View Full Version : General Giap dead at 102
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/04/vo-nguyen-giap-dead-dies_n_4043588.html
Love him or hate him, he was an old, successful warrior.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/04/vo-nguyen-giap-dead-dies_n_4043588.html
Love him or hate him, he was an old, successful warrior.
I'm gonna go with "Hate Him" for 100 Alex.
Fark that old commie bastard. Lots of dead GI's due to his planning. Of course lots more dead NVA due to his planning (so sad about that too).
They say if you have nothing good to say, then say nothing.
So **** that communist piece of shit scum sucking asshole.
And of course the Huffy Post is right there to fellate him.
Damn I had no idea he had lived that long. I woulda expected him to have died back in the '80s or '90s.
Damn I had no idea he had lived that long. I woulda expected him to have died back in the '80s or '90s.
Yeah, well like the saying goes, "The good die young, but pricks and commies live forever."
Ideology aside, the man was his country's Patton, Nimitz, and Puller....very much revered and a brilliant general. Too bad he used his forces for evil with the dark side of the force.
Moose-Knuckle
10-04-13, 19:02
The fires of hell are stoked a little hotter tonight . . .
Ideology aside, the man was his country's Patton, Nimitz, and Puller....very much revered and a brilliant general. Too bad he used his forces for evil with the dark side of the force.
Does that consideration extend to Goering, Sepp Dietrich and Heydrich?
Singlestack Wonder
10-04-13, 19:21
jane fonda is weeping somewhere.....
Moose-Knuckle
10-04-13, 19:53
jane fonda is weeping somewhere.....
Yeah I'm sure in some hidden palace Barry is hosting a memorium for the bastard with Robert REDford, Barbra Streisand, the Clintons and their ilk in tow . . .
The man was a military genius for sure. Can't blame him for being a good general.
We shouldn't have been in Vietnam in the first place. Same with the french.
Flame suit on.
The man was a military genius for sure. Can't blame him for being a good general.
We shouldn't have been in Vietnam in the first place. Same with the french.
Flame suit on.
What
the
f***
ever.
:(
ETA: no more than Marshall Zhukov or Mao. "Victories" (although some of them against us actually weren't) built on the back of enormous dead amounts of their troops. No, the true military "geniuses" were those who could defeat the enemy at a minimum (granted, a sliding scale) of their men's lives.
GeorgiaBoy
10-04-13, 22:02
Yeah I'm sure in some hidden palace Barry is hosting a memorium for the bastard with Robert REDford, Barbra Streisand, the Clintons and their ilk in tow . . .
Huh ?
Yeah I'm sure in some hidden palace Barry is hosting a memorium for the bastard with Robert REDford, Barbra Streisand, the Clintons and their ilk in tow . . .
Don't forget Hanoi Jane.
What
the
f***
ever.
:(
ETA: no more than Marshall Zhukov or Mao. "Victories" (although some of them against us actually weren't) built on the back of enormous dead amounts of their troops. No, the true military "geniuses" were those who could defeat the enemy at a minimum (granted, a sliding scale) of their men's lives.
It doesn't matter how he won, only that he won.
Yeah I'm sure in some hidden palace Barry is hosting a memorium for the bastard with Robert REDford, Barbra Streisand, the Clintons and their ilk in tow . . .Hanoi John Kerry is probably giving the eulogy.
Ya know, as smart as he must have been, you'd think that he would have been able to organize his people against the spread of communism rather than for it. It saddens me that suffering was inflicted on all sides--nobody really won, everyone lost. Maybe it accomplished some necessary venting to prevent nuclear war, and that was only necessary because we didn't finish off Stalin in 1945 when it would have been easiest. What a messed up sequence of events that ended up being.
to bad he was ever born !
to bad he was ever born !Now now, that's a little over the top harsh, isn't it? His last name wasn't Kennedy or Cuomo or Daley.
So **** that communist piece of shit scum sucking asshole.
Was he governor of NJ, MA, or NY at some point I'm not aware of?
Now now, that's a little over the top harsh, isn't it? His last name wasn't Kennedy or Cuomo or Daley.
a list of many that should not have been born :)
It doesn't matter how he won, only that he won.
Assuming that I agree with your basic premise that he won, winning in such a manner only makes him marginally effective. After all, you can accomplish a lot with strength, determination, and an endless supply of expendable labor...;)
It doesn't matter how he won, only that he won.
