Historians Claim Dems And Media Lost Vietnam
Excerpted From The Times of London:
WHEN President George W Bush invoked the memory of Vietnam to justify staying in Iraq, he was drawing on a new wave of revisionist history which maintains that America did not lose the war, but the will to win.
“Three decades later there is a legitimate debate about how we got into the Vietnam war and how we left,” Bush said in a speech to army veterans last week. White House insiders admitted it was a risky topic which had previously been left to the antiwar movement. Americans generally prefer to forget Indochina and remember who won the cold war.
Lately, the lessons of Vietnam have provoked intense discussion among historians and in current affairs magazines such as the neo-conservative Weekly Standard.
Bush has been quietly paying attention and had been thinking for months about the right moment to bring Vietnam into the debate, according to a White House official.
In Triumph Forsaken, published last year, the historian Mark Moyar claimed that South Vietnam could have survived had the Americans not acquiesced in the overthrow of President Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963, plunging the country into an “extended period of instability and weakness”.
Moyar is now working on a book about the second half of the war, in which he argues: “In the offensive of 1975, the North Vietnamese are moving around huge conventional forces that would have been pulverised by our air power.” By then, however, Hanoi was well aware that America was turning against the war and doubted that the US military would be able to act decisively.
Supporters of the Iraq war have also been delving into Lewis Sorley’s book, A Better War, which was rereleased in paperback this year. The war, Sorley wrote, “was being won on the ground even as it was being lost at the peace table and the US Congress”.
The North Vietnamese have given this argument a boost over the years. In an interview after his retirement, Bui Tin, who received the South Vietnamese army’s unconditional surrender in 1975, recalled that visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda, church ministers and other antiwar protesters “gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses . . . through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilise a will to win”.
James Q Wilson, a social scientist who is revered by conservatives, argued in The Wall Street Journal last year: “Whenever a foreign enemy challenges us, he will know that his objective will be to win the battle . . . among the people who determine what we read and watch. We are in danger of losing in Iraq . . . in the newspapers, magazines and tele-vision programmes we enjoy.”
Antiwar historians have hit back at Bush’s invocation of Vietnam. “What is Bush saying?” asked Robert Dallek, the biographer of John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. “That we didn’t fight hard enough, stay long enough? That’s nonsense.”
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In an interview after his retirement, Bui Tin, who received the South Vietnamese army’s unconditional surrender in 1975, recalled that visits to Hanoi by Jane Fonda, church ministers and other antiwar protesters “gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses . . . through dissent and protest [America] lost the ability to mobilize a will to win”.
This is why we will always lose a war when you allow a vocal minority of so called citizens voice what they believe. The vast majority of us common folk have a bad habit of sitting on our a$$e$ and allowing the vocal, I hate America group, to voice and change policy of this great Nation. We can Win this War but as long you have certain far left groups that have control of the Television/Newspapers what do you expect to happen! We will soon be like Yugoslavia in the end and we will become the DisUnited States of America! How sad and pathetic we have become!
August 26th, 2007 at 8:20 amThis shit makes my blood boil.
August 26th, 2007 at 8:29 am“revisionist history”…Try again…GW invoked Woodsonian history vs that Zinnian drivel taught in Europe and US schools. And he was right.
What gets me is that most of these fucking reporters, no matter who they are, are still under the false impression that everyone in the west belongs to the progressive collective that most reporters also belong to. And that people in the West are not educated enough to distinguish betwwen lies and truth or facts and non-facts.
Nice try T.O.L. No cigar for you. Sorry man, but the minute that I read the “revisionist history” line, was the minute that I put that piece down. Homey don’t play that shit.
August 26th, 2007 at 8:32 amToo bad, Dan, because the rest of the article was really good and nowhere near lefty propaganda. In fact, it said even the North Vietnamese backed the idea that the left and the media lost the war. That’s what got my blood boiling.
August 26th, 2007 at 8:42 amHave these people been in a f-cking coma since 1980? This debate was settled by 1978, w/the great book “Big Story,” by Peter Braestrup. That book proved 100% that our traitor-left media spun a battlefield disaster for the VC into a battlefield disaster for the US of A, caused a sitting US President to not seek reelection, and panicked the then-majority party into running away from its own war.
