Divided We Fall

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | Aug. 15, 2006 | James Rothrock

[Interesting Times]

FP: James Rothrock, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Rothrock: It’s an honor to be here.

FP: So tell us a bit about what inspired you to write this book.

Rothrock: I served in Vietnam and lived through the tumultuous antiwar years. I have always been troubled by those in the antiwar movement who undermined their own country, subverted the nation’s war effort, and tarnished the image of the American servicemen who served their country, many of whom gave their all.

I still remember the day I returned from Vietnam and was told to change into civilian clothes before proceeding off base. Unfortunately, my short hair and polished shoes gave me away, and I received the wrath of the antiwar crazies at the first bus stop—not a very heartwarming reception after spending a year in Vietnam away from my family, fighting for the freedom of those who were harassing me and calling me foul names. So in writing my book, I wanted to tell the true story of the antiwar movement, especially the grave damage it did to the nation and the men and women who served in Vietnam. Hopefully some of the current crop of antiwar activists will learn from it.

FP: Tell us about North Vietnam’s political warfare strategy and how it met its objectives.

Rothrock: In the war with the United States and South Vietnam, the Communists in North Vietnam drew on the tried and proven Maoist strategy that employed parallel and closely integrated armed and political struggles. Programs were tailored for action against the military and civilians in enemy territory, against the people in “liberated” areas and in the world arena. The political struggle for America on a strategic level was directed at shaping public opinion and undermining support for the war, and on the tactical level to limit the use of American power in the war.

The best evidence of North Vietnam's strategy to use political warfare is outlined in a 1966 Secret North Vietnamese document captured by the U.S. Army. This document outlined in great detail the policies and guidance for carrying out a broad and aggressive political war campaign on a worldwide scale. Specific programs and objectives were identified for each of the various areas of the world, such as Africa, Latin America, Asia, socialist countries, and the United States and its allies. The United States was singled out for special treatment. It is noteworthy to quote a few brief examples of the actions directed at the United States.

“In capitalist countries, such as the United States, we always keep abreast of the American people’s opinions and try to motivate youths, intellectuals and religious sects to protest the war of aggression waged by their government in Vietnam. At the same time, we motivate families of the US troops dispatched to Vietnam to protest the sending of troops.”

“Make every effort to persuade the people of America and its satellites to support us, to oppose the US Government’s aggressive policy, and to exploit the anti-war spirit of American and satellite soldiers in the South.”

“Motivate the American people against the [US] crimes, and request an end to the war of aggression in South Vietnam. Every effort should be made to motivate soldiers’ dependents to launch anti-war demonstrations…”

The political war against America had the objective of undermining support for the war at home, kindling a widespread, worldwide anti-war movement, and enlisting support from around the world to isolate and oppose the United States and its allies fighting in South Vietnam.

FP: There was a façade during the Vietnam war that a “civil war” was being fought in the South. Right?

Rothrock: Yes. The greatest and most enduring myth about the war in Vietnam is that it was a civil war. North Vietnam held on to this thinly veiled façade throughout the war, in spite of obvious, overwhelming evidence of their direct involvement and control of the war.

After the Geneva Accords of 1954 drew the line between North and South Vietnam at the 17th parallel, Ho Chi Minh moved thousands of his Viet-Minh fighters to the North, but left behind a few thousand of his loyal communist cadre. These fighters formed the nucleus of the insurgency that was to follow. They were soon joined by former Viet-Minh fighters who infiltrated from the North. Before long whole units of the North Vietnamese Army were operating in the South.

Following the 1959 decision of North Vietnam’s Communist Party Central Committee to launch an armed insurrection in South Vietnam, infiltration into the South was accelerated. In 1968 alone, 229,000 troops were infiltrated from the North. Traffic on the Ho Chi Minh Trail became so congested that the trail had to be widened to accommodate larger trucks. Rest stops, fueling stations and antiaircraft batteries were established along the route and a fuel pipeline was built from North Vietnam deep into South Vietnam.

The façade of the a civil war began to crumble as the 1972 Easter Offensive unfolded with multiple divisions of the North Vietnamese Army pouring across the 17th Parallel backed by hundreds of Soviet tanks, artillery pieces, surface-to-air missile batteries and helicopters. A similar but much larger force invaded South Vietnam in 1975, eventually marching into Saigon.

The civil war myth was perpetuated by the antiwar factions in America all the way to the end of the war and beyond. Even today some will argue that is was a civil war and we should have stayed out of it.

Le Duan, Ho Chi Minh’s successor, finally put an end to the civil war façade in his victory speech in 1975 following the surrender of South Vietnam. He announced, “Our party is the unique and single leader that organized, controlled, and governed the entire struggle of the Vietnamese people from the first day of the revolution.”