And here is what he won at the cost of an estimated one million Vietnamese military dead.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Vietnam_since_1945#Socialist_Republic_.28from_1976.29
Up to 155,000 refugees fleeing the final NVA Spring Offensive were killed or abducted on the road to Tuy Ḥa in 1975.[15] Sources have estimated that 165,000 South Vietnamese died in the re-education camps out of 1-2.5 million sent,[16][17] while the number executed could have been as high as 200,000[18] (Jacqueline Desbarats estimates an absolute minimum of 100,000 executions[16][19]).
Rummel estimates that slave labor in the "New Economic Zones" caused 50,000 deaths (out of a total 1 million deported).[16][20] The number of Vietnamese boat people who died is estimated between 200,000 and 400,000, out of the 2.5 million that fled.[21] There were also tens of thousands of suicides after the North Vietnamese take-over.[22] In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions.
Many North Vietnamese soldiers and cadres began to realize that they had been indoctrinated into thinking that the South Vietnamese people were utterly poor and exploited by the imperialists and foreign capitalists who treated them like slaves, shackling, whipping and terrorizing them with dogs. Contradictory to what they were taught, they saw an abundance of food and consumer goods, fashionable clothes, plenty of books and music; things that were hard to get in the North. This fact was expressed by Duong Thu Huong, a former northern Viet Cong fighter turned democracy activist and book author, who wrote of this in her book Paradise of the Blind.
In 1976, Vietnam was officially unified and renamed Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRVN), with its capital in Hà Nội. The Vietnamese Communist Party dropped its front name "Labor Party" and changed the title of First Secretary, a term used by China, to General Secretary, used by the Soviet Union, with Lê Duẩn as General Secretary. The Viet Cong was dissolved. The Party emphasized development of heavy industry and collectivization of agriculture.
Over the next few years, private enterprises were seized by the government and their owners were often sent to the New Economic Zones—a communist euphemism for a thick jungle—to clear land. The farmers were coerced into state-controlled cooperatives. Transportation of food and goods between provinces was deemed illegal except by the government. Within a short period of time, Vietnam was hit with severe shortage of food and basic necessities. The Mekong Delta, once a world-class rice-producing area, was threatened with famine. During the mid-1980s, inflation reached triple figures.
The SRVN government implemented a Stalinist dictatorship of the proletariat in the South as they did in the North. The network of security apparatus (Công An: literally "Public Security", a communist term for the security apparatus) controlled every aspect of people's life. Censorship was strict and ultra-conservative, with most pre-1975 works in the fields of music, art, and literature being banned. All religions had to be re-organized into state-controlled churches. Any negative comments toward the Party, the government, Uncle Ho, or anything related to Communism might earn the person the tag of Phản Động (Reactionary), with consequences ranging from being harassed by police, expelled from school or workplace, to being sent to prison.
Nevertheless, the Communist authority failed to suppress the black market, where food, consumer goods, and banned literature could be bought at high prices. The security apparatus also failed to stop a nationwide clandestine network of people trying to escape the country. In many cases, the security officers of some whole districts were bribed and even got involved in organizing the escape schemes.
These living conditions resulted in an exodus of over a million Vietnamese secretly escaping the country either by sea or overland through Cambodia. For the people fleeing by sea, their wooden boats were often not seaworthy, were packed with people like sardines, and lacked sufficient food and water. Many were caught or shot at by the Vietnamese coast guards, many perished at sea due to boats sinking, capsizing in storms, starvation and thirst. Another major threat were the pirates in the Gulf of Thailand, who viciously robbed, raped, and murdered the boat people. In many cases, they massacred the whole boat. Sometimes the women were raped for days before being sold into prostitution.
The people who crossed Cambodia faced equal dangers with mine fields, and the Khmer Rouge and Khmer Serei guerillas, who also robbed, raped, and killed the refugees. Some were successful in fleeing the region and landed in numbers in Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Hong Kong, only to wind up in United Nations refugee camps.
Yes it was a great victory at great cost to the people who did the actual fighting and a richly deserved reward for the populace. Although not quite the socialist utopia they had been told to expect.
NBC News also gave a glowing puff piece on him. I was fairly shocked at how much praise they heaped upon him.
Moose-Knuckle
10-05-13, 02:43
It doesn't matter how he won, only that he won.
Sorry to pinch a loaf in your hero worship but he didn't "win" the war, the US packed up and went home. Tet was a disaster for them, communist sympathizers like Cronkite did more damage to the US effort than the General ever did.
Does that consideration extend to Goering, Sepp Dietrich and Heydrich?
No. These men, while generals, were predominantly party people and not largely responsible for affecting overall military doctrine or strategy.
