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hist/student
Lieutenant
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 243
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 Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 12:26 am Post subject: |
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retracted
Last edited by hist/student on Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:27 am; edited 1 time in total |
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sparky
Former Member
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 546
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 3:02 am Post subject: |
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Of course he's thankful to Americans who opposed the war. We might still be fighting it rather than have the burgeoning trade we currently have. Hell, I'm thankful to the Americans who opposed the war:
Clergy and Laity Concerned About Vietnam
The Quakers
The Unitarians
Martin Luther King
Daniel Ellsberg
The list is endless and we owe these patriotic Americans a great deal of thanks for the risks they took and sacrifices they made in following their conscience.
Giap didn't specify VVAW, Jane Fonda, Ramsey Clark and he didn't say they helped him win the war. He also didn't say that he was prepared to surrender after Tet. |
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95 bxl
Seaman
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 179
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| Posted: Sun May 30, 2004 5:11 am Post subject: |
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| sparky wrote: | | Careful, sometimes smears, innuendo, groundless accusations and whisper campaigns backfire. |
Yet that doesn't stop you and the rest of your ilk from engaging in ti... eh, Sparky? Being just the tiniest bit hypocritical, I see.
| Quote: |
Nobody who wasn't already going to vote for Bush is going to hear "war criminal" and not see it for the absolute Bullcrap that it is. |
Gee, Sparky... just because YOU have such a difficult time dealing with reality, that doesn't mean the rest of the country does.
I can see the ad now... footage of Hanoi John all those years back, confessing to his war crimes... over and over and over again.
In your world, Sparky, that wouldn't make any difference.... but then, you've already made the compromises necessary to support a socialist war criminal. In the real world.... I think it would have some major impact.
Hopefully, we'll get the opportunity to find out. |
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garb1015
Seaman Apprentice
Joined: 31 May 2004
Posts: 89
Location: Southern California
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 8:26 am Post subject: Antiwar movement |
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Found this at NewsMax.com
Gen. Giap: Kerry's Group Helped Hanoi Defeat U.S.
The North Vietnamese general in charge of the military campaign that finally drove the U.S. out of South Vietnam in 1975 credited a group led by Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry with helping him achieve victory.
In his 1985 memoir about the war, Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap wrote that if it weren't for organizations like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Hanoi would have surrendered to the U.S. - according to Fox News Channel war historian Oliver North.
Also in an interview (by Stephen Young) with Bui Tin who served on the general staff of North Vietnam's army...
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
_________________________________________________
Old wounds won't heal until they're opened up and cleaned out. Since the antiwar movement has become an issue in the upcoming election, I think it is time for certain people to be made to answer for their actions.
Vietnam Vet, 1970 |
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hist/student
Lieutenant
Joined: 09 May 2004
Posts: 243
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 12:00 pm Post subject: |
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retracted
Last edited by hist/student on Sat Jul 24, 2004 1:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
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sparky
Former Member
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 546
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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Right, that was the earliest place I could trace the origins of this urban myth. It appears that this book doesn't actually exist. I think NewsMax made it out of whole cloth.
Greenhat is still laying low on this one. You'll remember he's the one who claims he owns a copy. Not surprisingly, it's in Vietnamese and it's *somewhere* around his house...maybe he'll dig it out one of these days.
<busted again, Greenhat...snicker, snicker!!>
One conservative columnist who got suckered on it actually had enough honor and dignity to retract his earlier quote and acknowledged it isn't true and that the book doesn't exist.
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_8268.shtml |
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Morto
Seaman Recruit
Joined: 29 May 2004
Posts: 46
Location: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
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| Posted: Mon May 31, 2004 6:36 pm Post subject: |
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| sparky wrote: | Right, that was the earliest place I could trace the origins of this urban myth. It appears that this book doesn't actually exist. I think NewsMax made it out of whole cloth.
