# W: The lesson the Vietnam War teaches Americans is "not to quit" **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [November 17, 2006, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833 "2006-11-17T14:51:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/21 "2006-11-17T17:49:23Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] The lssons learned from Vietnam about how to fight an insurgency have been largely ignored. [/QUOTE] What lessons? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/22 "2006-11-17T17:53:03Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Unfair. Those guys had no say in the important decisions. What he’s saying is that the U.S. would have won if the politicians stateside hadn’t quit; which is incredibly stupid, but not hypocritical. [/QUOTE] Even then, it’s still hypocritical. If that’s the case then he’s saying that other people (including conscripts) should have been forced to stay there and keep getting killed while he was pulling strings to avoid the war, or even avoid consequences for shirking his cushy, stateside duty. Plus, if the Republicans can pretend that Kerry was insulting the troops then turnabout is fair play ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/23 "2006-11-17T17:54:18Z")
It’s so hard to figure out what Bush is saying. I read the cnn article twice and here’s my take: _Good will triumph over evil if given a chance to do so._ That might work on “Little House on the Prairie”, but is so hopelessly naive as to merit nothing but :rolleyes: . “We’ll succeed unless we quit” might be a good pep talk to give to a group facing a difficult challenge, but it bears little relation to reality-- you can’t succeed at fitting a square plug into a round hole, which is what we are trying to do in Iraq. No, I didn’t mean to imply that we were ass-raping Iraq. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sal\_Ammoniac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8dc957/32.png) [@Sal\_Ammoniac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sal_Ammoniac)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/24 "2006-11-17T18:00:07Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] Wait, so Bush’s message on a diplomatic mission to Vietnam is “hi, how you guys doin’ Good? That’s too bad, because on second thought, we should have killed all you guys and taken over your country a long time ago.” I mean, wtf? This is why Bush has always sucked at diplomacy. Everything is a show for Americans back home, without any clue as to what the point of diplomacy is for outside of American audiences. [/QUOTE] **Apos** , this is a really good point. And it only underlines the irony of the photo shown in the [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/world/asia/18prexycnd.html?hp&ex=1163826000&en=0ef07311f50a6c85&ei=5094&partner=homepage) of Bush sitting under a massive bust of Ho Chi Minh. But yeah, this is the same old crap. In fact, before the election, one of the papers was interviewing voters in the heartland (Kansas, maybe?), and sure enough, one woman was complaining that the problem with Iraq was that the politicians were tying the military’s hands. That’s what it’s about for these people – kill 'em all, and let God sort it out. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/25 "2006-11-17T18:07:29Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] . . . you can’t succeed at fitting a square plug into a round hole . . . [/QUOTE] Sure you can. Just get a bigger hammer. If you want to get the plug **out** again, that might be a more difficult problem. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/26 "2006-11-17T18:26:09Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] The lssons learned from Vietnam about how to fight an insurgency have been largely ignored. [/QUOTE] In the [New Yorker article](http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061120fa_fact?page=3) about Rummy’s resignation, we find > [@Peter Boyer](#): > > The American military had spent thirty years avoiding the thought of fighting a counter-insurgency, a subject that hadn’t been part of the curriculum at West Point since the Vietnam era. The proud, professional volunteer force constructed since Vietnam was not built for a protracted occupation, an eventuality that, in any case, the nation’s political leadership reflexively rejected out of hand. Bill Clinton fought a war in Kosovo by announcing at the outset that the commitment of ground troops was not an option; the Bush Administration came into power renouncing the idea of nation-building as a foolish misuse of military resources. That’s why. ---
