Why, the hell, did we lose the war in Vietnam?,?

Brainy

When you invade a country during a civil war and side with a government that is oppressing it's population you are bound to lose. The main complaint of the US was you couldn't tell who was Cong and who wasn't so in many cases they just killed everyone.
With the fall of Dien Bien Phu & the final defeat of the French, It was agreed at Geneva to return the countries of French Indo China to their pre colonial boundries.
This happened in 1954 and Vietnam was tempoarily separated with Hanoi as capital in the north, & Saigon(now Ho Chi Min City) capital in the south. Elections were to be held in both parts by 1960. In the north the Viet min party won, and they were very popular in the south. Knowing this , The Nu Dynisty who held power in the South refused to call an election for fear of loosing. Anyway to shorten it a bit , the south called in US advisors. The government in the south still had French generals as advisors. By 1962 JFK had decided that the US should not be there and made plans to withdraw The advisors. This decision would cost him his life as we know. This decision was unpopular with Johnson and the Weapons manufactuing Corp. LBJ takes over and starts sending in US troops. It escalates. US forces go in assuming, the government version was the truth & were confused because there seemed to be so much support for the Cong in the south. It was a civil war and yes, there was a lot of support. It is true that the US won most battles, but sadly at what cost. Visit the WALL next time you are in Washington. Some one commented that the US did not loose the war. Like millions of others I watched the US helicopters taking US personnel & certain Vietnamese from the roof of the US embassy and the Marines beating back thousands at the gates to the US compound, who were trying to get to the helicopters. If the US did not loose they sure beat a hasty retreat as the victorious Vietnamese Army was entering Saigon. Moral of the story, stay the h*ll out of other countries affairs. There are exceptions to that rule, but until the more powerful nations get the polical will to work together through the UN, this will not happen. There should be a rescue force ready to go into Darfu and help the people, but sadly there is no oil there.

canela

Because the politicians ran it instead of the generals. Politicians were not supportive because a lot of people protested the war and didn't understand, or want to, why we were there. Sound familiar?

longroad

In the beginning we sent in advisors for an unpopular government, then continued to support the unpopular government, so that the USA never really had the support of the people. Then their were a segment of the population that were not especially politically minded. Communism suited them as well as any other form of government. We felt a need to stop the spread of communism in a country that could accept it. spelled failure.

Bill

The carebear liberals continued to whine and they finally used a judge to get thier way.

The liberal motto: Can't sway the populace get 1 judge to make up the mind of billions.

birdsnakecatharine

Because the Democrats in Congress surrendered, and stopped the funding.
Because Politicians ran the war instead of turning the military loose to win.
Because of the News Media, military haters, and anti-war freaks.
The same anti-war bunch that wants use to lose in Iraq. And lose the fight against terrorism.

Pop D

the commander-in-chief was Richard Nixon. enough said. The conservatives like to blame the Democrats but as stated above, the ultimate person in charge was Richard Nixon, a conservative Republican. Same as the Korean war, a Republican was in charge. It amazes me the lies the Republican conservatives have stated in some of the above answers. The war was lost during a republican administration. Republicans just can't help themselves when it comes to telling lies. Any WMD's anyone?

frankalan9999

IT WAS A POLITICAL WAR

Frogface53

We didn't. In January of 1973 we signed the Paris Peace Treaty. I vividly remember because I was in Basic Training.

Many sides to this story, info below will help...

http://www.davka.org/what/theleft/peoplespeacetreatyvietnam.html
http://www.answers.com/topic/paris-peace-accords
http://www.historyhouse.com/in_history/paris_peace/

preacher55

We didn't lose anything but our lives. Spoken by one who was there, unlike most of the people that answered previously.

Nat

(1) Political considerations overruled military necessity. Granted safe havens to NVA in Laos, Cambodia, and North Vietnam instead of overrunning the entire region.

(2) Supported unpopular tyrants like Ngo Dinh Diem over populists that could have won support for the American cause. Refused to negotiate with Ho Chi Minh even though he was head of the most organized and disciplined military and political force in the country. Split Vietnam into two parts, antagonizing Vietnamese nationalists.

(3) Too many unproven warfighting doctrines and technologies introduced into the battlefield in too short a time. Air cavalry/airmobile concept almost died at Ia Drang. USAF couldn't bring North Vietnamese industry down, or interdict supplies from the Soviet Union or Chinese Communists. Army couldn't get the ARVN troops to assume the burden of national defense.