There were numerous other books confirming this analysis all thru the 80’s…THAT IS THE ACCEPTED HISTORICAL VIEW, IT’S “REVISIONIST HISTORY” THAT THE US ACTUALLY WAS DEFEATED ON THE BATTLEFIELD.
BTW, Pres. Nixon himself wrote one of those books, “The Real War,” pub in 1980, it was brilliant and remains so!
August 26th, 2007 at 8:44 amFire,fire,fire:
I lived through that era. I served with many a VN vet. I already know the real story….Good article or no….Inserting terms such as “revisionist history” is a
slick way of saying “Here’s the story…but…”
This how libs get away with their “revisionist” bias. They should be called on it…every time they pull that stunt….
This is the kind of stunt that I was taught to watch out for when I read……
I don’t read lib pubs anymore…I don’t want their subtle messages floating around in my head.
If I want to read a historical analysis on something I’ll stick to Woods or Spencer. Time, Inc is a waste of my time.
But thanks for the words….
August 26th, 2007 at 9:12 amThe malignant cancer ran deep through the country, from Hollywood elites, to born silver-spoon American Communists like the Weathermen, who exist singly and teach young bowls of mush at Northwestern. God, if I can just get time (between doing my part fighting in the current war) to write, I’m going to “hand their ass” to at least a few former Weathermen and maybe get Fonda to sue me.
I don’t know how many people there are out there like me but I know I am not alone.
Vietanam took my father…in a figurative sense. He got his legs blown off and returned home to function well for a decade, then turn off the tangible part of his life that was his”War Experience.”
I, born in 1969, DO NOT EXIST. Though I have been serving my country, a nomad, for twenty years…in my hometown where he is a pillar of the community, for his service, for how well he has “overcome” diversity, appearing at vet events and the like…I do not exist. He denies having a son.
I have been an enlisted aircrewman. I flew in Desert Storm. I initiated the Battle of Bubyan Island, and it is in the history books. I was decorated. I have been a Naval Aviator and flown the entire Iraq airspace in EA-6’s off the USS Truman during OSW and then OIF. I switched services to fly B-52’s. I’ve killed the enemy in Afghanistan who wish to murder my family, enslave my daughter and kill my son…and yours.
I volunteered for duty on the ground, taking charge of a TACP controlling airstrikes. I don’t have to, but I will go outside the wire because it is my duty to.
I wear the patch of the 173rd ABn on the side of my helmet with the date my father “died” in Vietnam.
Damn…I just wish I existed in my hometown. I wish I knew someone like me…I know you are out there.
I am. We are. This is…the legacy of Vietnam.
They want to do it again. F!#!**k you Fonda, Hayden, Kerry, Murtha, Durban, Clinton, Obama, Mrs. Edwards, Reid, Baez, Dohrn, Flannagan, Penn, Sarandon and your clown husband…on and on.
Kiss my Cajun grits. Whew!
August 26th, 2007 at 9:35 amShameless plug (www.killingjanefonda.com)
C.L.LUCAS…..YOU READ MY MIND. COULDN’T HAVE SAID IT BETTER MYSELF.
ON BEHALF OF MY GRANDCHILDREN,THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE
August 26th, 2007 at 11:24 amC.L. Lucas,
Thanks for the shameless plug.
everyone check out his link
August 26th, 2007 at 11:32 amThe left underestimates the damage that will be done to the fighting spirit of our military if they succeed with their short sighted political subterfuge.
August 26th, 2007 at 11:55 am“Historians Claim Dems And Media Lost Vietnam”
No shit, Dick Tracey!!
Then the biggest, most treasonist son of bitch is elected and then re-elected as President.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:08 pmWHEN President George W Bush invoked the memory of Vietnam to justify staying in Iraq, he was drawing on a new wave of revisionist history which maintains that America did not lose the war, but the will to win.
Somethings never die; tell a lie long enough and loud enough and people will start believing it.
Or like the ACLU likes to spin it: Tell it big, the bigger the better since Americans by tradition will refuse to believe that something that big could be a lie.
