Deaths in Vietnam

Bush is going to give a speech blaming Vietnam War opponents for the fact that lots of Vietnamese people died and/or became refugees. Jim Henley points out the minor fact that "Millions of people died while we were there. A fair proportion of them were people we ourselves killed. In any reckoning of the costs of intervening and withdrawing from Indochina, those people count too. It’s a bizarre, narcissistic blind spot to imagine otherwise."

Indeed, the 1.7 million or so people reckoned to have died during the main American phase of the Vietnam War (1965-1973) outpaces the Cambodian genocide (among other things) by a healthy margin. It's hard to imagine that leaving Vietnam sooner wouldn't have saved lives, whereas staying in Vietnam longer would have gotten even more people killed before ending in the same result. Tons and tons of Iraqi civilians are getting killed or fleeing the country right now; continuing the war indefinitely won't help them.

Photo by Flickr user Flydime used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Is there any polling on what percentage of Americans, today, believe we made a mistake in withdrawing from Vietnam when we did? They certainly are a vocal bunch, but it would be nice to have some numbers.

Posted by Steve | August 22, 2007 10:53 AM

Gosh, maybe if we had that ONE extra guy, who was "flying planes" in Alabama, everything might've been different.

Posted by dj moonbat | August 22, 2007 10:55 AM

A far better example of America "empowering the terrorists" through retreat is Ronald Reagan's cowardly cutting and running from Beirut in 1983.

The last thing America needs right now is another coward like Ronald Reagan.

Posted by owenz | August 22, 2007 10:55 AM

Is there an accurate estimate of how many Iraqis have fled their country since March 2003?

If my memory serves, the number I read somewhere is close to 2 million, which comes to an astounding 8% of the population. Is this number correct? If so, imagine 28 million Americans fleeing the homeland. Hell, that will solve the health insurance problem by at least 50%.

Posted by gregor | August 22, 2007 10:59 AM

Even beyond the dishonest claims about the civilian death tolls post-Vietnam withdrawal, it's important to note that none of the dire predictions about the broader Cold War consequences of pulling out of Vietnam turned out to be correct. The Cold War ended peacefully about a decade and a half later, despite America's supposedly disastrous weak-kneed lack of resolve in Indochina.

Josh has a great post on this: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/024763.php

Posted by Jake H. | August 22, 2007 11:03 AM

I seem to recall that it was our newfound friends the Chinese who were supporting the Khmer Rouge during the genocide. And that the genocide was halted by the military forces of the North Vietnamese, not by the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Cambodia#Democratic_Kampuchea_.28the_Khmer_Rouge.2FRed_Khmer_age.29

Of course, George W Bush was in Texas at the time protecting the United States from the waves of bombers sent by Ho Chi Minh, so he probably wasn't up on the details of the ground war.

I myself find it curious that a man who speaks so casually of bravery is terrified of any anti-protester pointing out his deceitful bullshit. So much so that President hides a mile behind a phalanx of Secret Service officers.

Old habits die hard, I guess.

Posted by Don Williams | August 22, 2007 11:05 AM

an "anti-protester"?

Like Bill Kristol?

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | August 22, 2007 11:07 AM

Any chance that America throwing South Vietnam under the bus in '74-'75 emboldened the Iranians to cashier the Shah and commit an act of war against us by invading our embassy and taking our staff hostage in '79? Any chance that humiliation at the hands of an Islamic regime inspired further attacks against us by Hezbollah (The Beirut Marine compound, etc.) and Al Qaeda?

Probably no connection, right?

Posted by Hmongous | August 22, 2007 11:07 AM

To this day the plot line survives it was the dirty fucking hippies that led us to defeat in Viet Nam. Bush hopes using the Nam analogy will serve to make the connection it is again the dirty fucking hippies wanting to scuttle our efforts. The Right has mined the losses in Viet Nam for 35 years now, painting Democrats as incapable of wielding military power in a dangerous world. Now Iraq will serve as a "refresh" button, assuring another generation views the Left as a crowd of fey nancy-boys. I will repeat this for the umpteenth time, Democrats are going to get pinned with full blame for the mess in Iraq. The media will not assign blame where blame is due. Once a pullout is finally effected it will certainly be at the instigation of Democrats. Despite the war already being irretrieviably lost the Right will insist a pullout marks the beginning of the end for the prospect of victory. And with that for another 35 years the dirty fucking hippies will be to blame for a lost war. Bush has avoided blame or negative consequences for every mistake he's ever made. That's not changing now.

Posted by steve duncan | August 22, 2007 11:09 AM

Probably no connection, right?