Greenhat is still laying low on this one. You'll remember he's the one who claims he owns a copy. Not surprisingly, it's in Vietnamese and it's *somewhere* around his house...maybe he'll dig it out one of these days.
<busted again, Greenhat...snicker, snicker!!>
One conservative columnist who got suckered on it actually had enough honor and dignity to retract his earlier quote and acknowledged it isn't true and that the book doesn't exist.
http://www.washingtondispatch.com/article_8268.shtml |
Actually it's from a Reuters dispatch of March 30th, 2004 and subsequently reported by Newsmax. Claimed later to be "urban legend" by indymedia which I presume is your source given your politics, Spark  The clown posting the retraction at Washingtion Dispatch was too lazy to do or pay for a Lexus/Nexus search on the matter.
More important than the few words from Giap is 1995 WSJ interview that follows:
| Quote: | How North Vietnam Won The War
Taken from The Wall Street Journal, Thursday August 3, 1995
What did the North Vietnamese leadership think of the American antiwar movement? What was the purpose of the Tet Offensive? How could the U.S. have been more successful in fighting the Vietnam War? Bui Tin, a former colonel in the North Vietnamese army, answers these questions in the following excerpts from an interview conducted by Stephen Young, a Minnesota attorney and human-rights activist. Bui Tin, who served on the general staff of North Vietnam's army, received the unconditional surrender of South Vietnam on April 30, 1975. He later became editor of the People's Daily, the official newspaper of Vietnam. He now lives in Paris, where he immigrated after becoming disillusioned with the fruits of Vietnamese communism.
Question: How did Hanoi intend to defeat the Americans?
Answer: By fighting a long war which would break their will to help South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh said, "We don't need to win military victories, we only need to hit them until they give up and get out."
Q: Was the American antiwar movement important to Hanoi's victory?
A: It was essential to our strategy. Support of the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. Visits to Hanoi by people like Jane Fonda, and former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses. We were elated when Jane Fonda, wearing a red Vietnamese dress, said at a press conference that she was ashamed of American actions in the war and that she would struggle along with us.
Q: Did the Politburo pay attention to these visits?
A: Keenly.
Q: Why?
A: Those people represented the conscience of America. The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.
Q: How could the Americans have won the war?
A: Cut the Ho Chi Minh trail inside Laos. If Johnson had granted [Gen. William] Westmoreland's requests to enter Laos and block the Ho Chi Minh trail, Hanoi could not have won the war.
Q: Anything else?
A: Train South Vietnam's generals. The junior South Vietnamese officers were good, competent and courageous, but the commanding general officers were inept.
Q: Did Hanoi expect that the National Liberation Front would win power in South Vietnam?
A: No. Gen. [Vo Nguyen] Giap [commander of the North Vietnamese army] believed that guerrilla warfare was important but not sufficient for victory. Regular military divisions with artillery and armor would be needed. The Chinese believed in fighting only with guerrillas, but we had a different approach. The Chinese were reluctant to help us. Soviet aid made the war possible. Le Duan [secretary general of the Vietnamese Communist Party] once told Mao Tse-tung that if you help us, we are sure to win; if you don't, we will still win, but we will have to sacrifice one or two million more soldiers to do so.
Q: Was the National Liberation Front an independent political movement of South Vietnamese?
A: No. It was set up by our Communist Party to implement a decision of the Third Party Congress of September 1960. We always said there was only one party, only one army in the war to liberate the South and unify the nation. At all times there was only one party commissar in command of the South.
Q: Why was the Ho Chi Minh trail so important?
A: It was the only way to bring sufficient military power to bear on the fighting in the South. Building and maintaining the trail was a huge effort, involving tens of thousands of soldiers, drivers, repair teams, medical stations, communication units.
Q: What of American bombing of the Ho Chi Minh trail?
A: Not very effective. Our operations were never compromised by attacks on the trail. At times, accurate B-52 strikes would cause real damage, but we put so much in at the top of the trail that enough men and weapons to prolong the war always came out the bottom. Bombing by smaller planes rarely hit significant targets.