FP: Share your thoughts with us on the antiwar movement and the impact it had on the war. What is the true legacy of the antiwar movement?

You also discussed the impact of the antiwar movement with the former North Vietnamese Army officer, Colonel Bui Tin, who was once on Ho Chi Minh’s personal staff and was the senior North Vietnamese officer in Saigon who accepted the surrender of South Vietnam. Tell us about that experience and what you learned from it as well please.

Rothrock: The most incredible aspect of the antiwar movement is that so many could have been misled by so few. A handful of hard core activists were able to attract a following that grew into tens of thousands.

The antiwar movement spawned a wide variety of organizations on the local, regional and national levels, with political leanings ranging from left of center to far left. Many of the organizations were infiltrated by communists of various stripes. The Communist Party of the USA and the Young Socialist Alliance of the Socialist Workers Party actively infiltrated the antiwar organizations and attempted to gain key leadership positions.

The goals of the antiwar groups covered the full spectrum of extremes, but most had the short term goal of ending the war by any means, even if it meant defeat for the United States and all of Southeast Asia. The longer range goal for many was a revolution in the United States to tear down the existing government along with the evil capitalist system and replace it with some form of a socialist (communist) system.

In addition to the massive demonstrations against the war organized by the various antiwar groups, a number of activists traveled to Hanoi and met with North Vietnamese officials, giving them encouragement to carry on in the face of battlefield defeats. Some made broadcasts from Hanoi aimed at our servicemen fighting in the South in an attempt to undermine their support of the war. The most despicable act of the travelers to North Vietnam was their meetings with our POWs. This often resulted in torture to force the POWs to cooperate and say the right things. When the activists returned home, they made false and harmful reports about the “humane” treatment of the POWs and their “comfortable” living conditions.

The antiwar activists were so successful in undermining the war effort that the North Vietnamese considered them a second front for their side. Many of the leaders in Hanoi, including Ho Chi Minh, himself, and Premier Pham Van Dong, sent messages of praise and appreciation to the antiwar groups.

The accomplishments claimed by the antiwar activists include shortening the war, preventing more killing, aiding the POWs and their families and bringing them home sooner. Nothing is further from the truth.

The true legacy of the antiwar activists is that they became a major weapon in Hanoi’s arsenal. They encouraged the enemy to hold out in the face of numerous military defeats, thus prolonging the war by several years. The massive demonstrations in our streets and the disunity around the country weakened our negotiating leverage, giving the North Vietnamese a great advantage at the peace talks. Visits to Hanoi by activists caused grave hardship and suffering of our POWs, while at home the activists caused anguish and torment of the POWs’ families. In prolonging the war by several years thousands of U.S. troops died needlessly and even greater numbers of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians perished. Finally, the antiwar critics contributed immeasurably to our defeat and the fall of South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia to the Communists. They share in the responsibility for the mass killings that followed and the subjugation of millions of people to this day.

Turning to your question about my talk with the former North Vietnamese Colonel Bui Tin, we met at a symposium at the Texas Tech Vietnam Center in 2003. Meeting face-to-face with a former enemy was a very surreal experience. He proved to be a very poised and astute individual. My interest was in learning how the leaders in Hanoi viewed the antiwar movement in the U.S. and how it influenced their strategy and thinking about the war. He spoke of how the leaders in Hanoi paid close attention to the antiwar movement in America and watched what was happening every day. He emphasized that the leaders in Hanoi were heartened by the support of the antiwar activists in opposing the war and viewed them as another army fighting on their side.

FP: So what is the real lesson of Vietnam? And what can that lesson teach us today in our war with Islamist terror?

Rothrock: The real lesson of the Vietnam War is that disunity leads to defeat. It is impossible to win a war when large segments of the population are undermining the war effort and the will of the people. A well known American statesman, Dr. Henry Kissinger, recently validated this thesis in August 2005 when he stated on CNN, “In Vietnam we defeated ourselves with domestic divisions.” If we fail to heed this lesson we are destined for more Vietnams. The divisions over Iraq and the weakening of support for that war indicate that we could be sliding in that direction again. The failure to recognize and unite against terrorism will be viewed as weakness and will embolden the terrorists.

John Dickinson said it best: “Then join hand in hand, brave Americans all! By uniting we stand, by dividing we fall.”

FP: James Rothrock, it was a pleasure to speak with you.

Rothrock: Thank you. The pleasure was all mine.

[Interesting Times]

Interview with Lt. Col. James Rothrock (ret.), author of Divided We Fall, an excellent new book analyzing how we lost the Vietnam War at home despite our victories on the battlefield.

[Interesting Times]

Know your enemy within ping...

[Hawk1976]

We have a fifth column in America that is mind numbingly large. We also have far too many useful idiots.