If Giap was pro-US we would have been singing his praises.
I am a former professional warrior and can detach the man's politics and military duty....the same way I can do the same for Stonewall Jackson and Yamamoto and Rommel.
Sorry to pinch a loaf in your hero worship but he didn't "win" the war, the US packed up and went home. Tet was a disaster for them, communist sympathizers like Cronkite did more damage to the US effort than the General ever did.
This. foxtrotx1 has bought into the retarded oversimplification of who won or lost in Vietnam. The NVA defeated the South Vietnamese in 1975. We pulled out in 1973, over two years earlier. The NVA could not take SV while we were there.....they tried numerous times and failed (and that is a fact).
The North did NOT defeat the U.S., period.
The man was a military genius for sure. Can't blame him for being a good general.
We shouldn't have been in Vietnam in the first place. Same with the french.
Flame suit on.
That's how I see it. If we weren't there what would it matter to any of us? It would not.
I assume EVERYONE is a great warrior and I live my life in a manner that I don't have to test that theory. I do not go looking around for a reason to screw with people so relax, you great warriors you.
Godspeed to ALL fallen soldiers believing in their cause - many of which I don't give a care about and some I outright despise.
-------------------------------------
"One cannot awaken a man who pretends to be asleep."
FromMyColdDeadHand
10-06-13, 16:05
He won and condemned his country to another generation of craptastic communist rule. He won and his people lost.
Take the long Chinese view of history and you could say that we are winning the Vietnam war.
MountainRaven
10-06-13, 18:35
This. foxtrotx1 has bought into the retarded oversimplification of who won or lost in Vietnam. The NVA defeated the South Vietnamese in 1975. We pulled out in 1973, over two years earlier. The NVA could not take SV while we were there.....they tried numerous times and failed (and that is a fact).
The North did NOT defeat the U.S., period.
Yup.
Just like how the Persian Empire wasn't defeated by the Greeks, they withdrew.
France wasn't defeated in Algeria, they withdrew.
The Soviet Union wasn't defeated in Afghanistan, they withdrew.
Kublai Khan wasn't defeated by the Japanese, he withdrew.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi wasn't defeated by the Chinese and Koreans, he withdrew.
The Roman Empire wasn't defeated in Europe, they just withdrew to Greece.
Hannibal wasn't defeated by the Romans, he withdrew (and then was defeated by Scipio).
The Arabs weren't defeated by the Israelis, they withdrew.
The Allies weren't defeated at Dunkirk, they withdrew - and the Soviets withdrew all the way back to Moscow.
The British Empire wasn't defeated by the United States of America, they withdrew from the colonies.
Anyway. I imagine much of the reason that the official word on Giap's death is woe on behalf of the American media and government is because today Vietnam is an ally against the Chinese.
No. These men, while generals, were predominantly party people and not largely responsible for affecting overall military doctrine or strategy.
If Giap was pro-US we would have been singing his praises.
I am a former professional warrior and can detach the man's politics and military duty....the same way I can do the same for Stonewall Jackson and Yamamoto and Rommel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Giap
Vơ Nguyên Giáp (25 August 1911 – 4 October 2013) was a General of the Vietnam People's Army and a politician.
Giáp was also a journalist, an interior minister in President Hồ Chí Minh's Việt Minh government, the military commander of the Việt Minh, the commander of the Vietnam People’s Army (PAVN), and defense minister. He also served as a member of the Politburo of the Vietnam Workers' Party, which in 1976 became the Communist Party of Vietnam.
I stand by my earlier assessment. This guy was no Rommel, he was a communist leader who ignored articles of the Geneva convention and those under his command murdered and tortured US prisoners.
Kublai Khan wasn't defeated by the Japanese, he withdrew.
Actually he got ****ed over by a hurricane ("divine wind"), the Japanese defenders had little to do with it.
As for US forces in VN, I'm glad we finally withdrew them. It's not like we were going to let them win the war. We destroyed their military at Tet but dickfaces like Cronkite declared it an enemy victory.
The NV won. As far as who lost you must stick to the basics. If you are in tge game and don't win you lose.
That doesn't make the efforts of our warriors there any less.
It seems like some hrre still feel insulted when the word loss is attached to our involvement there. Why?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Yup.
Just like how the Persian Empire wasn't defeated by the Greeks, they withdrew.
SNIP........
Cute.