(4) War took too many resources for not enough gain. Unclear political objectives meant public support could not quantify progress. Exemptions from draft and counterculture movement ripped the nation's youth apart and created deep rifts between classes that have never healed. Tactical victories did not translate into strategic progress. Advances in reporting meant American public was exposed to the horrors of war for the first time in color. National unity was so fractured that the public could not cope.

The United States chose to lose the Vietnam conflict. Instead of clearly defined geopolitical objectives striven for by a capable administration, the war became an exercise in mismanagement, profiteering and the degeneration of American campuses into bastions of counterculture and communism. For every Colonel Hackworth fighting the good fight and winning, there was a Colonel Hunt expending the lives of his men in worthless objectives like Hamburger Hill for personal gain.

Vietnam is where America learned that it could do wrong, and where betraying American ideals and American values in the campuses and on the streets became a mark of pride instead of shame. A nation is only as strong as those who answer the call to arms and those who respect the ideals upon which the nation was founded. We lost because we had nothing to win at all.

krystal

the main reason is because the way the media portrayed the war. they showed all the negative aspects of the war and made US soldiers look like complete idiots. it was clearly a battlefield victory, but the media broke the will of the american people causing us to pull out which in turn made us lose the war. hmm kinda sounds like something happening today. how sad.

tom l

Simple,, same reason we are loosing in Iraq.
The administration was "reactive" instead of "proactive" in how the war was run.

The only way to win a war is to kick their @$$es and THEN get out
If ya stick around after you kick their @$$es, you are going to loose
If you leave before you kick their @$$es, you are going to loose

Quote
"Winning a war takes more than kicking someone's rear. It also means winning hearts and minds. The efforts in Vietnam never really worked very hard at earning the respect and admiration of the Vietnamese people, "

In all of recorded history, the only times that has ever worked is when a people as a nation were so stomped into the mud that there was no chance of their society ever recovering on it's own.
Case in point:
Compare Germany at the end of WW I to Germany at the end of WW II

While it is imperative that a war is fought ethically, it is imposable to fight a nice war, they are the enemy,,, not your friends.

Andy T

About nine VC to one American was getting killed.
The thing is they were prepared to go to the last man and they weren't going anywhere, but the American public was not, so 58000 American lives was quite enough for a war on ideology, when you didn't really need to be there.

Mr. Morden

In my opinion, we did and we didn't. We signed a cease fire (that was never implemented) and got our butts out of there in '73. The south fell to the north in '75 so from that standpoint we failed. However the fear in the '60's was that if south Vietnam fell then the rest of South East Asia would become communist. It was known as the domino theory. That never really happened. A main exception to that was Cambodia but that was it's own sick situation.

afafae25

I feel that we didn't lose. We kept communism from spreading any further, we stopped it in it's tracks. Which is just as good as winning, to me.

tricky trucker

its all about runnin through the bush....can you catch a bunny in the woods? perhaps this type training could have been used

Wei_Veach

Winning a war takes more than kicking someone's rear. It also means winning hearts and minds. The efforts in Vietnam never really worked very hard at earning the respect and admiration of the Vietnamese people, let alone the American public. It's that old world knights in armor mentality that is defeating us now, too. Not much thought was given to winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, either, just to kicking assess. The world doesn't work that way anymore.

united9198

The politicians were scarred shirtless by the people back home. Instead of fighting to win, it is clear that we were trying to get the Commies out of Viet Nam without having the stomach to do go get it. Read Tommy Franks book about Vietnam and how much that was like the Clinton administration and why he was so happy when Bush and Rumsfeld came on scene.

gregory_dittman

The U.S. never LOST the war in Vietnam. Never never never. The U.S. military was out almost a year before South Vietnam fell. Who was the party that wanted to cut and run? The Republicans! Who back all those peace and anti nuke marches? The KGB!

Wolfpacker

Lack of support of soldiers from home. It was disgraceful.

tzeentchau

Easy, as the guys said above, you let the wacko peace loving minority make your decision. What you should have done is used hilters method of getting everyone to write down what they thought was wrong, then (this is where i differ) conscript the peace lovers (hitler just had them shot).
They should have done that in Iraq as well.

Nobody's home

We didn't lose. We quit.

mr. Bob

for the most part it really came down to money and not having the support when it was needed

Symmict

Everyone was ****** up and stoned.

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