How We Went To War

[Wacka]

...the Korean War: the northern, genocidal, communist half of a country invades the non-communist southern half. The U.S. comes to the aid of the southern country. Except that in the Korean War, the U.S. was perfectly willing to advance its army into North Korea. Hence we were able to quickly destroy North Korea's ability to wage war, and thus come to a firm resolution.

 

We had the North Koreans totally beaten until the Chinese entered the war with massive amounts of troops.

[molson_golden2002]

I hate to disagree with you, because there's so much in your post we see eye-to-eye on. In some ways, the Vietnam War was similar to the Korean War: the northern, genocidal, communist half of a country invades the non-communist southern half. The U.S. comes to the aid of the southern country. Except that in the Korean War, the U.S. was perfectly willing to advance its army into North Korea. Hence we were able to quickly destroy North Korea's ability to wage war, and thus come to a firm resolution.

 

A variety of political considerations and circumstances prevented this policy from being adopted in the Vietnam War. One factor was LBJ's desire to con the gullible American public into thinking he was a moderate (ha!). He chose a middle road between Goldwater's willingness to do whatever it took to win, and the pacifists' desire to simply pull out. In this case, so-called "moderation" proved more dangerous and destructive than either of the extremes would have. Given LBJ's refusal to advance American troops onto North Vietnamese soil, and given the fanaticism of the Viet Cong, there was only one way that war could end. It would end when one side got tired of sending its young men into the killing grounds of South Vietnam. And the North Vietnamese' willingness to keep sending young men into that meat grinder was a lot higher than ours.

I agree you cannot look at Vietnam and seperate from it the Korean conflict. Still, the similarities offered lessons both for and against escalation and on top of that they were two very different countries. Just because they were both Asians does not make them identical, as I'm sure you know. Remember, we advanced int North Korea in the early stages of the war, after that we didn't. Chinese intervention hurt and scared us, and it hung over Vietnam as a giant factor. LBJ was afraid to mine Hiphong (sic) harbor for the reason he didn''t want to blow up a Chinese ship. And I strongly disagree with your assessment that a stronger policy would have worked in Vietnam. What if we had invaded the North? Remember they were just as much, if not more, anti-colonial than communist. The Koreans accepted the Americans, the Vietnmese, north AND south did not. The government we put in place in the South was corrupt, favored the wealthy--in a society riven with class tensions, I'm not against the rich, just putting this in perspective--and could not put together an army that would fight. Look at the Tet offensive. Yes, we won. But the larger significance was that the communist were able to put weapons, soldiers and other personal in every major center in the South and we knew nothing about it. Think about that. You are right that they were willing to die for their country more readily. We tried to make up for that with bombs. We used a massive amounts of fire power used against this third world nation. Two and a half times the amount of bombs were dropped there as we used in all of world war two. Just massive fire power.

 

I agree that political considerations at home mattered, but I see it in a different light. The Right wing of the Republican party made Vietnam a larger issue than it should of been. The communist boogie man was going to take over the world if we didn't win there, they argued, and that was simply scare tactics. When China went Commie in 1949 the Democrats took a big political hit for that. LBJ hoped to just get rid of the issue quickly but it blew up in his face. There is some evidence that Kennedy was going to get us out of there after the 1964 election, but that we shall never know.

[/dev/null]

The Right wing of the Republican party made Vietnam a larger issue than it should of been. The communist boogie man was going to take over the world if we didn't win there, they argued, and that was simply scare tactics.

 

A Republican President warned against getting involved

A Democratic President slowly got us more and more commited

A Democratic President got us totally committed with the help of a Democratic Congress (Gulf of Tonkin Resolution)

A Republican President signed the Paris Peace Accords

 

Oh wait, I forgot. Only a bloodthirssty Republican President and Congress could possibly get would get us into a misguided war

 

Nobody died when Eisenhower lied

[molson_golden2002]

1) A Republican President warned against getting involved

2) A Democratic President slowly got us more and more commited

3) A Democratic President got us totally committed with the help of a Democratic Congress (Gulf of Tonkin Resolution)

4) A Republican President signed the Paris Peace Accords

 

 

5) Nobody died when Eisenhower lied

1) Ike got us in on the ground there first and VP Nixon was calling for full fledged ground forces, probably the first public official to do so

2) Yes, and was contimplating getting out[JFK]. Remember, nothing happens in a vacuum. Party politics are always taking place. China was a major set back for Democrats and Republicans--Remember McCarthy?--had a field day labeling Dems as soft on communism. LBJ didn't want that happening again. His mistake, though

3) True, Dems are hardley blameless, but remember Gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie, the whole country was lied to, Congress included. Hell, the guy who led the attack on NV the next day had also flown on the night on GoT 'incdent' and saw nothing. He knew it was crap and has said so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockda...Tonkin_Incident Yes, wikipedia, but still the source is accurate.