Fact is a fact. The French were outright defeated at Dien Bien Phu, and sued for peace. Show me where WE were driven out of Vietnam. (Hint: we weren't). Sure, perhaps they "outwaited" us, or "outendured" us, whatever. Militarily they could not take SV with us there. Show me evidence otherwise. Hell, they couldn't even take it with just our airpower there (Easter Offensive). We had to be totally gone for two years before they could make SV communist.
And oh yeah----the Russkies weren't driven out of Afghanistan either, although I will submit that we actually did better against the NV than they did against the Muj.
ETA---with regards to the Revolutionary War example you used: the British had suffered a string of defeats at the end, Yorktown being the last straw and they decided the colonies weren't worth it (same with the French in Indochina). Show me a similar defeat suffered by the U.S. in Vietnam, and an unfortunate platoon being overrun somewhere doesn't cut it on the strategic/big picture level.
The NV won. As far as who lost you must stick to the basics. If you are in tge game and don't win you lose.
That doesn't make the efforts of our warriors there any less.
It seems like some hrre still feel insulted when the word loss is attached to our involvement there. Why?
Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
Unfortunately the real world pokes it's ugly head in and things aren't quite that black and white. We were in the game in Korea, even all the way to it's northern border at one point. Did we "lose" there too? I mean we didn't "win" per se so did we therefore lose?
Vietnam was a failed effort on our behalf for a myriad of reasons but militarily we were not defeated. If an enemy cannot dominate a field of battle and you "leave" without being forced to I wouldn't call that defeat; not sure how I'd label it but again, in the real world things aren't always cut-and-dry.
It seems like some hrre still feel insulted when the word loss is attached to our involvement there. Why?
Because those fighting never really lost the battle. In fact they crushed the enemy at Tet. But sadly not all wars are won or lost on the battlefield. VN was lost at home by a traitorous population and elements of the government who made a winning virtually impossible. Some of this was to prevent an element of the Cold War from escalating into WWIII which is the reason we stalemated in Korea.
So when you say "we lost" you are correct. Our country lost the war, but it wasn't the fault of those doing the fighting. And that is what many are sensitive about.
Because those fighting never really lost the battle. In fact they crushed the enemy at Tet. But sadly not all wars are won or lost on the battlefield. VN was lost at home by a traitorous population and elements of the government who made a winning virtually impossible. Some of this was to prevent an element of the Cold War from escalating into WWIII which is the reason we stalemated in Korea.
So when you say "we lost" you are correct. Our country lost the war, but it wasn't the fault of those doing the fighting. And that is what many are sensitive about.
But those aren't the only reasons. Giap saw the benefit of an insurgency and guerrilla war, and very few in the US military establishment saw the utility of fighting fire with fire with SF and other, less conventional forces. For Giap this was nothing new...he kicked the French's ass, and although France was on its very last leg as a colonial empire, it was a long and bloody war which came on the heels of getting its ass kicked in Algeria.
My point is that as a military strategist Giap knew they could not win a conventional war without involving China and/or USSR, and knew that as long as the US was fighting itself internally (with as you so correctly describe as the culture and politicians) and causing all sorts of division, as well as a lack of commitment of the South Vietnamese, all he had to do was wait us out with the insurgency and we would eventually leave like the French did.
Cute.
Fact is a fact. The French were outright defeated at Dien Bien Phu, and sued for peace. Show me where WE were driven out of Vietnam. (Hint: we weren't). Sure, perhaps they "outwaited" us, or "outendured" us, whatever. Militarily they could not take SV with us there. Show me evidence otherwise. Hell, they couldn't even take it with just our airpower there (Easter Offensive). We had to be totally gone for two years before they could make SV communist.
And oh yeah----the Russkies weren't driven out of Afghanistan either, although I will submit that we actually did better against the NV than they did against the Muj.
ETA---with regards to the Revolutionary War example you used: the British had suffered a string of defeats at the end, Yorktown being the last straw and they decided the colonies weren't worth it (same with the French in Indochina). Show me a similar defeat suffered by the U.S. in Vietnam, and an unfortunate platoon being overrun somewhere doesn't cut it on the strategic/big picture level.
Interesting, if somewhat incorrect conclusions.
Interesting, if somewhat incorrect conclusions.
Explain what was incorrect in what I said. Show me where the North Vietnamese were able to take over the South while we were there and institute a communist government, driving us out by force of arms. They couldn't, so asserting that we were militarily defeated by Wiley E. Giap and company is what is in error. I'm not saying Giap was incompetent but Clausewitz or Hannibal he was not.