The fifth column acitvely tries to mae words like faith, patriotism, duty, honor, service, and self-sacrifice into dirty words uttered by those who just don't "get it".

While there are many good citizens yet, I tremble for the future of my country. No country can tolerate subversives for long.

[68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub]

"Interview with Lt. Col. James Rothrock (ret.), author of Divided We Fall, an excellent new book analyzing how we lost the Vietnam War at home despite our victories on the battlefield."


Too bad that because Nixon failed to uphold the law,
we are still stuck with Hanoi Jane and Hanoi Kerry.
If Nixon hadn't caved into the minority anti-war crowd
and listened to the Silent Majority
Hanoi Jane AND Hanoi Kerry
would have been prosecuted for their treason in the 70's,
while Nixon was still President.

Keep in mind that Nixon was directly involved in Viet Nam,
as Vice President, going back to at least 1955.

26 Sep 1945 - The first death of an American serviceman in Vietnam occurred.
OSS (Office of Special Operations) Major (Lieutenant Colonel) A. Peter Dewey
was killed in action by the Communist Vietminh near Hanoi.
May 1950 President Harry S Truman authorised $10 million in aid to the French for their war in Viet Nam.
By January 1951, $150 million had been given in aid.
1953-61 Dwight D. Eisenhower 34th US President
1953-61 Richard M. Nixon Vice President
1953 - The US is supporting the French in the amount of $1 billion per year--
33% of all US foreign aid--which is 80% of the total cost to the
. US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles (under Eisenhower) first voices the 'Domino Theory':
if one country in Southeast Asia falls to the Communists, they will all fall, one by one.

12 Feb 55 - President Eisenhower's administration sends 1st 350 U.S. advisers to South Vietnam
to train the South Vietnamese Army

8 Jun 56 - The first American of record to die in Vietnam
under the Eisenhower and Nixon administration
was Air Force Tech Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon Jr.
His son, Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, died in Vietnam Sep 7, 1965.
8 Jun 56 Has been formally recognized by the Pentagon as the first American officially to die in that war.

5 Sep 56 - President Eisenhower tells a news conference that the French are
"involved in a hopelessly losing war in Indochina" 1956 The US believed in that Ho Chi Minh would have won any election held in Viet Nam and used their influence over the government of the State of Viet Nam to ensure that the election was not held



From a Must Visit Site
Vipers Vietnam Veterans Page, A Vietnam Veteran & Proud Web Site
About Vietnam

The Vietnam war was the longest in our nation's history.
1st American advisor was killed on June 08, 1956,
and the last casualties in connection with the war occurred on May 15, 1975, during the Mayaquez incident. Approximately 2.7 million Americans served in the war zone; 300,000 were wounded and approximately 75,000 permanently disabled. Officially there are still 1,991 Americans unaccounted for from SE Asia.

Vietnam was a savage, in your face war where death could and did strike from anywhere with absolutely no warning. The brave young men and women who fought that war paid an awful price of blood, pain and suffering. As it is said: "ALL GAVE SOME ... SOME GAVE ALL"
The Vietnam war was not lost on the battlefield. No American force in ANY other conflict fought with more determination or sheer courage than the Vietnam Veteran.  For the first time in our history America sent it's young men and women into a war run by inept politicians who had no grasp of military strategies and no moral will to win. They were led by "top brass" who were concerned mainly with furthering their own careers, most neither understood the nature of the war nor had a clue about the impossible mission with which they'd tasked their soldiers.  And the war was reported by a self serving Media who penned stories filled with inaccuracies, deliberate omissions, biased presentations and blatant distorted interpretations because they were more interested in a story than the truth! It can be debated that we should never have fought that war. It can also be argued that the young Americans who fought so courageously, never losing a single major battle, helped in a huge way to WIN THE COLD WAR.

[R. Scott]

So in writing my book, I wanted to tell the true story of the antiwar movement, especially the grave damage it did to the nation and the men and women who served in Vietnam. Hopefully some of the current crop of antiwar activists will learn from it.

A good read, but I doubt the book will change the minds of the American leftists – even those that bother reading the book.

[Smartass]

OUR BATTLEGROUND IS RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES

---

Amended

From FoxNews: Judge Rules Terrorist Surveillance Program Unconstitutional.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, which involves secretly listening to conversations between people in the U.S. and people in other countries.

The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

It should be noted that joining the ACLU in the suit was CAIR.
Note: CAIR, is the "Council on American Islamic Relations."

 

 

 

[GreyFriar]

Thanks for the post. I'll relay this to my friends at work and get the book.

