Why did the US lose the Vietnam War?

• The truth is often overlooked in a sea of lies and mischaracterizations. The truth is not someones opinion or away of looking at something, it is simply the truth.

Gen. Giap planned and directed military operations against the French and defeated them in 1954 in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. The NVA under the command of Gen, Giap planned the now famed and offten lied about Tet Offensive against the United States in 1968. In his book Gen. Giap plainly shows that the NVA had few supplies and had been defeated in battle time and time again. The NVA moral was so low by 1968 that the Tet Offensive was the last hope of victory. Gen. Giap and the NVA saw the Tet offensive as a failure and were on their knees ready to surrender. At that time their were fewer than 10,000 U.S. casuaties and the war was about to end and the NVA were prepared to accept defeat when CBS news Anchor Walter Cronkite came on tv and proclaimed the NVA had won the Tet Offensive. The NVA were totaly suprised by this and the news that the U.S. embassy has been overrun. In reality, the NVA did'nt gain access to the embassy, there were some VC shot dead nearby. Futher reports told of riots and protests in the streets of America. According the the Gen. Giap, these distortions and lies inspired the NVA to fight on with the knowledge the protester in the U.S. would help hand them a victory they knew they could'nt win on the field of battle. Remember, at that time fewer than 10,000 U.S. casualties. we lost because of lies and distortion of the plain truth by our media and those who use it for their own political gain. The lies and protesters actually prolonged the war and killed thousands more on both sides. Kinda sounds like The protest and media agenda for Irag does'nt it?

America Lost Vietnam?

Here are some various opinion on why (and whether) the US lost the war in Vietnam:

• We lost the war because of America's foreign policy. It was to stop the spread of Communism, not do be rid of it. They would have been able to destroy Communism in many different times like the Korean War. Lyndon B. Johnson didn't want to be rid of Communism because that would make us sound like an Empire again like with the Philipines in the Spanish American War and right now in Iraq. We lost the war because of forfeit. Johnson said no to being rid of Communism like Truman said no to McArthur in the Korean War. We had an open door and a 100% chance of destroying Communism, but we didn't have the permission.

• The United States did lose the Vietnam War. They were not able to overthrow communism which was their aim as presented to the public. Pulling out is a loose term for admitting defeat. The VC were vastly superior in their tactics and numbers. They had cause to be at war, many of the GI's believed Americans did not. There is no denying it, America lost the Vietnam War.

• The United States pulled out of the Vietnam war. We did not lose it. Technically, we were not at war, we were advisors but the Congressional approval to fight in Vietnam was not given. If anyone lost it was the people of Laos and Cambodia who came under Communist rule after the war.

• Lack of interest. No one was that interested in stopping the Communists agression in the Far East. And as the war went on the cost in blood & treasure seemed extreme and fruitless. Didn't lose,just withdrew. We could have won a better deal on tungsten,rubber,chromium,China containment,security. You can't please everyone, but it helps. Kept going that long with the support of China, Russia & the U.S. allies. + the draft was ended c. 1970 that made the war more tolerable; then war crimes & napalm tuned off the rest.

• The only reason the US lost was because we withdrew from there. The US won every battle but the Vietnamese were willing to sacrifice many more lives than the US.

• They lost because the politicians did not let the military do their job. They made decisions that should have been made by generals. Politicians should not make tactical decisions.

• The people of South Vietnam did not want to fight that war and the U.S.A. didn't want to fight that whole war for them without much help from them.

• Some of these answers are so deluded. America lost the war in vietnam for various reasons. A few of the reasons are listed below, providing some idea of what happened in Vietnam even if it is a shallow overview: The US troops completely underestimated the VC,who were skilled jungle fighters, and also had mass peasant support. The American tactic 'search and destroy' increased VC support. As one soldier said "If they weren�t VC before we got there, they sure as hell were by the time we left" ... The supplies Path (Ho Chi Minh Trail)was never shut down by the American thus allowing the VC to send and receive supplies. ... American public support waned after the atrocities of 'My Lai' and disaters of the 'Tet offensive' came to light, and American body bags continued to arrive home. Protesting became rife and the public voice became hard for the government to ignore. ... Guerrilla warfare was brutal, and morale became increasingly low from about 1969. ... The VC's great defensive system the 'Cu Chi' tunnel was not shut down , allowing the VC to take cover during the'Air War'which could potentially have been very successful for the Americans. ... The Media played a massive role in the war, before media intervention many Americans had felt alienated from a war that was so far from home, the media changed this, changing at the same time the general publics' view on war.