First time I encountered that accusation: “lost the will to win” was in 1974, don’t know but it sounds like 33 years have passed since that specific “revision” of history occur.
August 26th, 2007 at 12:34 pmDUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
It is the clever use of words that this metrosexual media excels at. In this case, “revisionist”. Two weeks ago it was the word “denier”. If you are skeptical of their radical explanations, you are a “denier”. (With all the associations of a Holocaust denier, of course. Why, you’re a Nazi if you disagree with us.)
So too with “revisionists”. As made clear here and at the time, the belief that losing a battle of wills with a sadistic and monstrous enemy might not be a good thing, esp when we were crushing them militarily, has been loud and proud since that time. That the North Vietnamese capitalized on middle class white people who wanted to have a great time instead of working or going to war is well documented. John Kerry helped lose the war. Jane Fonda too.
Howard Zinn, John Kerry, are closer to Ward Churchill than to the tough, patriotic working class dems I grew up around.
We have US senators who hate this country.
We have leading intellectuals who find patriotism a form of fascism.
We have leading celebrities, saturated in luxury, wealth and freedom claiming they are oppressed and “brave” for bashing a gov’t that would not touch a hair on their coiffed (or toupeed as in Keith Olbermann) heads.
So we “lost” in Vietnam. Just as we are “losing” in Iraq. (Quick, name the engagment with enemy we have actually lost. There are none.)
The white, elite, snobs who live in Malibu and Cambridge and Tribeca live in obscene luxury built on the greatness of the freedom of this county hate the nation that fetes them.
Mostly, because it is much more “cool” to hate the US. It is national self loathing as fashion accoutrement for many.
Safe and snug in Martha’s Vineyard and Santa Monica, Matt Damon and Sean Penn can bravely praise Michael Moore or Hugo Chavez.
The funny thing is that if their Muslim allies are ushered into power, it will be Rosie O’Donnell who will be buried up to her neck and stoned to death first. Matt Damon will be second. Jane Fonda third.
Why ally then with such enemies? The final hypocrisy: They FULLY EXPECT our gov’t to in the end, protect their butts from any such outcome. They feel so damn safe because of our gov’t that they feel the swagger to bash it endlessly.
I have digressed.
The only appropriate expression for people like this is contempt. They are our worst enemy, not our foes on the battle field. They have already caused our defeat in one major war. How many can we afford?
August 26th, 2007 at 1:18 pmI still haven’t forgiven the 60s radicals for what they did to my dad (Platoon & Company CO, C Coy/5th Bn/12 Inf. Rgt/199th Lt. Bgde; 1970), and every man that fought in Southeast Asia. But, I know that he did find some relief when Kerry lost. Kerry made all these claims of atrocities over there, yet if he really did observe them, he should be charged with dereliction of duty for not putting a stop to them. Of course, we all know that pretty much everything he claimed has been debunked; that won’t undue the irreparable damage done to a whole generation of brave Americans, and their legacy. Well as we all know, for some reason, all these anti-American scum from the past haven’t died off. They’re doing the same goddam persecution of our servicemen today. I was born in 1986, and will hopefully be commissioned a Marine officer by 2010. I will meet and serve with Americans with courage, honor, and conviction that these assholes will never know the first thing about. C. L. Lucas, you express and represent the opinions of more people than you imagine, thank you.
August 26th, 2007 at 2:30 pmC.L. Lucas, thank you for your great service and sacrifices. And to your Dad to, may he come to his senses some day soon.
Tom wrote:”The funny thing is that if their Muslim allies are ushered into power, it will be Rosie O’Donnell who will be buried up to her neck and stoned to death first. Matt Damon will be second. Jane Fonda third.”
So there IS an upside to defeat! THAT almost wd make it worthwhile…[almost].
August 26th, 2007 at 3:11 pmOne last word. Tom makes mention of the kind of true liberal people that I grew up with…he says:”Howard Zinn, John Kerry, are closer to Ward Churchill than to the tough, patriotic working class dems I grew up around.”
That is so right on perfect. These so called “progressive dhimocratz” are nothing like the hard-working middle and lower class patriots that I grew up with either.
