like promises or freedom: the worst aspects of the late 70’s.

You don’t make a promise without carying it, and if there were ten billion slaves and 10 trillion Amerindians, at least we could say that we fought them without pretense; we killed for land and power and wealth. Even if we broke treaties, it was so often predictable and never intended to be anything more honorable. In Vientnam, we ran out of boredom and self-absorption.

And then we simply forgot. And this is what pisses me off the most. Please go back to your regularly scheduled programming. Don’t feel bad: we couldn’t do anything otherwise. And now all you leftist crackpots can backstab anything ever done ever simply by whispering Vietnam!

For starters, you assume what you set out to prove. You say that the “people” wanted to be unifed, and then assume that the North was the only legitimate way. Great plan! You can always caheive victory in your arguments if you ignore all possible

Second, why is it that it is always the most evil, bloodthirtsy, and murderous side that leftists always favor? I am trying to think of a time when this was not the case. Possibly Pinochet but even there probably not.

But more to the point, no matter what kind of corrupt government it had, South Vietnam wouldn’t have stood two weeks if it had not actually commanded significant support. If “the people” really wanted to be united under the benificent hand of Communism, it would have happened without massive Russian and Chinese aid, and well before we cut off aid. That’s necessary fact, and pretending that they had no right to live is disgusting.

But hey, nothing we could have done, right? Why protect witnesses in criminal cases, after all, we really can’t stop the thugs from killing them? Why guard Presidents or Primne Ministers? There’s always a way if assassins are dedicated. Why try to stop terrorists? There’s always some fashion they can attack us.

22

Look, I’ll give lots of credit to the government of Vietnam for coming as far as it has. It could be more democratic and it could respect personal and religious rights a lot more, but it used to be far worse, and used to be an economic basket case along with the political oppression.

That’s a far cry from saying, though, that they’re not so bad off under the same government. That statement tends to cover up an awful lot of what that government did and still does.

23

Y’know, I’ve cooled off a bit, and I am sorry for being so angry here. This issue pushes a huge button of mine, and I wouldn’t have called it unjust had virtually the entire leadership of the US around 1975 being tortured and executed for their quiet treachery. It really, really, really pushes my buttons. All of them. Repeatedly. And I wasn’t even born until the 80’s.

However, I was wrong to take it out on you Dopers.

24

A key to understanding what the implications of early withdrawal from Viet Nam would have had is understanding how the Vietnamese viewed American occupation and what their ultimate objective was. A good review of the difference between American and Vietnamese perceptions can be found in Robert McNamara’s In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam. McNamara, Secretary of Defense through the Kennedy and most of the Johnson Administrations (and therefore one of the key officials who shaped American involvement and response to conflict in Viet Nam), wrote the book after a 1994 political conference with Viet Nam to help normalize relations with the US, in which McNamara came to the realization that the conflict from the Vietnamese perspective was not an ideological one but was in opposition to what they viewed (not entirely inaccurately, perhaps) as a continuation of colonialism following Chinese, Japanese, and French occupation. It is McNamara’s position (based upon his personal relationship with the President and his repeatedly stated recommendation to limit involvement in the conflict, although not clearly supported by documentation) that Kennedy, had he lived, would have pulled out of Viet Nam by the 1964-1965 timeframe rather than engage in the troop buildup and eventual strategic bombing campaigns that occurred under the Johnson and later Nixon administrations. It is clear that had the U.S. left Viet Nam in that timeframe it would have resulted in collapse of the corrupt and nondemocratic South Viet Nam government led by Ngo Dinh Diem; it would not, however, have resulted in Viet Nam being a puppet satellite state of the PRC or the USSR, being the first in the line of fallen governments per “domino theory” then enthusiastically espoused by Lyndon Johnson. While this is hardly an Earth-shattering revelation–this was well understood by (the French and specifically De Gaulle in their public opposition to American involvement–it is noteworthy that it comes not from academic observers (see the excellent collection of essays, Why North Won Vietnam War) and partisan opponents to the war, but by one of the primary figures involved in developing strategy for the war.

Stranger

25

I, for one, am not offended in the least by your comments. However, for all the heat being generated, little light is being shed on how you think things would have been different.

So a promise to Indians broken is no big deal because we never intended to keep it? Perfidy in two instances (negotiating a treaty in bad faith then breaking it) is more excusable than realizing a commitment cannot be carried out?

Are you seriously arguing that South Vietnam had any kind of legitimate claim for being the basis of reunification? I think what you’re failing to understand is that while we saw Ho Chi Minh as a filthy communist, a great many people in Vietnam saw him first as the leader of a struggle against foreign interference in their country. Those people saw him as a figure of national liberation, not Marxist thought. The rigged and hopeless government of South Vietnam had nobody’s support except those elites who benefited from its excesses. As Stranger said so well above, even Robert McNamera now believes it was a colossal mistake to fundamentally understand what our enemies were fighting for: it wasn’t Russia or China, it was for independence. It is a sad twist of history that the independence they fought for was, as you say, soaked in the blood of violence and oppression of one Vietnamese against another.

In short, because so many people had already thrown their lot in with the idea of national liberation as expressed by Ho, the idea that US dollars could buy people back to supporting a puppet state in the South is simply laughable. We tried it for 10 years and it didn’t work.

Funny, I would have said that South Vietnam wouldn’t have lasted two weeks without significant support from the US (as opposed to the people), because, you know, it basically didn’t. The only way to read that is that the South depended on US aid in the absence of any popular support.