Posted by Hmongous | August 22, 2007 11:07 AM

Correct.

Posted by milo | August 22, 2007 11:13 AM

no, hmongous, there is no chance.

as for the killing fields in cambodia, perhaps if richard nixon hadn't invaded and destabilized cambodia in the first place...well, there's no chance that george bush is capable of even understanding that.

Posted by howard | August 22, 2007 11:16 AM

Any chance that America throwing South Vietnam under the bus in '74-'75 emboldened the Iranians to cashier the Shah and commit an act of war against us by invading our embassy and taking our staff hostage in '79?

Nope. None. But that event was our fault, if it makes you feel any better.

Posted by Consumatopia | August 22, 2007 11:18 AM

A good deal of the reason why public support for the Vietnamese war was lost was because of continued lying by the Administrations involved and the military both in starting our engagement and in characterizing the war. Eventually, the American people just got tired of being constantly lied to - anything there sound familiar?

And left unsaid by Bush - what sort of American involvement would have been necessary to prevent the military collapse of the Vietnamese government? Would we have kept 500,000+ GIs in Vietnam through 1975 and after? One of the major criticisms of Vietnam at the time, was that we never devoted enough might there to actually win - again, sound familiar? Bush is treading a really rocky road here - one that only succeeds if one keeps a very narrow view and doesn't question anything else.

The first time is farce, the second time is tragedy - except in this case the first time was tragedy also.

Posted by Ethel-to-Tilly | August 22, 2007 11:26 AM

Any chance that America throwing South Vietnam under the bus in '74-'75 emboldened the Iranians to cashier the Shah and commit an act of war against us by invading our embassy and taking our staff hostage in '79?

Why don't you learn a little bit about Iran and the events that lead to the Shah's downfall before posting something so breathtakingly stupid.

Now, you might argue that the US leaving South Vietnam emboldened the Soviets to invade Afghanistan. In which case leaving South Vietnam was a stroke of genius since it indirectly lead to the collapse of the USSR.

Posted by vanya | August 22, 2007 11:27 AM

On Postinvasion Iraqi fatalities.

Posted by JJ | August 22, 2007 11:29 AM

steve duncan: The Right has mined the losses in Viet Nam for 35 years now, painting Democrats as incapable of wielding military power in a dangerous world. Now Iraq will serve as a "refresh" button, assuring another generation views the Left as a crowd of fey nancy-boys.

The above claim is simply ahistorical. The Vietnam Dolchstosslegende, although propounded almost immediately by the right wing, was not taken seriously outside of this milieu right away. It was not Vietnam that destroyed the Democratic Party's credibility on foreign policy; it was the myriad failures of the Carter administration. Not all of this was completely his fault, but, as Harry Truman once put it, "the buck stops here."

The setbacks (both domestic and foreign) seen by America between 1976 and 1980 were what allowed the Republicans to plausibly claim to many Americans that the Democrats couldn't be trusted on the world stage. Carter was stuck with a very bad situation, but he didn't exactly optimize what he was given. The economy went to hell with double-digit inflation and unemployment; the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and U.S. personnel were taken hostage in Iran. Throughout all of this, Carter was unable to take effective action. This hurt the Democratic Party far more than the withdrawal from Vietnam, which was broadly popular.

What the next Democratic President has to do from 2008 to 2012 is, above all, not screw things up. Like Carter, he will inherit a very problematic situation, but he has to be ready for this and take action to prevent it. Withdrawal from Iraq will be perfectly palatable to the American people if it is not followed up with a string of failures in other arenas. Catching bin Laden would be an excellent start, and would make it much harder to paint the new President as weak. The next President must be willing to face down Pakistan to demand the extradition of this mass murderer. It will also be a difficult but necessary job to rebuild America's international credibility.

If we withdraw from Iraq and the overall position of America gets worse, there is a possibility that Democrats will be blamed. If we withdraw and improve our overall situation under a Democratic President, then we will be vindicated and the "stab in the back" kooks will be permanently marginalized.

In 2012, when the Republican candidate asks "Are you better off than you were four years ago," we must be sure that a majority of Americans will answer YES.

Posted by Josh G. | August 22, 2007 11:30 AM

If so, imagine 28 million Americans fleeing the homeland. Hell, that will solve the health insurance problem by at least 50%.

Except it wouldn't. It would be the 28 million with the most money that left, not the 28 million with the least. The rest of us would be stuck here in Bush's thunderdome utopia, like the Iraqis that haven't been able to get the money together to leave there.

