Why did the US Lose the Vietnam War?

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[shrinkermd]

The truth is often overlooked in a sea of lies and mischaracterizations. The truth is not someones opinion or away of looking at something, it is simply the truth.

Gen. Giap planned and directed military operations against the French and defeated them in 1954 in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The NVA under the command of Gen, Giap planned the now famed and offten lied about Tet Offensive against the United States in 1968. In his book Gen. Giap plainly shows that the NVA had few supplies and had been defeated in battle time and time again. The NVA moral was so low by 1968 that the Tet Offensive was the last hope of victory. Gen. Giap and the NVA saw the Tet offensive as a failure and were on their knees ready to surrender. At that time their were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casuaties and the war was about to end and the NVA were prepared to accept defeat when CBS news Anchor Walter Cronkite came on tv and proclaimed the NVA had won the Tet Offensive. The NVA were totaly suprised by this and the news that the U.S. embassy has been overrun. In reality, the NVA did'nt gain access to the embassy, there were some VC shot dead nearby. Futher reports told of riots and protests in the streets of America. According the the Gen. Giap, these distortions and lies inspired the NVA to fight on with the knowledge the protester in the U.S. would help hand them a victory they knew they could'nt win on the field of battle. Remember, at that time fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties. we lost because of lies and distortion of the plain truth by our media and those who use it for their own political gain. The lies and protesters actually prolonged the war and killed thousands more on both sides. Kinda sounds like The protest and media agenda for Irag does'nt it?

Here are some various opinion on why (and whether) the US lost the war in Vietnam:

1. We lost the war because of America's foreign policy. It was to stop the spread of Communism, not do be rid of it. They would have been able to destroy Communism in many different times like the Korean War. Lyndon B. Johnson didn't want to be rid of Communism because that would make us sound like an Empire again like with the Philipines in the Spanish American War and right now in Iraq. We lost the war because of forfeit. Johnson said no to being rid of Communism like Truman said no to McArthur in the Korean War. We had an open door and a 100% chance of destroying Communism, but we didn't have the permission.

2. The United States did lose the Vietnam War. They were not able to overthrow communism which was their aim as presented to the public. Pulling out is a loose term for admitting defeat. The VC were vastly superior in their tactics and numbers. They had cause to be at war, many of the GI's believed Americans did not. There is no denying it, America lost the Vietnam War.

3. The United States pulled out of the Vietnam war. We did not lose it. Technically, we were not at war, we were advisors but the Congressional approval to fight in Vietnam was not given. If anyone lost it was the people of Laos and Cambodia who came under Communist rule after the war.

4. Lack of interest. No one was that interested in stopping the Communists agression in the Far East. And as the war went on the cost in blood & treasure seemed extreme and fruitless. Didn't lose,just withdrew. We could have won a better deal on tungsten,rubber,chromium,China containment,security. You can't please everyone, but it helps. Kept going that long with the support of China, Russia & the U.S. allies. + the draft was ended c. 1970 that made the war more tolerable; then war crimes & napalm tuned off the rest.

5. The only reason the US lost was because we withdrew from there. The US won every battle but the Vietnamese were willing to sacrifice many more lives than the US.

6. They lost because the politicians did not let the military do their job. They made decisions that should have been made by generals. Politicians should not make tactical decisions.

7. The people of South Vietnam did not want to fight that war and the U.S.A. didn't want to fight that whole war for them without much help from them.

8. Some of these answers are so deluded. America lost the war in vietnam for various reasons. A few of the reasons are listed below, providing some idea of what happened in Vietnam even if it is a shallow overview: The US troops completely underestimated the VC,who were skilled jungle fighters, and also had mass peasant support. The American tactic 'search and destroy' increased VC support. As one soldier said "If they weren�t VC before we got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left"

9. I don't think that some of these answers were from deluded people. There are several reasons as to why we didn't win the war. There is truth in most of the answers given. True, we alienated a lot of the Vietnamese because of atrocities but we weren't the ones that were going into villages and disembowling the leaders or raping their women or taking a machette to babies. The VC did that. Yes, there were some unfortunate incidents like Me Lai but that is one incident compared to thousands of atrocities that the enemy soldiers did. Second, the US military was extremely handicapped by both the war planners and the US media. In order to make bombing runs we had to contact a war planner back in the States to get permission to make a bombing run. Then we were not allowed to bomb anything close to a civilian area no matter how strategically important it was because we were humane enough to want to not injure the North Vietnamese civilians. Were the North Vietnamese that concerned about not hurting anyone? Absolutley not. They had no compassion whatsoever. They placed no value whatsoever on human life. Sometimes when they would attack to try to overrun our bases the first wave of soldiers' purpose was to die on top the barbed wire perimeter so that their fellow comrades could walk over their bodies and enter the compound. They were so fanatical they would fight till the last man was dead. As far as the Vietcong being a skilled fighting force that is a crock. They were poor, not very well trained, deluded people who were virtually eliminated after they made a massive attempt in 1968 to take over the country. They were temporary successful but once the US military got to work, end of story. We literally slaughtered them. Then there is the US media who were probably the biggest traitors to the US cause and have a lot of our young men and womens blood on their hands. It seems so strange that when we would announce to the media that we were going to make a bombing run to a certain location that when the bombers would get there that the enemy soldiers would be gone. And the media also helped to stir up the anti-war movement back home thus being an ally of our own enemy. Right before we decided to pull out of the war we had the North close to surrendering. But you won't hear that from the news media. We had killed close to a million enemy soldiers.

