WSJ: Ghost Busters - A quiet majority replaces Vietnam's "silent majority."

opinionjournal.com ^ | August 26, 2005 | Daniel Henninger

[OESY]

...Richard Nixon, amid a similar low ebb of popularity with Vietnam, gave a famous speech in 1969. This was the year after the Tet offensive, which caused Walter Cronkite's famous Hagel-like throwing in of the towel. In that speech Nixon described a "great silent majority" in America. The idea, of course, was that the daily media attention commanded by the antiwar movement was missing a class of Americans who sat home seething at the behavior of the protesters.

Today, because of the Internet, no one has to seethe in silence, as wired activists in both parties proved in 2004's high-tech election, and now. But it may be that the current infatuation with anti-Bush, anti-Iraq sentiment is again missing a political current flowing beneath the surface of the news, just as the media missed the silent majority 40 years ago and the values voters in the 2004 election.

I would call this faction the Quiet Majority. These people are organized and they are pro-active. But they pass beneath our politics unnoticed because they're about something deeper than TV face-time. There is a large number of groups that have organized in the past three years solely to support the American troops in Iraq... Spirit of America... Home for Our Troops, Operation Homefront, Fisher House... Wounded Warriors... Soldiers' Angels....

The message boards some of these groups maintain make clear that troops are aware, in detail, of antiwar activity. Again, this isn't Vietnam. They have news access. If the Democratic left does levitate another antiwar movement, it won't be the unanswered opposition of the Vietnam years. The counter-opposition will draw numbers from these pro-troop groups. They, too, are Internet-linked. They are better informed than most people, they are committed, and they are articulate. And they have stories to tell....

[Coop]

They, too, are Internet-linked. They are better informed than most people, they are committed, and they are articulate.

Not to mention, we're pissed!! :-D

[Condor51]

Wow, this is weird.
Yesterday I was thinking about just that thing. After Nixon's reelection a bunch of us were over at a friend's house (we were always there anyway) and the very non political Dad - and GREAT GUY btw, said, "the silent majority has spoken."

[afnamvet]

The message boards some of these groups maintain make clear that troops are aware, in detail, of antiwar activity. Again, this isn't Vietnam. They have news access. If the Democratic left does levitate another antiwar movement, it won't be the unanswered opposition of the Vietnam years. The counter-opposition will draw numbers from these pro-troop groups. They, too, are Internet-linked. They are better informed than most people, they are committed, and they are articulate. And they have stories to tell.Thank God for the internet to keep all of us FReepers active and informed on the issues.

[gulf1609]

Lets not forget that the Sheehan/IVAW/CodePink groups fuel the insurgents and actually prolong the war and cause more deaths. I hope the silent majority does not allow the past mistakes to be repeated again.

---

How North Vietnam Won The War
Taken from The Wall Street Journal, Thursday August 3, 1995

What did the North Vietnamese leadership think of the American antiwar movement? What was the purpose of the Tet Offensive? How could the U.S. have been more successful in fighting the Vietnam War? Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, answers these questions in the following excerpts from an interview conducted by Stephen Young, a Minnesota attorney and human-rights activist. Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of North Vietnam's army, received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. He later became editor of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of Vietnam. He now lives in Paris, where he immigrated after becoming disillusioned with the fruits of Vietnamese communism.
Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?

Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, "We don't need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out."
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?

A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?

A: Keenly.
Q: Why?

A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.
Q: How could the Americans have won the war?

A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.
Q: Anything else?

A: Train South Vietnam's generals. The junior South Vietnamese officers were good, competent and courageous, but the commanding general officers were inept.
Q: Did Hanoi expect that the National Liberation Front would win power in South Vietnam?

A: No. Gen. [Vo Nguyen] Giap [commander of the North Vietnamese army] believed that guerrilla warfare was important but not sufficient for victory. Regular military divisions with artillery and armor would be needed. The Chinese believed in fighting only with guerrillas, but we had a different approach. The Chinese were reluctant to help us. Soviet aid made the war possible. Le Duan [secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party] once told Mao Tse-tung that if you help us, we are sure to win; if you don't, we will still win, but we will have to sacrifice one or two million more soldiers to do so.
Q: Was the National Liberation Front an independent political movement of South Vietnamese?

A: No. It was set up by our Communist Party to implement a decision of the Third Party Congress of September 1960. We always said there was only one party, only one army in the war to liberate the South and unify the nation. At all times there was only one party commissar in command of the South.
Q: Why was the Ho Chi Minh trail so important?

A: It was the only way to bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge effort, involving tens of thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair teams, medical stations, communication units.
Q: What of American bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail?

A: Not very effective. Our operations were never compromised by attacks on the trail. At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause real damage, but we put so much in at the top of the trail that enough men and weapons to prolong the war always came out the bottom. Bombing by smaller planes rarely hit significant targets.
Q: What of American bombing of North Vietnam?

A: If all the bombing had been concentrated at one time, it would have hurt our efforts. But the bombing was expanded in slow stages under Johnson and it didn't worry us. We had plenty of times to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people for months if a harvest were damaged. The Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us.
Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?

A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.
Q: What about Gen. Westmoreland's strategy and tactics caused you concern?

