How do people who celebrate our surrender in Vietnam ignore the fact that pulling out cost over 80,000 lives?

Question

Not to mention all the millions of deaths we could have prevented in the Khmer Rouge, had we chosen to fight and not let the politicians pull all our punches? History has been so censored by the left, it's ridiculous!

Answer 1

You seem to have a twisted view of history.

Answer 2

It was completely and utterly shameful.  I will never forget that footage of helicopters departing from the roof ot the US Embassy leaving desperate Vietnamese behind.

I fear we will see the same thing in Afghanistan.

The idea that Vietnam was unwinnable was invented by liberals to salve their guilty conscience, though I admit we would have needed big changes in our military in order to win.

Answer 3

I think the generation of Americans at the time realized that they weren't willing to risk the lives of fellow Americans in order to save a small country they were hardly related to.

I'm Vietnamese, but I don't harness any hard feelings for people who didn't support the Vietnam War. I don't support what was going on either.

Answer 4

yeah, watch the killing fields.  pol pot was worse than hitler.

Answer 5

The Vietnamese army tried to stop the Khmer Rouge. After the US defeat, the Vietnamese wanted to make a unified greater Vietnam.

The CIA sent the Khmer Rouge funding to stop the Vietnamese(in a weird twist).

Answer 6

80,000 in comparison to what? And who?

I'm sorry, but really in almost every level Vietnam was a mess. 58,000 American troops weren't enough for a war that strategically would get us nothing, politically would only drive us deeper into a Cold War quagmire, economically would continue to destroy us, and socially would divide us even deeper?

And if you want to go that way, technically the United States never "surrendered." The Policy of the United States beginning around 1973-74 was what was known as "escalation through de-escalation." We began to remove troops, while simultaneously moving the war into Laos and Cambodia. Also, we attempted to hand over more and more of the fighting duties to the South Vietnamese. Guess what? They couldn't do it without us.

Look at your numbers. Vietnam cost the United States 58,000 men, over $500 billion, and a huge period of domestic instability. Not to mention the fact that almost 1.5 million Vietnamese died.

Vietnam was a absolute mess, and I'm sorry, left, right, or center, its very difficult to argue with that.

Answer 7

The losses of Vietnam are far greater than the 58,000 Am. soldiers who died, as noted above.  Probably three times as many came back seriously injured, mentally ill, infected with VD, or with a drug habit.   mentioned.  We might have created a permanent enemy in the Vietnamese people, and gave the Chinese a great source of propaganda against the US.  We piled up so much debt, that the money spent plus interest probably made up MOST of the national debt, up till the nineties.

You're the first person I've ever run into - Democrat or Republican - who thinks we should have stayed.  (I doubt even McCain thinks we should have stayed.)

Answer 8

who celebrates that?  is it a national holiday?

Answer 9

There are gaping holes in your argument that I could drive a deuce-and a half through.

First things first.  The US did Not surrender.  The 'conflict' ended with the US leaving, and South vietnam was still intact.  And this was after thousands of people, and millions of dollars were wasted fighting what was by definition an internal conflict of the Vietnamese people.  

Had the French not tried to re-assert themselves in the 1940's, which lead to the disastrous defeat of the french and their withdrawal it would have never been a US military presence there in the first place.  Saying nothing about Eisenhower sending 'advisors' to the South, and propping up the brutal dictator Diem.  Remember all those Buddhist priests lighting themselves on fire?  They were doing it because they could not stand Diem.  Even the US eventually got rid of him (which then caused MORE chaos!).

People at home became appalled at the genocide that the US forces were engaging in, and the tenacity of the Vietnamese to be rid of imperialist powers like France, Japan and the US was underestimated.  Which is ironic, since the US army had taught them to fight in the first place against the Japanese. True, after the US left, the South fell.  But, they didn't want us there in the first place.

{side note: we keep supporting these radical people to fight our enemies, then have to fight these people we just trained!  First Ho Chi Mihn, then Saddam, then Osama!  When will it end!}

the Khmer Rouge were brutal; and it was a tragedy what they did to their own people. But so was Stalin, so was Ho Chi MIhn, so was Diem, so were the US forces in Vietnam.  We'd go into entire villages and murder everyone if we suspected involvement with the enemy.  No wonder we couldn't win- we kept scarring the people we'd gone into help!  We cannot stop all the madmen in the world.  Nor should we have to.  We should lead by example, and inspire the world's peoples to stand up against these sort of people.  But we do not.  We choose to let things like Rwanda and Darfur happen.  Perhaps its because we learned.  Perhaps its because they don't have a resource we want.  (not saying thats why, just posing hypotheticals)

But in terms of editing history, let us not also forget Reagan's selling of F-14 parts to the Iranian Revolutionary govt, and using the funds to support contra killers in South America (which were both illegal, not to mention stupid & immoral).  Want to talk of censorship by the left?  Bring it on, the right can redact history far better.

Answer 10

Actually, History Textbooks are censored by the right.  But I do see your point, many left wingers look to Vietnam as a war when surrendering worked.

Answer 11

Hmm, and all these years I have been under the impression that we had made progress. I do not know ANYONE who celebrates the end of the Vietnam war. No one celebrates the fact that we lost too many American lives over there. But there was no celebration when the guys came home. They were spit on and kicked around. No celebration there!!!

Answer 12

they treat life cheaply in those contries but life is certainly not cheap in ours

Answer 13

The same way people like you ignore the hundreds of thousands (arguably millions) of innocent people we killed by prolonging the war for a decade? And how is dropping more bombs than were dropped by all of the participants in all of World War Two "pulling our punches?" Plus you appear to be suggesting we could have "won" by slaughtering even more civilians, since you must be referring to restrictions on air attacks made to avoid mass civilian losses. Frankly it makes your "concern" for their lives seem very insincere. You think we could have saved more of them by killing more of them?