Posted by MikeJ | August 22, 2007 11:31 AM

Yeah but it's not reallt about the number of the dead so much as the effect their deaths have on our appearance and self-esteem.

* Those who died because we killed them made us look strong!

* Those who died at NV hands while we walked away made us look weak.

Everyone talks about the consequences of staying in Iraq but no one wants to think about the consequences of leaving but this brave soldier serving on the media front the GWAIF (Global War Against Islamic-Facism) is going to tell you what the leftist PC police and traitor KKKossaks don't want you to know: If we leave Iraq not only is it almost certain that OBL, and Islamic militants in general, will talk some shit but, even worse, there is a very good chance that BILLIONS of people around the world might begin to suspect that we have small dicks! This is completely unacceptable!!!!

I have worked too hard for too long at hiding my small genitalia behind a macho facade to let you goddamn defeatist leftards blow my cover now! I VOW to man the barricades at the front line of the GWAIF (aka. sit at my computer) and fight against you defeatist America-hating commie liberal scum (aka. comment on blogs) until we are victorious and the entire world thinks I am packing some serious meat.

Posted by Conservative Media Soldier | August 22, 2007 11:32 AM

Is there an accurate estimate of how many Iraqis have fled their country since March 2003?
If my memory serves, the number I read somewhere is close to 2 million, which comes to an astounding 8% of the population.
Posted by gregor

Not so astounding. Mexico has a population of approx 105 million... we have an estimated illegal population of 12-14 million. That's well above 8%. Doesn't make the plight of the 2 million refugees any less tragic, though... Iraq's neighbors don't have the resources or jobs that the US has for its Mexican visitors.

Posted by David | August 22, 2007 11:39 AM

I was in high school in the early seventies and volunteered at the college draft counseling office. When i think of all the COs and various deferments turned down on a regular basis (attending college did not get you off the hook in a lot of places) and Dick Cheney with five deferments and Bush AWOL from the Guard, all while publicly supporting the conflict, I want to slap someone silly.

Bush is in dangerous, desperate waters wading into Viet nam history.

Posted by bird | August 22, 2007 11:41 AM

Is there an accurate estimate of how many Iraqis have fled their country since March 2003?

If my memory serves, the number I read somewhere is close to 2 million

The UN has put the number at about 2 million, but Nir Rosen recently suggested that the actual number is closer to 3 million.

http://highclearing.com/index.php/archives/2007/08/22/6999

Posted by Eric Martin | August 22, 2007 11:43 AM

Josh G., you have a good point about Carter. If we had someone (you know, maybe an engineer who should know better) as president who thought to himself things like "maybe we shouldn't land a helicopter in the desert as part of a rescue operation" (ironically, when I was in high school studying Carter in US history, I jokingly asked if this is what they did and my teacher had to awkwardly answer "umm... yeah.") However, the Carter years also gave Republicans a window of time in which people forgot their visceral issues of being trapped in Vietnam and how it wasn't going well and instead were able to craft a counter-narrative of American pride being hurt by the hippies cutting off the funding. The politics of resentment combined with Carter's mistakes to help tar the Democrats for a generation. It doesn't have to be either/or.

My personal favorite of this genre of stabbed-in-the-back on Vietnam is an article from some guy in the Nixon Administration that appeared in Foreign Affairs a couple of years ago in which he argued we were winning in Vietnam before the funds were cut off. One of his major pieces of evidence was the Moscow was getting annoyed with Hanoi. However, if there existed significant daylight between the two and if the Cold War was primarily about containing Soviet power, then the Vietnam War became a bit nonsensical because then we were focusing the bulk of our energies in trying to stop a small country from becoming communist while being forced to devote less time to dealing with Moscow.

Posted by Reality Man | August 22, 2007 11:54 AM

It's hard to imagine that leaving Vietnam sooner wouldn't have saved lives, whereas staying in Vietnam longer would have gotten even more people killed before ending in the same result.

Not only that, but it saves bullets to have someone else do the killing.

Posted by chicagoan | August 22, 2007 12:01 PM

Now he tells us. It's like Vietnam all over again.

But wait. There's more.

The Vietnam war was good. Ending the Vietnam war was bad.

A real student of history, that one.

__

Posted by JustMe | August 22, 2007 12:02 PM

Bizarre, narcissist, blind and spotty, exactly the right words to sum up Bush's understanding of the world.

Posted by aleks | August 22, 2007 12:06 PM

I have a crazy idea. Everyone tell me if you think it's crazy.