Also, your previous comment about insurgency is only accurate for the early days of the war. In fact, the bulk of our casualties came from fierce fighting with regular NVA units. It started in late 1965 and built to the point (especially after Tet) where the VC were a deadly nuisance and hard-core NVA conventional units constituted the biggest threat. It was small-unit, conventional combat in extremely rough terrain. The geography makes it appear as though the whole war was "guerrilla warfare", but due to that circumstance it was impossible to have divisions side-by-side sweeping across swaths of countryside (like Europe in WWII). A platoon vs. platoon or company vs. company fight is still "conventional"; doesn't have to be corps vs. corps or similar scale to qualify.
Explain what was incorrect in what I said. Show me where the North Vietnamese were able to take over the South while we were there and institute a communist government, driving us out by force of arms. They couldn't, so asserting that we were militarily defeated by Wiley E. Giap and company is what is in error. I'm not saying Giap was incompetent but Clausewitz or Hannibal he was not.
Also, your previous comment about insurgency is only accurate for the early days of the war. In fact, the bulk of our casualties came from fierce fighting with regular NVA units. It started in late 1965 and built to the point (especially after Tet) where the VC were a deadly nuisance and hard-core NVA conventional units constituted the biggest threat. It was small-unit, conventional combat in extremely rough terrain. The geography makes it appear as though the whole war was "guerrilla warfare", but due to that circumstance it was impossible to have divisions side-by-side sweeping across swaths of countryside (like Europe in WWII). A platoon vs. platoon or company vs. company fight is still "conventional"; doesn't have to be corps vs. corps or similar scale to qualify.
Now this I don't really disagree with. Giap, et al., insurgency started in earnest in 1945 and never really stopped. In certainty he had to 'modify' it as US forces substantially built, but he was smart enough to know that by disrupting and infiltrating the S VN government and military (who were luke warm to begin with), using insurgent forces/guerrilla to keep conventional forces "off balance" (if we have to spend 150 men to track 25, then the 150 could not be used to fight en masse), terrorizing the populace, and fighting outside the "rules" (i.e., the trail in Laos and Cambodia), the North would, eventually, cause the US to leave. Just because Giap was not an equivalent of Clausewitz does not mean he was not a brilliant strategist. After all, his military decisions to use both insurgency and conventional units did cause the US to abandon its goal and leave the country.
If we were 100% committed, militarily, socially, politically, could we have won? Don't know. We could all guess but I don't think anyone own's the market of truth since we'll never know.
And please don't think (I am not accusing you of this) I have a love-fest with this guy; I don't. I recognize that he was a large part of the reason two western countries were kicked out and his goal achieved.
MountainRaven
10-07-13, 10:40
Actually he got ****ed over by a hurricane ("divine wind"), the Japanese defenders had little to do with it.
As for US forces in VN, I'm glad we finally withdrew them. It's not like we were going to let them win the war. We destroyed their military at Tet but dickfaces like Cronkite declared it an enemy victory.
My Japanese history is a little bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall that Japanese pirates played a not insignificant role in keeping the Mongols from utilizing their fleet to its fullest potential before the kamikaze. (And that those pirates were no longer pirates, once all was said and done.)
Cute.
Fact is a fact. The French were outright defeated at Dien Bien Phu, and sued for peace. Show me where WE were driven out of Vietnam. (Hint: we weren't). Sure, perhaps they "outwaited" us, or "outendured" us, whatever. Militarily they could not take SV with us there. Show me evidence otherwise. Hell, they couldn't even take it with just our airpower there (Easter Offensive). We had to be totally gone for two years before they could make SV communist.
And oh yeah----the Russkies weren't driven out of Afghanistan either, although I will submit that we actually did better against the NV than they did against the Muj.
ETA---with regards to the Revolutionary War example you used: the British had suffered a string of defeats at the end, Yorktown being the last straw and they decided the colonies weren't worth it (same with the French in Indochina). Show me a similar defeat suffered by the U.S. in Vietnam, and an unfortunate platoon being overrun somewhere doesn't cut it on the strategic/big picture level.
Withdrawal is typically almost always preceded by defeat.
You're right and wrong. The United States won lots of small battles. Lost a few really small ones. But lost the strategic/big picture level. We lost the war strategically and politically, not militarily. But they're the two sides of the same coin.
You don't withdraw from a country you're actively engaged in conflict with because you've won - if you won, you wouldn't be fighting them any more. You do it because you've lost.
Whether that's because you were defeated at Yorktown or Dien Bien Phu or in the smoke-filled back rooms of Paris is irrelevant.
Eurodriver
10-07-13, 10:45
I am a former professional warrior and can detach the man's politics and military duty....the same way I can do the same for Stonewall Jackson and Yamamoto and Rommel.
