Hearts and Minds
Vietnamese are pissed off at Bush’s Vietnam remarks:
People in Vietnam, where opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq is strong, said Thursday that Mr. Bush drew the wrong conclusions from the long, bloody Southeast Asian conflict.“Doesn’t he realize that if the U.S. had stayed in Vietnam longer, they would have killed more people?” said Vu Huy Trieu of Hanoi, a veteran of the communist forces that fought American troops in Vietnam. “Nobody regrets that the Vietnam War wasn’t prolonged except Bush.”
He said U.S. troops could never have prevailed here. “Does he think the U.S. could have won if they had stayed longer? No way,” Trieu said.
Vietnam’s official government spokesman offered a more measured response when asked at a regular media briefing to comment on Bush’s speech to American veterans Wednesday.
“With regard to the American war in Vietnam, everyone knows that we fought to defend our country and that this was a righteous war of the Vietnamese people,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said. “And we all know that the war caused tremendous suffering and losses to the Vietnamese people.”
We’ll file this under diplomacy.
Dug Jay
Off subject, but this guy has it about right regarding the site host:
John Cole
Call it tough love.
The Other Steve
You moonbats just don’t get it! George Bush is creating an alternative reality, where you guys just don’t exist!
As Max Boots writes in the WSJ, this was a very bold move!
How difficult it must be for GW Bush, The Poet King, all alone, with few who are even capable of understanding the ramifications of the decisions that must be made.
Dug Jay
Stupidity would appear to fit better…
Doug H.
I think the heat’s getting to Dug Jay too.
An administration desperately out of touch… « Compassion in Politics
[...] 24th, 2007 · No Comments Check out this cartoon about our travesty in Iraq and Bush’s speech about Vietnam.Here’s the quote from his speech highlighted. [...]
Andrew
Max Boots need to go fuck himself with a sideways jackhammer.
Punchy
Seriously, you could fill in about 30 different country’s names in the blanks and the statement still stands.
For America, that’s got to be unprecedented.
myiq2xu
If we had stayed in ‘Nam until we won we would have been there until . . . uh, still?
Although supported by the Communists, the real reason the Vietnamese were fighting was for independence from colonial occupation.
Political ideologies like capitalism or communism had little relevance to a labor-intensive agrarian society.
Like Iraq, we had the power to impose our will on the Vietnamese people, but we could never make them like it.
Gus
Apparently you moonbats haven’t heard that several unnamed and uncited North Vietnamese officials were just about to surrender and become capitalist pigs until the Democrat communist congress cut off funding and military aid to South Vietnam. The Soviets were also just seconds away from cutting off their aid to North Vietnam until stab in the back traitors caused us to lose this war. I know this because I’ve read undocumented blog comments. It’s amazing what you can learn on the intertubes.
Jake
Shorter Vietnam: Go fuck yourself.
Pb
I rather liked this take on him instead:
And, Dug Jay, I’ll link if you’ll learn to link.
Shelby
So, to support the argument that the Vietnamese vociferously disagree with the US President, we’ve got (1) a communist soldier who fought against the US, and (2) a spokesman for the government established by the communist soldiers who fought against the US. Well, at least CBS got the full range of opinion.
Dreggas
Iraq was not like Vietnam before it was like it…
MBunge
“So, to support the argument that the Vietnamese vociferously disagree with the US President,”
Yeah, cause ya know there are just TONS of Vietnamese who really do think the U.S. should have stuck around for another decade or two of carnage.
This administration is going to make an interesting sociological study in the future. We’ve got a President saying things that sound like they came from a retarded person and no one really knows what to do about it. I do think that the Democrats should be cut just a tiny bit of slack because we never have had a modern President who behaves like George W. Bush. I mean, just remember the stupidest, most irrational, most undiplomatic and impolitic things Presidents have said from FDR through Clinton…then realize that Bush says even more outrageous things on a constant basis. How do you respond to that?
Mike
Make7
Remember when Clinton went to Vietnam near the end of his presidency? He gave a speech at Hanoi National University where he actually used the phrase “this shared suffering” concerning the loss of life on both sides of the Vietnam/American War.
