Were we horribly enmired in a “quagmire” three weeks into our involvement in Viet Nam?
I mean, after all, was it that obvious just a few weeks into it?
Was the D-Day invasion “another Viet Nam”? After all, look at where it was a couple of weeks into things.
No, we took our time going into Viet Nam. France was heavily involved there the years before us. First we went as advisors. And France kicked all US miltary out of France. De gaul was on the throne. That was around 1960 something.
Interesting is the Gulf of Tonkin is now heavily dotted with off-shore oil rigs.
Started for us with LbJ, Kennedy was opposed without a full blown war. Vietnam conflict never was a declared war. Lot of the recession in the 70’s was the bounced check for Viet Nam.
No big reinforcements like you see now in Iraq for our boys in Nam.
Also the French warned us about Vietnam. But the politicians and generals didn’t listen. We got the shit kicked out of us at the same spot they did. Then we left and welcomed the folks with open arms into our country to farm fish.
Course what do I know with a half of the fact and whole lot of nothing but true lies.
Debatable.
Vietnam became a bad word for Americans after the Tet offensive when it was gtaphically shown that the US military are vulnerable. Even after the offensive was turned back and massive casualties were done to the North vietnamese, the american public had had enuf of a war with no visible objective or end. It was a political defeat, not a military one.
Not at all.
Vietnam was a French colony. During World War 2, Vietnamese helped out the Americans and expected to be rewarded with independence at a time when many other colonial countries gained independence (Malaysia, Rhodesia, India). America did nothing, and the French moved in to try to get their former control. The “North” Vietnamese fought the French until their defeat at Dienbienphu in 1954 during the First Indochinese War. America had began to get involved at this point (sending hundreds of advisors and money), and slowly became more involved (due to their belief in the “Domino Theory”), culminating in sending troops in 1963 in the Third Indochinese War. At this point, they had been involved for ten years already.
The US got involved slowly and incrementally. Then the plan was to hold ground, never to advance into enemy territory. That is a doomed plan as you never strike a decisive blow that makes the enemy stop fighting. Thus, even though the US, Australians, ARVN, etc., killed over one million North Vietnamese soldiers there was never any plan to end the war. Essentially, the conflict was a meat grinder.
Another thing, there are historical, political, and cultural distinctions between what was South Vietnam and what was North Vietnam. It is not as though the lines were arbitrarily drawn with no historical precedent. North Vietnam invaded the South, another nation. North Dakota can’t invade South Dakota just because they are both Dakota. Or something.
Finally, only recently has the full extent of Soviet involvement in the Vietnam War become known. Rumors of Soviet pilots flying missions over Vietnam have been confirmed. Part of the reason for never attacking NV was the presence of Soviet pilots, advisors, ground crews, intelligence officers, etc. This is important because the extent of Soviet activities was downplayed at the time. The romantic notions that many had about the Viet Cong and HCM would have been dashed had the truth been accepted.
I think that we did bomb North Vietnam – sometime around Christmas of 1972.
Operation Rolling Thinder - Feb 1965
Operation Linebacker I - April 1972
Operation Linebacker II - Dec 1972
All massive bombing operations of the North.
There were almost half a milion men in Vietnam at the high point of the war. Firepower was one thing we were not in short supply of.
It’s hard to pick the precise moment when Vietnam became a quagmire. The Tet offensive is largely regarded as the turning point of the war. Even though the Viet Cong lost the battles and ceased to be an efective fighting force after Tet, it was a political disaster. The primary reason being that most Americans thought that the war was nearly won (not that the military was vulnerable). Obviously the fact that the VC and NVA could launch coordinated attacks all over the country dispelled that belief.
Vietnam was really a quagmire from day one. The strategy was basically to get Ho Chi Hinh to blink through ariel bombing and waging a war of attrition. Of course, history shows us that bombing alone is generally not going to force a nation into submission. And common sense tells us that a war of attrition (kill all of them before they kill all of you) will generally lead to a bloody mess. Especially in a third world country with high birth rates.
Based on some words from my father, a Vietnam veteran, I believe Vietnam was another Vietnam from day one.
I can’t get him to talk about 'nam much, but he has said this:
“We were fighting for freedom for a people who did not desire freedom.”
Freedom comes in many hues. For many people, the free choice of the colonial empire’s selected candidate does not seem as free as it might to a member of that empire.
