November 3, 2003
TET AGAIN:
Iraq: Another Vietnam?: The truth about the Tet offensive is that we won. (ROBERT L. BARTLEY, November 3, 2003, Wall Street Journal)
Soon after the offensive, Gen. Westmoreland was replaced as the U.S. commander by Creighton W. Abrams, with a notable change in U.S. strategy and tactics. [...]Under Gen. Abrams, "search and destroy" was replaced by "clear and hold." This is recorded in A Better War, by Lewis Sorley, who notes that most of the histories of Vietnam pretty much skip the post-1968 period. Abrams put emphasis not on attrition but on the security of the local population, and the training of the South Vietnamese who would continue the fighting as Americans left.
The success of these programs was tested by the Easter Offensive of 1972. Some 200,000 North Vietnamese troops attacked on three fronts. U.S. ground troop withdrawals continued as scheduled, but President Nixon ordered heavy air and naval retaliation, including the mining of North Vietnamese ports. With this air support, the South Vietnamese army repelled the invasion. The North Vietnamese lost half of their attacking force and half of their tanks and artillery. The legendary Vo Nguyen Giap was quietly removed from command of the Northern armies.
Three years later the North had recovered sufficient strength to repeat the offensive. But by then the Paris peace accords had been signed, with U.S. prisoners returned at the cost of allowing Hanoi to infiltrate military units in the south. With Watergate, Congress had passed the Case-Church Amendment forbidding military involvement in Southeast Asia. Sen. Edward Kennedy passed a $266 million cut in supplemental spending for Vietnam, and funds were slashed for the coming year. Counter-insurgency expert Sir Robert Thompson remarked, "perhaps the major lesson of the Vietnam War is: do not rely on the United States as an ally."
This time the South Vietnamese got no assistance from the U.S. and fell before an assault by 20 tank-led divisions. Some million refugees took to the seas as "the boat people."
One would like to be able to think better of them, but--even knowing all this as we do today--do you have any doubt that Nancy Pelosi and Ted Kennedy would do the same in Iraq right now if given the power to do so? Posted by Orrin Judd at November 3, 2003 7:25 PM
The really sad thing is that had LBJ listened to the Marines and not Westmoreland/McNamara in 1964, that strategy would have been implemented earlier and might have saved the war for us.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at November 4, 2003 10:41 AMI'd agree with the above by Chris. The brass tried to refight WW2 again in an Asian country and expend massive amounts of firepowerinstead of relying on the experience of the Marines.
And Tet wasn't a military success for the NV's but the very fact they could stage such an offensive in the face of repeated assurance from TPTB that they were totally tapped out is what was damaging about it.
Posted by: M Ali Choudhury at November 4, 2003 2:36 PMExactly, Mr. Choudhury. Tet destroyed any possibility that the S. Vietname citizenry would risk anything to support a regime that has shown it was bankrupt.
Bartley and the others have been singing this tune for over 30 years, but they never say why Tet was a victory for the Vietnamese man in the street. Because for him it wasn't.
Tet also revealed the bankruptcy of the US Army. I had a bird's-eye view for that one. The Army ran out of second looies at Tet. Never did catch up, either.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 6, 2003 1:30 AMYet those S. Vietnamese fought on for seven years, and well at times, and even after we bugged out. Then many fled when the North took over. Strange kind of acquiesence that.
Posted by: oj at November 6, 2003 8:00 AMWell, those Americans fought on for a few years. The South Vietnamese didn't do much.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 6, 2003 1:06 PM