Bad news or Bad Policy - You Be the Judge

Was it the the U.S. policy on Vietnam that led us towards defeat in Vietnam, Walter Cronkite and the Evening News and the N.Y. Times? My personal opinion was that our policy had more to do with our problems over there than the news. But what do you think?

Yeah, clearly it was policy and not news coverage. I suppose if there had been no coverage of the failing, morally repugnant policy, nobody would have known about it. In that sense, the coverage was responsible, but really, people need to look to the source of what was happening, if they want to assign blame for that debacle.

Why were we there? It wasn't the media signing draft orders...

My guess is that your basic chickenhawk just doesn't like the news. It's too much to handle. They're always waiting for the good news to be manufactured. The goodstories about Nam. Or, now, about Iraq. You watch FOX and they're always talking about how the liberal media conspiracy never reports the good things that happen over there. I guess if you have a specific idea about what the news should be and then it's the opposite, that sort of dashes your hopes. I know how that feels. Remember waiting for your early out but not getting it? Like that.

And it would seem the current administration doesn't care much for the news either. Has anyone noticed that Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez recently threatened newspapers with possible criminal prosecution under the 1917 Espionage Act for publishing accounts of secret prisons in foreign countries used to hold and seek information from alleged terrorists? Outsourcing torture isn't the sort of thing that is likely to generate "good" news, or publicity, for the United States. Far better to keep it - even the suspicion of it - under wraps.

Gonzalez was the White House lawyer who referred to the Geneva Convention as "quaint," and essentially irrelevant in the so-called war against terrorism. This declaration compromised the safety of all American soldiers. As John McCain testified, that as a POW in Vietnam, he, and his fellow prisoners, found profound consolation in believing that, as Americans, they were morally superior to their captors who routinely tortured them. Bush has taken that consolation away from us.

What has Bush done for the fighting man? He's given him a quagmire in an unneccessary war, increased the threat of torture, should the American fighting man fall into enemy hands, stretched our military strength to its limits, and now, in-between threatening hostilities with Iran, wants him to patrol the border in the southwest.

And the Bush Administration wants us to believe that the problems lie not with him but with the media. Sorry, but I just don't smoke that much anymore...

mod edit: drug reference





[edit on 23-5-2006 by sanctum]

From a military perspective, I can tell you that the POLITICIANS who were making money under the table from ARMS MAKERS were the biggest reason for failure in Vietnam. If the troops were allowed to do their job.... they could have marched right through Vietnam to Hanoi. Especially with all the equipment that was available to them. But because PROFITS are made by keeping America IN WAR and not WINNING WARS, which they found out after World War II, the soldiers were bogged down in a BS take two steps forward, 3 steps back mentality which cost the lives of 58,226 and over 1,800 MIA's and POW's.... and this doesn't even include the several thousand lives of our ALLIES.

Just One Opinion.

Dave

[edit on 5/29/2006 by Dave Rabbit]

It was President Eisenhower, a former lifer, who warned us about the so-called "Military Industrial Complex." And it was Bob Dylan who wrote the song, Masters of War. There's been some criticism of Clinton for his part in downsizing, or cutting back, the military. But the fact was the Cold War ended and there was no reason to continue supporting a military geared to fight a war against a no longer existent threat. But Dubya got a huge break in 9/11: an endless war against terrorism. Business as usual. Too bad our troops in Iraq are getting short changed.

I think it was bad news about the results of bad policy for VietNam. People asking for good news is like (true story) the wife sitting at the family dinner table asking family members why there are no good stories about Hitler and the Nazis.
If Cheney and Rummi were counting on George's cheerleading skills to get us through their miserable fumbling, it ain't gonna happen. If congress hadn't been so busy putting their mouths where their money was, maybe they would have been more astute at not giving the Commander-in-Chief their power.

Well.... I don't care WHO would have been President at the time..... the ADVISOR'S to the President would have LIED and MISLED them and NOTHING would have CHANGED.... except maybe if PATTON had been President. If that was the case, we either would have conquered the world.... or been wiped off the face of the earth. One thing about ole George...... he didn't give a rats keister about politics..... he just wanted to kick the living crap out of someone!

Just one opinion.

Dave

The Vietnam War was lost due to a number of factors. The main factor other then civilian leaders thinking they knew better then US military leaders was the complete incompetence of the US armed forces tactics and understanding of the conflict.
I read somewhere that it was said that the VC owned the night why was it only non US forces that thought of combating the enemy at night time ?

