Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Real History
Critics, some ignorant of history, are coming out of the wood works to castigate further former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara for his role in the Viet Nam War. Here is the real history.
We largely funded, but did not fight, the first Viet Nam war, 1946 to 1954, which involved mainly French troops and really evolved from a neocolonial war into an anti-Communist effort.
We began to supply South Vietnamese with soldiers and arms in real numbers during the Administrations of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. That is to say, the beginning of the second Viet Nam war, 1965-1973, was wholly a Democratic war consistent with the Democratic policy of containment of Communism. Don't get me wrong, I think it was the right thing to do--stop Communist expansion--but the Democrats muffed it despite billions of dollars and millions of American soldiers poured into the fray. My problem with the first part of the second war, 1965-1968, was with how it was fought. It was not really a counterinsurgency effort, and, although the Viet Cong suffered a near complete tactical defeat in Tet in 1968, the NVA took over competently and fought well in the second part of the war, which was under the leadership, ultimately, of Republican president Richard Nixon.
Under the Republican, the war went better and we pushed the NVA into the fringes of South Vietnam as we turned the real fighting over to the ARVN. By Spring, 1973, we had essentially won, as our combat troops were all out and the south had survived a determined invasion by the north the previous year, during Easter, and had killed or wounded probably 100,000 NVA, largely through our air power. We even signed a peace treaty in January, 1973.
Then Democrats in Congress stabbed our former ally in the back and prohibited selling or giving South Vietnam any war material and preventing our giving air support to the ARVN. So when the north tired a probe much smaller than the 1972 Easter offensive in 1975, they were a lot more successful and they pressed the attack and took over the south.
To paraphrase Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon: These are facts, historical facts, not schoolbook history, not popular lefty history, but history nevertheless.
So, in short, you can indeed criticize McNamara for his conduct during the first part of the war but that doesn't mean that the war was unwinnable or doomed. The defeat of the ARVN in 1975 was almost 100% the result of Democratic legislation which removed the ability of the south to defend itself and threw away our hard fought, Republican-led victory there.
Then the real suffering began.
UPDATE: Seth Lipsky has a similar but broader view over at the National Review Online.
Labels: Viet Nam War
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
This Day in the History of American Military Successes
On this day in 1972, the last American combat ground troops left Vietnam. I wonder whether, even if I had volunteered on my 18th birthday in June, 1971, I could have actually made it to Viet Nam as a soldier. Anyway, we left it in pretty decent shape--the VC were combat ineffective since Tet, and the NVA operating in the South, who were good, were kept in adequate check by our air force and by the ARVN, who were OK on defense as long as there was air cover.
Labels: Viet Nam War
Thursday, April 10, 2008
This Day in the History of Finding a Better General
On this day in 1968, President Lyndon Johnson replaced General Westmoreland with General Creighton Abrams as the general in charge in Vietnam. Abrams changed some tactics and did good; and we were able in early 1972 to remove all our troops who actually fought without the ARVN collapsing. The Democrats in Congress had to pass laws designed to disarm the ARVN in order to make it lose to an NVA blitzkrieg three years after that.
Labels: Viet Nam War
Sunday, March 16, 2008
This Day in the History of American Massacres
On this day in 1968, the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam occurred where approximately 400 Vietnamese villagers, a very disturbing number of them women and children, were murdered by a company of American troops of the 23rd Division, under the command of Captain Ernest Median and Lieutenant William L. Calley, Jr. Horrible day in almost anyone's calendar. Only Calley was convicted of any wrongdoing (and he was convicted of murder) but he only did a few months in prison and less than four years of house arrest before he was freed on appeal or clemency or some weird combination of the two.
Labels: Viet Nam War
Thursday, February 07, 2008
This Day in the Long History of American Successes in Viet Nam
On this day in 1971, American forces (mainly from the 5th Division) finished 'clearing the road,' (in Operation Dewey Canyon II) in the northwest corner of South Viet Nam, in preparation for ARVN troops invading Laos, in order to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail and destroy the NVA munitions dump at Tchepone, (in Operation Lam Son 719) the second phase of which began the next day. Lam Son 719, unfortunately, was not a success.
The ARVN wasn't great on offense, but proved much better on defense during the 1972 Easter Offensive by the NVA, when they, with American air cover, just slaughtered the invading NVA.
