South Vietnam: Worthy Ally? (General Creighton Abrams Reassessing the ARVN)

thehistorynet ^ | 3-15-03 | Lewis Sorley

[SJackson]

Also published as Reassessing the ARVN

Worth thinking about at this time of shifting alliances.

[SJackson]

For your list?

[SolutionsOnly]

Hmmm. This is timely.

[vbmoneyspender]

BTTT.

[SJackson]

If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.

[vbmoneyspender]

Former Viet Cong Colonel Pham Xuan An described in 1990 his immense disillusionment with what a Communist victory had meant to Vietnam. "All that talk about Â`liberation' twenty, thirty, forty years ago," he lamented, "produced this, this impoverished, broken-down country led by a gang of cruel and paternalistic half-educated theorists."

I have always wondered if the VC understood how they were used during Tet. The North Vietnamese purposefully used them as shock troops so that they would take the brunt of the fighting (and attendant casualties) and thereby leave the way open for North Vietname to dominate the South once the war was won. And this is not the first war in which the Communists have employed this tactic. In Spain, Stalin's thugs spent almost as much going after heretical leftists as they did going after Falangists. Likewise, the Soviets employed a similar tactic in WWII when the paused their assault on Warsaw in order to give the Nazis sufficient time to finish off the Polish resistance.

[SJackson]

"All that talk about Â`liberation' twenty, thirty, forty years ago," he lamented, "produced this, this impoverished, broken-down country led by a gang of cruel and paternalistic half-educated theorists."

Funny, I read this in print this morning, then found it on the web from a different source, but I keyed on the same quote you did. Couldn't fit it in the tag line, FR needs to expand that.

I have always wondered if the VC understood how they were used during Tet.

Who knows, for those who survived, it didn't matter, they were finished. But Uncle Ho knew how to snatch victory from defeat, on the backs of those he was "liberating", and with a little help from his foreign "friends". A familiar theme.

[elbucko]

Then, recalled Clarke, "within a few days of our visit to the White House a presidential aide called me to say the President had released 100,000 M-16 rifles to ARVN."

This is an excellent, detailed example of the extremely poor management of the V'Nam War by Lyndon Johnson.

The then issue, M-14 rifle, was a heavy kicking brute, compared to the M-16. To see some of the diminutive Asian soldiers struggle to shoulder the 14 would be comedy, if it weren't so tragic. The M-14 was a large caliber rifle (308 NATO), and would give a six-foot American a sore shoulder from the recoil. The Asian's just hated to fire an M-14. The M-16, on the other hand, was lighter and had a much milder recoil and was eminently more suited to the size of the Asian shooter. That it took a direct Presdential decree to get these rifles to these ARVN troops is a travesty.

This isn't the only example of mis-management, but it is a thread that runs through the whole Vietnam War.

[USMCVet]

The South Vietnamese, the ARVN, The Vietnamese Marines, the RFs and PFs were superb allies and good friends. They were (and are) worth fighting for.

I for one am distinctly proud to have served alongside the South Vietnamese - I only wish that our people had known them better and stayed in the fight to keep them free.

[Enemy Of The State]

You may add me to your ping list concerning Asian politcal issues.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

During the earlier years, with General William C. Westmoreland in command, the American approach was basically to take over the war from the South Vietnamese and try to win it militarily by conducting a war of attrition. The theory was that killing as many of the enemy as possible would eventually cause him to lose heart and cease aggression against the South. This earlier period was also characterized by recurring requests for more American troops to be dispatched to Vietnam, resulting in a peak commitment there of some 543,400.

Tragic blunder. What did he think was the end game??

That policy could succeed--only by threatening Hanoi. But LBJ was never going to do that, so it was a meatgrinder strategy in which the enemy had time to find a winning (political) strategy.

[Enemy Of The State]

Agreed. Vietnam was another war that the french had a hand in getting us involved. Ba$tards!

We fought against the British before and now they are our closest ally. No reason not take the Vietnamese under our wings, Im sure they would love to have us as an ally considering that they really are not that favorable of China and it would be great to be right in Chinas back yard!

