The reason I disagree is in effect very simple.

If America hadn't draw a line there and fought communism would have continued to spread and countries continue to fall like pins.

WW2 showed what happened if you didn't fight early.

The Vietham war cost America 58, 000 troops. I wager that the cost in troops might have been far far higher elsewhere if they hadn't made a very direct show to Russia and China that the US would defend its interests in blood.

That war stopped the expansionist spread of communism into western hegemony states. For every US soldier who died, 10 VC died....it was very blunt.

If the west hadn't fought in Korea and the US in Vietham, I do not know if the west would still be here in its current form.

In Korea, after China intervened it was a draw....In Vietham, it was a failure....I won't say defeat considering the US basically defeated the VC in all meaningful ways...the VC just didn't care about their losses and the US did.

Edited by Stirlingsays (04 Oct 2017 7.00pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Well, despite what has been said there were plenty in South Vietham who didn't want to be communists and were willing to fight for the south. The bloodbath and re-education after the US withdrawal are evidence of that.

But sure, perhaps I should have said 'militarily'. It's certainly true that the US were obviously not going to make headway against those who had been brainwashed by the communists or thought of them as an unwanted colonial force.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

I suspect burning quite so many villages and crops,and dropping agent orange all over the place might have made a few think the US way of trying to win them over was not exactly the best thing since sliced bread

Nah he is right, after the Tet offensive, the Vietcong were on the back foot and it would have taken them years to recover. They were, along with their NVA allies, largely incapable of launching another major offensive for years, and needed to regroup. They were also a spent force in cities and that would have taken them even longer to recover.

Problem for the US is that right up to the Tet offensive is that they'd been reporting that the Vietcong and NVA were all but defeated, and on the run. So the Tet offensive essentially showed the US public and politicians just how wrong they were (or were lying) and the prospect that the Vietnam war (already massively unpopular at home) would drag on for another decade seems reasonable.

The offensive initially was a massive success for the VC and NVA, but they couldn't hold territory gained and militarily it was a crushing defeat.

The problem was, to a lot of the US command, the government, and the US public, it looked like the US military was lying, or had severely underestimated the capacity of the Communist forces. Which played right to the anti-war movement (and not just them, Nixon was the president who ended the war).

Realistically, though, the Revolutionary Forces of Vietnam were unable to really mount any major offensive afterwards, and were basically forced into fighting in the countryside (where the VC had its greatest support), and jungle (where the military superiority of the US wasn't so significant)

An increased deployment of the US might not have won a military victory in the aftermath, but it could quite likely pushed them right back.

But effectively from 1969 to 1972 the Communist forces were really incapable of dealing any kind of major offensive in the field.

The Tet Offensive was a disaster for the NVA and VC but ironically it did win the war for them.

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I watched the second episode of Vietham last night. I'm getting the impression that Kennedy's approach was right......But like all of us I have the massive advantage of hindsight.

He wanted a south Vietham but the regime there were so repressive that they just created support for the north. He could see that with those conditions that it was unwinnable.

I think had Kennedy lived and won the next election that he would have probably pulled out of Vietham. He could see the leadership in the south wasn't popular. It would still have been a very difficult decision.....It was literally leaving hundreds of thousands of democratic western leaning people to the communists....death, torture and re-education for wanting democracy.

But America would probably have got out with suffering casualties in the hundreds.

People who think that this was an easy and obvious decision should look at South Korea.....look at those people and say that the defence of democracy against communism was wrong.

These are massive decisions....should you fight?....when to fight.....how to fight and how much.

Edited by Stirlingsays (12 Oct 2017 4.50pm)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

Yep....it was a sh1tshow.

Johnson trusted the bulls*** from the field far more than Kennedy...who had actually stayed there and saw what happened with the French.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)