I think the overwhelming majority of Americans think the Vietnam War was a bad thing. I think the overwhelming majority of Americans are glad we got out. I don't think going on TV and drawing parallels between the Vietnam War and our current military adventure is going to increase public confidence.

Crazy, right?

Posted by Jake H. | August 22, 2007 12:06 PM

Someone, perhaps a "journalist," should ask the President who ended the Vietnam War. What president secretly negotiated the peace treaties, with the help of the French? Who was President when the last helicopter left Saigon? To what political party did these Presidents belong?

Nixon. Ford. Republicans.

Nixon had the sense to end the futile war and the sleaze to drag it out past his own reelection. Bush has double the sleaze and none of the sense.

Posted by Jalmari | August 22, 2007 12:13 PM

But Matt, all the 1.7 million people we killed while we were in Vietnam were bad people, so they don't count.

Posted by Glenn | August 22, 2007 12:15 PM

There are 59,000 names on the Wall. Apparently Bush thinks there should have been a few tens of thousands more.

Posted by brooksfoe | August 22, 2007 12:37 PM

The US hawks' intensive bombing and then carpet bombing of Cambodia from 1965 - 1973 (there was indeed gigantic levels of bombing under LBJ's hawks too) directly assisted in the Khmer Rouge takeover of the country.

While it’s true that “vast areas” of rural Cambodia and the Ho Chi Minh Trail are indeed “sparsely inhabited,” those were not the only targets of the US carpet bombardments from 1969 to 1973. Our extensive maps show that the Air Force heavily targeted most of the populated lowlands of Cambodia. Matching detailed topographic base maps with the Pentagon’s bombing data shows hundreds of Cambodian villages included in B-52 target “boxes.”

Of course, the Khmer Rouge also profited from their alliance with Prince Sihanouk and from aid they received from China and Vietnamese Communists, but the role of the US bombardment in helping bring this genocidal regime to power is undeniable. There is no reason to ask the former Khmer Rouge head of state to confirm the fact; it is well documented in contemporary US official reporting and by numerous peasant witnesses.
http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2007.02-letters-february-2007/3/

The millions and millions who died in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos are not regretting that the U.S. hawks didn't remain there to keep bombing them into freedom.

http://www.yale.edu/cgp/us.html

Posted by El Cid | August 22, 2007 12:38 PM

Uh oh, when you point out that the Americans killed more people in Vietnam than the Khmer Rouge killed in Cambodia, you might be confused with Noam Chomsky, a known dirty communist.

Posted by Benjamin | August 22, 2007 12:45 PM

1.7 million Vietnamese killed?

Where does that number come from? I've seen estimates from the insanely low of 300k to the high of 5 million. Is there an actual generally accepted number of dead, or is it still contested?

Considering that the US dropped several times as many bombs as it did on both theaters of WWII, made widespread use of napalm and, with agent orange, carried out the largest chemical warfare campaign ever - I'm inclined to believe the higher end of the scale. But if there were an authoritative, evidence based number I'd like to see it.

Posted by justaguy | August 22, 2007 12:52 PM

Glenn: you have it almost right. By the President's logic, it isn't just about who dies, but how. Murder at the hand of an enemy counts much more than accidental deaths, including civilians accidentally hurt during fighting. Unaveneged murders are the worst. This logic explains the President's repeated statements about preventing soldiers from dying in vain and how failure in Iraq is unacceptable. Without vengeance, all the deaths, civilian and military, would retroactively become much worse.

Posted by Archit | August 22, 2007 12:53 PM

Re: " A far better example of America "empowering the terrorists" through retreat is Ronald Reagan's cowardly cutting and running from Beirut in 1983.

The last thing America needs right now is another coward like Ronald Reagan. "

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Reagan in Washington DC the whole time? I mean, if you yourself are in Beirut, see danger, and run away from it, I agree that your actions may be cowardly. If, from your safe perch in the nation's capital, you order other people to run away, I fail to see how that is cowardly. If Reagan had ordered the Marines to stay and fight to the last man, would that have somehow made him braver?

Posted by Jim W | August 22, 2007 1:17 PM

And here's a preview of Bush's speech for next week.

"Some people say I've lost it."

"I think Bob Dylan said it best."

"When you ain't got nothing, you got nothing to lose."

__

Posted by JustMe | August 22, 2007 1:22 PM

JustMe,

I thought Kris Kristofferson said that. It figures Bush would even get that wrong.

Posted by Jim W | August 22, 2007 1:29 PM

The other conservative line is that we left Vietnam just as we had started winning. According to them, another Friedman Unit (6 months) would have been enough to bring peace to South Vietnam, just like Iraq.

