The Vietnam War myth

[Crossroads]

To keep up with the spirit of some recent thread titles, and again from Weider History Group's newsletter at armchairgeneral:

Interview of Dr Mark Moyar, author of "Triumph forsaken: The Vietnam War 1954-65"

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/sh...hp?t=90877

Among other things:

ACG: You are clearly part of what is often referred to as the revisionist school of thought on the Vietnam War, do you think works such as yours could contribute to change the generally negative image associated with this conflict in the collective's mind?

MM: Yes, I do. Most of the popular books on Vietnam, such as those by Stanley Karnow, Neil Sheehan, and David Halberstam, distorted events in horrific fashion. They exaggerated the faults of our allies, downplayed the crimes of our enemies, and misrepresented the global stakes. Now, many veterans and some others who lived through the period have distrusted that narrative, but their views haven’t been widely disseminated, in part because few of them worked in the media or academia. Triumph Forsaken and several other revisionist books, particularly Lewis Sorley’s A Better War, have been able to gain significant readership, with considerable help from the internet, which enables ideas to circulate more freely than in earlier decades, where the mainstream media had a near-monopoly on the distribution of information. I should note that my own interpretations of Vietnam do have some very negative aspects, such as America’s disastrous instigation of the 1963 coup and Lyndon Johnson’s rejection of highly valuable strategic options like the placement of U.S. ground forces in Laos.

and

RP: Do you believe that the US participation in the Viet Nam War was a surrogate confrontation between the East and West in order to spare a confrontation in Europe?

MM: A few people have advanced that argument, but the documentary record does not support it. U.S. relations with the Soviets were pretty good in the early and mid-1960s; we weren’t very concerned about containing them or avoiding war with them, but we were concerned about containing China and avoiding war. China and its Communist allies in various Asian countries did in fact pose a serious threat to the entire continent. We ultimately achieved our strategic aim of containing China, even though the Indochinese dominoes fell in 1975.

Now this tempts one to read the book really, but as I am stuck at Beevor's Stalingrad (as a result of their previous newsletter and the myth thread :P ) perhaps one of you fine gentlemen would do that and write a review to this site's Book Reviews? Or to just continue with this thread?

[fastphil]

To keep up with the spirit of some recent thread titles, and again from Weider History Group's newsletter at armchairgeneral:

Interview of Dr Mark Moyar, author of "Triumph forsaken: The Vietnam War 1954-65"

http://www.armchairgeneral.com/forums/sh...hp?t=90877

Among other things:

ACG: You are clearly part of what is often referred to as the revisionist school of thought on the Vietnam War, do you think works such as yours could contribute to change the generally negative image associated with this conflict in the collective's mind?

MM: Yes, I do. Most of the popular books on Vietnam, such as those by Stanley Karnow, Neil Sheehan, and David Halberstam, distorted events in horrific fashion. They exaggerated the faults of our allies, downplayed the crimes of our enemies, and misrepresented the global stakes. Now, many veterans and some others who lived through the period have distrusted that narrative, but their views haven’t been widely disseminated, in part because few of them worked in the media or academia. Triumph Forsaken and several other revisionist books, particularly Lewis Sorley’s A Better War, have been able to gain significant readership, with considerable help from the internet, which enables ideas to circulate more freely than in earlier decades, where the mainstream media had a near-monopoly on the distribution of information. I should note that my own interpretations of Vietnam do have some very negative aspects, such as America’s disastrous instigation of the 1963 coup and Lyndon Johnson’s rejection of highly valuable strategic options like the placement of U.S. ground forces in Laos.

and

RP: Do you believe that the US participation in the Viet Nam War was a surrogate confrontation between the East and West in order to spare a confrontation in Europe?

MM: A few people have advanced that argument, but the documentary record does not support it. U.S. relations with the Soviets were pretty good in the early and mid-1960s; we weren’t very concerned about containing them or avoiding war with them, but we were concerned about containing China and avoiding war. China and its Communist allies in various Asian countries did in fact pose a serious threat to the entire continent. We ultimately achieved our strategic aim of containing China, even though the Indochinese dominoes fell in 1975.