That made me cringe when I heard it. However, Bush seems to take making blunders to a whole new level. Perhaps he doesn’t realize how many people think the United States government was wrong about that war too.
mrmobi
Wasn’t it the communists of Viet Nam who stopped the genocide in Cambodia? And didn’t we (the US) basically start the process (by the secret, illegal bombing of Cambodia) which led to Pol Pot (a communist) taking power in 1975? If you’re going to sell this kind of stupid, Shelby, you need to yell the word communist a lot more. The more you repeat it, the more true your point becomes, don’t you know?
Besides, aren’t the communists the guys who won? Who else would we be talking to in Viet Nam?
Shelby
MBunge:
You seem to think I’m a Bush supporter; I’m not.
mrmobi:
You seem to think I’m making a big deal of the “communist” thing; I just copied it from the story as John quoted it: a veteran of the communist forces. I expect avowed Vietnamese communists to share a common perspective on the US, so that getting all your quotes from them is going to yield a predictable result—as would getting quotes solely from Ron Paul’s campaign manager and from the Cato Institute. That is not the method a good journalist would use to determine general sentiment in the country. Oh, and if you’re going to purport to quote me, next time do it accurately, without inserting words.
The Other Steve
The problem with Vietnam, was the Vietnamese. If we could have just gotten them to move to some other country, the whole war would have gone quite easily.
Horatio
Vietnam War Myths – http://www.rjsmith.com/war_myth.html
The Tet Offensive Was a Communist Victory – Only In The Minds Of The Media
Blacks Served In Disproportionate Numbers – They Did Not
Most Men Who Served Were Drafted – Most Men Who Served (75%) Were Volunteers
Draft Dodgers Protested Against The War – They Protested Over The Fact They Had To Serve
Drug Use Was Rampant In Vietnam – Drug Use is Rampant In Berkeley, and Hollywood
Fraggings Were Common In Vietnam – In fact they were rare
Prisoners Were Hurled From Helicopters – From the archives of the Beverly Hills National Guard
American Atrocities Were Widespread – In fact, only two can be documented
Body Counts Were Falsified – If anything, we wildly underestimated NVA dead
The Communists Still Hold POWs – There is no credible evidence to support this belief
More at http://www.vietnam-war.info/myths/
The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American military did not lose a battle of any consequence. From a military standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. (Westmoreland quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a renowned expert on the Vietnam War) [Westmoreland] This included Tet 68, which was a major military defeat for the VC and NVA.
Tsulagi
Do you need any more proof? Obviously the Vietnamese don’t see the big picture, and they’re still just trying to get back for a war critics op-ed.
Paul L.
I would like to remind you guy that the Vietnamese violated the Geneva Conventions in their treatment of prisoners of war.
Funny that now the Vietnamese are “the moral authority” to you guys.
Ted
The Communists Still Hold POWs – There is no credible evidence to…....
Water is Wet – In fact, water is dry
The Sky is Blue – In fact, the sky is red
Shit Stinks – In fact, Shit smells like roses and honey (it actually might – to flies)
Bush is Dim – In fact, Bush beat Kasparov in Chess
My Cat’s Breath smells like Cat Food – In fact, it smells like ass
Gilmore
Political ideologies like capitalism or communism had little relevance to a labor-intensive agrarian society.
I don’t really disagree with your larger point, but uh…tell that to the Cambodians who managed to survive Mr. Pot.
Bubblegum Tate
Horatio and Paul L—
You both made very different posts, but they both left me wondering the same thing: “What the hell are you talking about?”
Bruce Moomaw
It’s probably a good time to point out that, in his op-ed in today’s WSJ (where else?) Max Boot praises Bush’s attmpt to raise the Stab in the Back (er, Pull Out the Rug) metaphor as an act of “bold political jujitsu”, and adds that:
(1) LBJ’s key mistake was in not invading and occupying large parts of Cambodia, Laos and North Vietnam immediately.
(2) Bush should immediately attack both Syria and Iran.
(3) We should try to set up Maliki as a dictatorial strongman (which is what we should also have done with Ngo Dinh Diem).
