George W. Bush's "admission" and the Tet analogy ~~ ARE THE TERRORISTS TRYING TO PULL A TET IN IRAQ?

Tiger Hawk Blog ^ | 10/18/2006 08:30:00 PM | TigerHawk

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

The President has apparently made news by "accepting" the Iraq-Vietnam comparison. Drudge has linked, and lefty blog Think Progress is making a big deal of it. Here is what President Bush said:

Stephanopoulos asked whether the president agreed with the opinion of columnist Tom Friedman, who wrote in The New York Times today that the situation in Iraq may be equivalent to the Tet offensive in Vietnam almost 40 years ago.

"He could be right," the president said, before adding, "There's certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election."

Here's what Think Progress said he said:

President Bush is right to finally admit that violence in Iraq has reached a tipping point, and that the U.S. is not winning the war as he has claimed.

That is, of course, not what the President said. He merely agreed that there was an appropriate comparison to be made between the Tet offensive and the violence we are seeing in Iraq today. I agree. The question is, what was the lesson of Tet (the all-out offensive of the Viet Cong in early 1968, at the time of the "Tet" new year holiday in Vietnam)?

At the time the media perceived and promoted the Tet offensive as a great victory for the enemy. In an age when the network anchors deployed truly awesome power, Walter Cronkite destroyed Lyndon Johnson's chances for re-election when he editorialized that we were "mired in stalement". President Johnson declared "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost middle America," and withdrew from the 1968 presidential campaign.

Tet, however, was not a military disaster for the United States.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Quite to the contrary, history has revealed that the Tet offensive was in fact a crushing defeat for the Viet Cong, and effectively required that the Communists conquer the South by invasion from the North, rather than by civil insurgency. The Viet Cong were only able to turn a military disaster into strategic victory by persuading the American media that the United States was mired in stalement. With the domestic political support for the war fading fast, the United States decided to withdraw from Indochina, even though it would take Nixon and Kissinger another four years to accomplish it.

[bybybill]

Given all of that, South Vietnam would be free today if the Rats and Rinos had given the country any support and our troops sacrifices any respect. We can`t let that happen again.

[Just A Nobody]

We can`t let that happen again

No, we simply cannot! The stakes are far too high!

[Brad from Tennessee]

I witnessed and fought in the original Tet Offensive mostly in and around Hue City--the old Imperial Capital. I was with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. It was a block-by-block, house-by-house fight. There was something like 12,000, heavily armed, well trained and equipped North Vietnamese troops in the city when we got there. They had ringed the city with antiaircraft guns and even had some tanks but they were destroyed quickly by helicopter gunships. We had to call for 3.5-inch rocket launchers--which were delivered to us--because the lighter LAAWs we had been issued would not penetrate the concrete buildings in Hue. Things got ugly but there was also an air of exhilaration because we realized we were fighting the big battle that could turn the tide of the war. Saigon and Khe Sanh were experiencing the same type of big formation battles. In spite of severe damage to the ancient city, we destroyed most of the NVA forces in Hue and chased the rest out into the countryside. I began talking one morning on a street in Hue to a United Press International correspondent named Al Webb. I had just received some newspaper clippings from the states that cast a gloomy light on our efforts. I asked Webb, "Do people in the states really think we are getting our ass kicked?" You couldn't walk down the street we were on for 10 feet without having to step over a dead NVA soldier. "Well," said Webb,"That's the view of some of them."
Tet was a communist miscalculation based on the doctrine of Mao and later Fidel Castro that called for guerrilla forces to capture the countryside and finally move on the cities where the residents would rise up against the government and join the guerrillas in a final battle against the oppressers. This whole plan fell apart when the South Vietnamese refused to join General Giap's offensive.

Tet broke the back of the NVA in South Vietnam and it killed off the last of the armed wing of the Viet Cong. It was a great U.S./RVN victory. Instead it was seen as a quagmire based on the wisdom of a half-educated, functional alcoholic who was CBS's chief copy reader--Walter Cronkite. This was real-time revisionism.

Johnson called a halt to the bombing and said he would not run for re-election. The bombing halt allowed the brutally decimated NVA to replenish, rest and bring in replacements since the trails weren't being bombed. The huge U.S. momentum was allowed to grind to a halt and the White House may as well have hoisted a white flag. That was Tet.

[claudiustg]

Yes, and there was a draft on, and one of the biggest parties in history was starting up. Nobody wanted to go to a Tet.

[My2Cents]

The Viet Cong were only able to turn a military disaster into strategic victory by persuading the American media that the United States was mired in stalement.

In that sense, there is a parallel. But it isn't so much that the US media will take the bait, but that they are complicit with the terrorists in painting the bleakest picture possible for political reasons.

