South Vietnam was lost the day we decided we would withdraw.
This would be news to the North Vietnamese, who had to wait two long years to take Saigon. Without Watergate, South Vietnam would still be around today as an independent country. Heck, if we had withdrawn in 1953, South Korea would be part of unified communist Korea. Here's a table of US KIA by year:
| Country | Year of Death | Number Killed |
|---|---|---|
| USA[6] | ||
|
|
1956-1964 | 401 |
|
|
1965 | 1,863 |
|
|
1966 | 6,143 |
|
|
1967 | 11,153 |
|
|
1968 | 16,592 |
|
|
1969 | 11,616 |
|
|
1970 | 6,081 |
|
|
1971 | 2,357 |
|
|
1972 | 641 |
During the Tet offensive in 1968, the US lost over 3,000 men KIA, in a year that saw over 16,000 GI's KIA. During the Easter offensive in 1972, a major NVA conventional push, the US lost 641 KIA in the entire year. The war was winding down, and the North Vietnamese were beaten. But the Democrats couldn't stand to see their communist allies beaten, and made sure to hand victory to them on a plate by cutting aid to the South Vietnamese, at a time when the North Vietnamese were getting billions of dollars in shiny new equipment.