It goes back to Roosevelt, who absolutely refused to help the French(when they asked roosevelt for help) get vietnam back, who refused to send american aid or american troops to vietnam.
When roosevelt died, truman gave aid to the french, mainly to put pressure on china.
The main problem with vietnam was, that no american president ever wanted to win in vietnam, Roosevelt, truman, eisenhower, kennedy, johnson, nixon, etc.
You cant win a war that you dont want to win.
Johnson knew we could not win vietnam before he ever sent troops in there.
From the Publisher of Taking Charge:
"the first volume of the Johnson White House Tapes, is filled with revelations about the full-blooded Texan behind the public image. We hear LBJ telling using the Gulf of Tonkin attack to expand the American beachhead in Southeast Asia, and unveiling his private, tortured early doubts that we could ever win a war in Vietnam.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?userid=17XUZTCVPA&pwb=1&ean=9780671046477
America(Truman) got involved in vietnam in june, 1950. The United States(american taxpayers) paid for 80 percent of the French war in Vietnam from 1950 - 1954. The United States financed the French war effort.
It was obvious to anyone long BEFORE we ever got involved with a war in vietnam in 1965, if you had listened to Bernard Fall when he went around the country warning us not to send troops there, and why.
There were plenty of vietnam experts around in 1965, all telling us to stay out of there, all telling us we could not win a vietnam civil war that had been going on for 400 years, etc. but Johnson did not listen to them, and johnson and macnamarra did not know anything about vietnam(they never went to a Bernard FAll lecture).
DDay was another matter entirely, it took a few weeks to break out of our beachhead, but we were fighting a german army. There are no similarities between DDAy and vietnam.
Certainly, there’s enough evidence nowadays to argue that Charles de Gaul’s pompous efforts to re-establish French Colonial Empire throughtout the world after WW2 (in many countries and on many fronts) was entirely reckless and doomed from the get go.
Indeed, the writing was on the wall as early as 1942 when the “Free French”, in their bizarre efforts to hang on to the French protectorates of Syria and Iraq for fear of losing the to the British instead of ACTUALLY being afraid of losing them to the Nazis, demonstrated that their concerns were infinitely more expansionist than either Churchill or Roosevelt ever came within light years of approaching.
If there’s one lesson the Americans should have learnt out of Vietnam, (and Iran too for that matter) it would be this - if and when a country wants to take control of it’s own destiny - then let it. Forcing it to continue to be something against it’s will is just plain frought with danger.
However, I’ll gladly accept that the “Domino Theory” played an incredibly important role in American policy at the time. Indeed, the evidence exists now that the CIA meddled time after time in Iran and Iraq purely to counter Soviet meddling in those same countries. Simply put, black ops after black ops - and ultimately the locals lost out.
History shows that the Soviets were dreadful meddlers in all of these countries - no doubts about it. Perhaps what wasn’t clear at the time was just how over extended the Soviets were financially. They were already WAY into the red by the 1960’s and they were totally bankrupt by 1989.
Appearances can be deceiving. I suspect that if the Americans had known how over-extended the Soviets were at various times, then a lot of the fear of “Domino Theory” might have diminished somewhat. That’s speculation I’ll admit - but it’s interesting speculation to be sure! 
I probably should have written that paragraph differently.
There were several bombing campaigns, including Rolling Thunder and Linebackers I & II (see link in sig. for details). Of course, yes, the US did bomb NV occasionally, primarily to wrest a negotiated ticket out of Vietnam. What I was trying to communicate was the lack of an effective war plan. Bombing to find an escape route wasn’t much of a plan. Moral criticism aside,* it didn’t work.
*I’m not rejecting the moral criticsm, just saving it for another day, or thread.
:smack: See sig. this time.
Anyway, I’m not debating whether the US should have been involved in Vietnam. I rarely ever get that far in the debate. Just establishing the actual facts of what happened, poorly.
And for some, the “freedom” of having access to food and fresh water without worry of being bombed is much more important than the freedom to vote.
Vietnam had experienced over a generation of almost continual warfare. The people wanted peace.
Sure…most Americans are willing to die for freedom. But are they willing to give up their parents, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and spouses?
Could you take this all the way back to Wilson and the events that occurred after WWI?
I would say Vietnam became an American nightmare when the Diem brothers were assassinated.