Posted on 01/13/2008 8:57:58 AM PST by Red6
About 11:30 Central Time (History Channel)
As my wife was sitting in our study grading papers I happened to walk in. On the TV was a show about the Vietnam war and it immediately struck me when some self proclaimed expert stated that the “Domino Theory” which was used as a justification for continuance of intervention was hand waved away and the pundit literally stated: “As we all know today, that didn’t occur.”
Excuse me? Does this guy have a clue about what happened in Cambodia? What happened in Laos? Or who attacked Thailand? Who has naval bases in Vietnam to this day? Does this expert know who was backing Pol Pot? Does he understand why Thailand (The last domino) didn't fall even though attacked? Why the largest Soviet/Russian naval base outside the Soviet Union is in Vietnam: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1964253.stm
But not all the Dominoes fell. Indonesia, Malaysia, and even the Philippines did not. Burma didn't fall, but still suffered mightily, and continues to suffer today.
We didn't flee Vietnam. We left in an orderly manner in 1972 after defeating the Viet Cong and NVA and forcing them to sign favorable peace accords.
Don't confuse film clips of evacuating our embassy in Saigon three years late as "we fled".
We won that war, pure and simple, and left. Later the Democrats refused to fund an enforcement of the peace accords and the communists were allowed to overrun much of S.E. Asia.
It’s the Hystery channel, now.
The Vietnam war was an American victory. Vast amounts of Soviet, and some Chinese, resources were diverted to Indochina which was relatively underdeveloped compared to other parts of Southeast Asia. Communist efforts were metastasized onto the battleground chosen by U.S. planners. Though the true strategy was not part of Lyndon Johnson’s public rhetoric the plan was to pin down the communists in Vietnam long enough for other non-communist states to fortify themselves. The Vietnam War bought time for and relieved insurgent pressure on Malaysia, Indonesia, Burma, Thailand, the Philippines and South Korea.
In the end, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were expendable if the rest of the region could be denied to the Soviets and the Chinese. However, when Richard Nixon became president in 1969 he decided Indochina didn’t have to be conceded. After bombing the North Vietnamese into submission Nixon gradually replaced U.S. forces with RVN forces, created a policy to end the draft, and traveled to the U.S.S.R. and China to try and secure some degree of cooperation.
The events after Watergate led to Nixon’s resignation and emboldened Congressional Democrats to sabotage more than a decade of U.S. efforts and sacrifice. In 1975, led by a pro-communist cabal of senators including McGovern, Kennedy, Church and Bayh, Congress cut off all funding and U.S. military support to South Vietnam. In a few months the country fell to the Soviet-backed North Vietnamese. This led to decades of genocide and brutal repression.
He may have been a good guy, or not. His father and Grandfather were Admirals, his father was on submarines during WW-II, while his grandfather was already an Admiral then. The father later became a flier. It would have been better if John Sidney McCain III had gone into subs instead of Naval aviation... he was near the bottom of his Academy class and he was a terrible pilot. He was a reverse ace, he lost 5 Navy aircraft. Admittedly that includes the one he was shot down in, and one that was lost on the deck of the Forrestal through no fault of his, he just happened to be there when someone else screwed up, big time. Still if Daddy and Grandpa hadn't been Admirals, he'd not have been in the cockpit to lose numbers 4 and 5, after having lost 1,2, and 3.
>>>>But not all the Dominoes fell. Indonesia, Malaysia, and even the Philippines did not. Burma didn’t fall,
Indonesia wiped out the PKI in the 60’s, and banned and exiled its leaders until very recently. Thailand fought a domestic Communist insurgency for decades.
Doesn't surprise me. I saw a History Channel crapumentary on Castro and the HC was practically giving him a "Lewinsky".
A minor technicality. By refusing to aid our sworn allies the South Vietnamese (thanks to Ted Kennedy and others), the appearance uf us fleeing the scene is all the more real.
Glass houses.. stones. Since the Battle of New Orleans was fought after the War of 1812 officially ended, although word had not made it to the forces in the field, you know it had to be at least 1812, even if one cannot remember the exact date, as I cannot, without looking it up. Which is easy these days. The battles in Louisiana occurred in December of 1814 and January of 1815. Of course if I'd thought a moment, the words to the song would have come to me .."In 1814 we took a little trip.." of course I'd still have checked.
Than was crounough, the guy Robin Williams played in good morning vietnam. BTW, I told my wife the same thing.
>>>Boy, was I wrong, and I didn’t realize it until the Professor introduced himself at the beginning of the course and proudly boasted he was a draft dodger during the Vietnam War
Sounds awful. I had a 20th Cent History course taught by a retiree from the USIA (US Information Agency), and he’d been posted in Saigon. So it wasn’t too tragic, he had lots of great stories to tell and was the opposite of “antiwar” (like the discussion of operational Nike sites around DC Metro). Once he brought in a Soviet Embassy staffer for a classroom Q&A, and I could swear I’ve subsequently seen that same guy identified on one of the history shows (TLC,HC, ??) as being a quasi-notorious KGB agent.
Only to a mentality akin to Dan Rather's.
Fine, you are correct, we won the Vietnam war. But it wasn’t over yet.
One of the best( not perfect) films on Viet Nam I’ve seen is “Viet Nam, The 10,000 day warâ€. It was played on PBS years ago, but I have been unable to find it anywhere since. I’ve checked the library, Ebay, Internet, ect. It’s like it never existed. It was something like 13 1 hr episodes. I thought Time-Life books might have done it in writing. They showed the NV leaders on camera saying they were losing the war but they hung on because of Jane Fonda and the anti war left. They named names and showed footage of Kerry and the left. They showed the VVAW in Paris and other stories of the commies in America. If anyone knows where top find it, I would be interested.
I have the book. It’s a very good book.
Very highly recommended reading. Tells the history you'll never hear. And completely validates the domino theory. South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Indonesia, and the Phillipines (among many more SE Asia countries) had active communist movements, all held at bay the the US taking action.
History channel is still spreading the debunked fiction that the US army deliberately spread small pox to the Indians. (Ward Churchill made that up and it has since been proven false)
Only response i make is not to watch them anymore. Just cause everyone lies, doesn’t make it right. For me, credibility means alot and the History Channel has forfieted theirs.
Ping
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