Posted by lgm | August 22, 2007 1:40 PM

Jim W,

Not to 'dis Kris, but Dylan said that one.

Bush could readily work Kris' work into a speech for the following week.

***

"Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

"Nothing, and that's all Turd Blossom left me."

__

Posted by JustMe | August 22, 2007 1:44 PM

Many good comments above. It's a sign of how sick and ailing our public discourse is that Bush would even contemplate going public with this disgusting whopper. My bet is that he'll get away with it. It will be treated as true, or plausible or not wildly out of line. It will go uncontested by major figures in politics and the media who know better, unless, of course, vague references are made to opposing views held by out of the way cranks. The truths that MY and some of the commenters have set out about our role in the killing of millions, about Americans own attitudes toward the war at the time and during its aftermath will largely go unmentioned. Hope I'm wrong.

Posted by J | August 22, 2007 2:06 PM

this un-elected dispicable evil man-child who never achieved any success in his life other than stealing land under eminent-domain and purportedly stopped drinking and snorting should not be allowed to have an opinion and should serve hard time if there is any justice in this world which there isnt.

Posted by Yehohanan Stein | August 22, 2007 2:28 PM

The LATIMES quotes historian Robert Dallek withe the following in response to the Decyder:

"... It's a disaster, and this is a political attempt to lay the blame for the disaster on his opponents. But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out."

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-bushspeech22aug22,1,7259923.story?coll=la-news-a_section

__

Posted by JustMe | August 22, 2007 2:50 PM

"Uh oh, when you point out that the Americans killed more people in Vietnam than the Khmer Rouge killed in Cambodia, you might be confused with Noam Chomsky, a known dirty communist."

Didn't Chomsky (and the early 1980's CIA) actually take the Khmer Rouge weren't responsible for any killings whatsoever?

Posted by Reality Man | August 22, 2007 2:58 PM

I'm all for nuking Iran if Bush goes down riding that nuke like a cowboy! YEEEE-hah!

It would be worth the ensuing globe-rending world war just to know his stupid worthless head was the first to explode.

Posted by Gregorio | August 22, 2007 3:16 PM

Didn't Chomsky (and the early 1980's CIA) actually take the Khmer Rouge weren't responsible for any killings whatsoever?

Uh oh, get ready for a loooooong debate if you're curious about this one. That's not what he was saying at all, rather he was mostly saying that (a) those who had no problems with slaughtering Cambodians with carpet bombs can hardly act more morally outraged when Cambodians are slaughtered by Khmer Rouge guerrillas given power by the US carpet bombing, and (b) even with a genocide it doesn't help the victims to just search for the biggest number of dead possible; but since there are huge, long, endless, debates out there on the internet about this, I'd suggest a good Googling. You may also want to remember that there wasn't anything the U.S. or any great power could have done to halt the Khmer Rouge killing which wouldn't have made the death count even higher.

What I think the main historical point is that whether or not he engaged in arguments about the numbers of people who died by whose hands, Noam Chomsky didn't carpet bomb Cambodia and hand power to the Khmer Rouge, whereas U.S. hawks did.

Right wing hawk turds want to turn all conversations about Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge into some sort of conversation about Chomsky, but, again, Chomsky neither sent B-52's to bomb Cambodia into a moonscape nor did he then suggest that China aid the Khmer Rouge rebels once Vietnam threw them out of power.

Posted by El Cid | August 22, 2007 4:28 PM

Matt - It's hard to imagine that leaving Vietnam sooner wouldn't have saved lives, whereas staying in Vietnam longer would have gotten even more people killed before ending in the same result.

An excellent point that could be applied to other wars. France laying down in WWII allowed them to "only" have to take 50,000 military losses. If Russia had only done the same, imagine how few of the 23 million they "senselessly lost in stupid war" could have been saved!!
And, as Western media and intelligensia place more value on Jewish life than Slavic lives, forget about the 23 million and imagine how many of the 6 million Jewish lives would have been saved by a quick British and Soviet surrender to Fascism! Remember, the original Nazi plan was to kill or imprison the Jews involved in Bolshevik leadership, along with Slavs involved - then cleanse the rest as part of the negotiations and agreements the Nazis had with the Zionists to Palestine or to Madagascar. The Final Solution was agreed to in a change of plans in 1942 - only when the Soviets stopped the Nazi advance and the Royal Navy thwarted any ability of the Nazis to cleanse Europe of Jews, and led the Nazis to a strategic change in plans about what to do with the Roma and Jews.

