polyjunkie
3 days ago edited
Well. I lived through this era and was about to be drafted when the war ended. The media had little to do with how the war was lost, because the war was already lost by the time Walter Cronkite figured it out. It was lost because of Lyndon Johnson’s and Robert MacNamara’s insane policy of “proportional escalation”, which theorized we could cause the North Vietnamese to quit because we would meet everything they did with an equally large response. To say this policy was stupid is to claim AOC is a genius.

This led to bombing dikes and roads instead of power plants and factories. It led to allowing “humanitarian aid” from Russia and China instead of cutting off North Vietnam and starving them into submission. It led to “destroying the village in order to save it” and 58,000 dead soldiers. It handicapped the world’s strongest power and kept us from using that power to end the conflict quickly.

Nixon proved as much with the 1972 Christmas bombing when in 12 days (Twelve Days!) the B52s destroyed so much of North Vietnam’s infrastructure and Haiphong harbor that the commies signed the peace deal in Paris. It cost the loss of 12 B52s to end the war. What might have happened if that power had been used in 1964 and saved millions of lives, a couple of whom were my friends and classmates? I hope that Johnson and MacNamara are roasting in the nether world as they most certainly deserve it. //

edhuff polyjunkie
3 days ago
By the time Lyndon Johnson's lying war fiasco was over, most young Americans and nearly the entire population of Vietnam disliked and distrusted everything about the American government for decades to come. The origins of today's "Hate and Blame America First" leftist Democrat cabal are the result of Johnson's miscalculations about Vietnam, and the welfare state. //

(N)o.(B)ody.(C)ares
3 days ago
Vietnam could have been won, much like Korea, if the gloves would have come off, and hit them with overwhelming force, instead of tit-for-tat warfare.
Never go into a “conflict” with the idea of “police action”, go to fight with a mindset of total control. //

kls&c 85
3 days ago
We had the war WON TWICE.
The first was after the 1968 Tet Offensive. The North has used everything they had for forces in the South and were soundly defeated. They had little left between the DMZ and Hanoi. Our Marines in Nothern South Vietnam could have marched to Hanoi facing little opposition. Instead President Johnson opted for "Peace Talks" that gave the North years to regroup and rearm.
The second was when President Nixon authorized the B-52s to bomb targets around Hanoi and Haiphong. At the end, the North Vietnamese ran out of SA-2 surface to air missiles. Some sources say that if we had continued these attacks another weeek or more, North Vietnam was ready to surrender. Instead President Nixon opted for more "Peace Talks".
This time we did get our PoWs back and we left South Vietnam. The North again regrouped and rearmed. South Vietnam fell about 2.5 years later.
After the 1968 Tet Offensive CBS news anchor Walter Cronkite called this complete routing of North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces in the South a a great defeat for America. If Walter Cronkite who was a journalist in WWII had used this same standard for the December 1944 German Offensive we call The Battle of the Bulge, he would have reported this was a great Victory for Hitler and a defeat for General Eisenhower and Allied Forces.
Still today the legacy is we are great at winning the battles, but terrible at winning the peace. //

Cafeblue32
3 days ago edited
We could have won if we didn't have everyone in congress trying to run it. When you have arbitrary rules that tie one hand behind your back while the enemy has no such rules, what do we think is going to happen? The VC went into Cambodia and Laos to move supplies because they knew we couldn't. Sorry, but if the enemy is using neutral countries to schlep supplies, then that country is fair game. We eventually carpet bombed them, but it was too little too late.

Ever since Hiroshima, politicians have suffered under the delusion that there is a cleaner, less violent way to fight a war. This is why they last 10 or 20 years now. They are trying to avoid collateral damage with an enemy that hide among them. If we hadn't leveled entire cities in WW2 and broke their ability to produce weapons by bombing civilian workers and their factories, that war could have lasted for decades. Our heavy handed involvement in it ended it in about 3 and a half years. Sorry, but you can't win a war playing by arbitrary self-limiting rules. What are we going to do when they are violated, go to war over it with them when we already are? //

anon-jzmf
3 days ago
You know what might have well won the war? Had the short-sighted and penny-pinching Pentagon not switched to powdered gun powder for the 5.56mm rounds fired in the M-16 assault rifle.

The M-16 was designed to fire pelletized gun powder. This type of powder fired cleaner, and only very rarely fouled the rifle. But in order to save about a half-cent per round of ammunition - the Pentagon switched to "powdered" gun powder - which fired more dirty, fouled the rifles, and then very often jammed them up. So many fatalities from that war were discovered with their cleaning kits out trying to get their M-16s back in the fight. They were basically unarmed when they were killed.

It haunts me to this day. Nobody asked the rifle's designer, a man named Eugene Stoner. They just did it. And since the procurement specialists in the Pentagon could scarcely have been further from the fight they had no idea what they'd done. But it might well have cost us that war, and the Vietnamese people two generations of unspeakable suffering and oppression. //

7againstthebes
3 days ago edited
Per Clausewitz: There are three objectives to obtain to wage victorious war.

The enemy's army
The enemy's territory
The will of the people.

During the Viet Nam war US forces defeated the enemy's army in every major battle.
During the Viet Nam war, the US did not commit enough troops to the theater of war to capture and hold enemy territory.
During the Viet Nam war the US did not destroy the will of the North Vietnamese people to wage war.

The North Vietnamese did not defeat the US military.
The North Vietnamese did not capture and hold US controlled territory in South Viet Nam.
The North Vietnamese did defeat the will of the American people to wage war.

The American people got tired of the war and as protests grew the will of the people to wage war declined.

Did the media have a part in this. Yes. Was their part decisive. Likely not. But it did contribute.

anon-pkys 7againstthebes
3 days ago
I disagree with the affect the MSM had on the war. When Walter Cronkite said the war was lost, folks believed him. Of course he lied, but the American citizens did not know that. But what did I know? I had only been in the military since January, 1964, followed the news, and served in VN, 1969-70. I have also read most of the history of the war, especially by those that were there and fought it. //

Laocoön of Troy
3 days ago
“In this age, in this country, public sentiment is everything. With it, nothing can fail; against it, nothing can succeed. Whoever molds public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts statutes, or pronounces judicial decisions.”

― Abraham Lincoln