...What the hell did you just say?
MountainRaven
10-07-13, 11:54
...What the hell did you just say?
He said that he understands and empathizes with the military duty of three men who fought for genocidal slave-states.
;)
He said that he understands and empathizes with the military duty of three men who fought for genocidal slave-states.
;)
Seriously? Thanks for putting words in my mouth, totally out of context. Empathy has no part of it; I understand military genius in those who fought against the US.
Always interesting to see the history when viewed through ideological prisms. General Giap was a very successful general, fighting against technologically superior forces. If we only study those who we agree with, we are missing a huge book of work. Not studying Giap is like not studying Rommel, Guderian, or other generals...
Interesting footnote, Ho Chi Minh and Giap both were supported by the OSS in WW2. They were nationalists fighting against the Japanese. Search online. There are actual pictures of them with OSS troops. We decided to back the French as they tried to reestablish their control over Viet Nam. That is where it all went badly wrong.
ONe should be able to acknowledge professional talent without being seen as diminishing the sacrifices made in the conflict on both sides.
Seriously? Thanks for putting words in my mouth, totally out of context. Empathy has no part of it; I understand military genius in those who fought against the US.
We couldn't invade NV, every time we bombed them into submission like we did in linebacker. Or beat them up like Tet they fell back.
We didn't want Korea happening again and WW3.
So that's why the Vietcong were used so extensively. They could not fight a conventional war and when they did. They lost, bad.
SV had no interest in seizing NV.
We would just do sweep after sweep in SV and destroy every piece of communism we could find.
We were supporting the SV, we were never at war with North Vietnam.
ETA: We eventually left after the cat and mouse game.
Eurodriver
10-07-13, 14:48
He said that he understands and empathizes with the military duty of three men who fought for genocidal slave-states.
;)
Genocidal slave state?
That's not what the Confederacy was about.
My Japanese history is a little bit fuzzy, but I seem to recall that Japanese pirates played a not insignificant role in keeping the Mongols from utilizing their fleet to its fullest potential before the kamikaze. (And that those pirates were no longer pirates, once all was said and done.)
Of course, the Japanese were a military society. There would have been a fight. I'm just saying without the hurricane, Japan might have been forced to open up long before Perry got there.
MountainRaven
10-07-13, 20:06
Seriously? Thanks for putting words in my mouth, totally out of context. Empathy has no part of it; I understand military genius in those who fought against the US.
Sorry that you feel I misrepresented you.
However... I'm pretty sure that understanding is not possible without empathy.
Genocidal slave state?
That's not what the Confederacy was about.
Because having slaves and hanging every soldier you captured because of the color of their skin is totally the opposite of that, right?
Of course, the Japanese were a military society. There would have been a fight. I'm just saying without the hurricane, Japan might have been forced to open up long before Perry got there.
Some place where my Japanese history isn't super rusty!
The Japanese were open to the outside world until the early 17th Century when Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power, while the Mongol invasions occurred during the 13th Century. When he closed Japan to the outside world, it meant quite a few Japanese (that today we would call) expats were effectively stranded in the Philippines, China, Korea, &c.
(The Mongol invasion led to the founding of the Ashikaga shogunate and the Sengoku Jidai was precipitated by the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate and only truly ended with the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate. And the Tokugawa shogunate ended in the mid-19th Century, shortly after Commodore Perry's expedition and the initiation of the Meiji Restoration.)
Some place where my Japanese history isn't super rusty!
The Japanese were open to the outside world until the early 17th Century when Tokugawa Ieyasu came to power, while the Mongol invasions occurred during the 13th Century. When he closed Japan to the outside world, it meant quite a few Japanese (that today we would call) expats were effectively stranded in the Philippines, China, Korea, &c.
(The Mongol invasion led to the founding of the Ashikaga shogunate and the Sengoku Jidai was precipitated by the fall of the Ashikaga shogunate and only truly ended with the rise of the Tokugawa shogunate. And the Tokugawa shogunate ended in the mid-19th Century, shortly after Commodore Perry's expedition and the initiation of the Meiji Restoration.)
Not completely true. While there was obvious trade with China and that is the basis for most Japanese customs and culture, the Mongol invasion was the beginning of an isolationist policy, especially later where the west was concerned. Of course this wasn't really an issue until 1543.
Of course Japan wasn't completely closed (isolated) until the events you mentioned.
