A South Vietnamese government worth fighting for. However many VC died, the Viet Cong was always able to get more recruits just because the government was so corrupt, brutal, elitist and unpopular.
We might, we might.
If it were Texas, OTOH . . .
Hard to believe, seeing how California has the largest economy of all states and by itself generates over 10% of the United States’ GDP.
Stop bothering us with the facts!
Insisting that North Vietnam wasn’t a dictatorship is like insisting Cuba and East Germany weren’t.
Not of course that any of the puppet governments in South Vietnam were much better.
Yep, more differences of degree than kind. But a substantial degree in one respect. The North Vietnamese government was brutal and authoritarian. But it was also genuinely popular internally with a large enthusiastic constituency as the standard bearer of anti-colonial nationalism. In a besieged nation ‘rally around the flag’ works. I’ve always speculated that if the U.S. was ever so foolish as to try to just invade Iran some policy makers might be unpleasantly surprised how much of the population would rally around the mullahs.
The South Vietnamese government was brutal and authoritarian. Also almost phenomenally venal, corrupt and ultimately miserably incompetent because of this. With a far, far smaller natural constituency and not a great deal of internal popularity. It’s collapse was only surprising in the rapidity with which it crumbled.
Historical Record -
Assuming California actually seceded from the Union (aka the U.S.A.), I don’t know of a single person who would go to war with California, or Mexico, to bring California back into the Union.
I’ve started working on a new 49 star American flag, just in case. 
Really? I know about 1,369,532 active duty and 850,880 reserve people who would. The whole issue of states having a right to secede from the Union was settled 150 odd years ago in the bloodiest war the United States has ever fought, making adaher’s attempt at an analogy not only incredibly poor, but entirely invalidated by actual facts as well. The US Civil War cost ~750,000 lives from 1861-65 when the population of the US was much smaller than it was today. I’ve not the slightest doubt that had the US Civil War been fought from 1961-65 for some bizarre reason in some alternate universe where the issue of nuclear Armageddon could be miracled away, the cost in lives would easily reach 2 million given both the larger population and 100 years of increased lethality in war as technology marched on.
Unless of course both sides in the US Civil War were brutal dictatorships, since in the world according to adaher liberal democracies lack the will to suffer heavy casualties or fight protracted wars.
Neither were democracies in any meaningful sense then and there sure as hell isn’t one now. Maybe for a few decades there was a reasonable form of representative democracy.
Which few decades, and what changed?
Pick a point - maybe from the 1965 Voting Rights Act (pretty close to universal sufferage, ish) to when it became clear the US was ruled by an oligarchy … how about the 2007 market crash (essentially Goldman Sachs deciding whose interests to protect on behalf of the State). Starting and ending points being arguable - that it wasn’t, and that it isn’t, being non-arguable.
That was then. This is now.
Assuming California seceded and joined with Mexico, who is going to order 1,369,532 active duty and 850,880 reserve personnel to return California to the U.S.A. by force of arms? You? Obama? The U.S. Congress?
If anything, there would be lawsuit after lawsuit after lawsuit.
There’s nothing incompatible about ‘authoritarian’ and ‘genuinely popular’. The Cuban government is, from all indications, genuinely popular too, and was even more popular in the 1960s (when it was also more authoritarian). Same probably applies to North Vietnam.
Obama and/or Congress, I don’t have any authority over the armed forces of the United States. I don’t see why this is such a difficult concept to grasp.
Allow me to demonstrate just how remarkably poor of an argument this is: if Mississippi were to reintroduce chattel slavery tomorrow, nobody would actually do anything to stop them from doing so. Sure, the US fought the bloodiest war in its history over the issue 150 years ago, but whatever, that was then. This is now.
Considering how many political prisoners they’ve jailed and how many others have been voting with their feet and fleeing calling either government “popular” is silly.
I know that to westerners who’ve never grown up in or experienced anything other than a liberal democracy if a dictatorship isn’t overthrown that means it’s “popular” but most of the time it means it’s stronger and better run. The Shah ran Iran longer than the Ayatollah Khomeini but he certainly wasn’t more popular, though he was admittedly less brutal.
My Iranian father would certainly question how “popular” any of Iran’s rulers have been.
The Shah was less brutal? Than who? Stalin?
It goes further than that IMO. Any state trying to secede, even Delaware (and that’s not even a real state to begin with, c’mon :p), would be grounds for immediate threats that would quickly turn into aggression were the threats not heeded. This to avoid setting a precedent - if Delaware was allowed to split then Texas, Florida, Alaska, Hawaii… might get the notion to follow suit (no matter how thoroughly stupid and self-destructive). The northern States pay out more in federal taxes than they receive in federal aid, they might decide to cut their losses. And so forth. Shattered union.
So yes, adaher, you bet your ass there would be a war if California voted on joining Mexico.
Than Khomeini. I’m sorry, I thought that was obvious from what I wrote.
Not of course that that is much of a bar to pass.
The Shag was an idiot playboy who’s sole concern was avoiding getting overthrown.
Khomeini was a brilliant intellectual convinced he had with the help
of God come up with the perfect model for how society should function and he believed that anything he did, regardless of how many were hurt, would be justified by God.
Neither type is good to be a leader, but one does vastly more harm.
It took you three tries but you got the right answer. If California tried to secede, the United States Congress would order the military to stop them.
It was then and it still is now.
Why didn’t we win? We were winning when I left, or at least I thought we were.
Aside from the larger political reasons mentioned above, why was the media covering college students protesting a war that they knew nothing about.[SIZE=“1”] (Of course to sell papers!) They likely had no idea how our hands were tied behind our backs in some cases. Pilots were required to fly the same “route package” going north making them easier targets for anti-aircraft fire. We had a lot of restrictions, the VC and NVA had NONE. They did anything they wanted to anybody they wanted. When they wanted to convince a village to be sympathetic to them, they simply rounded up the village chief, tied him to a post and slit his stomach right in front of the rest of the villagers,almost always at night. I wonder how many of the college students that protested against the American soldiers knew that?
XT, you were dead on about fighting a war of gradualism. That might have been one of our biggest mistakes. As was gauging our progress by body count.
Tagos, you mentioned SVN finally fell because its army ran away. How true. But they were running away long before the end. Not all of them, the Vietnamese Marines were tough and fought hard.
SandyHook we did use bombs and arty and rarely napalm in close quarters, even bringing “Spooky” in as close as about 15-20 feet. THAT’s scary.
(Spooky is a C-130 rigged to fire mini guns @ up to 6,000 rounds a minute. But I think they were throttled back to only 3,000 rounds/min. Every 5th round is a “tracer” that glows so you can see it, but it still looks like a solid line of bullets going to the ground. You’d wonder how anyone could survive that, but some how they did. And there can be up to 4 mini guns per C-130.)
Phu Cat, 69-70[/SIZE]