Here are three random web-pages to get the thread started.
The first doesn't seem to ring true to me; it suggests that the North Vietnamese fought harder because their government was starving them into it, for example, but it is actually a Vietnamese source.
The other two seem to confirm what I think (but I willingly admit I know little about this) - that the South Vietnamese government was just not viable, no matter how much military support was given.
Originally posted by newnickname: Here are three random web-pages to get the thread started.
The first doesn't seem to ring true to me; it suggests that the North Vietnamese fought harder because their government was starving them into it, for example, but it is actually a Vietnamese source.
"The floggings will continue until morale improves!" People have joined military and police forces in order to keep themselves and their families fed in times of hardship, but I never heard of a country reduced to those conditions ever actually winning a war.
quote:
The other two seem to confirm what I think (but I willingly admit I know little about this) - that the South Vietnamese government was just not viable, no matter how much military support was given.
The leaders of the various US puppet governments all realized the same thing. An awful lot of US aid went straight into the personal Swiss bank accounts of successive dictators. And we went through a lot of dictators.
Alan Moore
Posts: 2012 | Location: USA | Registered: 10-05-03
"In Vietnam itself, the mostly working-class American military of that era, formed by an inequitable draft, made its opposition to the war increasingly clear as the fighting dragged on. By late 1969, demoralization and resistance within the armed forces was endemic. Desertions were beginning to skyrocket; drug use was becoming rampant; avoidance of combat routine; outright mutiny not unusual; and hundreds of officers would be wounded or killed by their own enraged troops. By 1972, the military was in shambles. It is now largely forgotten that the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam not just because of domestic opposition to the war, but also because it no longer seemed possible to field a functional, obedient army."www.tomdispatch.com