Now this I don't really disagree with. Giap, et al., insurgency started in earnest in 1945 and never really stopped. In certainty he had to 'modify' it as US forces substantially built, but he was smart enough to know that by disrupting and infiltrating the S VN government and military (who were luke warm to begin with), using insurgent forces/guerrilla to keep conventional forces "off balance" (if we have to spend 150 men to track 25, then the 150 could not be used to fight en masse), terrorizing the populace, and fighting outside the "rules" (i.e., the trail in Laos and Cambodia), the North would, eventually, cause the US to leave. Just because Giap was not an equivalent of Clausewitz does not mean he was not a brilliant strategist. After all, his military decisions to use both insurgency and conventional units did cause the US to abandon its goal and leave the country.
If we were 100% committed, militarily, socially, politically, could we have won? Don't know. We could all guess but I don't think anyone own's the market of truth since we'll never know.
And please don't think (I am not accusing you of this) I have a love-fest with this guy; I don't. I recognize that he was a large part of the reason two western countries were kicked out and his goal achieved.
The reason(s) for the "Vietnamization" of the war wasn't due to Giap and his brilliance......he can thank the antiwar sentiment here for that, as well as the common sense thinking that if the war was going to drag on (due in part to self-imposed restrictions, namely Cambodia and Laos) it might as well be fought by those who stood to benefit the most. Hell, such was the sentiment that we had a fatal NG shooting at a college campus when we attempted to interdict in Cambodia.
BTW, we have a modern-day Cambodia and Laos. It's called Pakistan.
Withdrawal is typically almost always preceded by defeat.
You're right and wrong. The United States won lots of small battles. Lost a few really small ones. But lost the strategic/big picture level. We lost the war strategically and politically, not militarily. But they're the two sides of the same coin.
You don't withdraw from a country you're actively engaged in conflict with because you've won - if you won, you wouldn't be fighting them any more. You do it because you've lost.
Whether that's because you were defeated at Yorktown or Dien Bien Phu or in the smoke-filled back rooms of Paris is irrelevant.
I think on that note we can agree. But since this thread is about Giap I'd say he had little to do with the "strategically and politically" part of the equation. That was self-inflicted failure. Ironically it was therefore a good thing that it was us he was fighting then, being a free society and all.
Hunter Rose
10-07-13, 23:23
F**k all this jazz about the US losing in Vietnam. B-52s, when fully unleashed, won the damn war in 7 days, completely left the North defenseless against aerial bombardment, and forced the North Vietnamese to the Paris peace talks, allowing the US to finally extricate itself from that hole of a quagmire.
The reason(s) for the "Vietnamization" of the war wasn't due to Giap and his brilliance......he can thank the antiwar sentiment here for that, as well as the common sense thinking that if the war was going to drag on (due in part to self-imposed restrictions, namely Cambodia and Laos) it might as well be fought by those who stood to benefit the most. Hell, such was the sentiment that we had a fatal NG shooting at a college campus when we attempted to interdict in Cambodia.
BTW, we have a modern-day Cambodia and Laos. It's called Pakistan.
My points, but you have stated them a bit more succinctly. He understood the cultural and social impact of what was going on, he saw what the same type of strategy did with the French, and he understood what we did in Greece in WWII (via association with OSS). I don't know enough about him to know if he actively supported the anti-war effort in the US, but to be sure he knew it was going on and understood how it could be used to the north's advantage.
Please elaborate your conclusion that Pakistan is comparable to Cambodia/Laos.
I think on that note we can agree. But since this thread is about Giap I'd say he had little to do with the "strategically and politically" part of the equation. That was self-inflicted failure. Ironically it was therefore a good thing that it was us he was fighting then, being a free society and all.
Spot on.
crusader377
10-08-13, 10:57
F**k all this jazz about the US losing in Vietnam. B-52s, when fully unleashed, won the damn war in 7 days, completely left the North defenseless against aerial bombardment, and forced the North Vietnamese to the Paris peace talks, allowing the US to finally extricate itself from that hole of a quagmire.
We lost Vietnam. Yes we won the battles and killed far more NVA and VC than we lost but at the end of the day North Vietnam accomplished its political goals and we failed to achieve ours.
Please elaborate your conclusion that Pakistan is comparable to Cambodia/Laos.
An untouchable sanctuary that the enemy crosses back and forth at will from.
***Sure, we do the occasional drone strike, but we also had air ops in Laos and to a lesser degree in Cambodia. It's the unwillingness to conduct large-scale ground incursions that I refer to. We did one ourselves in 1970 in Cambodia, then heavily supported the ARVN Lam Son 719 into Laos in 1971. We've done neither of those in Pakistan. So if anything, Pakistan is more off-limits than Cambodia or Laos were.