An allied surrender to the Nazis would have saved civilian lives! Jewish lives! Was the victory we had worth the extra lives, by "Lefty all wars are like Vietnam, needlessly killing innocent civilians!" logic?

*********************

Matt - fair proportion of them were people we ourselves killed. In any reckoning of the costs of intervening and withdrawing from Indochina, those people count too. It’s a bizarre, narcissistic blind spot to imagine otherwise."

Indeed, the 1.7 million or so people reckoned to have died during the main American phase of the Vietnam War (1965-1973) outpaces the Cambodian genocide (among other things) by a healthy margin.

Not in terms of percentage of population, where the Khymer Rouge killed or starved 1/3 of Cambodia's population. Vietnam's losses in the American phase were under 4%, and that number was more a reflection of Vietnam's Soviet and Chicom sponsors encouraging the revolutionaries to accept heavy losses, consider them as cheap as the Russians and Chicoms that had butchered 70 million of their own citizens by 1965, as a price of revolution.

And the Communist leadership then did.

Not only did they kill 500,000 of the 1.7 million toll, they marched regiments into the ARVN-USA meatgrinder as resolutely as the Brits marched to doom at the Somme in WWI inviting the bulk of the 1.2 million deaths USA-ARVN inflicted as a war of attrition price until the Western media the Soviets promised would fall into line against the war, did so.

**********************
Ethel-to-Tilly - And left unsaid by Bush - what sort of American involvement would have been necessary to prevent the military collapse of the Vietnamese government? Would we have kept 500,000+ GIs in Vietnam through 1975 and after?

Nobody talks of leaving 500,000 US troops there. Nixon had begun his withdrawal and Vietnamization phase in 1970. By 1973, that was complete, with only 50,000 US forces left in country providing air support and equipment logistics to the ARVN.
And ARVN had held their own and even pushed back the NVA and their VC local auxillaries in 1973,74.
What changed was the Democrats, goaded by the Lefty media, cut off aid and thus cut off the S Vienamese by the knees in late 1974 after Nixon's fall. Collapsing them. In General Giap's biography, and in war histories written by the ChiComs, Soviets - Soviet propaganda work with the Western Media, their Jewish and Gentile assets within media, and of course the Democratic Congress of the USA by cutting off funds are given great credit for the Communist victory. Not as much credit as the Revolutionary heroes and killers of the "bourgeosie colonialist dogs and merchant lackeys", but fair credit. Some in the US were praised by name in the Communist histories as helping ensure the revolutionary triumph in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.

You can guess the names.....

Posted by Chris Ford | August 22, 2007 4:48 PM

Chris Ford - Did you perhaps leave out a few things?

Prince Norodom Sihanouk had proclaimed the neutrality of Cambodia since 1955. "We are neutral," he noted, "in the same way Switzerland and Sweden are neutral."[93] The PAVN/NLF, however, used Cambodian soil as a base. Sihanouk tolerated their presence, because he wished to avoid being drawn into a wider regional conflict. Under pressure from Washington, however, he changed this policy in 1969. The PAVN/NLF were no longer welcome. President Nixon took the opportunity to launch a massive secret bombing campaign, called Operation Menu, against their sanctuaries along the border. This violated a long succession of pronouncements from Washington supporting Cambodian neutrality. Richard Nixon wrote to Prince Sihanouk in April, 1969, assuring him that the United States respected "the sovereignty, neutrality and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Cambodia …"[94] Over 14 months, however, approximately 2,750,000 tons of bombs were dropped, more than the total dropped by the Allies in World War II. The bombing was hidden from the American public. In 1970, Prince Sihanouk was deposed by pro-American general Lon Nol. The country's borders were closed, and the U.S. and ARVN launched incursions into Cambodia to attack PAVN/NLF bases and buy time for South Vietnam. The coup against Sihanouk and U.S. bombing, destabilized Cambodia, and increased support for the Khmer Rouge.

... In 1971 Australia and New Zealand withdrew their soldiers from Vietnam. (Victims of the US "Lefty Press" no doubt!)

... And how about former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara's recollections:

The secretary of defense was a key figure in decisions to escalate the war between 1961 and 1965, and he readily concedes that the assumptions upon which he and his colleagues acted were badly flawed. They approached Vietnam, he recalls, with "sparse knowledge, scant experience and simplistic assumptions." Victims of their own "innocence and confidence," they foolishly viewed communism as monolithic, knew nothing about Indochina, and were "simple?minded" regarding the historical relationship between China and Vietnam. They badly misjudged Ho Chi Minh's nationalism and consistently overestimated South Vietnam's ability to survive.

