Posted on 02/27/2023 5:47:51 AM PST by MtnClimber
Triumph Retaken shows that America’s war in Vietnam could have been won earlier at far less cost, and in fact almost was, even belatedly by 1968.
Military historian and Hillsdale College professor Mark Moyar has just published Triumph Regained: The Vietnam War, 1965-1968, which is the second in what will become a massive three-volume revision of the entire Vietnam War. It is a book that should be widely read, much discussed, and reviewed in depth regardless of one’s view of that sad chapter in American diplomacy and conflict in Vietnam.
The first book, Triumph Forsaken: The Vietnam War, 1954-1965 appeared in 2006. It gained considerable attention for its heterodox analysis of the postwar origins of communist aggression against the South, beginning with the disastrous French colonial experience and its transference to the Americans. Moyar described the Byzantine intrigue through which the Kennedy Administration inserted American ground troops into Vietnam, and why and how his successor Lyndon B. Johnson rapidly escalated the American presence.
Moyar’s controversial argument in volume one centered on the disastrous decisions of these two administrations that ensured Americans would be sent into an uninviting distant theater of operations in the dangerous neighborhood of both communist China and Russia. Worse, they would be asked to fight under self-imposed limitations of the nuclear age in which their leaders could not achieve victory or perhaps even define it.
Still, Moyar argued that there was nevertheless a chance to achieve a South-Korean-like solution at much less cost, one that was thrown away through a series of American blunders. Most grievous was the American support for the 1963 coup that removed South-Vietnamese strongman president Ngo Dinh Diem and led to his almost immediate assassination‚ even as he was evolving into a viable wartime leader.
(Excerpt) Read more at amgreatness.com ...
Case Closed: The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
This article by Capt. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.) originally appeared in the June 2008 issue of Vietnam magazine. A National Security Agency report released in 2007 reveals unequivocally that the alleged Aug. 4, 1964, attack by North Vietnam on U.S. destroyers never actually happened.
In the first few days of August 1964, a series of events off the coast of North Vietnam and decisions made in Washington, D.C., set the United States on a course that would largely define the next decade and weigh heavily on American foreign policy to this day. What did and didn’t happen in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 and 4 has long been in dispute, but the decisions that the Johnson Administration and Congress made based on an interpretation of those events were undeniably monumental.
While many facts and details have emerged in the past 44 years to persuade most observers that some of the reported events in the Gulf never actually happened, key portions of the critical intelligence information remained classified until recently.
(excerpted: For a reality look at LBJ’s/?’s lies to Americans re the Gulf of Tonkin. Go to the link below:
http://www.historynet.com/case-closed-the-gulf-of-tonkin-incident.htm
Vietnam 1965: The Day It Became the Longest War
http://extendedremarks.blogspot.com/2006/12/vietnam-1965-day-it-became-longest-war.html
Thanks...
Why were we in Vietnam? To “fight communism?”
That’s what they told us . . . I still have no clear idea why
Nevertheless he (Johnson) harbored a natural—and correct—suspicion of his condescending and politically fickle old-time liberal Cold Warriors, especially the fixer Clark Clifford, the former whiz kid Robert McNamara, and the Brahmins Averell Harriman and the Bundy brothers. Yet when it most counted, LBJ ultimately yielded to their flawed, politically motivated reversals, and rejected the sounder realist assessments of his inner circle of Ellsworth Bunker, Dean Rusk, Walt Rostow, and Maxwell Taylor. ...
We talk today about “collusion” and “political interference” in our elections, without remembering that Johnson and his subordinates were past masters at it. Most White House discussions about the peace talks and their connection to bombing halts were predicated not just on military efficacy, but on what might play best to the Democratic anti-war base and could win back the American electorate in 1968.
Excellent critique of a Vietnam War book that covers the military and political sides of the war. Worthy of your time.
FR Index of his articles: Victor Davis Hanson on FR
Town Hall: Victor Davis Hanson on Town Hall
American Greatness: Victor Davis Hanson on American Greatness
His website: Victor Davis Hanson
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My dad was there 64 & 65 and he had the same comment. Ever since then our military have been hamstrung due to ROE and JAG threatening punishment.
As a 30-year JAG, I understand your perspective: however, we generally don’t make the rules, we just try to make them understandable. I will admit that too many young prosecutors get carried away. I was a prosecutor, defense counsel and SJA, among other things. We don’t have to agree with interpretations of the UCMJ, we just have to play by it.
Thanks for the ping.
I understand you group is in a difficult position at times and yes the UCMJ needs to be enforced. The real problem lies with the political back-seaters who try to control everything to the point hurting our military to fully operate effectively.
Thanks for your service.
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