The fault lies with US civilian and military leaders failing to prepare there troops for the conflict. It was the same in post Saddam Iraq US troops were left fighting a war they were not trained to do so. A part of the problem seems to be the to few Americans understand the concept of winning the hearts and minds battle. Instead most Americans expect a Gulf War one style victory.

By its nature a counter insurgency is a slow daily grind that takes years to win. High tech gadgets are of little use in a counter insurgency war beyond RC drones and robots. Once the US military loses the advantages of fire power and technological advantage it is shown to be very average at counter insurgency warfare. US special forces are exempted from this criticism .

Sending troops who are trained to fight a conventional war with massive amounts of fire power to fight a counter insurgency war is like sending a goldfish to run a marathon.

Americans do it differently and believe in clearing by fire. OK if you have the resources of ammunition to sustain it but it also gives away your position to the enemy - as does a visit by a helicopter shortly before last light. Brian and I settled down in our lightweight sleeping bags on the ground rather envious of those who had clambered into hammocks nearby.

As we were obviously staying put for some time, many of the GIs wasted no time in getting a brew going and opening up cans of C rations. They discarded the cans and trash without attempting to bury them

source

I rest my case.

[edit on 16-10-2007 by xpert11]

You want to know what happened in Vietnam? Too many politician tried to micro manage the war. How in the hell can someone sitting in their ivory tower manage a war from 3000 miles away? They can't. Instead of letting the generals do what needed to be done there, the politicians took control of the war..



[edit on 4-12-2007 by SpeakerofTruth]

I don't think the media was the culprit. I remember Walter Cronkite gave the daily body count every night and I remember watching the numbers increase day after day for years. AFAIK, Cronkite was against the war.

I agree with the poster who said that we didn't know how to fight a counterinsurgency war. We weren't used to guerilla warfare either. That's why we didn't win. I think what ended the war were the massive protests from angry citizens. I remember the huge protests and demonstrations. I think the govt realized it would have anarchy on their hands unless they got out of Vietnam. It was such a divisive war, too. There are still fathers and sons not talking because they took different sides on that war.

The Iraq war is very similar to Vietnam, but one big difference is that at least fully 2/3 of the U.S. citizens don't want the war. But the govt doesn't care about such things as rioting and anarchy, since they have effectively free speech and are using surveilance on us all the time to keep us in line.

Originally posted by Dave Rabbit
From a military perspective, I can tell you that the POLITICIANS who were making money under the table from ARMS MAKERS were the biggest reason for failure in Vietnam. If the troops were allowed to do their job....

... But because PROFITS are made by keeping America IN WAR and not WINNING WARS, which they found out after World War II, the soldiers were bogged down in a BS take two steps forward, 3 steps back mentality which cost the lives of 58,226 and over 1,800 MIA's and POW's.... and this doesn't even include the several thousand lives of our ALLIES.

[edit on 5/29/2006 by Dave Rabbit]

Hiya Mr. Rabbit

I'mma paste something into this thread that somewhat supports your post above okay? Just a short peek at history for those interested in opening up their eyes to what really went on at the time.

President Lyndon Johnson wanted a war in Vietnam. He wanted it to help his friends who owned defense companies to do a little business. He needed it to get the Pentagon and CIA to quit trying to invade Cuba. And most of all, he needed a provocation to convince the American people that there was really "no other choice".

On August 5, 1964, newspapers across America reported "renewed attacks" against American destroyers operating in Vietnamese waters, specifically the Gulf of Tonkin. The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an "unprovoked attack" on the USS Maddox while it was on "routine patrol".

The truth is that USS Maddox was involved in aggressive intelligence gathering in coordination with actual attacks by South Vietnam and the Laotian Air Force against targets in North Vietnam. The truth is also that there was no attack by torpedo boats against the USS Maddox. Captain John J. Herrick, the task force commander in the Gulf, cabled Washington DC that the report was the result of an "over-eager" sonar man who had picked up the sounds of his own ship's screws and panicked. But even with this knowledge that the report was false, Lyndon Johnson went on national TV that night to announce the commencement of air strikes against North Vietnam, "retaliation" for an attack that had never occurred.

This might be part of the reason why America was unable to achieve definite victory in the Vietnam War. You can't win a war when some of your politicians and the MIC don't want that war to be won. This happened then, and it might be happening now, and will probably happen again.

Fake Terror

[edit on 5.19.08 by toreishi]