A: Our senior commander in the South, Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh, knew that we were losing base areas, control of the rural population and that his main forces were being pushed out to the borders of South Vietnam. He also worried that Westmoreland might receive permission to enter Laos and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail. In January 1967, after discussions with Le Duan, Thanh proposed the Tet Offensive. Thanh was the senior member of the Politburo in South Vietnam. He supervised the entire war effort. Thanh's struggle philosophy was that "America is wealthy but not resolute," and "squeeze tight to the American chest and attack." He was invited up to Hanoi for further discussions. He went on commercial flights with a false passport from Cambodia to Hong Kong and then to Hanoi. Only in July was his plan adopted by the leadership. Then Johnson had rejected Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more troops. We realized that America had made its maximum military commitment to the war. Vietnam was not sufficiently important for the United States to call up its reserves. We had stretched American power to a breaking point. When more frustration set in, all the Americans could do would be to withdraw; they had no more troops to send over. Tet was designed to influence American public opinion. We would attack poorly defended parts of South Vietnam cities during a holiday and a truce when few South Vietnamese troops would be on duty. Before the main attack, we would entice American units to advance close to the borders, away from the cities. By attacking all South Vietnam's major cities, we would spread out our forces and neutralize the impact of American firepower. Attacking on a broad front, we would lose some battles but win others. We used local forces nearby each target to frustrate discovery of our plans. Small teams, like the one which attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, would be sufficient. It was a guerrilla strategy of hit-and-run raids.
Q: What about the results?

A: Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.
Q: What of Nixon?

A: Well, when Nixon stepped down because of Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van Dong [prime minister of North Vietnam] said of Gerald Ford, the new president, "he's the weakest president in U.S. history; the people didn't elect him; even if you gave him candy, he doesn't dare to intervene in Vietnam again." We tested Ford's resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in January 1975. When Ford kept American B-52's in their hangers, our leadership decided on a big offensive against South Vietnam.
Q: What else?

A: We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect.

[advance_copy]

Seething? Me? I'm just annoyed at the worthless anti-American maggots who are trying to cause our troops to lose in Iraq so RATS can advance in the polls and push their dysfunctional hate-America-first agenda, because they should realize that they are the idiots who trying let the terrorists win and make Iraq into another Taliban country just like the amoral lying and impeached Bill Clinton did with Afghanistan in 90s when he did nothing about the terrorist attacks on us all those years starting with the first WTC bomb that was mixed by Abdul Rahman Yasin who thereafter was harbored by Saddam Hussein and given a monthly payment for ten years while Clinton was diddling the interns. Is that seething?

[Milhous]

These people are organized and they are pro-active. But they pass beneath our politics unnoticed because they're about something deeper than TV face-time.

Most FReepers intuitively recognize the futility of talking to a biased Olds Media.

[new yorker 77]

62 MILLION voted for Bush in 2004. We did not go away.

FAKE POLLS do not translate into real voters.

These polls:
01) Oversample Democrats by 10 to 12 points

02) Undersample Republicans by 2 to 3 points.

03) Undersample Independents by 8 to 10 points.

04) In 2004, we voted 37(D)-37(R)-26(I)

05) In 2004, Support for Bush and the war was 20%(D)-90%(R)-40%(I)

06) The percentage support has not change, the sample has.

07) Example: AP Poll 49(D)-37(R)-14(I) - This is not who votes.

08) These polls are of 'national adults', not 'likely voters'

09) Add 2-3 points positive for Bush in a likely voter sample.

10) 45% of 'national adults' did not vote in 2004.

11) 55% of 'national adults' did not vote in 2002.

Summary: Polls that Oversample Democrats, Undersample Republicans and Independents, Poll 'national adults' (55% of whom will not vote in 2006) are FAKE POLLS. They are designed to pacify ever dwindling liberal audiences and to discouraged conservatives.

Example: Scott Rasmussen got the 2004 election right. In recent days he has Bush's Approval between 46% and 48%, so let's say 47% to be fair. He adds that it's of 'national adults' so add 2 to 3 points for a likely voter sample. Meaning Bush's real job approval among 'likely voters' is 49% to 50%. He got 50.8% in 2004.

That's the reality of 62 MILLION voters who did not go away or change their mind.

I made the same arguments to liberals in 2002 and more so in 2004.

FAKE POLLS DO NOT TRANSLATE INTO REAL VOTERS.

[eyespysomething]

Good piece. I was telling my husband last night, that because of the internet, and Rush Limbaugh (and others) and Fox News et al, people no longer feel that they are alone in their opinions, like they did during Vietnam. Now people can listen to, read about and participate much easier in the efforts to support our military AND their mission. We know we aren't alone, and that a lot of others feel the way we do. And a lot of us, seeing what happened during Vietnam (I wasn't old enough to understand then) vow to not let it happen again. And a lot of the veteran's feel the same. They won't let happen to the Iraqi and Aghani war veterans what happened to them.

People can only be pushed too far.

Here's another org started for the troops:

http://armor4troops.org/

[Sunshine Sister]

Amen!

The difference between the Vietnam era and today is like the difference between black and white. There was no talk radio and no Internet. Today people like me can have a voice that is not filtered by MSM. Thank God!

[new yorker 77]

What you said and this undeniable truth: FAKE POLLS DO NOT TRANSLATE INTO REAL VOTERS.

[KarlInOhio]

bump for later reading

[Sunshine Sister]

That's right. This day in age the MSM can try all it likes. When they try to push off a fake poll on us, we will know it. They can't hide any more. Thank goodness!

[the invisib1e hand]

the days of leftist media manipulators bullying around the quiet majority are gone forever. The future for our nation, as a result, has never been brighter.