• I don't think that some of these answers were from deluded people. There are several reasons as to why we didn't win the war. There is truth in most of the answers given. True, we alienated a lot of the Vietnamese because of atrocities but we weren't the ones that were going into villages and disembowling the leaders or raping their women or taking a machette to babies. The VC did that. Yes, there were some unfortunate incidents like Me Lai but that is one incident compared to thousands of atrocities that the enemy soldiers did. Second, the US military was extremely handicapped by both the war planners and the US media. In order to make bombing runs we had to contact a war planner back in the States to get permission to make a bombing run. Then we were not allowed to bomb anything close to a civilian area no matter how strategically important it was because we were humane enough to want to not injure the North Vietnamese civilians. Were the North Vietnamese that concerned about not hurting anyone? Absolutley not. They had no compassion whatsoever. They placed no value whatsoever on human life. Sometimes when they would attack to try to overrun our bases the first wave of soldiers' purpose was to die on top the barbed wire perimeter so that their fellow comrades could walk over their bodies and enter the compound. They were so fanatical they would fight till the last man was dead. As far as the Vietcong being a skilled fighting force that is a crock. They were poor, not very well trained, deluded people who were virtually eliminated after they made a massive attempt in 1968 to take over the country. They were temporary successful but once the US military got to work, end of story. We literally slaughtered them. Then there is the US media who were probably the biggest traitors to the US cause and have a lot of our young men and womens blood on their hands. It seems so strange that when we would announce to the media that we were going to make a bombing run to a certain location that when the bombers would get there that the enemy soldiers would be gone. And the media also helped to stir up the anti-war movement back home thus being an ally of our own enemy. Right before we decided to pull out of the war we had the North close to surrendering. But you won't hear that from the news media. We had killed close to a million enemy soldiers.

• The US did not lose the war. The Paris accords were signed and all but 1,500 U.S troops were still in Vietnam when Saigon fell. The reason Saigon fell was also the fact that the South Vietnamese Army was not willing to stand and fight for their own country.

• America didnt lose the war in terms of politics. THe Paris Agreement states that the US won as troops were still in vietnam at the time. In terms of casualties and deaths, however, I think it was pretty equal going.

From a non-American view

Militarily

• During November and December of 1964, the Vietcong mounted several co-ordinated attacks on American air bases
• More than 1.5 million tons of bombs dropped on North Vietnam by the end of 1967
• The Vietcong’s fighting strategies were far more successful than that of the Americans
  • The Vietcong unified the Vietnamese people to their cause whereas the Americans just bombed the hell out of the country with a grand total of 1.5 million tons worth. Triple the amount used in the whole of World War 2
• Their short (one-year) tour of service meant that American troops were always inexperienced.

Politically

• Ngo Dinh Diem (the guy america put in as prime minister of South Vietnam) no longer trusted America after finding out that they knew about a coup where South Vietnamese army officers tried to seize power, but didn’t tell him
  • He ended up thinking of democracy as a western disease
• They lost the support of the Buddhist community in Vietnam as the Buddhists didn’t approve of the South Vietnamese government’s policies
• The land reform policies forced the peasants into the arms of the communists
  • 90% of the south Vietnamese were peasants
  • 170,000 people were recruited into the north Vietnamese army during 1964

Socially

• More than 9000 Americans killed by the end of 1967
• Moratorium protests in America estimate to be around two million people
  • 250,000 people in Washington D.C
• American public support waned after the atrocities of 'My Lai' and disasters of the 'Tet offensive'

Financially

• $30 billion was spent on the war by 1969
• $133 billion by the end of the war
  • $111 billion excluding America’s economic problems

***** Above from an Australian view *****

Nixon had been elected on a promise to Vietnamize the war, meaning more fighting would be turned over to the South Vietnamese army, and to start bringing home American troops. When the President ordered US troops into Cambodia and ordered more bombings, the result was a tremendous uproar at home with more marches and demonstrations. Congress reacted to the antiwar feeling and repealed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which gave the President the authority to send troops and fight the war in Vietnam. The United States did not lose the Vietnam War. Although some may argue that by pulling out of South Vietnam we did just that. In 1972, North Vietnam finally realized that the war was a stalemate. The two sides met and arranged a cease fire. In January of 1973 the Paris Accords went into effect. The US agreed to withdraw all its troops from Vietnam in 60 days. Congress had stopped funding the war effort. The North Vietnamese government agreed to release all prisoners, which they never did. Free elections were to be held in Vietnam. The President of South Vietnam considered the agreement between North Vietnam and the US as a sell out. But it allowed President Nixon to save face and bring the soldiers home. By 1975, after US troops had been pulled out of South Vietnam, the ARVN (Army of the Republic of South Vietnam) collapsed and the North Vietnamese moved into Saigon, ending the war and finalizing the take over of the South by the North. Our purpose in the war is debated to this day. MrV

• How common was friendly-fire during the Vietnam War?
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