Now this tempts one to read the book really, but as I am stuck at Beevor's Stalingrad (as a result of their previous newsletter and the myth thread :P ) perhaps one of you fine gentlemen would do that and write a review to this site's Book Reviews? Or to just continue with this thread?

I havne't read the book but I am a little confused by the statement that our relations were pretty good with the Soviets. Did I misunderstand the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to name a few? :conf:

[Bear]

I'm a veteran of that "war" and I agree, the war was a demonstration that the U.S. had the will to make "geopolitical war" to the Chinese. Communism had nothing to do with it, that was a political theory (Domino Theory) fed to America to sell fear and support for the war.
Long before communism, China tried to conquer Vietnam (Indochina region) and failed. The Japanese failed. The French failed as well as the U.S. (if you subscribe to the propaganda that we went to Vietnam to win by establishing an ally and permanent DMZ i.e. Korea.) The U.S. itself became destabilized by the war when it's people got smart. The irony is that the U.S. did not directly hold the line against Chinese expansion but a united Vietnam did. United after the U.S. withdrawal when the North over ran the south. And at that time there was immense pressure put on the Ford administration by the conservatives in the U.S. Congress to bomb all the assets we left behind...billions of dollars in aircraft, helicopters, AFVs, mechanized artillery, tons of ammunition, air bases, fuel tank fields, etc. were left alone. To empower the Vietnamese to defend themselves and by God the Chinese did try to overrun Vietnam and failed. Mainly because the Chinese could not gain air supremacy against the Russian and American aircraft and air defense systems. American artillery was also effective and the Chinese suffered serious losses on land and in the air.

[JasonC]

That's utter horsefeathers, start to finish.

The Chinese were supporting the Vietnamese during the war. So were the Russians. The North Vietnamese took over the south in a conventional blitzkrieg that used more armor than the Germans used in Poland. They tried earlier with a third of the armor when the US ground forces were out but air was still there and got their clocks cleaned by the USAF and ARVN. The north was attacking the south throughout and what smidgen of civil war there was in the south was over by the aftermath of Tet. The VC were dead by the end of 1968 and the NVA were hiding outside the country when the US ground forces left. The war was won on the battlefield up to then, and guerilla everything had failed completely.

And that victory was thrown away by the US congress after the destruction of Nixon over Watergate. For nothing. Doing so killed several million innocent people and drove millions more into exile. Which was about as moral as Eichmann and had nothing to do with "wise" anything. It was a stone cold human and moral tragegy of the first magnitude. And the American and international left was cheering for it every step of the way, largely because they were cowards afraid they might be asked to go help win it. (Notice how the antiwar movement evaporated when Nixon ended the draft).

The myth that the left convinced America to give up or that the war wasn't worth fighting or winning is also pure revisionist spin by the guilty parties. The democratic party, not the country, split over the war - and as soon as it did lost the support of the country. The left got their pure peace candidate against their hated Nemesis in 1972 and they lost in a landslide.

Ford in 1975 asked for approval from congress to use the air force again to stop the NVA as we had in the 1972 easter offensive, but the post Watergate left wing congress said no. The 1974 by elections weren't about Nam which was off the radar; American ground troops were out, the Paris accords were in place, and the NVA were staying in their box, afraid of more B-52 strikes on downtown Hanoi. The election was about Watergate and a recession and a stock market crash. But the leftists elected that year were the sort who had chanted that Ho was going to win, thought Mao was a third way, and pretended American soldiers were war criminals while actual mass murderers as bad as the Nazis they gave a pass, if they didn't look up to them as cool.

There is no moral equivalence about it. The left were stone cold fools and evil about the entire affair. And they will lie about it til the day they die.

[FM WarB]

Next thread, "The myth of the Stab in the Back Theory"

Sometimes getting out of a war is not so much a crime as getting into it in the first place. I am curious: what does this revisionist Vietnam history teach us about Afghanistan and Iraq?

[JasonC]

Tie a bucket of snark around your ankles and go for a swim.

[FM WarB]

I love an intelligent debate. LoL

[Bear]

That's utter horsefeathers, start to finish.

