PBS - The Vietnam War

[Aloha_Shooter]

BTW, LTG Davidson obviously has a more personal and informed opinion about Vietnam than I do but I would point out that numerous Vietnamese generals have admitted they were within 2-3 months of collapsing when Nixon and Kissinger gave them everything they wanted, that they couldn't have won without the backbiting from the press (like Sheehan) and "useful idiots" (to use one of Lenin's terms). IIRC, MacArthur begged Johnson to not expand the effort in Vietnam from his deathbed. OTOH, it's hard to say what would have happened if the American Left hadn't undermined everything on the homefront. I've got zero respect for Johnson and the way he expanded and interfered with the Vietnam War but I rather suspect that if WW II would have been the same kind of disaster if Roosevelt had been hit with the same kind of domestic resisteance that Johnson/Nixon/Bush had to contend with.

[CO Hugh]

I don't believe any of McNamara's self-serving claims. He did more damage to the Defense Department than any single individual in history with the possible exception of Bradley Manning.

Different perspective of Vietnam from https://www.peakingat70.com/lets-talk-america/:





















From where I stand, the Left has accomplished its goal of making SW Asia another Vietnam with the same kind of treasonous backbiting, mythological storytelling, and outright lying propaganda. There were a lot of good reasons for being very careful about going into either Afghanistan or Iraq and some of our reasons for going into Iraq later turned out to be based on bad intelligence but as Del Vecchio says about Vietnam and soldiers saying we were winning when they left, we were winning in Afghanistan and Iraq before the Democrats took over Congress and before Obama got in the White House.

I don't accept the myths created by Burns or Sheehan (IIRC, Stearman saw that Sheehan was undermining the war effort with slanted reporting from the moment he set foot in Saigon). Vietnam was a tragedy for both the US and the Vietnamese people but it's not made any better by the Left's propaganda.

The best comment I heard was that for years a war had raged across Vietnam and there were not that many refugees, then when Saigon fell, there were thousands of refugees trying to get out.

Also, though I haven't seen anyone address it specifically, I believe the US was afraid to invade the North and be active because in Korea MacArthur went too close to the chinese boarder and then the Chinese got involved, so officially the US wanted to keep the Russians and Chinese out of it.

I also am struck that during the war outside of Col. Hackworth there were not that many critics, then in the 80s every general and senior officer criticized the strategy, but yet not when they were sending troops into the meat grinder.

I also remember when the refugees showed up and entered our schools, I realized late that none of the ones I meet had an intact family: ie parents and all children, if they were lucky one parent, otherwise living with uncles aunts, or other extended family.

[KestrelBike]

This offers an interesting perspective: https://www.peakingat70.com/lets-tal...alse-narrative

Read and discuss amongst yourselves

Awesome. Thank you so much.

[Aloha_Shooter]

... and from Ollie North: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...e-facts-wrong/

Mr. Nixon’s prosecution of the war in Southeast Asia is poorly told by Ken Burns in his new Public Broadcasting Service documentary “The Vietnam War.” That is but one of many reasons Mr. Burns‘ latest work is such a disappointment and a tragic lost opportunity.

Because of endless fairy tales told by Ken Burns and others, many Americans associate Richard Nixon with the totality and the worst events of Vietnam. It’s hardly evident in the Burns “documentary,” but important to note: When Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, he inherited a nation — and a world — engulfed in discord and teetering on the brink of widespread chaos. His predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, was forced from office with a half-million U.S. troops mired in combat and fierce anti-American government demonstrations across the country and in our nation’s capital.

President Nixon succeeded in isolating the North Vietnamese diplomatically and negotiated a peace agreement that preserved the right of the people of South Vietnam to determine their own political future. Imperfect as the Saigon government was, by 1973 the South Vietnamese had many well-trained troops and units that fought well and were proud to be our allies. This intricate and sophisticated approach took shape over four wartime years but receives only superficial mention in Mr. Burns‘ production.

By the time President Nixon resigned office on Aug. 9, 1974, the Vietnam War was all but won and the South Vietnamese were confident of securing a permanent victory. But in December 1974 — three months after Mr. Nixon departed the White House — a vengeful, Democrat-dominated Congress cut off all aid to South Vietnam.

It was a devastating blow for those to whom Mr. Nixon had promised — not U.S. troops — but steadfast military, economic and diplomatic support. As chronicled in memoirs written afterwards in Hanoi, Moscow and Beijing, the communists celebrated. The ignominious end came with a full-scale North Vietnamese invasion five months later.

In a technique favored by the “progressive left,” Mr. Burns uses a small cadre of anti-war U.S. and pro-Hanoi Vietnamese “eyewitnesses” to explain the complicated policies of the U.S. government. Mr. Burns apparently refused to interview Henry Kissinger, telling the Portland Press Herald he doubted “Kissinger’s authority to adequately convey the perspectives of the U.S. government.” This alone disqualifies this “documentary” as definitive history on the Vietnam War.