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Name: SteadyRollinWalkman
E-Mail: steadyrollinwalkman@yahoo.com
Subject: RE: Fabian Strategy (nsc)
Date: Saturday, May 15, 2010
Time: 7:56:05 PM
Remote Address: 98.30.114.225
Message ID: 253976
Parent ID: 253892
Thread ID: 253600
>After that, maybe you should go to Asia and speak with a few people from the other side. Have you done that yet? If not, how is it even possible that you have the entire story? You (SRW) clearly have this view about Vietnam and seem to dismiss anything that may be counter to what you believe.
It's funny you mention that, because I'm saving up to go there. I'm hoping that in a few years, I will have enough money saved up to spend at least 6-8 months in Vietnam and Laos. I've also purchased a Rosetta Stone program to learn Vietnamese. Chow ong LYL, um moy yoy come? While there, I wish to speak with villagers, VC/NVA cadre, and politcal diplomats involving the United States/Vietnam War, and the POW/MIA's left behind. I want to hear their story. Any information I can get about the war or how our POW's were abandoned in SE Asia because Nixon never followed through with reparations, I eat it up.
In fact, one of my favorite books about the United States/Vietnam War is Novel Without A Name by Duong Thu Huong. It is written about an NVA soldier (fictional, I wish there were more books, preferably history, available about the other side's point a view) written by a Vietnamese, and it provides the reader with a good sense of the mentality of our former enemy. Though this book is fictional, it made me respect our formally enemy even more. The motivation, the spirit. Even if you don't enjoy history, you'll enjoy this book.
It's until I get to SE Asia that I'll be able to speak to people on the "other side." All of the Vietnamese I've spoken to have been ARVN's or refugees (1975 or later). They haven't had any kind words of post 1975 Vietnam, or it's government. I haven't met any former VC/NVA in the United States, but trust me, I want to hear their story.
>They won the war of attrition.
Yes they did. A war of attrition anywhere in Asia is a stupid concept. Especially when the enemy is able to blend in with the civilian poplulation, and they are able to have strong points that won't be attacked.
One of my greatest leasons taught to me was that a well laid-out plan is based on flat terrain and a sunny f***in day. Which means there are many variables and factors that can't be measured or planned for that will contribute to the success or faliure of a well laid-out plan. A war of attrition was a well laid-out plan that was flawed from the begining.
Those who viewed it as viable, were completely ignorant of the last 1,000 years of Vietnam's history. The Chinese, the Khmer's, the Japanese, the French learned it hard. And because of our lack of knowledge of history and our inability to learn from it, we ended up in the same fate.
>You (SRW) clearly have this view about Vietnam and seem to dismiss anything that may be counter to what you believe.
I can't count on 10 sets of hands of how many books I've read about American Veterans Tour of Duty in Vietnam. Some of them have been pro-war, some anti-war. I'm not trying to brag, I'm just trying to tell you the depth of the research I've done to bring to this opinion.
What hurts me most, Nixon promised help if NVN invaded SVN after the Paris Peace Accords. Nixon wanted to save ass because of Watergate, never told Congress that the reconstruction aid promised to NVN was dependent on ALL US POW's being released. Ford fearing public outcry, refused help other than evacuation of SVNese. Because of that, several hundreds of American Loyal SVN were imprisoned for years after the war. Their families imprisioned or murdered. And though the Soviet Union supported NVN durring the war, it ceased it's humanitarian support. Thousands starved.
And the same thing happening in neighboring Cambodia. Under Pol Pot's regime, they did away with anything resembling Western, and constructed what they called "year zero." 1.7 to 2 million were masacarred in the Killing Fields.
Hmoung tribes were persecuted because of their help with the United States durring the war. Those not slaughtered, fled to neighboring countries. The lucky, were granted visa's to the United States before their welcome was extended.
The same goes to the Mountagnards (French for Hill people). Though they were the first ancestrial people belonging to Vietnam, they were persecuted durring our involvement, and afterwards. Though they belong to Vietnam, the Chinese immigrants from thousands years back, view them as outcasts. The Vietnamese call them "moi" or savages. As recently as 2001, several thousand were slaughtered. Not just because of their loyalty towards the US, but because of the deep-seeded racisim of the Vietnamese. Hundreds fled to Cambodia or Laos, and were tracked down and their bodies were flung into the Mekong River, leading back to Vietnam.
It hurts me we failed these people.
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