(4) The US Army has to destroy most of the Iraqi “militias” militarily itself before there will be even the slightest chance of reaching a political settlement in Iraq. (Presumably he means the Sunni militias, not the Shiite militias. Of course, knowing Boot, it could easily be both—with our current number of troops. Alternatively, he may just be saying that we should establish a Shiite dictatorship in Iraq and then use it as a base from which to attack Iran.)
myiq2xu
Yeah, Pol Pot would have been such a nice guy if he hedn’t become a communist.
jake
They also interviewed a university student. Of course, he’s a citizen in a communist country so I don’t know if that also taints his comments. Maybe every reporter who comes to the US should have to hunt up a few socialists to balance out the opinions of the avowed capitalists.
myiq2xu
I’m not sure, but I think Horatio says we won the Vietnam War, and nothing bad happened over there.
rachel
I would like to remind you guy that the Vietnamese violated the Geneva Conventions in their treatment of prisoners of war.
Funny that now the Vietnamese are “the moral authority” to
you guysthe Bush administration.Fixed to show you what you just reminded me of. Sort of like how Bush’s “We lost Vietnam and Cambodia because we left!” meme reminds me that he himself chose not to even go.jake
I would like to remind you guy that -
GOTCHA!
whatsleft
I’m hoping someone can explain this whole thing to me – what I heard from those clips of Chimpy’s speech sounded like “we can’t leave Iraq because if we hadn’t left Vietnam, then all those bad things wouldn’t have happened in Cambodia”. Except, he made it sound like all those things that happened in Cambodia actually happened in Vietnam. So, if we pull out of Iraq then hundreds of thousands of people will be killed in some neighbor of Iraq’s?
I was just left with the impression that Bush was conflating Vietnam and Cambodia circa mid-70’s (or his speechwriter was or both) and once again displaying his ignorance of actual history. Was there something else that I missed or misinterpreted here?
grumpy realist
The “stab in the back” argument. Ah yes. Because the silly punks who natter it, day in, day out, can’t possibly conceive that the US could have lost because we were an occupying force and that usually (historically) means that the occupying force GETS THROWN OUT. We lost because we ignored that very basic rule of reality.
A heck of a lot of Americans seem to have the idea that because of our “technological superiority” it is absolutely impossible that the US could ever lose a war, so when we do, it’s because of the evil Fifth Columnists who have somehow magically sabotaged us.
These same Americans seem to feel that continuing to feed men and equipment into a stalemate that never changes is Great Strategy, and that for some reason we should continue doing so because it justifies the number of people who have already been killed. Aside from not understanding “sunk costs”, I also notice that the War Continuers never are willing to fight themselves.
If we continue in Iraq, we will end up a) breaking the US military b) bankrupting the US. Exactly what Bin Laden said he hoped would happen, I point out. One would think that when you end up doing exactly as your enemy hoped you would act, you might want to reconsider your strategy. But this is too much planning for the War Continuers. They would prefer to continue dumping men and money into that gaping maw called Iraq, on the off chance that maybe, some point down the road, things will “get better.” In anyone else, this would be called “wishful thinking”.
myiq2xu
In every direct battle with the NVA or the Viet Cong (aka Viet Minh) the US prevailed. We killed and injured far more of them than they did of our troops. We controlled the skies over South Vietnam and had superiority in the North.
I joined the Army not long after the war ended, and most of my NCO’s were veterans of the war. These are some of the things they described:
While on patrol, they would come under sniper fire. The sides of the trail or road (which were often rice paddy dikes) would be lined with hidden punji sticks (sharpened bamboo stakes) so that anyone diving for cover would be impaled. They rarely saw the sniper who would fire a few shots and then run.
We built “firebases” with clear fields of fire, artillery and mortar in the center surrounded by bunkers, trenches barbed wire and mines.
The enemy rarely launched full scale attacks, but instead would lob a few mortar rounds or a couple of rockets sometime during the night. This would result in occasional casualties, but was more designed to disrupt our soldiers sleep. Every attack required a full alert, followed by a perimeter patrol.
When they got lucky and killed a sniper or nighttime attacker, it often turned out to be an ARVN soldier.
