[quote] Even 50 years later, you'll never, ever get a hawk to admit she was right.

I’m not a hawk but she was wrong.

The PAVN generals eventually admitted, in the late 70s, that when the Easter Offensive failed in ‘72, they no longer had any cards left in their deck. They were all but beaten. But American lack of engagement in the war did for them what the NVA and VD couldn’t do — it got American troops out of Vietnam so the north could get a breather, regroup, and then topple the south Vietnamese government (in flagrant violation of the Paris Peace Accord, naturally).

Was the US wrong to fight a communist takeover in Vietnam? No, it wasn’t. Just look at what happened when the country fell to see that. Another one party state run by murderous gangsters. Even to this day, although the government has adopted de facto capitalism, they still exert a stranglehold and thought control over the populace.

We pledged to defend the south from a communist takeover, people believed us and took a huge risk by supporting us there, then we bailed when it got inconvenient and those people got crucified. The whole country did, really.

The REAL mistake the US made was right after WWII.

The Vietnamese fought alongside the USA against the Japanese occupiers. The OSS liaised with Vietnamese guerillas and the partnership was very effective at harassing and tying down the Japanese. After the war the Vietnamese made it clear they wanted independence from France. They even issued a Declaration of Independence that sounded very similar to the US document. After all, as the western nations kept saying, WWII was a struggle between freedom and tyranny.

They then asked for American diplomatic aid in establishing their independence from France. But the US felt it could not support this, despite the close relationship with the Vietnamese during the war. A strong France was needed to help establish a bulwark against communism in postwar Europe, and there were fears that rightwing elements in france might suffer a serious blow if Vietnam were lost to them, and France might come under the sway of its communists. So not only did the US not help the Vietnamese, it armed the French in their effort to restore control of Vietnam.

The Vietnamese felt betrayed, and turned to the communist nations of the East for help instead. The rest, as they say, is history.