The Chinese were supporting the Vietnamese during the war. So were the Russians. The North Vietnamese took over the south in a conventional blitzkrieg that used more armor than the Germans used in Poland. They tried earlier with a third of the armor when the US ground forces were out but air was still there and got their clocks cleaned by the USAF and ARVN. The north was attacking the south throughout and what smidgen of civil war there was in the south was over by the aftermath of Tet. The VC were dead by the end of 1968 and the NVA were hiding outside the country when the US ground forces left. The war was won on the battlefield up to then, and guerilla everything had failed completely.

And that victory was thrown away by the US congress after the destruction of Nixon over Watergate. For nothing. Doing so killed several million innocent people and drove millions more into exile. Which was about as moral as Eichmann and had nothing to do with "wise" anything. It was a stone cold human and moral tragegy of the first magnitude. And the American and international left was cheering for it every step of the way, largely because they were cowards afraid they might be asked to go help win it. (Notice how the antiwar movement evaporated when Nixon ended the draft).

The myth that the left convinced America to give up or that the war wasn't worth fighting or winning is also pure revisionist spin by the guilty parties. The democratic party, not the country, split over the war - and as soon as it did lost the support of the country. The left got their pure peace candidate against their hated Nemesis in 1972 and they lost in a landslide.

Ford in 1975 asked for approval from congress to use the air force again to stop the NVA as we had in the 1972 easter offensive, but the post Watergate left wing congress said no. The 1974 by elections weren't about Nam which was off the radar; American ground troops were out, the Paris accords were in place, and the NVA were staying in their box, afraid of more B-52 strikes on downtown Hanoi. The election was about Watergate and a recession and a stock market crash. But the leftists elected that year were the sort who had chanted that Ho was going to win, thought Mao was a third way, and pretended American soldiers were war criminals while actual mass murderers as bad as the Nazis they gave a pass, if they didn't look up to them as cool.

There is no moral equivalence about it. The left were stone cold fools and evil about the entire affair. And they will lie about it til the day they die.

Nixon was a criminal and was pardoned to salvage a nation in turmoil.
The U.S. war in Viet Nam was immoral and without a Casus Belli. That is the truth and Robert McNamara confessed this before he died. It was a house of cards except for the geopolitics of American blood spilled to show China we were determined and quite mad as a hatter to boot.
The Russians and Chinese elbowed each other to establish influence over Viet Nam. The Chinese made their move and were stopped by the Viet Namese single handed.
I see you are well versed in making Nazis Germany references whenever history or facts get in your way. Clearly you do not know the truth and are probably unwilling to do the real work to get there because you think you know it all and are comfortable with your arrogance and preconceived notions.
I was a strike team sharpshooter back then, a volunteer with a college deferment and a 350 lottery number, what was your commitment JasonC? And how and why do you say that a leftist traitors in the U.S.Congress stole an American victory? Wait forget it...I'm wasting my time here.
I have nothing left to say to you and your ilk. Talking to a fanatic or naivete here is too much and I'm too fraking old for this.

---

Next thread, "The myth of the Stab in the Back Theory"

Sometimes getting out of a war is not so much a crime as getting into it in the first place. I am curious: what does this revisionist Vietnam history teach us about Afghanistan and Iraq?

---

[Bert Blitzkrieg]

Wait forget it...I'm wasting my time here.
I have nothing left to say to you and your ilk. Talking to a fanatic or naivete here is too much and I'm too fraking old for this

I don't get it.

JasonC post his opinion that the war in Vietnam effectively was won (don't know if that is true; I haven't got the info and/or resources to check up on this) and the withdrawal was carried out without a military reason but because of a political one. He didn't say or post anything whether the war was legally right.

You don't react to his statements but you are protesting vehemently against the fact that the war never should have been waged at all.

I think you two are talking about different subjects.

But interestingly (for me as a non-US citizen), that war is appearently a deep rift in the US today.

[Herr Straße Laufer]

Military victory. Political disaster.
Truman to Ford. There were a lot of Presidents and congresses.

It was never about left and right. It was more about right and wrong? At least I believe the un-biased historians will write that history in twenty or thirty years. :chin:



HSL