***

I will concede that Bush is correct in that there are parallels between Iraq and Vietnam -- Bush just doesn't have the brains to understand them.

__

Posted by JustMe | August 22, 2007 5:34 PM

Well, GWB has finally outdone himself! With his incredibly ignorant speech made to captive funny hat wearing VFW conventioneers,he today has had the CHUTZPAH to invoke Vietnam Veterans (he could have been one himself, but he used daddys' wealth and crooked connecctions to make sure that he,the 'war President' did not serve in that war, but that he could hide maybe in Alabama, and later SWIFT BOAT and inpugn the patriotism of a decorated Vietnam combat Veteran by the name of John Kerry who did so serve and ran against him for the presidency. This truly disgusting speech, is the absolute lowest of the low, and GWB has sunk to subterranean levels he previously had not heretofore yet plummeted to. That anyone in that captive audience applauded anything this brazen bold faced liar had to say about Iraq or Vietnam is beyond belief. As but one Marine Vietnam Veteran who served in 1968 and 1969, when 'little Georgie' made sure he did not, I am truly disgusted beyond belief, that this cretin has sunk so low, attempting once again to deflect valid criticism of his disastrous war policies in Iraq, while this time brazenly mentioning Vietnam Veterans.Perhaps ole GWB might even visit The Wall soon, where he could really communicate his 'feelings' to some 58,000 who never made it back from that hellhole?

Posted by Dwight Powers | August 22, 2007 5:36 PM

You should really learn how to use Google, Matt. The estimates for the Cambodian death toll start at well over 2M, and range up to as high as 3M. I have no idea what kind of math you use to get 1.7M as a significantly higher figure.

Maybe Google isn't all you need to figure out.

But never mind the totals - are you saying that the Cambodian genocide was a fair trade, because you believe that the death toll was lower?

Posted by James Robertson | August 22, 2007 11:41 PM

James Robertson,

Whatever minor point it was you were trying to make, the major point is that the Cambodian deaths were the result of Nixon's invasion, bombing and destabilization of Cambodia. In case you can't figure it out, that was a broadening and an extending of the Vietnam war.

The only good thing I can think of that might have come from not ending that war when we finally did, is that perhaps George Wanker Bush would have been called up to active duty. But chances are he would have reported to Vietnam the same way he reported to Alabama; not.

__

Posted by JustMe | August 23, 2007 12:24 AM

MacNamarra used 3.4 million as the number of deaths in Vietnam during his recent interviews.

In 1971, there were 3000 fragging incidents reported in Vietnam. There were riots in military stockades all over the world. The US army was pulled out of Vietnam to save it from itself.

Barry Goldwater voted against the extra aid for South Vietnam in 1974. Everyone involved knew that Nixon's plan was only ment to buy the US a couple of years to pull out completely. The top GSV people were stealing everything that was not tied down to set themselves up for their impending exile.

Nixon's plan worked. By the spring of 1975, the only US military unit in country was the embassy protection force. If the US had started its evacuation when I Corps collapsed, it could have been completed long before the NVA reached Siagon. There never had to be any helicopters on the US embassy roof.

Posted by Bill D | August 23, 2007 3:22 AM

Bill D,

Nixon was a liar and a crook. His plan clearly did not work. Your trying to rewrite history with a bunch of "could of, should of, and would of"s is a sad joke. The failures of the far right con artists are always someone else's fault. As for Nixon, Congress finally wised up and impeached the SOB.

Posted by JustMe | August 23, 2007 8:59 AM

Matt,

Your theory on Cambodia is wrong the same way your theory on Iraq is wrong. Circa 1971, we couldn't go back and undo the war - that wasn't an option. Leaving meant consigning Cambodia to genocide. Period, end of story, the left has that blood on its hands as much as the war advocates do for having entered the war in the first place.

In 1971, there was no rewind. Now, in 2007, there is no rewind. If we leave, we'll see genocide again. We don't get to pretend this is like playground kickball, and call "do over". We are where we are. Accept this simple reality: opposition to the war in 2002/2003 is now irrelevant. The war is what it is. Just as in 1971, that war was what it was, and leaving created massive problems in the region, and emboldened the Soviets (ultimately to their cost).

Posted by James Robertson | August 23, 2007 11:53 AM

Leaving meant consigning Cambodia to genocide. Period, end of story, the left has that blood on its hands as much as the war advocates do for having entered the war in the first place.

Except for the fact that NOT leaving also meant consigning Cambodia to genocide.

