You are an exceptional writer. Like a statesman yourself. An orator.
It is a sad state of affairs when the pain of war is not viewed in proper perspective, and those who can't comprehend necessity...are on the side of passivity and pull out, without considering the consequences.
"Unfortunately, what Americans may have earned, through sheer laziness ..."
well put.
And what, pray tell, were we supposed to learn by staying in Vietnam? I lived through that fiasco. I was drafted. I lost several friends there. I studied it in detail then, and even moreso as the years have gone by. We gained nothing by being there. We lost a lot (as did the over 3 million Vietnamese who died and millions more maimed because of our stubborness).
And as far as Bush vetoing--it would be nice if he actually did it at least once. His lack of veto as well as the tax cuts to the wealthy and corporate America has helped drive our debt to catastrophic levels. The current administration and an acquiescing Republican congress has spent wildly and recklessly.
Perhaps, like when the Clinton presidency and a predominantly Republican controlled congress had to work together, there can be some sanity brought to federal spending with more checks and balances that these election results have brought forth.
Mark H.
Thanks for your service and I'm sorry you had to experience such personal loss. To answer your question, the lesson is that doing a cut and run and then withdrawing military support and funding for an ally, when victory was in reach and they were being successful with their operations is a huge mistake ie the boat people. The Tet offensive was a huge military loss for the enemy, yet weak politicians, who stymied the war effort as it is, let the press turn it into a victory for the enemy via propoganda.
That is what is happening with Iraq. The difference being this enemy has designs far beyond its borders and nuclear weapons are within its reach.
Uninformed voters and a biased MSM that exists to get liberals elected...did we stand much of a chance against those odds? My heart breaks for unborn children and what this means to them, not to mention all the other important issues facing us today...
The Tet Offensive caught the Pentagon and certinly our troops in Vietnam completely by surprise and we suffered tremendous loss of life and real estate. The U.S. counter-offensive indeed took a high toll on the Viet Cong, however, it was at this point that our military (and Johnson) realized we were in for a very long, intense fight with people who simply were willing to die at any cost for their cause.
The U.S. dropped more tonnage of explosives on the Vietnamese than all the bombs on both sides of WW II combined and it simply did no good. Everything we attempted to do to quell them and to "spread freedom" only incited them further. Sound familiar?
As it became more and more apparent to the American public that the Vietnam conflict had been entered into without a decisive plan for victory, and the losses of our servicemen were growing by the hundreds per day, we indeed lost the stomach for a drawn out conflict with no foreseeable end in sight. And, since you seem to be a student of history, you should know that once a country loses its will to be in a fight, there's no way you can win it.
Besides, what were we really accomplishing there? The accepted wisdom was that we were "stopping the Red Menace from spreading." But the Chinese didn't want to go toe-to-toe with us, and the Russians were never very fond of Ho Chi Min. The spread of communism would've fizzled out in Vietnam, Laos, and Combodia whether we had been there or not. History has certainly proven that out.
Had we not gotten involved at all, millions would still be alive today. Our presence there only inflamed the passion of the Vietnamese even further. We severely underestimated their will to succeed in their struggle, and we certainly misunderstood their culture. Though South Vietnam was supposedly our ally, a goodly percentage of the people sided with and aided the North. It was an internal mess, and we were nowhere near winning as you attest. Ask any Vietnam vet...he'll tell you the same. Just as any Iraq vet will echo this same sad scenario now.
On top of all that, The Pentatgon Papers in '72 showed that the entire Gulf of Tonkin attack was dreamed-up to justify escalating our bombing of North Vietnam. Former Secretary of Defense MacNamara confessed in even more detail in his "Fog of War" book that he and the rest of the Pentagon/White House braintrust decieved their own troops and the American people into justifying our escalation in Southeast Asia. He now carries the guilt of nearly 60,000 dead U.S. soldiers, and at least 3 million Vietnamese (some estimate it may have been as high as 7 million) on his conscience.
Yes, there were many reprisals and killings of South Vietmanmese loyalists once we pulled out. But that would've happened whether we left in '75 or in '68 or in '82.
Maybe this will put a boot in the GOP's rear end and bring back the principles of limited government and fiscal responsibility to the party. Granted, these aren't the reasons most voted Democrat instead of Republican this election, but remember how the GOP won power during the Clinton administration with its Contract With America -esque attitude. I don't think things will get better in the current situation--only worse. Of course, with the GOP's "compassionate conservatism" (i.e. big government "convervatism") things were only going to get worse anyway.
Alex,
I agree, trying to out liberal, Liberals on social spending certainly didn't help.
Mark H.
Actually, it was a former enemy in Vietnam who has since revealed that Tet was a complete disaster for them militarily.
As to what history has shown, the fizzle you present, was preceded by much death, destruction and oppression because we left and abandoned an ally. As to inflaming an enemy more by fighting them, so what? Is that how we determine when we should leave or stay? Oops, bad guys are more pissed off than we are, so we'd better leave.
You're skipping over the issue of why a people are not maintaining their resolve. Certainly, many mistakes were made by politicians in that war, limiting our troops and such. But, the press most certainly spun Tet for the enemy. Our being caught by surprise doesn't overturn the fact that we gained back the ground they took and punished them severely and they failed to achieve their goals.
This notion that if the enemy has more resolve needs to be addressed by finding out why we do not and changing that. It's obvious that a big part of that is still the mainstream media.
If one tries to say the Iraqis who desire freedom are not worth the effort, they're practicing a form of racism IMO. They've had several elections already, despite so much time under brutal dictatorship. Treating this process as something that needs to provide near instant gratification, is foolish. Such things take time, but are worth the capital, blood, sweat and tears required, especially when doing otherwise will have such tragic and global consequences.
The enemy has even stated they want to repeat what happened in Vietnam. What sort of people, hear what their enemy plans for their defeat and willingly gives them exactly that?
Firstly, most military historians agree that the Tet offensive changed the course of the war...and not in our favor. We may have gained certain land back, but, obviously, we eventually lost it all.
Secondly, you missed the point about resolve...I was saying the American people lost their resolve (if they ever truly had any) in the Vietnam conflict by the late 60's. When the people lose any sense of vision for a war, it is very hard to have the will to win no matter the cost.
You may wish to blame the media for that, but I remember how clearly the media swallowed the Pentagon/White House cool aid for the majority of the time we were there--it wasn't until around '69 they began to show what was really going on. And go ask any relatives of the nearly 60,000 U.S. troops that died there, as well as the nearly 100,000 more who have either died or been ruined by cancer caused by the Agent Orange we sprayed recklessly over the landscape if it was worth it.
Thirdly, I'm not saying the Iraqis are not "worth it." I am saying if they truly want their own democracy, then they need to fight for it themselves. We need to double and triple our efforts to train their military/police to be able to handle their own problems, and then remove ourselves.
Fourthly, this administration brought these "tragic global consequences" to a much greater boil with this hastily planned and poorly executed occupation. Have you seen one single general who has the guts to speak up actually saying that this has gone anywhere near like it was purported to have gone?
As Army Lt. General Peter Chiarelli (commander of the multinational forces in Iraq) said regarding the insurgents and terrorists: "For every
one that I kill, I create almost 10 more."
This fiasco has done much more harm than good in the War on Terror.
And, according to the Congressional Reserach Service the average monthly cost of this war has cost risen from $5.5 billion per month in '04 to $7.5 billion in '05 and now $9.5 billion every 30 days so far in '06. It is causing deep, deep problems in our economy that look to only worsen if we don't come up with a much better plan for bringing our involvment downward in the near future.
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