NationStates Jolt Archive

It's only a few decades ago, but people seem to have forgotten all about it.

What place should we give the war in Vietnam in history? Was it necessary? Was it a war of idealism or imperialism? Are the veterans of Vietnam heroes, like the Allied soldiers of WWII, or victims of an unjust war? And what about the leaders of the time, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger?

It's only a few decades ago, but people seem to have forgotten all about it.

What place should we give the war in Vietnam in history? Was it necessary? Was it a war of idealism or imperialism? Are the veterans of Vietnam heroes, like the Allied soldiers of WWII, or victims of an unjust war? And what about the leaders of the time, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger?

Forgotten? Do you live in America?

You forgot to mention McNamara, he was instrumental. Everyone should watch "Fog of War"

As for its place in history? I think it should hold a pretty bad place, as just about all of the powers at be made bad decisions, and the people that suffered the results were the soldiers and the people of SE Asia.

The war was amazingly stupid but given the amount of French, American and Vietamese people who died in the war, forgeting is not going to be a simple thing, if anything the Wall will ensure that. Remembering past conflicts is the way to learn so something like it won't happen again.

I think it should hold a place in history as the first pointless war our country went through, it was followed by a couple more. Can you think of them?

I think it should hold a place in history as the first pointless war our country went through, it was followed by a couple more. Can you think of them?

It was when the word of an American President suddenly started to mean so much less.

The US has gone through so many pointless wars....
For instance, with a little bit of diplomacy and less being hardballing bastards, the English and Americans wouldn't have fought the War of 1812. The only important thing the war achieved was US right to sovereignty (again.)
The Filipino War, where we "accidently" killed everybody. Haha, just kidding, we meant to kill them and rape all their women so that we could scar the country's history and development, even into the present day.
The Spanish American War was literally, I am totally serious, completely made up by American journalists. As Hearst said,
You provide the pictures, I'll provide the war.
While this didn't deploy the troops, it convinced the American citizens to deploy them.

Americans love pointless wars. What they don't like is when they LOSE them. We don't like losing too many men, either. So we either go pacifistic for a while, or we become "neutral" again. Not General Washington-style neutral, but Woodrow Wilson-style neutral. (Note for non-Americans: that means we don't actually become neutral, but rather don't fight until it looks like we'll win.)

I love America. I just also know that most Americans are really, really stupid. Myself occasionally included.

It was when the word of an American President suddenly started to mean so much less.


And when, exactly, did it mean anything anyway?

I know you hate Bush, but come on, like it was all George Washington before 2000.

Then again concerning fighting communist, I think America did okay in the Korean war.

I think America fought the war in Vietnam wrongly. Guerilla warfare is a different ballgame.

It's only a few decades ago, but people seem to have forgotten all about it.

What place should we give the war in Vietnam in history? Was it necessary? Was it a war of idealism or imperialism? Are the veterans of Vietnam heroes, like the Allied soldiers of WWII, or victims of an unjust war? And what about the leaders of the time, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger?

You don't want to know what my views are on this.

Forrest Horn
CPT, INF, USA
( Retired/Disabled )
Vietnam, 1967-1969

speaking as an unbiased person vietnam was tatically destroying to the us government. it was a whipped up assault of Team B (look them up on da internet u'll b surprised) america was wrong to enter the korean war as well and look wat happened then. it seems america has a fetish for trying to destroy communism or communist allies look at places in africa (congo), central america(honduras,cuba) , south america(bolivia) and asia (korea,vietnam) there have all been conflicts or interventions in the past to try and stop communist advance it seems that as much as i hate to say it america has a taste for slight fascism.

Vietnam showed clearly that USA can not win a war where it confines itself to fighting the war on the enemies terms. South Vietnam was attacked by insurgents funded by North Vietnam, and America spent several years fighting a war in the South. They lost because they could never stop the substantial support provided by the North. They could never stop this funding because to attack the North invited bringing the USSR into the conflict (which would have been end of the world bad).

The signifigance of this is that the same mistakes are being repeated in Iraq. The USA is being attacked by Sunni insurgents funded by Sunni states in the area. And the Americans are fighting a war confined to Iraq. They cannot go after the funding states because this could cause the price of gas to double (which would be mildly annoyingly bad) and probably lose a lot of Congress funding for the next round of elections (which would be too horrible to contemplate bad).

Forgotten? Do you live in America?

No, I live in the Netherlands

You don't want to know what my views are on this.

Forrest Horn
CPT, INF, USA
( Retired/Disabled )
Vietnam, 1967-1969

Though I would respect it if you don't want to discuss this here, I would be interesting to know how you think about this war.

Then again concerning fighting communist, I think America did okay in the Korean war.

I think America fought the war in Vietnam wrongly. Guerilla warfare is a different ballgame.

You're only commenting on the way the war was fought, not on the moral questions.

Did the US have the right to intervene? I still find it hard to awnser that question. On one hand, people generally don't want to live under a communist regime. In the case of Vietnam though, it seems to me that the South Vietnamese government didnt have the support of the people. And it may sound odd, but in some way no government has the right to force freedom on an unwilling people.
And if 'liberating' the people was the main objective of the US in Vietnam, then why did they do nothing when neighbouring Cambodia fell to the bloody Red Khmer regime a few years afterwards? There would have been a lot more reason for a US intervention in Cambodia then in Vietnam: a) The Khmer regime was unimaginably cruel to it's own people (3+ million casualties), the Vietcong regime never commited crimes on such a scale; b) In Cambodia there was no popular support for the communist revolution, while in Vietnam popular support was considerable.

The involvement of the US in Cambodia during the Vietnam war was a completely different story though. I think the US had no right whatsoever to bomb Cambodia (over half a million casualties), even though the vietcong did use the country as a base for attacks. Did you know that the raids on Cambodia were kept secret, even to the US senate? There even wasen't a formal declaration of war!

There's a really good documentary on this subject (The trials of Henry Kissinger).

The signifigance of this is that the same mistakes are being repeated in Iraq. The USA is being attacked by Sunni insurgents funded by Sunni states in the area. And the Americans are fighting a war confined to Iraq.

I doubt that the insurgents get state-support. I think this is largely a matter of individuals, not states.

It's only a few decades ago, but people seem to have forgotten all about it.

What place should we give the war in Vietnam in history? Was it necessary? Was it a war of idealism or imperialism? Are the veterans of Vietnam heroes, like the Allied soldiers of WWII, or victims of an unjust war? And what about the leaders of the time, JFK, Johnson, Nixon, Kissinger?

All wars should be remembered, for the good or bad.
On a personal note, I wouldn't have supported Vietnam (not that it would have made any difference. I wasn't born nor am I American), but that doesn't mean that the men killed or injured in the conflict should not be remembered. The Government might have sent them in for the wrong reasons but those people carried out their orders, to the best of their ability in awful circumstances, and for that (if nothing else) they should be remembered!

(wow, how many times did I say remembered?!)

I doubt that the insurgents get state-support. I think this is largely a matter of individuals, not states.


Sunni funding is supporting a Sunni rebellion, does it matter that it is not coming officially. Does a marine end up less dead because the RPG round was purchased using an unofficial donation?

The gulf states government gets loads of money from oil and give this away to relatives of the regime. Some of these relatives have caught religion and donate to religious causes. Some donate to political causes.