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God help us!
That is the Navy Pride solution to most any problem, foreign or domestic. Nuke 'em.
God help us!
I would say the North Vietnamese and their allies the USSR and China. Who lost, the South Vietnamese to include the 2 million South Vietnamese who were killed or died in the North Vietnamese re-education camps and fleeing Vietnam by boat. The Cambodians to include 2-3 million Camobidans who were either killed or died at the hands of Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge along with another 500,000 Laotians who were also killed by the PL to include the attempted extermination of the Hmong tribe of Northern Laos particularly around the PDJ. I would also include the United and the allied forces in Vietnam.
The Vietnamese people have been fighting to have a country they can call theirs for generations. They have it now, and they're doing well with it. It's a small country and doesn't step on any toes. Who can say it was a bad result?
That still bothers me if I think about it.
Go to Vietnam today, it is one of the most intensely capitalist nations on earth. I've been all through the country a few times, this is not what Uncle Ho wanted... USA won....eventually
Vietnam was also lost because the military had their hands tied by not being able to bomb certain targets--in part because the Administration (LBJ) didn't want to take chances of killing Russian advisors to the north Vietnamese. If we were more aggressive with air power then it could have went a lot differently.
Nobody won... the USA left.[/QUOTE
.... with its tail between its legs.... I think the word is "retreated"
No, Vietnam was lost because we were fixated on prosecuting a European style war in a foreign country ill-suited for such; not to mention the fact that we allowed ourselves to get into the middle of another country's civil war, which is no place for any right thinking nation to be.
The idea that our "hands were tied" is naive revisionist history perpetrated by "American Exceptionalists" lost in the misguided (and rather arrogant) perception that America can do no wrong.
No, the military was not used to it's full potential (not talking about nukes though). If we fought them like the Christmas bombings (Linebacker 2) for an extended period (instead of 11 days, perhaps 11 weeks) it is plausible that it could have went differently. We ignored striking certain areas for years then when we did the north Vietnamese were quick to talk about stopping it.
Well, capitalism won anyway. It always seems to, eventually, even in places like China.
Nobody won... the USA left.
.... with its tail between its legs.... I think the word is "retreated"
No, Vietnam was lost because we were fixated on prosecuting a European style war in a foreign country ill-suited for such; not to mention the fact that we allowed ourselves to get into the middle of another country's civil war, which is no place for any right thinking nation to be.
The idea that our "hands were tied" is naive revisionist history perpetrated by "American Exceptionalists" lost in the misguided (and rather arrogant) perception that America can do no wrong.
I have clicked on "the Russians". And regretted it a moment later. As a Pole, I have...shall we say...reservations about many things Russian.
Still, equating the Soviet totalitarian monstrosity that succeeded in installing a puppet regime in Vietnam back in those days with the whole of the Russian nation is most unfair: Russians had lost more people to the Communist Moloch, in proportion, than almost any other ethnic group, outside of Cambodia....
P.S. "A goal of the unified Vietnam", seriously? "Unified" by a force that was as hostile to everything distinctly Vietnamese as to the evil, evil French or American influences? It was not a unification. It was a violent rape by an imperialism much worse and much more debasing than anything that happened before.
I was pretty shocked at how Capitalistic Vietnam was, in all honesty...
I was thinking of voting Russia. It was the Soviet Union who armed the north, who probably manned the air defenses of Hanoi and Haiphong.
It was all of the Vietnamese people who lost in 1975.
The Vietnam war was just one battle of the Cold War.
The West didn't win every battle during the Cold War. But in the end we prevailed.
Prime Minster Margret Thatcher was the one who originally said "Ronald Reagan won the Cold War." But there were many others who should also get credit, the United Kingdom, the people of Poland even the Pope played a role along with those who served during the Vietnam war helped in winning the Cold War.
Nixon was elected to end it fast. And he did.
...after sabotaging the Paris peace talks in order to win the election.
The leadership of the North Vietnamese "Communist" Party won. The Vietnamese people certainly did not win. From 1975 to 1986, not only were there widespread persecutions, but the economy sucked. Doi moi has helped the economy tremendously, but they are still a dictatorship, and treat their people poorly.
Lets not forget John Kerry who interfered with the Paris Peace Talks and met with the enemy in Paris and delayed the final agreement for days. How many more names went up on the "Wall" because of Kerry ? Who did end up being the last American soldier to be killed in Vietnam that Kerry kept talking about ?