10. The US did not lose the war. The Paris accords were signed and all but 1,500 U.S troops were still in Vietnam when Saigon fell. The reason Saigon fell was also the fact that the South Vietnamese Army was not willing to stand and fight for their own country.

11. America didnt lose the war in terms of politics. THe Paris Agreement states that the US won as troops were still in vietnam at the time. In terms of casualties and deaths, however, I think it was pretty equal going.

[shrinkermd]

How a person, especially a politician, answers this question determines how they see America and how they see the Iraq War.

[Jeff Head]

America did not lose the war militarily. We fought and bombed the North to the negotiating table where a peace was struck that was very favorable to the South and the US. We then began withdrawing and for all intents and purposes, the war had been won.

Then, two years later, the North violated their own treaty and invaded.

We simple did not re-engage and continued a percipitous withdrawal.

It was a shameful display by our politicians. We lost politically as almost all of the enemy leaders wrote in their memoirs, even though they admitted to losing time and again, and abjectly, militarily on the battlefield.

It has taken us decades to overcome it and now we have a candidate who wants to repeat the same mistake again.

[Uncle Miltie]

Democrat Congress defunded South Vietnam, and it fell.

[calex59]

Bull Sh**. The only answer to this is that the US did NOT lose the war. The politicians forced a withdrawal on us. The Vietcong was done, we won but the MSM lied and more soldiers died. There are no various answers, only one truthful answer. The US was betrayed by the left wing media and by communist a**hats such as Jane Fonda. I was there, I lived through it. Tout your “it depends on your point of view” somewhere else. We lost because the frickin’ communist traitors here in the US forced it on us.

[xDGx]

ABC, CBS, NBC, NYT...

[shrinkermd]

Yes, I agree, but the conventional wisdom is we did lose the VietNam War. The MSM, colleges, universities and many others frequently refer to the war as lost, and I would guess that this has convinced the majority of the population of this view.

[Uncle Miltie]

An embittered and tearful President Thieu resigned on the same day, declaring that the United States had betrayed South Vietnam. In a scathing attack on the US, he suggested U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had tricked him into signing the Paris peace agreement two years ago, promising military aid which then failed to materialise.

"At the time of the peace agreement the United States agreed to replace equipment on a one-by-one basis," he said. "But the United States did not keep its word. Is an American's word reliable these days?" He continued, "The United States did not keep its promise to help us fight for freedom and it was in the same fight that the United States lost 50,000 of its young men."[121]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

[crazydad]

God bless you my friend. My dad was also there and it was with him till the day he died. The only answer is the Communist left and the media. Walter Kronasswipe.

[yarddog]

There was a program about Dien Bien Phu on TV several years ago. I had never really studied the battle and still don't know that much about it.

There is one thing about it which struck me as the only thing that mattered. The French were out numbered something like 100 to 1 and fought about as well as any soldiers have ever fought. The Communists were not brilliant or brave or anything heroic. They simply overwhelmed the French. After they won, they then demonstrated real brutality toward their victims.

[pipecorp]

Amen.

[DuncanWaring]

The reason Saigon fell was also the fact that the South Vietnamese Army was not willing to stand and fight for their own country.

The reason Saigon fell was also the fact that the South Vietnamese Army had no arms with which to fight for their own country, courtesy of the US Congress controlled by Democrats reneging on treaty obligations.

[Uncle Miltie]

Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on August 9, 1974 after President Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal. At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war. Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976.

[WalterSkinner]

Lose the Vietnam War?

..the only thing we lost in Viet Nam was a propaganda war.

We simply withdrew and the political left made sure that the Communists defeated S. Viet Nam--We Did Not Lose...

[shrinkermd]

Thank you for your service in time of war. My DEROS was 17 May 1969. I have never thought we lost, but almost everyone I know professionally does believe we lost.

If the MSM wanted truth, they could ask Senators McCain and Obama whether they believe the US lost the VietNam War. That would be an answer worth listening to.

[RightWhale]

The Vietnam War was a win.

The purpose was to stop the advance of Communism. North Vietnam could have been taken in any given three week period, but that was not the purpose.

Communism stopped right there. The Leftists and Fellow Travellers never saw that and still don’t.

[stylin19a]

12. We lost the war because John Kerry only stayed 3 months. Had he stayed the full tour of duty, he would have won the war by himself.

[Uncle Miltie]

"The Vietnam War was a win. Communism stopped right there."

A few million Cambodians would care to disagree:

Oh yeah, they can't.

[KingSnorky]

The question should be, “How did the US lose the Vietnam War after winning it?”

Answer: the commie-symp Congress

[KrisKrinkle]

Give the man a cigar—as long as it’s not a Cuban cigar.

[calex59]

Thank you for your service in time of war. My DEROS was 17 May 1969. I have never thought we lost, but almost everyone I know professionally does believe we lost. If the MSM wanted truth, they could ask Senators McCain and Obama whether they believe the US lost the VietNam War. That would be an answer worth listening to.

God bless you for your service. I know we never lost. Thanks for your support.