Vietnam War

Does anyone think that the war protest lengthen the Vietnam War as indicated in the link below, which according to some caused more deaths?Did Giap actually say what is in the last paragraph below? General VO Nguyen GiapAt that time, there were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties, the Vietnam War was about to end, as the NVA was prepared to accept their defeat. Then, they heard Walter Cronkite (former CBS News anchor and correspondent) on TV proclaiming the success of the Tet '68 offensive by the communist NVA. They were completely and totally amazed at hearing that the US Embassy had been overrun. In reality, The NVA had not gained access to the Embassy--there were some VC who had been killed on the grassy lawn, but they hadn't gained access. Further reports indicated the riots and protesting on the streets of America.According to Giap, these distorted reports were inspirational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead, they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, month, eventually the protesters in American would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield. Remember, this decision was made at a time when the U.S. casualties were fewer than 10,000, at the end of 1967, beginning of 1968http://www.geocities.com/...agon/Camp/7624/Generals/giap.htmSometime the link does not connect. Keep trying.
Please move to the Coffee House or where appropriate. ThanksThis message has been edited by Peal, 10-24-2004 01:19 PMThis message has been edited by Peal, 10-24-2004 02:49 PMedired by AdminJar to add paragraph spacingThis message has been edited by AdminJar, 10-24-2004 06:09 PM

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

Thanks Jar

I certainly don't recall hearing anything like that at the time - and what would be the connection be between Cronkite and us protestors? He reported the mainstream news - I'm quite sure that whatever he told about the Tet offensive was what CBS was able to find out from our government and from their reporters in Saigon.

I am one of us protesters.
I mention to someone that I thought that the war was brought to a close faster because of the protesting. In this case Kerry’s protesting.
That someone said to me, This is what Vo Nguyen Giap said, and it is what I posted. This posting is from someone else and I don’t know if it is a direct quote of what Giap said.
What I am for searching for is this, Did General VO Nguyen Giap say what I posted? I did not find it on any Google searches other then the one I posted.
Does someone remember this?

I have no idea if he actually said that or even if it is what he said, it is not somewhat revisionist. But it is way away from what I think the real question should be; "Was the Vietnam War something we should have been involved in in the first place?"If the war was extended by protestation, that was certainly not the purpose. The US had the option throughout that period to get the hell out. It was not a matter of the protestors setting the timing, rather the Administration. The deal that was finally made was simply giving up and getting out. That could have been done a year earlier, two years earlier, five years earlier. The thing that brought the NV back to the barganing table was the direct bombing of NV. That could have been done a year earlier, two years earlier, five years earlier.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Was the Vietnam War something we should have been involved in, in the first place?
I believe the answer is no. The US should not have been involved. The reason we were there was based on the Domino Theory.This is from the link I posted in message 1, In his book, Giap clearly indicated that NVA troops were without sufficient supplies, and had been continually defeated time and again.
Now it does not say which book, because he has written several. A search at Barnes and Noble shows 6 he has authored.The last paragraph of the link starts with According to Giap, now the person that build the web page doesn’t mention if the information in the last paragraph came from a book authored by Giap, an interview with Giap, or it is just his interpretation of what he thought Giap said.The link in question is a classic example of, someone said that someone said this, and should not hold any merit until evidence is shown to the contrary.This message has been edited by Peal, 10-25-2004 07:50 AM

But you are missing the point Jar, not only does the view covered by the opening post say that the protests prolonged the war, but that without the protests America would have won shortly after the Tet offensive.Clearly the point isn't just to suggest that anti-war protests prolonged the engagement in Vietnam, but that they were instrumental not only in the final massive death toll but in the fact that the war was lost. Therefore the loss is not due to a failure of the US military machine.TTFN,WK

Hello Wounded King
I made an edit to my post after you posted. I changed the text "Giap intended to say" to "Gaip said".
Sorry

Hi WK,As a history buff, I find the contention that the "protests prolonged the war" to be unsupported, at least if it is meant directly had that effect. OTOH, I think a case could be made that after the unmitigated catastrophe (for the North) of the abortive Tet invasion, the NVA had to develop a new strategy. It would depend on the relative strength of the political desire in the North to continue the conflict at least to the point of gaining some kind of favorable settlement. Remembering that Vietnam was the first war where extensive, global media coverage of both the conflict (as restrictive as that was) and the "home front" was available, I find it not inconceivable that the scope and scale of the protests in the US, as covered by the media at the time (and for the first time in history), might have led the North Vietnamese leadership to believe they had a chance to "win" through a strategy of continued attrition - rather than direct military confrontation. I think they were at least partly right, since that strategy permitted them to maintain a force-in-being and allowed them to rebuild the conventional forces obliterated during Tet to the point that, once the US decided the war was unwinable and pulled out, they were able to defeat the South Vietnamese Army in a second direct invasion.What I find interesting about the protester = prolonged war scenario is that an equally valid case could be made that coverage of the protests, such as the extensive coverage of the violence at the '68 Democratic Convention in Chicago, might have convinced the North Vietnamese erroneously that one final push would be sufficient to knock the US out of the war, thus providing the impetus for the Tet invasion itself. And that the utter failure of the offensive led the US leadership, erroneously, to believe that the war was winable, and hence prolong it.

I never thought that the problem was the US military machine. Then, as now, they were as fine as any in the world, perhaps even better. Then, as now, the problem was politics and finance.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I have been looking all morning for some proof for the link I posted in message 1.Quote: According to Giap, these distorted reports were inspirational to the NVA. They changed their plans from a negotiated surrender and decided instead, they only needed to persevere for one more hour, day, week, month, eventually the protesters in American would help them to achieve a victory they knew they could not win on the battlefield. Remember, this decision was made at a time when the U.S. casualties were fewer than 10,000, at the end of 1967, beginning of 1968So for:From another forum
One poster writes: The quote is in "How We Won the War" pages 127-129 by Vo Nguyen Giap.
Another poster from the same forum writes that the book "How We Won the War" is only 63 pages in volume, so how could it be on page 127-129. I looked it is 64 pages in volume.And finally these links by another poster:
Page Not FoundPage Not FoundPage Not FoundAll PBS transcripts, but no where in the transcripts is the above quote made by Giap.Conclusion to me:
Total FabricationThis message has been edited by Peal, 10-25-2004 01:37 PMThis message has been edited by Peal, 10-26-2004 12:17 PM

Precisely! This is a classic example of politically motivated fear, uncertainty, and doubt.If the person who put up the web site was honest then he would have complete citations. This is just the kind of vague polical rumor that characterizes Rush Limbaugh and his cronies and like them is utterly beneath contempt. It's pathetically stupid. If they have real evidence let them set it forth completely otherwise it plays to the true believers in their camp and gives them something to grumble about in their beer.lfen