Q: What of American bombing of North Vietnam?
A: If all the bombing had been concentrated at one time, it would have hurt our efforts. But the bombing was expanded in slow stages under Johnson and it didn't worry us. We had plenty of times to prepare alternative routes and facilities. We always had stockpiles of rice ready to feed the people for months if a harvest were damaged. The Soviets bought rice from Thailand for us.
Q: What was the purpose of the 1968 Tet Offensive?
A: To relieve the pressure Gen. Westmoreland was putting on us in late 1966 and 1967 and to weaken American resolve during a presidential election year.
Q: What about Gen. Westmoreland's strategy and tactics caused you concern?
A: Our senior commander in the South, Gen. Nguyen Chi Thanh, knew that we were losing base areas, control of the rural population and that his main forces were being pushed out to the borders of South Vietnam. He also worried that Westmoreland might receive permission to enter Laos and cut the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
In January 1967, after discussions with Le Duan, Thanh proposed the Tet Offensive. Thanh was the senior member of the Politburo in South Vietnam. He supervised the entire war effort. Thanh's struggle philosophy was that "America is wealthy but not resolute," and "squeeze tight to the American chest and attack." He was invited up to Hanoi for further discussions. He went on commercial flights with a false passport from Cambodia to Hong Kong and then to Hanoi. Only in July was his plan adopted by the leadership. Then Johnson had rejected Westmoreland's request for 200,000 more troops. We realized that America had made its maximum military commitment to the war. Vietnam was not sufficiently important for the United States to call up its reserves. We had stretched American power to a breaking point. When more frustration set in, all the Americans could do would be to withdraw; they had no more troops to send over.
Tet was designed to influence American public opinion. We would attack poorly defended parts of South Vietnam cities during a holiday and a truce when few South Vietnamese troops would be on duty. Before the main attack, we would entice American units to advance close to the borders, away from the cities. By attacking all South Vietnam's major cities, we would spread out our forces and neutralize the impact of American firepower. Attacking on a broad front, we would lose some battles but win others. We used local forces nearby each target to frustrate discovery of our plans. Small teams, like the one which attacked the U.S. Embassy in Saigon, would be sufficient. It was a guerrilla strategy of hit-and-run raids.
Q: What about the results?
A: Our losses were staggering and a complete surprise;. Giap later told me that Tet had been a military defeat, though we had gained the planned political advantages when Johnson agreed to negotiate and did not run for re-election. The second and third waves in May and September were, in retrospect, mistakes. Our forces in the South were nearly wiped out by all the fighting in 1968. It took us until 1971 to re-establish our presence, but we had to use North Vietnamese troops as local guerrillas. If the American forces had not begun to withdraw under Nixon in 1969, they could have punished us severely. We suffered badly in 1969 and 1970 as it was.
Q: What of Nixon?
A: Well, when Nixon stepped down because of Watergate we knew we would win. Pham Van Dong [prime minister of North Vietnam] said of Gerald Ford, the new president, "he's the weakest president in U.S. history; the people didn't elect him; even if you gave him candy, he doesn't dare to intervene in Vietnam again." We tested Ford's resolve by attacking Phuoc Long in January 1975. When Ford kept American B-52's in their hangers, our leadership decided on a big offensive against South Vietnam.
Q: What else?
A: We had the impression that American commanders had their hands tied by political factors. Your generals could never deploy a maximum force for greatest military effect. |
So Spark, why don't you take your effing Indymedia legends back to your play pen. You can't even burn excretement for combat vets. You're nothing but at Rear Echelon Oedipist (or REMF) to Nam combat vets, so moveon.org to indymedia and take your excretement with you.
let's put this thread to bed knowing, as any thinking vet does, that Kerry is a f-ing traitor.
_________________
"History tells us that appeasement does not lead to peace. It invites an aggressor to test the will of a nation unprepared to meet that test." --Ronald Reagan |
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