[uncbob]

WE lost in Vietnam because neither Johnson or Nixon had the balls to win the war

[RVN Airplane Driver]

Thanks for the post....I fear we are walking down that same road again...and this time the consequences are going to be grave. I think it can safely be said that living under a Nazi victory in WWII would have be far more preferable than trying to live under the barbarians in the ME.... I have told some of my buddies that helping out with the "killin" in Vietnam really was just a job....they weren't a threat to my family. However if I could wake up tomorrow and do the same in Iraq...(the ME) I believe I would flat out enjoy it.....hell I know I would!!

[bitt]

what do we do, start calling even the leftist senators, demanding that they help knock over this judge's ruling?

I want to protect my family and my country.

[seasoned traditionalist]

As a Vietnam Vet, this is far from new for those of us who experienced this first hand, nevertheless, even after 40 years, the pain is never far from the recesses of our minds.

There is no way to gauge just how much damage these Antiwar traitors (and I do not use the word lightly and reserve this distinction, not for the average duped and misguided demonstrator, but for those like John "The Snake" Kerry, who were well aware of exactly what they were doing) did, not only in prolonging the war and in fact, as outlined herein, in contributing to our withdrawing--NOT LOSING--but the longterm affects for most of us Vietnam Vets, cannot be expressed or measured with any degree of accuracy. Suffice it to say, it was extensive, horrendous and VERY, long-lasting.

Most of us Nam Vets, chose to ignore the shame and disgrace which was heaped upon us merely for serving our country honorably, by refusing to admit that we served in that War and more often than not, even denied same.

I KNOW, that I was not alone in when having been graduated from a prestigious college in Vermont with a degree in Business (Cum Laude) with in fact, business and management experience, and after submitting over 50 resumes to different companies, I did not get so much as ONE offer for an interview, I removed any reference to Vietnam, and SHAZAM, within 30 days, I not only had interviews, but several job offers.

Coincidence? Perhaps. However, I am more inclined to believe that as we were ALL tainted and painted with the same broad brush of being dope-smoking-crazed-baby-killing-psychopaths and worse, it is no small wonder (and I bear no ill will to those who bought into that stereotypical prejudice after all, it was proffered, repeated and advanced, many well known and respected individuals including, none other than a genuine "hero" with a chestful of medals who perjured himself, all the while, having betrayed his country and was a true traitor--JFK) that so many considered most of us as being what we were portrayed.

It was not until JFK made his Vietnam service an issue and that many of us, led by the Swift Boat heroes, slowly began to "come out of the closet," and we gained a modicum of respect and admiration (finally) from a begrudging and slightly enlightened populace.

Less anyone doubt that the Vietnam Veterans Against War (Kerry's buddies on whose back he rode his little known name to popularity and elected office) has faded into the sunset, simply got to their web site and see how they are now (and has been suggested they instrumental in helping organize) supporting the Iraq Vets Against War.

Every night (and Sundays when I go to Church) I pray that JFK will run again in 08 for while we bruised him and were instrumental in his defeat, this time, we will truly expose him/them and in addition, drive a stake through his heart (and all the rest of the phony, lying, deceiving, traitorous, fellow travelers) and bury him/them once and for all.

Sorry, all for the rant, but in case no one noticed, this do get my metabolism going, so now for my meds to calm me down--a couple of nice CC & Ginger. LOL

[Smartass]

The answer lies directly in the U.S. Constitution.
Ex U.S. Congressman Tom DeLay was heavily criticized for making the statement of, that we need to start impeaching our judges. Every left wing apologizer came out of the woodwork to pile on him, when in fact he was more correct than wrong. The power to govern the judiciary is right in front of everyones nose, they just have to get over the "judicial independence" crap that the left keeps carping on. "Judicial independence" is nowhere to found in the U.S. Constitution, but impeachment is.

Until some brass balled Congressman/woman or Senator raises all kinds of hell, nothing will ever happen, and we will surely fall under judicial tyranny (if we aren't there already now.) A golden opportunity was recently opened in the bizarre SCOTUS ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, imminent domain. IMO, the record show, that five judges, by changing one word, rewrote the U.S. Constitution (usurpation, because the injury was to the people). There was no outrage from the other two branches of government. The five SCT Judges should have been given an opportunity to revisit their ruling, or face impeachment. Neither happened.   Enough said.

 

[ladyinred]

I share in your views. Well said.

[potlatch]

Thanks for pings

[Interesting Times]

Great post... thanks.

[peeps36]

It's even worse when the traitors know they are helping the enemy win.The government hasn't done a thing to stop the traitors from undermining the troops on the battlefield.A scumbag like Cindy Sheehen should be rotting in prison,not flying her fat ass around the world on trips that are financed by our enemies.She would be swinging from a tree if this was the 1940s.

[Smartass]

Good job on that one Potlatch...

:o)

 

[potlatch]

Thankyou SmartA, saw your good slideshow post too!

[devolve]

[potlatch]

LOL, very impressive devolve, you didn't leave anyone out!

Rush is 'twinkling' at you!