Listening to both party conventions in the 60’s ssemed like you were listening to “one nation” “one idea” and one country. The rhetoric was all the same.
A common people, a singular nation, a common language and a common moral ethos. That was America prior to 1964.
Not so anymore. We are a nation divided by the Zinnian philosphers who graduated from the leftist student movements of the 60’s vs the traditional American constitutionalism as expoused by Thomas Woods.
Revisionism is the mantra and mantle of a liberal mindset overcome by the self-hatred, the self-loathing of country that came out of the Pepsi Generation.
Those of us born in the 50’s saw our party and our brand of traditional liberalism highjacked by the Jane Fondas, Tom Haydens and further destroyed by the Howard Zinn’s of the modern era.
We were faced with a choice in 1979. Follow the new progressives into historical oblivion or press on and keep America and traditional liberalism alive.
Many of us left the Dem Party in droves and rallied behind Ronald Reagan…and there we still remain.
And until the Democratic party comes to its senses and returns to its traditional liberal roots..we will remain steadfast in our new digs: The Republican party…and we will continue to build upon that foundation that made this country what it is: one nation, one people, one language, and one working moral compass.
E Plurubus Unum used to be the order of the day when I was growing up. Now it means out of many…diversify, divide and conquer.
A nation divided against itself cannot stand….or said that famous Republican Abe Lincoln. Attempts at revisionism will never unify this country. Factoring out everything that our great leaders have done in the past in favor of everything that they did wrong, doesn’t change history.
All the self-loathing, self-hating Hollywood intellectial BS doesn’t change history either. And so long as there are patriots such as we around…Woodsonian History will continue to be taught and Howard Zinn, Ward Churchill, et. al. will remain the useless idiots that they are.
August 26th, 2007 at 3:45 pmThere is an old saying we all need to use in regards to Time magazine, “Life magazine is for people who can’t read and Time magazine is for people who can’t/won’t think”.
Newsweek is no better. For myself, a scientist, Newsweek lost all cred around the global warming lie. Having proclaimed global cooling in the 70’s and now global warming 30 years later they are nothing more than sensationalistic and idealogy driven. By comparison I like the American Spectator and the National Review, both are very well written, rock ribbed conservative publications
We, our side, as someone else pointed out already in this thread, have not been active enough. The recent grassroots uprising that destroyed the illegal alien amnesty bill has demonstrated for all just how powerful we are. We need to flex those muscles again by calling our repsresentatives and next November by voting. Throw the bums out and get some real leaders in Federal, State and local gov.
We all need to become more civically active. We don’t have to just sit here and take this shit.
August 26th, 2007 at 4:16 pmAs the son of a man that gave seven years of his life to that war (first as an adviser, then in the more conventional way) He was so wounded by the betrayal he felt from the American people that he forbid me to join up. It is probably the only thing that I still think that he did wrong(he’s dead now). The personal injury he felt was nothing compared to the shame he felt at abandoning the people that he had persuaded to trust our collective word. He spent a lot of time in the Montagnard villages but rarely spoke of it. I wish I had been mature enough to have asked him more when he was still around.
August 26th, 2007 at 4:16 pmGreetings:
I agree with the opinions expressed here by the posters. I have read and re-read them. I have seen the anger in them expressed in many ways by many other people. It is real and I respect it. When I went through Basic Training (summer of 1982) I was told I didn’t have to wear my uniform. I wore it proud and dared, with my eyes, anyone to spit on it. That said…I have come to an interesting conclusion which I will end with.
First, what can we learn from the ‘Vietnam Experience’? How can we use that knowledge to prevent the current situation from turning Iraq into Vietnam II? How do we deal with either a weak, political GOP President or Hilary Clinton as President? Maybe Hilary isn’t the enemy. Maybe the media is. What to do?
I see an interesting confluence. We might have Hilary as President with a lot of returning Iraq War veterans. The potential for civil conflict is high; especially if Hilary or her administration attempt some ‘chicanery’(insert definition of chicanery here).
So, do we sit back and let it happen? Where will the Bull Runs and Fort Sumpters and Gettysburg’s occur?