**Author:** ![Gangster\_Octopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a8b319/32.png) [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/27 "2006-11-17T18:26:15Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] What lessons? [/QUOTE] Probably the most important being that you are fighting to win heartsa and minds. The battlefield is not the ground you are on but the population you are attempting to win over. That includes such things as greater cultural awareness than has been shown in Iraq, more troops but less force, not basing yourself in the cities. ---
**Author:** ![Ravenman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ravenman/32/2929_2.png) [@Ravenman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ravenman)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/28 "2006-11-17T18:47:27Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Unfair. Those guys had no say in the important decisions. What he’s saying is that the U.S. would have won if the politicians stateside hadn’t quit; which is incredibly stupid, but not hypocritical. [/QUOTE] What of the Vietnam veterans who came home and spoke out against the war? It would seem that GWB would be equally accusing them to be quitters. You know, part of the “cut and run” crowd. Could it be that, in Bush’s mind, it is much better to “run” if you never have to “cut?” That doesn’t technically make you a quitter, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/29 "2006-11-17T19:39:26Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What lessons? Probably the most important being that you are fighting to win heartsa and minds. The battlefield is not the ground you are on but the population you are attempting to win over. That includes such things as greater cultural awareness than has been shown in Iraq, more troops but less force, not basing yourself in the cities. [/QUOTE] That’s the big strategic outlook. Once everyone on the ground understands this your tactics will flow from that and be refined to the specific theater you’re in. The guys on the ground didn’t follow this for the first 2-3 years though and it may be too late to go back. It’s generally not a good idea in a counter insurgency to round up all military age males and detain them for extended periods or break into houses in the middle of the night and humiliate everyone (especially the man of the house), beating people for no reason, performing mock executions, performing REAL executions, disrespecting cultural norms, taking innocent families hostage, beating and torturing said hostage families because they get lumped in with the “bad guys,” etc. Remember when the right wing media went crazy when Kerry said our troops were breaking into houses in the night and scaring the living fuck out of people? I thought that was pretty entertaining – that was some of the LEAST of our worries. I wonder if they were mad because they thought Kerry made it up or because he put the sunshine on it… Anyway, a lot has been written on this if you want further info (I recommend Fiasco), especially our flagrant ignorance for lessons learned 50 years ago in some cases (The French had a lot of experience with this sorta thing). It’s almost comical to read how we pretty much did the opposite of what’s correct in a counter insurgency and how much time it took for commanders to relearn lessons written down so long ago…if only it didn’t involve so many people dying. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/30 "2006-11-17T19:43:20Z")
[QUOTE=mstay] We’re gonna stay and make some more mass graves because we can’t let Saddam beat us. [/QUOTE] Not after we put him in power and all. We brought him into the world and we can take him out again. :rolleyes: [QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Sure you can. Just get a bigger hammer. If you want to get the plug **out** again, that might be a more difficult problem. [/QUOTE] How about setting it on fire? ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2006, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/31 "2006-11-17T19:54:00Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] Wait, so Bush’s message on a diplomatic mission to Vietnam is “hi, how you guys doin’ Good? That’s too bad, because on second thought, we should have killed all you guys and taken over your country a long time ago.” I mean, wtf? [/QUOTE] **Apos** , maybe he’s following the ‘Sam Kinneson’ school of diplomacy…? Smokey-smokey…? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/32 "2006-11-18T01:29:38Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] (He [also](http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=7c82ec1b-6bc0-4d9d-a1cd-98a6ec83a58a&k=52495) said, WRT Iraq, “We’ll succeed unless we quit.”) [/QUOTE] I saw video of Bush saying this tonight, in consort with shots of happy, smiling Vietnamese in Hanoi, and news of expected trade deals (as soon as congress gets off its butt). Is this the face of our FAILURE to stay the course in Nam, our LOSS? If so, the lesson is plain. When we QUIT, when we _leave_ a country, **things get better.** Depending on how you look at it, failure is success, success is failure. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/33 "2006-11-18T01:36:31Z")
[QUOTE=Squink] Is this the face of our FAILURE to stay the course in Nam, our LOSS? If so, the lesson is plain. When we QUIT, when we _leave_ a country, **things get better.** [/QUOTE] Yes. **Eventually.** First this there’s regrettably messy period of readjustment . . . just ask the “boat people” . . . and all the South Vietnamese who needed to be “re-educated” . . . ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/34 "2006-11-18T02:17:32Z")