Clearly, the nutjobs-in-bomb-vests in and around Baghdad are stepping up the violence in order to impact the elections here. They couldn't affect the turnout in Iraq's series of elections. Shame on American voters if they fall for this push half-way around the world to depress the nation's mood. Bush should be given credit that the terrorists are limited to blowing up things in Baghdad to try to influence the election, rather than blowing up commuter trains here, like they did in Spain.

[My2Cents]

Wow. Thank you for taking the time to write of your experience and observations. And thanks for your service there. Very interesting. Sadly, the MSM in America is "Walter Cronkite" multiplied about a thousand times.

[DakotaRed]

The only correlation I see between Viet Nam and Iraq is how the lamestream media is manufacturing news reports and refusing to tell anything good about it.

If not for the anti-war left, there's a good chance the Viet Nam War could have ended right after the North was decimated in Tet of '68

[MarMema]

Islamic freeper that used to be here by the name of Fusion said this was their favorite thing to study in our military history.

[WOSG]

Quite to the contrary, history has revealed that the Tet offensive was in fact a crushing defeat for the Viet Cong, and effectively required that the Communists conquer the South by invasion from the North, rather than by civil insurgency."

Militarily, true, but also was a turning point in that the Democrats and a good portion of America lost their nerve/will to fight ...

And now in 2006 we see a similar dynamic. ...
"With the domestic political support for the war fading fast, the United States decided to withdraw from Indochina,"

If we want to learn from Tet it is that when it is tough for you it is tough for your enemy too ... we are killing and capturing terrorists left and right, the top leaders have been rotated twice since we smoked Zarqawi in June.
We will only lose if we decide to lose.

[DakotaRed]

We will only lose if we decide to lose.

Or, if Democrats are returned to control of Congress, again.

[jonrick46]

The world is being given the perception that the Iraq conflict is failing. With the increasing savagery of the killings and the terrorists growing more and more emboldened, it looks as if the Bush strategy is headed for the wall. This perception of course overlooks the performance by the anti-democracy factions as what it is: a performance. Such has been designed to influence the U.S. midterm elections. It has been ramped up to do so. However, this ramped up effort cannot be sustained for long and is not without cost. It takes time to develop strategies to fight a war which takes advantage of the new globalism and uses guerrilla tactics that our military has not fought on this level before. We are more set up for Cold War, high tech wars with cruise missiles and stealth bombers. Our success with technology, as seen in Desert Storm, has caused the reduction of soldiers when more are needed to control an enemy that hides in the civilian population. Once the corner is turned these barbarians will find themselves in the ashcan of history.

This is a test of ones persistence especially when we are in the process of developing what will be the new technology of modern warfare: how to win the guerrilla war. When we succeed in this effort we will have cracked the new atom of modern warfare.

[bybybill]

When was the last time the MSM showed ANYTHING positive from either Afghanistan OR Iraq? Someday, they need to be called to account for this because they and the Rats are certainly giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

[bybybill]

Unfortunately,our enemies did learn from TET and the Vietnam war in general. Our military enemy, Iran and the terrorists believe we will quit if they can keep killing Americans thus allowing them to win the War. The Rats believe that as soon as America losses enough troops, we will quit and they will win the election.
Tough talk but I challenge anybody to prove I`m wrong.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

That is the game plan.

And there is a book:

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There is a book (now available in paperback ): Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Paperback) by David Horowitz (Author)

Fascinating Analysis of Leftist Goals, August 13, 2006

Reviewer: N. Sincerity - See all my reviews

A former 1960s radical, Horowitz is well-acquainted with the Leftist mindset. In this book, he strives to explain the modern alliance between left wing progressivists and radical Islamofascists. He argues that this alliance is based on a common desire to destroy Western capitalism. Leftist sympathy with Islamofascist ideas makes no sense from an intellectual point of view, given that countries ruled by radical Islamists are among the most racist, sexist, theocratic states in the world today. However, Leftists have recognized that they can benefit politically from destructive terrorist attacks on the Western world. A West under attack can be made to turn on its leaders in fear and desperation (as they did in Spain after the Madrid train bombings). Only once people reject current government structures can the Left execute its anti-capitalist revolution and build a new reality that mirrors the Leftist view of utopia. The complete and utter idealogical hypocrisy of the Islamofascist-Leftist alliance is distressing, but as Horowitz reminds us, Leftists radicals truly believe the ends justify the means.

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[My2Cents]

The Admin. really needs a designated spokesperson on the war on terror to hammer away, every day, at the positives, who puts the negatives into proper perspective, and who rebuts the MSM spin. How difficult would this be?

[jonrick46]

I was hoping that Tony Snow would put out the good information for the Bush Administration. It looks like we need more boots on the ground.