Or do we figure out how to bring this country to its senses with a minimum of lost life? How so we turn the corner?
The potential for a Chinese attack on his country while we are hunting for some old man in the hills of Afghanistan haunts me.
Oh, and my interesting thought…
I was telling a few friends about the lack of WTG humor. Usually, after some horrible disaster there is some humor. Some of it is vulgar, some makes you think. Jews, dying in death camps made it why can’t we?
Humor is, I believe, an escape valve for sentient creatures like us. I see no jokes about WTC and I do not remember many about Vietnam. Have we, as a country, not processed the hell of both? Do these events still simmer within us?
Somebody who knows what they are doing could very easily use this against us.
I am worried for the future of this country.
Tim Roesch
August 26th, 2007 at 4:45 pmCPM
Tentpegs anyone?
CL Lucas, thank you for your service and for your dad’s!
August 26th, 2007 at 5:33 pmMay God bless all our men and women who served in Vietnam and who are serving in the WOT (and the rest of our veterans, too!)–You are precious to us and to the world for defending freedom against Communism and Islamofacism.
One of the inadvertent blessings of the current war is that because of it, our brave heroes who fought and died in Vietnam will be vindicated, respected and appreciated at last for the good they really did and for which so many gave the last full measure of devotion.
Tim Roach:
We already figured all that out in the 70’s. You, much like this article are a day late and a dollar short.
We’ve already answered the questions in this article.
August 26th, 2007 at 6:38 pmI, as an American citizen, am still too pissed off by what happened on 9/11 and the 8 years prior where nothing was done to stop it when all the writing was on the wall, to make light of it.
As far as Vietnam, I am also in no mood to make jokes about that national disgrace and embarrassment. Especially when I think about people like Fonda and Kerry et. al. The fact is Vietnam could very easily have been won by never having the ridiculous no fly zones and the silly rules of engagement and by expelling many of the antiwar movement. American citizens caused us to lose that war, not our opponent.
As far as Jews and the Nazi death camps, the Jews were unified and there weren’t a significant percentage of Jews telling Jews they deserved to die because of the way the world viewed them. That’s not the case here, look again at Kerry, Murtha and the entire democrat party.
Actions by many Americans today are traitorous and despicable. I am in no mood for jockularity and humor is not way to rectify the situation.
August 26th, 2007 at 6:50 pmTBinSTL:
Don’t let it bug you man…I got alot of friends who sill feel the sting of this country’s betrayal of them in VN.
But they are all members of “Team Infidel” just like yourself. From the comments that you make here, despite not having been in the service, you seemed to have turned out just fine. You’re one of us…
But be advised, your father’s sacrifice is still remembered fondly by every Vet in here…and everytime that Taps are played…his memory like all of our fallen heroes will remain “precious forever”…
You can be proud of what he did both for the SVN people for his unit…for his ervice…and for the United States…
I wish my VN buddies were here, they’d tell you the same thing…
You turned out fine bud….no doubt a credit to your dad…
August 26th, 2007 at 6:55 pmC.L.Lucas -
My God. Sounds like you and my husband have the same father.
He was born in 1967 and has never met him. Not only does his father NOT want anything to do with him we have children, with a grandfather that does not want to know them either.
My husband has been a US Marines for 23 years. reenlisting yet again. His father was Army in Vietnam. Supposed helicopter pilot.
Your not alone.
August 26th, 2007 at 8:37 pmWe can only be so lucky if Iraq turns out like Vietnam. Although communism isn’t the best government, Vietnam is on the rise in almost every category. In recent years they have liberalized their economy with GDP growth hovering around 8% last year. They are no threat to their neighbors and are a stable country by all accounts. What would we have accomplished if we had stayed in Vietnam? Would a democratic South Vietnam have been better for the foreign policy state of America today? I don’t think so. The reality is, like Iraq, the Vietnam War was a mistake. If Bush really fealt strongly about American involvement in the Vietnam War he could have laced up his boots in Alabama and volunteered to serve in a combat role in the Air Force. It is easy to talk a good game. It is another to put your life on the line to achieve that aim.