An untouchable sanctuary that the enemy crosses back and forth at will from.
***Sure, we do the occasional drone strike, but we also had air ops in Laos and to a lesser degree in Cambodia. It's the unwillingness to conduct large-scale ground incursions that I refer to. We did one ourselves in 1970 in Cambodia, then heavily supported the ARVN Lam Son 719 into Laos in 1971. We've done neither of those in Pakistan. So if anything, Pakistan is more off-limits than Cambodia or Laos were.
Gotcha. Agreed.
Moose-Knuckle
10-08-13, 15:31
Well I see this thread went full retard . . . when is the flag burning?
Cagemonkey
10-08-13, 18:32
We lost Vietnam. Yes we won the battles and killed far more NVA and VC than we lost but at the end of the day North Vietnam accomplished its political goals and we failed to achieve ours.Got that right. Add huge debt and money printing, resulting in Nixon removing the US from the Gold Standard for fear of western nations wanting to cash in US Dollars for Gold under the Bretton Woods Agreement. Yes, Militarily we won every major battle, but we lost the War, due to the fact that all Wars are Political. The Politicians start them and end them.
Stripping out all the geopolitical stuff and political revisionism...
At the end of the day, this was a nationalist war for Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh and Giap fought the Japanese with our help. They fought the French. They fought us. The country was divided by colonial powers, not by the Vietnamese people. The Japanese could go home. The British that went into disarm the Japanese who surrendered in place, saw the writing on the wall and went home. The French came back and eventually went home. We came and went.
The Vietnamese couldn't go anywhere. They were home. We were the ones from out of town. We killed 2 million of them, lost 60,000 of our own, plus the French casualties. All that could have been avoided if we just let the Vietnamese sort themselves out after WW2.
All that could have been avoided if we just let the Vietnamese sort themselves out after WW2.
Except for the fact that post-WWII we were heavily engaged in a worldwide fight against communism. Korea and Vietnam were the "hottest" of those contests. Hey, your statement above could be said about Korea too, right? In hindsight would that have been the correct path to follow also?
The often poo-poo'd "Domino Theory" actually DID play out. All of Southeast Asia fell, save for Thailand.
They went over to the soviets and Chinese after we decided to support France's desire to recolonize after WW2. Playing devils advocate, how was US security impacted by a communist Vietnam?
They went over to the soviets and Chinese after we decided to support France's desire to recolonize after WW2. Playing devils advocate, how was US security impacted by a communist Vietnam?
How was U.S. security impacted by a communist South Korea?
Hindsight is 20/20-----look at it through the eyes of 50-60 years ago.
MountainRaven
10-08-13, 21:28
Stripping out all the geopolitical stuff and political revisionism...
At the end of the day, this was a nationalist war for Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh and Giap fought the Japanese with our help. They fought the French. They fought us. The country was divided by colonial powers, not by the Vietnamese people. The Japanese could go home. The British that went into disarm the Japanese who surrendered in place, saw the writing on the wall and went home. The French came back and eventually went home. We came and went.
The Vietnamese couldn't go anywhere. They were home. We were the ones from out of town. We killed 2 million of them, lost 60,000 of our own, plus the French casualties. All that could have been avoided if we just let the Vietnamese sort themselves out after WW2.
You forgot about the Chinese coming and leaving after us.
How was U.S. security impacted by a communist South Korea?
Hindsight is 20/20-----look at it through the eyes of 50-60 years ago.
Considering that US security is still impacted by a communist North Korea while Vietnam has become rather friendly of late....
Communist North Korea has nukes and is developing missiles to launch them at the US.
Communist Vietnam... well... not so much.
Considering that US security is still impacted by a communist North Korea while Vietnam has become rather friendly of late....
Communist North Korea has nukes and is developing missiles to launch them at the US.
Communist Vietnam... well... not so much.
Different outcomes, no? You could argue that once the relative prosperity of South Vietnam was seen by the Northern mid-level leaders and years went by with them rising to more power they sought to emulate or "recapture" that lost prosperity. Capitalism-lite seemed the best way to go. Seems ironic, doesn't it?
OTOH North Korea has been bottled up for decades, festering in anger and lashing out. They never succeeded in taking the South and therefore had no taste of relative prosperity from a conquest to model after. I would submit that North Vietnam too would be a hermit kingdom, sullen and dangerous if we had held the line.
Still, you need to look at it through the prism of 50 or 60 years ago. Hindsight is 20/20.
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