When did the Vietnam War Start?

Your own explanation is somewhat vague. Was it with U.S. providing military provisions, MAAG training, or the first casualties? Please give us your definition of 'start'. Be specific.

 

The Vietnam War can not be confined to just Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia felt much of the brunt of war.

Something most Americans aren't aware of, the American military was secretly bombing northern Laos three months before the Gulf of Tonkin Incident.

If your talking about serious military operations, then May 1964 could be the start. Just maybe.

 

You lost the Vietnam war, comprehensively, and were kicked out on your collective arses. Any suggestion that Nixon ended it is laughable.

 

I'm waiting for someone to chime in - "But ,but we won every battle",, which America didn't. Or the biggest furphy - "We killed more of them than they killed of us so therefore we won".

 

we won all the majors, and most importantly Tet. Vietnam was ours after Tet, but that's when political will evaporated. Sure we lost skirmishes, but no major battle. At a minimum it is stupid to say the military lost the war, had America wanted to engage it we would have won easily.

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do humanity a favor and go back to school

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The only denial in here is your denial that Kennedy and Johnson escalated it into full fledged war.

 

You are correct in that our politicians (in both parties) lacked the will to cut the military loose to win the Vietnam War. But that's always been the problem with quasi-democracies in that political consideration override military competence and expertise and also that a change of executive government is as likely as not to create an entirely new political perspective and host of disguised agendas.

But in Vietnam as in Iraq and Afghanistan the only way in which to 'win' and keep the win after the fact would have been to establish a quasi permanent and resources draining protectorate, which in turn requires an unwavering determination on the part of that quasi-democracy to stay the course over passing decades regardless of different political parties and presidents coming into power back in the U.S.

In point of fact the only reason this worked with South Korea was because Communist China for various reasons of their own decided that a permanent stalemate situation, a divided nation, and permanent presence of the U.S. in South Korea was preferable to continuing that particular war. The problem being that with each new protectorate the U.S.'s available resources are stretched farther and farther and more on an exponential scale rather than a mere doubling of time, money, effort, and unending attention. Would the Chinese have settled for another divided nation solution in Vietnam or would they have gotten stubborn about it and not only committed their own forces to Vietnam but also kicked off the Korean War venture again?

Now as to Johnson and Nixon . . . they were both scum.

 

Occupation of a people who don't like you is a costly problem, we were enamored with the Japan and Germany model where they actually cooperated with occupation. Bush said we were not nation building in Afghanistan, yet, well you know. We lost the middle east in Gulf War I, that led to everything else. I still can't figure out why Kuwait was worth it.

Winning the ground battle in Vietnam was not the problem as you point out.

 

Correct. The North Vietnamese since admitted that several times they were on the cusp of surrendering when the U.S. president (Johnson or Nixon) would either order the U.S. military to back off or would offer to back off the U.S. military if ONLY the North Vietnamese would condescend to CONSIDER peace talks. The North Vietnamese considered U.S. politicians to be utter lunatics to keep snatching victory from their own jaws time after time.

But then again, a U.S. 'victory' in Vietnam would have set off a cascade of even larger and more expensive long term headaches.

 

Granted a few advisors were killed there under Ike, and more under JFK. But it was LBJ that started the real killing of Americans after his trumped up Gulf of Tonkin lie.

Liberals hate it, but it was a pure democrat war very poorly run. They hate it even more that like Korea it took a republican, the hated Nixon to get us out of there.

Bottom line Ike and Nixon got us out of two il run wars started by democrats. When liberals try to spin that fact all they manage to do is screw themselves into the ground, and get laughed at.

 

Ah yes of course, it was a 'tactical withdrawal'! You lost, despite your awesome military might; pyjama-clad barefoot peasants kicked you out, just as they are doing in Afghanistan. Get over it.

 

I have no idealized capitalism and I never tried to divorce anything.

My post clearly stated poverty is poverty. I never denied poverty exists in any economic system.

Capitalism does not cause poverty the simple fact is that poverty has always existed even before capitalism You did in fact imply that capitalist poverty is unique poverty which it is not.

Capitalism minimizes and reduces poverty socialism and communismincreases poverty no matter how much you try and deny those facts

 

We left for political reasons, not military defeat. Your claims to the contrary are a display of astounding historical illiteracy. Need directions to the library?

 

I'm familiar with both libraries and military history. Seems you are not:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/r/record-war.html

 

If true ( and it is a suspiciously dreamed up estimate ) your claim does not in any way refute what I stated. More die under socialist health care systems every year such as Cuba.

 

It is not laughable it is historic fact we withdrew and were not kicked out. Try google or wiki. Look up when the US military was withdrawn. Then explain the months between those two events. Here is a hint. You can explain it in many ways but not by claiming we were KICKED out.

 

because you can post a link means you are familiar with history? LOL

 

There was no conventional victory to be had in the Vietnam war, that is for certain. But to sit there and suggest that the NVA or Vietcong militarily pushed US forces out of the country with thru tatical defeats, means you don't have the slightest clue what you're talking about.

 

At the very least Nixon realized that we were killing Americans in Nam for no good reason. Many liberals that post here may only be here due to the fact that Nixon got us out of the killing cesspool.

 

Ok, so what NVA or Vietcong led offensive was it that defeated American forces?

 

Ahem! But then again there is the Nixon conspiracy to needlessly prolong the Vietnam War:

 

So are you telling me you won, or you could have won the war? Which is it?

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The bottom line is that you couldn't cope with a war fought using guerilla tactics.

 

America had more resources and people to keep pouring into the conflict, but what would have been the point? The America public had enough of a unpopular war, and rightly so. But it's idiotic of you to say that the Nort Vietnamese at the time, even with the support of the Soviets and Chinese, could have militarily won the war.

 

He asked a question you ran and dodged it. Try answering.

Um we did defeat those guerilla's and have a long history evenbefore Vietnam of doing so.

We queitly defeated a communist guerilla insurgency in Greece immediately after WWII we also defeated a guerilla insurgency in the Phillipines before the first world war. Not to mention the best guerilla warriors of all time the native Americans who we defeated.

We lost the war there is no denying it, the communists won. At issue here is the idiotic claim that we were defeated or kicked out which is unsupportable.

Incidentally the fact that the communists won and spread to Laos, Cambodia and even attempted to attack Thailand suggests that the domino theory was correct.

 

Not at all, I just showed you the article proving wrong, so you, are wrong about your facts or you are in denial. Obviously we can rule out a reading problem.


Ceremony Commemorates Vietnam War’s First Combat Casualties
By Samantha L. Quigley
American Forces Press Service

WASHINGTON, Jul. 8, 2009 – Bright blue skies above the National Mall today belied the solemnity of the ceremony commemorating the first two American combat casualties of the Vietnam War.

“On this date 50 years ago, two men lost their lives in a country that most of us here in the United States had never heard of at the time,” said Jan C. Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, at the ceremony. “The deaths of U.S. Army military advisors Maj. Dale Buis and Master Sgt. Chester Ovnand marked the beginning of a lengthy war, which became a very divisive event for our society.”

The ceremony concluded with the playing of “Taps,” and the placing of a wreath at the apex of The Wall, below the names of the first two U.S. combat casualties of the Vietnam War.

http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=55051

Need a calculator? 2009 - 50 = 1959 Guess who was president? Ike.

Are you in denial or what? lol That article from your own government is saying the official date is in 1959. These people are listed on the VN memorial War Wall. If you haven't figured it out yet, sorry for you.

 

When you get a chance look up the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and you'll discover how wrong you are, once again.