4) Ya, way in the futre after it was clear this was a fiasco

5) Ike was a real good President, and he was under attack from the Republican right win also

[Orton's Arm]

I agree you cannot look at Vietnam and seperate from it the Korean conflict. Still, the similarities offered lessons both for and against escalation and on top of that they were two very different countries. Just because they were both Asians does not make them identical, as I'm sure you know. Remember, we advanced int North Korea in the early stages of the war, after that we didn't. Chinese intervention hurt and scared us, and it hung over Vietnam as a giant factor. LBJ was afraid to mine Hiphong (sic) harbor for the reason he didn''t want to blow up a Chinese ship. And I strongly disagree with your assessment that a stronger policy would have worked in Vietnam. What if we had invaded the North? Remember they were just as much, if not more, anti-colonial than communist. The Koreans accepted the Americans, the Vietnmese, north AND south did not. The government we put in place in the South was corrupt, favored the wealthy--in a society riven with class tensions, I'm not against the rich, just putting this in perspective--and could not put together an army that would fight. Look at the Tet offensive. Yes, we won. But the larger significance was that the communist were able to put weapons, soldiers and other personal in every major center in the South and we knew nothing about it. Think about that. You are right that they were willing to die for their country more readily. We tried to make up for that with bombs. We used a massive amounts of fire power used against this third world nation. Two and a half times the amount of bombs were dropped there as we used in all of world war two. Just massive fire power.

 

I agree that political considerations at home mattered, but I see it in a different light. The Right wing of the Republican party made Vietnam a larger issue than it should of been. The communist boogie man was going to take over the world if we didn't win there, they argued, and that was simply scare tactics. When China went Commie in 1949 the Democrats took a big political hit for that. LBJ hoped to just get rid of the issue quickly but it blew up in his face. There is some evidence that Kennedy was going to get us out of there after the 1964 election, but that we shall never know.

I agree LBJ was running scared of the Chinese. Too scared, if you ask me. At one point during the war, the U.S. sent a battleship to bombard the Viet Cong. The battleship's shells could reach 50 miles inland. It was more considerably accurate than bombers; which meant fewer civilian deaths, and more military value. But the Chinese protested the battleship's presence, so LBJ discontinued its bombardments. American soldiers and pilots had to die to achieve military objectives that battleships could have accomplished far more easily. That's just one of many examples of the military being forced to fight with one arm tied behind its back.

 

Would it have been wise to invade North Vietnam? You're right in saying the invasion probably wouldn't have gone over well. But the North Vietnamese government was extremely effective at turning their population against us anyway. I'm not sure how much more fanatically anti-American they could possibly have become. And if the invasion was followed by responsible behavior (no raping, no stealing, etc.), it would have blunted the effectiveness of the North Vietnamese propaganda machine. Perhaps more importantly, a successful invasion would have severely harmed the North Vietnamese government's ability to wage war. I'm not saying such an invasion would necessarily have been the best option, because honestly I don't know. But it was certainly a better idea than what LBJ actually did.

 

If communism was perceived as a threat, it's because communism was a threat. The first Soviet leader who didn't espouse the long-term goal of global conquest was Gorbachev. Conquest and mass murder often went hand-in-hand. But even in the absence of mass murder, undiluted communism is arguably the most evil ideology ever conceived.

[/dev/null]

1) Ike got us in on the ground there first and VP Nixon was calling for full fledged ground forces, probably the first public official to do so

2) Yes, and was contimplating getting out[JFK]. Remember, nothing happens in a vacuum. Party politics are always taking place. China was a major set back for Democrats and Republicans--Remember McCarthy?--had a field day labeling Dems as soft on communism. LBJ didn't want that happening again. His mistake, though

3) True, Dems are hardley blameless, but remember Gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie, the whole country was lied to, Congress included. Hell, the guy who led the attack on NV the next day had also flown on the night on GoT 'incdent' and saw nothing. He knew it was crap and has said so: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Stockda...Tonkin_Incident Yes, wikipedia, but still the source is accurate.

4) Ya, way in the futre after it was clear this was a fiasco

5) Ike was a real good President, and he was under attack from the Republican right win also

Is it 4:20 all day where you live?