Labels: Viet Nam War
Thursday, January 31, 2008
This Day in the History of Being Misinformed by the Media
On this day in 1968, the Viet Cong, as we had been hoping and praying for, came out and fought a stand-up war. A 19 man squad from the Saigon cadre breached the outside wall of our embassy there but did not get into the building (the History Channel web site gets this little fact wrong), Their officers were killed at the beginning and those left milled about aimlessly on the grounds for hours until a more heavily armed reaction force arrived and all but one of the surviving VC were killed. To the left is one of that victorious squad.
In fact, we killed Viet Cong at such a rate that they had fleeting success only in Hue, which was retaken in February. The VC were not a factor in the war after Tet. Despite the extremely one sided victory for the good guys, somehow, mainly by the way our success was covered by the media, the idea that the Viet Cong could stage a large scale attack, albeit a complete fiasco, morphed into the idea that they were successful and we were losing. General Westmoreland was invited to ask for more troops, which he did for the very sound tactical reason that it was just the right time to surge, exploit the weakness of the VC, and win the war in months. However, he was sacked for asking for more troops and replaced by General Creighton Abrams who did more with less and all but won the war against the invading NVA regulars by the time our last combat troops left in 1973.
Labels: Tet Offensive, Viet Nam War
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Actual, Factual History
Viet Nam historian Mark Moyar at the American Spectator proves he has an intact memory of the Viet Nam War. I'm pleased, especially with the proliferation of so many false memories being displayed, largely on the left.
His best stuff:
The insurgency in Vietnam was dead by 1971, thanks to South Vietnam's armed forces, America's forces, and a South Vietnamese civilian population that overwhelmingly viewed the South Vietnamese government as legitimate. During 1972, after all American combat units had departed, South Vietnamese forces defeated a massive North Vietnamese invasion with the help of American air power. The so-called Christmas bombing of 1972 bombed North Vietnam into submission, resulting in a peace treaty. Had the antiwar Congress not slashed aid to South Vietnam and prohibited the use of American aircraft over Vietnamese skies, the South Vietnamese probably could have repulsed the North Vietnamese when they violated the peace treaty in 1975.
[...]
In response to the President's comments about abandoning Vietnam, some have argued that abandonment was not that important because Vietnam is now a nice capitalist country. This argument shows a callousness toward the loss of human life (in the late 1970s) and the harsh repression of political dissent (from 1975 to today) that is thoroughly out of keeping with how these people normally view international affairs. Hysterical hatred of the Iraq War and President Bush seems the only possible explanation for such an inconsistency. The present-day capitalist economy of Vietnam, moreover, is not reason to doubt the wisdom of U.S. involvement. Instead, it is reason to doubt the wisdom of North Vietnamese involvement. While America was fighting for capitalism in South Vietnam, North Vietnam was fighting to destroy it.
His best stuff:
The insurgency in Vietnam was dead by 1971, thanks to South Vietnam's armed forces, America's forces, and a South Vietnamese civilian population that overwhelmingly viewed the South Vietnamese government as legitimate. During 1972, after all American combat units had departed, South Vietnamese forces defeated a massive North Vietnamese invasion with the help of American air power. The so-called Christmas bombing of 1972 bombed North Vietnam into submission, resulting in a peace treaty. Had the antiwar Congress not slashed aid to South Vietnam and prohibited the use of American aircraft over Vietnamese skies, the South Vietnamese probably could have repulsed the North Vietnamese when they violated the peace treaty in 1975.
[...]
In response to the President's comments about abandoning Vietnam, some have argued that abandonment was not that important because Vietnam is now a nice capitalist country. This argument shows a callousness toward the loss of human life (in the late 1970s) and the harsh repression of political dissent (from 1975 to today) that is thoroughly out of keeping with how these people normally view international affairs. Hysterical hatred of the Iraq War and President Bush seems the only possible explanation for such an inconsistency. The present-day capitalist economy of Vietnam, moreover, is not reason to doubt the wisdom of U.S. involvement. Instead, it is reason to doubt the wisdom of North Vietnamese involvement. While America was fighting for capitalism in South Vietnam, North Vietnam was fighting to destroy it.
Labels: Viet Nam War