August 26th, 2007 at 9:04 pmMy uncle struggled his whole life to get over ‘nam, battling addictions and depression; he took his own life last year.
I always wondered how much better he and others may have been if we as a society had not taken 25 years to welcome them back. If we had stood behind them and the sacrifices that they made. How many veterans having gone through that war felt it was for naught? That the country did betray them? How hard would that be to let go?
August 26th, 2007 at 9:20 pmI wouldn’t take the word of the media if they told me the sky was blue…until I’d looked out the window for myself.
Don’t take their word for the roles of the media and the dems in forcing us to quit in Viet Nam.
General Vo Nguyen Giap - the NVA commander - wrote a book titled, “How We Won.”
A friend of mine loaned it to me - less than 200 pages - and it pretty much confirmed the gist of that TOL article.
Now they’re at it again….
Never forget:
August 26th, 2007 at 9:26 pmThe terrorists can’t win - unless WE QUIT!
…and that’s what the media and the dems are working toward.
Too bad the Treason laws aren’t being enforced.
[…] Historians Claim Dems And Media Lost VietnamBrave Antiwar Lib Makes 1 Day Trip to Iraq to Come Home Loser […]
August 26th, 2007 at 10:09 pmKipp:
The only reality here…is that you know zip about Vietnam.
In the first place Vietnam is a mini-China. It has a ruthless repressive government. It is a country made up young people…much like you…who have no memory of the war.
But everyone of those young people and quite a few of their contemporaries in the military and police, think that Ho Chi Minh’s utopia is bullshit.
They’d gladly exchange communism for a “free and democratic” Vietnam any day. THAT was the goal of the war in VN. The United States has realized one leg of that goal: The hearts and minds of VN are NOT with Ho Chi Minh anymore.
The second leg of that campaign will succeed when communism dies of its own weight…
We won the war militarily. Now we have won the hearts and minds of the average Vietnamese. And those who are familiar with the terrain…SSaigon was never conquered. OH the NVA were on the ground all right…But they never conquered the free spirited SVN. And the murder of over 1Million VN, the drowning og 600,000 more notwithstanding….Freedom…the kind that the US talks about is still alive and well in SVN.
Oh, and back in the days when Russia use to send their troops to VN on RR? They hated the Ruskies. Today, they love Americans (too much). Russia #10. US #1.
Without the help of media pussies like Kipp, the social order in VN has changed. That is largely as a result of American influences from the VN war.
All you VN warriors deserve a great deal of credit for the changes that have come about over the years in VN.
Ask any VN living in North or South VN…who’d they rather see comming to visit? The Rusky’s? Oh hell no. The Chineese?
Worse…hell no…The US….Damn skippy.
By the way I got this info from a guy who went on a mission to VN as part of the Joint Recovery Task Force. He(a former VN Vet) was flabergasted by the fantastic reception that he got in NVN.
They may have built statues to Uncle Ho, but VN admire not Uncle Ho, but American society. They have American dreams…American hopes and American ideas…no thanks to Uncle Ho…More like thanks to the American G.I.
August 27th, 2007 at 5:45 amI’m seeing a trend here, two idiot postings in the same thread, ie. Kipp and Tim. I really wonder about some people, I know we can’t all be members of Mensa but people like Kipp and Tim make me question the survival of America. You two are truly at the moron IQ level. The most obvious things have escaped you.
I quote:
“Would a democratic South Vietnam have been better for the foreign policy state of America today? I don’t think so.”
That is one of the most monumentally ignorant comments I have ever read. Freedom and democracy will ALWAYS benefit other democracies around the world.
As a college instructor I attempt to beat back the frontiers of ignorance every time I’m in the classroom but with people like Kipp and Tim I am almost at a loss for words.
August 27th, 2007 at 10:51 amDan-
August 27th, 2007 at 9:49 pmThanks man, that does mean a lot comming from a regular from this site. As to you’re last post, I take a great deal of comfort in knowing that my parents (they met there) had a hand in “infecting” the VN people with those dreams. I don’t have a lot of regrets but I understand those men in their beds back in England that King Henry mentioned on St Crispin’s day.