The Viet Nam Story

Indochina was a French colony. During WW2 it was occupied by the Japanese who were driven out by Ho Chi Minh, a communist. After the Japanese were defeated Charles De Gaulle blackmailed the U.S. into supporting a French return to colonial control by threatening not to join NATO. We did so, literally flying in French troops in U.S. uniforms and initially supporting a dredged up emperor. The French got creamed by the communists in a key battle at Dein Bien Phu in 1954:

http://www.dienbienphu.org/english/

and decided to depart before they suffered more damage. President Eisenhower opposed the U.S. getting involved in this mess -- we had no treaty obligations to the place. However, Kennedy, shortly before his death sent in about 17,000 military advisors to what was by then denominated South Viet Nam. On Kennedy's death Johnson expanded the U.S. involvement there to more than 1,000,000 American troops of which some 58,000 would eventually die and many more suffer drastic injuries and post traumatic stress -- many of our homeless. Unhappily most of those involved were high school or high school dropouts as any able to continued in college, graduate school or to find other dodges such as the National Guard were able to stay out of the conflict. The mud hit the fan, however, with the institution of a draft based on birthdays Jan. 1, 1970. The war had dragged on because of a misbegotten "domino theory" to the effect that if Viet Nam went communist, so would go the rest of South East Asia.

We were locked in a stalemate there. The Soviets were supporting the North Vietnamese. The Chinese and Vietnamese were traditional enemies, but the Chinese allowed war materials from the Soviets to be delivered to the North and made it clear that if we invaded the North, they would enter the war -- which they had done in Korea with disastrous results for us. So we bombed the North and anything else that we could not control. The North Vietnamese sent waves of troops to attack ours and we shot back much as in Iraq today, unable to distinguish military from civilians -- both wearing the same garb.

Finally, as the costs mounted, increasing numbers of supporters of the war changed their minds and we finally got ourselves out of there, leaving the Vietnamese to end the horrors of Cambodia where we had also messed around and allowed Pol Pot and his brutal crew to kill off millions -- the educated middle class.

Viet Nam was a foolish mess much as is Iraq today. Johnson had no experience with foreign affairs. We were sold into the war with false information, i.e. that North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked two of our destroyers leading to the Tonkin Gulf resolution:

http://www.luminet.net/~tgort/tonkin.htm

to enter a war full speed ahead -- again a parallel with the false information about Iraq. Needless to say Viet Nam cost us a bundle in monies as well as lives destroyed and along with Iraq may turn out to have been the beginning of the end of "peace and prosperity" (Eisenhower's campaign slogan) for the U.S.

Let's not play games with history there.

Have a good Thanksgiving. As family is gathered here, I have given minimal sources, but you can check out each event with a Google search.
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"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
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