Posted on 05/23/2023 11:42:37 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Henry Kissinger turns 100 on May 27. How should he be remembered?
For me, he is the American who, more than any other individual, lost the Vietnam War.
But today Kissinger is a demigod among our foreign policy elite. National Security Adviser and Secretary of State under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, Kissinger ranks in the top echelon of notable Americans. On issues like the war in Ukraine and even artificial intelligence, our elite wants to know: "What does Henry recommend?"
Kissinger's rise to eminence began with his secret negotiation of the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement ostensibly ending the Vietnam War with peace and freedom for the people of South Vietnam.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
I think Walter Cronkite had more to do with it than Kissinger.
Thanks for posting this excellent summary re Vietnam:
“The headline is 100% inaccurate.
There is exactly one group responsible for the loss of Vietnam and that was the leftist democrats, who took control of Congress and refused any aid to South Vietnam after Nixon was removed from office.
Nixon had bombed and mined the North Vietnamese into submission he had a peace agreement which guaranteed South Vietnam’s security.
After Nixon resigned, Congress cut off all aid to South Vietnam even though the North launched a full scale tank assault in violation of the peace agreement.
President Ford went on television pleading for Congress to provide equipment to the South Vietnamese.
Their refusal also led to the murder of millions in Cambodia and to hundreds of thousands of boat people fleeing South East Asia. Many more were placed in Communist concentration camps.
America could desperately use its deep water naval port at Cam Ranh Bay against the Chinese, but the short sightedness of leftists and defeatists denied us that, as well as denying our allies freedom.
100% The whole thing goes on Tip O’Neil’s shoulders.
Kissinger didn’t “lose” Vietnam, the Rat Congress did.
Kissinger and Nixon did support the Pakistani genocide against Bangladesh, the most shameful episode in American foreign policy in my lifetime. So I would say that Henry is a thoroughly amoral man who I do not respect.
“Their refusal also led to the murder of millions in Cambodia”
I guess you don’t know which army it was that ended the genocide in Cambodia.
“Their refusal also led to the murder of millions in Cambodia...”
And Laos.
Confirming the “Domino Theory” that the leftists say was an imaginary fear.
“President Ford went on television pleading for Congress to provide equipment to the South Vietnamese.”
Even with all the support in the world the South Vietnamese army was going to crumble.
Any equipment sent over would merely have been gifts to the communists once they took over.
Bottom line: We should have never been there. Fast forward 40 years and we undertook the same stupidity in Iraq.
That’s the part most don’t know...
Vietnam was also about keeping china out of that port...
JFK was a disaster.
.
I don’t wish death on people.
Henry Kissinger is one of those that come very close to the edge.
What he lost was Taiwan.
“JFK was a disaster.”
“Camelot” was noting but a stinking turd sprayed with perfumed glitter.
I remember McNamara did his share.
Thanks for clearing that up. Democrats de-funded the defense of South Vietnam.
Johnson, McNamara, Nixon, and Kissinger all agreed that the war was in winnable. A waste of time and life defending a corrupt puppet regime with the help of the incompetent ARVN.
I thought Cronkite declared the war “lost” all by himself after Tet.
We never shut down the harbor, never destroyed Hanoi, never flooded their fields..... but the geniuses from the Ivy League and the McNamara number crunchers just KNEW how to fight a war.... it's all numbers doncha know... f'ing pathetic.
We had learned from the Brits in Singapore and the French how to actually wage a counter insurgency but nobody had the stomach for it.
I'm just saving a bottle of my best Macallan single malt whisky.. for Jane Fonda's attempt to hold her breath for eternity and assuming room temperature. I raise a glass to my father who served near Da Nang and was wounded in Chu Li.
I believe that quagmire was started under the previous administration.
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