But you don't care, because you're not interested in what happened in Cambodia, or who died, or why, because their deaths only exist as a vain attempt for you to blame 'the left' for what the U.S. hawks' bombing helped bring about.

That's it. There is no other purpose for the genocide in Cambodia to exist in conservative and liberal hawk imagination.

The victims are nothing to you, they don't count, the ones killed before the Khmer Rouge genocide are completely and utterly uninteresting for you, and the only reason any of you right wingers and liberal hawks play as though you give a damn is because for a good long while you could use their decaying remains as metaphors and myths to use against the left.

It wasn't the left who cleared their way to power, but it was 'a left' which stopped the genocide, the only power that could have done anything to halt it: the unified government of Vietnam, who were the ones who threw Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge out of power.

Posted by El Cid | August 23, 2007 2:14 PM

James you nut, what would we do if we stayed?

People keep talking like bombing Cambodia didn't start until 1969.

1. The bombing actually started in 1965.
2. 475,515 tons had been dropped by the time of Lon Nol's coup.
3. The final carpet bombing campaign intended to stop the Khmer Rouge's advance had the opposite effect (I'm reminded of the US Bombing Survey's finding that the allied leveling of Hamburg increased Nazi war production): the reds were well dug in and used the American bombing to great effect in their recruiting efforts with the terrified peasants ("Sihanouk will stop the bombing if we restore him to the throne, join us" etc).
4. "the total payload dropped during these years to be nearly five times greater than the generally accepted figure" a "revised total of 2,756,941 tons". In WWII the allies dropped altogether something like 2 million tons. In Cambodia 50% more ordnance than that just left the KR stronger than when the bombing began.
5. Complaining that we didn't drop more is batshit insane.

See "Bombs Over Cambodia": http://www.yale.edu/cgp/Walrus_CambodiaBombing_OCT06.pdf

Congress stopped the bombing in '73, but they didn't stop US aid to Lon Nol: the military chartered civilian flights that transported thousands of tons/day of supplies into the capital - which by the end of the bombing campaign the last hold out of Lon Nols government.

We evacuated Phnompenh in '75 because he lost: not leaving would have just meant leaving Americans there, waiting around to be butchered by the victors.

And just to paint this all in high comedic relief:

KISSINGER (to the Foreign Minister of Thailand): You should also tell the Cambodians that we will be friends with them. They are murderous thugs, but we won't let that stand in our way. We are prepared to improve relations with them. Tell them the latter part, but don't tell them what I said before.

That's from November 26th, 1975: http://flagrancy.net/entry-1492.html

Thank you El Cid & buerman,

Are the wingnuts now trying to pretend that American military forces were in Cambodia in '75 fighting the Khmer Rouge and were then withdrawn, making way for a Communist victory and the subsequent massacres? One wants to say I was alive then I remember what happened.

Posted by J | August 23, 2007 5:56 PM

Chris Ford,

Here is a simple question for you. Why did cutting off aid to South Vietnam lead to its defeat by North Vietnma within one year, when the South Vietnamese military was allegedly holding its own against the forces under the control of the North Vietnamese? Even with aid being cut off in late 1974, the South Vietnamese should not have collapsed so completely against a North Vietnamese assault. South Vietnam had a larger population, a larger & better supplied military, and a larger & more dynamic economy than Commie North Vietnam. There is no reason why South Vietnam should have collapsed so quickly after having its aid cut off, if we accept your contention that South Vietnam had the momentum of victory on its side up to that point.

Of course, the real reason why South Vietnam fell to North Vietnam like it did is that the South Vietnamese viewed themselves as Vietnamese, period, and not as South Vietnamese. As a result, the bulk of the populace in South Vietnam supported reunification with North Vietham, and decided to support the forces of North Vietnam. In other words, the South Vietnamese government collapsed not because the US Congress failed to support it, but because the South Vietnamese populace stopped supporting the government in Saigon.

BTW, it is a fallacy that the US lost the Vietnam war for 2 reasons. One, the Vietnam war was really a civil war among the Vietnamese, which meant that it was not our war to fight in the 1st place. Two, our ultimate goal in Vietnam was to defeat Communism there. If you looked at the economic & business news within the last decade, you will see that one of the hottest growth areas for investment and trade for capitalists all over the world is Vietnam. The reason for this is that the Vietnamese people have rejected Ho Chi Minh's dreams of a Communist state, and have embraced capitalism with gusto. This represents a plain & simple victory on the part of the US; it just wasn't achieved via military intervention in the Vietnam war.

Posted by eltoro | August 24, 2007 1:35 AM