26

Oh, I’m not in denial, I think about those things a lot, these days – because I know that we’re going to see the same kind of thing in Iraq after we pull out; but I also expect, based on Vietnam’s experience, that that still will be the best possible outcome in the long run.

27

:dubious: There’s no “probably not” about it; Allende might or might not have had the right path in mind for Chile, but in any case there was nothing evil or bloodthirsty about him or his government; Pinochet is the one who had his enemies and potential enemies disappeared by the thousands. In the Spanish Civil War, leftists favored the Loyalists, who, for all their very many faults, were still less evil and murderous than the Nationalists. In Indonesia in 1965, leftists (if they paid any attention at all) supported the Communists, and subsequent events showed who the real monsters were in that conflict. In Haiti in 1991 and after, leftists favored Aristide, which in that situation was almost a pure good-over-evil choice.

Your characterization doesn’t even apply to Hugo Chavez, assclown that he is.

28

See, this is what gets me. While realpolitick might make it necessary to throw in with a bastard from time to time, something about the mindset of the left causes them to fall in love with those bastards and just excuse all of their evil ways.

For all of Pinochet’s faults, nobody is printing his face on T-shirts, are they?

And I don’t know why you want to exclude Chavez here - he is a relevant example. The left sure supported him, yourself included.

29

I’m excusing nothing. You took the position that leftists always favor “the most evil, bloodthirtsy, and murderous side.” I’m just pointing out that that is not always true (judging the leftist side against the other).

I’ve been ambivalent about Chavez for some time now (and have said so often in this forum), but he is at any rate nothing worse than a fool – certainly not evil, and especially not when compared to those who tried to oust him in 2002.

30

[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
I’m excusing nothing. You took the position that leftists always favor “the most evil, bloodthirtsy, and murderous side.” I’m just pointing out that that is not always true (judging the leftist side against the other).

That wasn’t me.

Uh huh. And before you were ambivalent, you were pretty enthusiastic, weren’t you?

Perhaps that is just my perception - but if it is just a perception, I got it honestly - through your habit at the time of posting gushing articles on Chavex from The Nation and soliciting comments.

31

Like this, you mean. Mainly based on his “Bolivarian Revolution’s” social and economic benefits, about which I remain anything but ambivalent (and which for once have been brought about without expropriating the rich – many of whom are doing better under his administration than before). His government’s HR record could be better, but is no worse than its neighbors’ (and, really, that TV station had no reasonable expectation of being allowed to stay open after backing the coup attempt; if that happened in the U.S., not only would the station lose its license but the execs would go to prison for treason). Where Chavez is a fool and a clown is in his cultural attitudes (banning Halloween?) and in his tolerance of widespread corruption in his government. Oh, and in his foreign relations. :rolleyes: (Still, dude’s a frackin’ saint compared with, say, Uribe.)

32

That’s kinda what I mean. Whatever Uribe’s faults he has actually made Colombia governable again - not a small feat. So Colombians are inclined to live with him - they seem to approve of his policies. He was democratically elected, and he didn’t have to rig the vote to get in.

And Chavez is the relative saint?

33

Chavez has the support of his whole country (and without rigging the vote). Uribe can only claim to represent some regions of his. And his HR record is not good:

34

Well, the parts Uribe does not control are held by narcoterrorists who haven’t seemed to be keen on having elections, so I don’t see your point.

I visited Colombia in 1996 - I was doing joint operations with their Navy at the time. We visited Cartagena and the Navy base at Malaga. At that time, the government did not control anything beyond the fenceline of the Navy base - if we had left the odds of getting kidnapped were very high. Even today the port city of Buenaventura, only 30 miles away, has a murder rate 24 times that of New York City.

Once again, you give a reply without explaining any of this. Par for the course with you, it seems.

35

Explain what? Why I think Chavez is better than Uribe? I think I’ve covered that. (And I hope you were not accusing Chavez of vote-rigging, because there’s zero evidence for that.)

36

Sure you’d think so, since you dismiss things so readily that don’t fit your worldview. Meanwhile, in the 2006 election, government ministers were telling government employees and oil workers to vote for Chavez or get fired.

Is that vote-rigging? It is clear interference in the process, at least.

“PDVSA es roja, rojita de arriba abajo!”

37

I watched the 2006 Venezuela election closely, in the media and in this forum, and I recall nothing about that. Cite?

I do know that election, like every Venezuelan election in the last few years, was watched very carefully by international monitors who declared it free and fair. (We sure could use some of those monitors here! :mad: )

(If the story is true, it occurs to me the actual message might have been, not, “We know who you’re voting for despite the ‘secret ballot’ so do it right or else!” but “If Chavez loses, you know the next president is gonna clean house and cut staff starting with you.”)

38

United Press - Venezuelan energy chief fined.

I’ll take you at your word that you didn’t know this. But it should be a little warning to you - you said you watched things closely, and yet this thing was a relatively big event, at least for Venezuelans. It was all over YouTube, for instance. And you missed it. I’m no Venezuelan expert - though I have visited there - and I found this out in five minutes.

Perhaps you ought to broaden your sources a bit.

39

According to that story, he did not, in fact, tell his employees to vote for Chavez or get fired.

40

He made comments saying that not voting for Chavez was a counterrevolutionary act, and also that a former employee was fired for treason to Chavez. How is that not telling them they’ll be fired if they don’t vote for Chavez? Just because he doesn’t use the words “Vote like this or you’ll be fired?”