History is bunk. :eek: First the Russians won in Afghanistan. Then the US beat the Taliban in Afghanistan. And the US will soon be able to go back and capture Afghanistan from the Taliban again. Those local tribesmen stand no chance against a military power. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/35 "2006-11-18T02:19:26Z")
Maybe he was talking about the VC. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/36 "2006-11-18T04:46:43Z")
[QUOTE=Gangster Octopus] Probably the most important being that you are fighting to win heartsa and minds. The battlefield is not the ground you are on but the population you are attempting to win over. That includes such things as greater cultural awareness than has been shown in Iraq, more troops but less force, not basing yourself in the cities. [/QUOTE] You have got to be shitting me. Actually, I expect you aren’t, at least not deliberately. I find myself making this point over and over but it does no good. You actually think that occupying a country with a small force is going to upset the locals, but a bigger more pervasive force would be OK? Repeat after me till it sinks in: the occupation is the problem. The occupation is the problem. The occupation is the problem. The invading occupying army could be comprised of a team of cloned Mahatma Ghandhis and the locals will still resent it. No one likes being occupied. At all. Ever. You know the scene from “The Life of Brian” in which the rebels complain saying “what have the Romans ever done for us?” (schools, sanitation, water, education etc)? As always with truly great comedy, the script while funny is also highly insightful into human nature. A desire for self determination is a basic human feature. No one feels like self determination is being achieved while foreigners with military strength on their side are in their territory, even if they are Captain Carrots all. An amazing number of people who would understand this in a heartbeat if it were someone else in their country just cannot see it when it is them in someone else’s country. [This post by the much lamented Sofa King](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=3217916&postcount=82) is IMHO amongst the greatest posts on the SDMB I have ever read, and nails the whole Iraq fiasco to the floor. Read it, understand it, and tremble. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/37 "2006-11-18T05:56:39Z")
[QUOTE=glee] History is bunk. :eek: First the Russians won in Afghanistan. Then the US beat the Taliban in Afghanistan. And the US will soon be able to go back and capture Afghanistan from the Taliban again. Those local tribesmen stand no chance against a military power. [/QUOTE] True, but this has been the basis of American, Soviet, and British strategy in Afganistan. What we should’ve done was capture a few towns to make a point and buy out the rest, learning from Alexander the Great. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/38 "2006-11-18T06:11:05Z")
What sized force would be optimum for the occupation of your country, in order to win your heart and mind? Tris ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/39 "2006-11-18T06:39:59Z")
[QUOTE=tagos] Actually that was the lesson learned from Korea. Forgotten again for Vietnam. Remembered and then forgotten again. Thankfully it is all irrelevant now because the freedom thirsty secular masses of Iran are already stockpiling rose petals. [/QUOTE] There’s a lot of people living in a free democracy in South Korea that probably strongly disagree that we should not have gotten involved there. Virtually everyone who had Truman’s ear was saying pretty much the same thing. That the Korean battlefield had nothing to do with the larger scope of the Cold War and would be a waste of U.S. resources. I guess Truman decided to take the path that didn’t doom South Korea to an authoritarian regime for 50+ years (and counting.) ---
**Author:** ![Martin\_Hyde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/47e85d/32.png) [@Martin\_Hyde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martin_Hyde)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2006, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833/40 "2006-11-18T06:42:15Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] It’s so hard to figure out what Bush is saying. I read the cnn article twice and here’s my take: _Good will triumph over evil if given a chance to do so._ That might work on “Little House on the Prairie”, but is so hopelessly naive as to merit nothing but :rolleyes: . “We’ll succeed unless we quit” might be a good pep talk to give to a group facing a difficult challenge, but it bears little relation to reality-- you can’t succeed at fitting a square plug into a round hole, which is what we are trying to do in Iraq. No, I didn’t mean to imply that we were ass-raping Iraq. 😉 [/QUOTE] Ah yes, the popular, “Arabs are too stupid for our help” argument. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/w-the-lesson-the-vietnam-war-teaches-americans-is-not-to-quit/380833.md?page=3)