[elbucko]

All that talk about Â`liberation' twenty, thirty, forty years ago," he lamented, "produced this, this impoverished, broken-down country led by a gang of cruel and paternalistic half-educated theorists."

I'd like to include Bill Moyers to that lamentable description.

[SJackson]

For the thread.

PERSECUTION OF MONTAGNARD CHRISTIANS IN VIETNAM

Christmas crackdown in Vietnam (Communists persecute Christians, again)

3 executions in Vietnam alleged as part of government crackdown (on Christians)

VIETNAM UNREST THREATENS TO RAISE OBJECTIONS (persecution of Christians)

[U S Army EOD]

I commanded an EOD detachment in 1972 and went through the Easter Offensive. I was also in Military Intel Unit toward the end of the year. You name a communist country and I saw weapons and munitions from it. When Vietnam fell in 1974 not only did we quit supplying them, we didn't even make up their ammunition expenditures and equipment lost during 1972. What equipment we did give them was third rate when the NVA was receiving modern equipment right up to the end.

I had two friends who were advisors who both spent over 5 years in country. They had a high regard for the South Vietnamese.

When our conventional forces fought, we fought the war like it was OUR war and not theirs. We really blew this one. In my opinion the lost of the war was partly due to our conduct of the war and due to both the lack of support to our troops in this country. These mistakes could have been retified given time. How ever the MAIN cause for the lost of the war was due to the support of the VC and PAVN basically HAD IN THIS COUNTRY.

[elbucko]

Tragic blunder. What did he think was the end game??

There wasn't an end game. This war did not have , at the beginning, a "Noble Purpose". LBJ was only interested in preventing Saigon from falling to the communists before he could win the '68 election, and a second term. That's it! There is no other geopolitical strategy to apply to the start of this war.

Lyndon didn't care about Vietnam, he didn't care about US servicemen. H*ll, he thought they "belonged" to him. Lyndon was a "Kingfish", in the Southern political sense. He owned the sheriff, the courthouse and the jails. You don't think, as President, LBJ didn't think he owned the Army too?

Vietnam is not complex at the beginning. It is about political power in the USA, and not a World struggle.

[BenLurkin]

You may also enjoy this informative book:

[Mr. Thorne]

bump for later

[cgbg]

There wasn't an end game. This war did not have , at the beginning, a "Noble Purpose". LBJ was only interested in preventing Saigon from falling to the communists before he could win the '68 election, and a second term. That's it! There is no other geopolitical strategy to apply to the start of this war. Lyndon didn't care about Vietnam, he didn't care about US servicemen. H*ll, he thought they "belonged" to him. Lyndon was a "Kingfish", in the Southern political sense. He owned the sheriff, the courthouse and the jails. You don't think, as President, LBJ didn't think he owned the Army too? Vietnam is not complex at the beginning. It is about political power in the USA, and not a World struggle.

Your analysis was definitely correct as it related to the _1964_ election.

I think it gets muddier (;-)) after that.

The bizarre strategy of "escalate until they negotiate" violated thousands of years of established warfare strategy which said that victory could best be achieved by annihilating your enemy.

At that time we were the dominant world power and the threat (and if necessary, the reality) of a nuke or two on Hanoi would have ended the meatgrinder quickly.

LBJ lacked the vision to see victory. He was a miserable excuse for a commander in chief.

[elbucko]

Your analysis was definitely correct as it related to the _1964_ election.

Respectfully, I disagree. My analysis is directly related to the 1968 US presidential Election and NOT the 1964 election. LBJ knew he had '64 in the bag. His polls told him. The RINO's told him.

LBJ was worried about what had happened to Harry Truman would happen to him and he would not get a second term, just as Truman was denied one by Korea. If Saigon was lost before '68, Johnson feared, and rightly so, that he would loose to a Republican, "Ike" type. Remember, it is almost the same amount of time from Korea to Vietnam, that it is from the invasion of Kuwait till now.

Lyndon Johnson had Korea, the 1952 election, Saigon and the 1968 election, very much on his mind when he sent US troops into Vietnam in 1965.