Examining Myths of the Vietnam War

http://www.viet-myths.net/ ^ | Stephen Sherman

[siddude]

"The Vietnam War was mis-reported by the Media, mis-recorded by the Historians, mis-taught in our schools and mis-applied in addressing policy decisions. MMMM should replace UUUU as our recognition symbol."

[zot]

Thanks for the ping. I might be able to help with a little piece of it though I'm an awfully slow typist.

[kabar]

Boston Manifesto

[Big Horn]

IMHO Iraq is trying to drag it out until the politics in the US demand to pull out. The same thing happened in Nam.
We kicked butt on the ground.

[Eva]

Eisenhower warned Kennedy not to expand our participation in the conflict in Vietnam. Eisenhower knew even then, that our involvement was a mistake, that the situation had the potential to spiral out of control. But Kennedy didn't listen.

That said, it could have shortened the cold war considerably if the press and joined hands with the Democrats to blame the whole mess on Nixon and abandon our obligations.

[potlatch]

Thanks for the ping I.T.!

[devolve]

Bump

[E.G.C.]

BTTT

[FreedomPoster]

Excellent post.

As an aside on, Leftists *hate* getting Rummel thrown in their faces. They have little response to those cold hard numbers, in my experience.

And you are entirely correct, they steadfastly refuse to admit the American Left's complicity in the bloodbath the befell Vietnam and Cambodia after the fall of Saigon.

[Hardastarboard]

McNamara was a fool,

McNamara was a fool,

Bears repeating. He was one of the "Whiz Kids" at (I believe) Ford, who believed in management by the numbers. That works pretty well in business. It was a miserable failure in Viet Nam, where there are so many other factors that were unquantifiable.

MacManara always thought that he could tell the progress of the war by the body count ratio (remember those?). The problem is, just like "employees" everywhere, the "employees" gave him what he wanted - huge enemy body counts with no basis in reality.

[word_warrior_bob]

My cousin told me a lot of guys would hide, fire their guns in the air for a while, and then HEAD COUNT!

Yeah, I got five.

I think I got eight.

And so on.

[daku]

born in 1960,
I've never believed a word the hippies said, then or since

[ChessExpert]

I just followed your final link:

http://www.viet-myths.net/AimImpact.wmv

I watched the video. (At home, I found it best not to pause or rewind, but just to play through).

It is an excellent video that shows how the press misled the American people on the war in Vietnam. I think this is must viewing for all Americans. Simply put, the press cannot be trusted. There is every likelihood that the press will lose this war, as it lost Vietnam. Some three to four million people were murdered as a result of the communist victory in South East Asia. John Kerry said "only" around 30,000 would be killed. I have the sense to know that I don't know the future, but it is certainly possible that losing our current war will enable us much murder, and it could be the murder of Americans.

[DaoPian]

I’ll ask again (but please don’t answer, becuase I’m done with this conversation) - what did we gain from Vietnam? More than 50,000 American (and millions of Vietnamese) dead - for what?

A good read for this guy.