I’ve also read quotes from former VC soldiers that stated that they would be forbidden from overt activites in certain areas. Because these areas were “quiet” there were fewer US troops, which allowed the VC to have more freedom of movement.
The basic guerrilla/insurgent/freedom fighter strategy:
“Enemy advance, we retreat. Enemy halt, we harass. Enemy retreat, we advance.”
mrmobi
Alas, poor Horatio, we hardly knew ye. I went to your link. Nice fucking propaganda site. I “protested” the Viet Nam war, both before and after I was eligible for the draft. I never knew, as is claimed on that site, that I was working for the North Vietnamese Communist Party. Good to know. Pure bullshit, but good to know.
In truth, over 20,000 GIs died in Viet Nam just to prove that the US had a bigger dick than the communists. Robert McNamara all but concedes that point in his book.
I don’t personally care whether we won or lost. There was no point, except that our government felt it was necessary to prove a point. If it was a “win,” we had a very interesting way of leaving. Somehow it didn’t feel victorious, know what I mean?
Horatio, do you see how very, very familiar the language “to preserve the sovereignty of the Republic of Vietnam” is as in “to end tyranny anywhere in the world?” They both come from the same bullshit factory, where young Americans are just cogs in a very profitable war machine. All these years later, and we are still suffering under the Nixon regime. Amazing. You should try reading some non-propaganda materials, you might pull your head out of your ass and learn something.
John Cole
Kinda hard to blame the loss on the civilians and the war protesters, then, since the military clearly had everything they needed to win every fight.
Yet you and the chowderheads are bringing up the stab in the back bullshit anyway.
Shelby
approximately 56,000 Americans are killed every year by drunk drivers
I’m too lazy to track this down in full detail, but:
(from drunk-driving.net)
I can’t imagine that the NHTSA figure isn’t at the high end of the possible range of numbers. Horatio, can you back up the alleged 56,000?
blogReeder
Who would have thunk that a post about a Vietnam (communist) rep talking about the outcome of the war would bring out all the liberal commie supporters? I’m really surprised – NOT.
Remember libs, communism has killed more people that even the Bush Administration. I liked the comment about how Vietnam (communist) “saved” Cambodia against Pol Pot (communist).
Don’t you people realize that communism is a bad form of government? It sure sounds good on paper. But then liberals are not known to think beyond a knee-jerk. Let’s just look at the situation in this country, shall we? Imagine that we lived under a communist form of government and Bush was the leader. Think about it, you wouldn’t be getting rid of him in 2008 and all HIS programs would be the law. Right?
John Cole
You caught us, Blogreeder. We were just pretending to lament the deplorable and stupid rhetoric from this president, but you saw through it.
You, alone, were able to see that what we were really doing was pining for the Days of Chairmen Mao and Uncle Joe.
Moron.
blogReeder
See, I know what you guys are all about. :)
Now I am surprised. I can sometimes get a rise from Tim, not you John. Thank Goodness there was no mention of A.H..
Tulkinghorn
Horatio is right.
The US Armed forces did not lose the Vietnam war. However, the Vietnam War was definitely a loss. The policy that the war supported turned out to be unworkable, so the success of the armed forces was, in the end, beside the point.
This is an excellent parallel to Iraq. No matter how well the armed forces perform, the failed policies can not be retractively unfailed. In Vietnam and Iraq, the final arbitor of whether the policies succeeded was the local governments. If they could not gain legitimacy on their own, no occupying military force could create it for them.
So in both cases we invested immense treasure and human life into a project where the outcome was in the hands of people other than ourselves. Stupid policy leading inexorably toward bad results.
Rome Again
Draft Dodgers Protested Against The War – They Protested Over The Fact They Had To Serve
Drug Use Was Rampant In Vietnam – Drug Use is Rampant In Berkeley, and Hollywood
I have a brother who was drafted, ran to Canada, was returned, spent a few years in Vietnam and then came back with a pound of Cambodian pot.
TenguPhule
We don’t have to imagine, we’re in it already.
TenguPhule
Does this mean PaulL admits the US has forfeited its moral authority today?
rachel
Sometimes “gotchas!” have unintended consequences.