Vietnam. --------------------------------------------- What happened when Democrats in Congress cut off funding for the Vietnam War? Historians have directly attributed the fall of Saigon in 1975 to the cessation of American aid. Without the necessary funds, South Vietnam found it logistically and financially impossible to defeat the North Vietnamese army. Moreover, the withdrawal of aid encouraged North Vietnam to begin an effective military offensive against South Vietnam. Given the monetary and military investment in Vietnam, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage compared the American withdrawal to âa pregnant lady, abandoned by her lover to face her fate." (2) Historian Lewis Fanning went so far as to say that âit was not the Hanoi communists who won the war, but rather the American Congress that lost it." (3) In January of 1973, President Richard Nixon approved the Paris Peace Accords negotiated by Henry Kissinger, which implemented an immediate cease-fire in Vietnam and called for the complete withdrawal of American troops within sixty days. Two months later, Nixon met with South Vietnamese President Thieu and secretly promised him a âsevere retaliationâ against North Vietnam should they break the cease-fire. Around the same time, Congress began to express outrage at the secret illegal bombings of Cambodia carried out at Nixonâs behest. Accordingly, on June 19, 1973 Congress passed the Case-Church Amendment, which called for a halt to all military activities in Southeast Asia by August 15, thereby ending twelve years of direct U.S. military involvement in the region. In the fall of 1974, Nixon resigned under the pressure of the Watergate scandal and was succeeded by Gerald Ford. Congress cut funding to South Vietnam for the upcoming fiscal year from a proposed 1.26 billion to 700 million dollars. These two events prompted Hanoi to make an all-out effort to conquer the South. As the North Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary Le Duan observed in December 1974: âThe Americans have withdrawnâ¦this is what marks the opportune moment." (4) The NVA drew up a two-year plan for the âliberationâ of South Vietnam. Owing to South Vietnamâs weakened state, this would only take fifty-five days. The drastic reduction of American aid to South Vietnam caused a sharp decline in morale, as well as an increase in governmental corruption and a crackdown on domestic political dissent. The South Vietnamese army was severely under-funded, greatly outnumbered, and lacked the support of the American allies with whom they were accustomed to fighting. The NVA began its final assault in March of 1975 in the Central Highlands. Ban Me Thout, a strategically important hamlet, quickly fell to North Vietnam. On March 13, a panicked Thieu called for the retreat of his troops, surrendering Pleiku and Kontum to the NVA. Thieu angrily blamed the US for his decision, saying, âIf [the U.S.] grant full aid we will hold the whole country, but if they only give half of it, we will only hold half of the country.â5 His decision to retreat increased internal opposition toward him and spurred a chaotic mass exodus of civilians and soldiers that clogged the dilapidated roads to the coast. So many refugees died along the way that the migration along Highway 7B was alternatively described by journalists as the âconvoy of tearsâ and the âconvoy of death.â 6 On April 21, President Thieu resigned in a bitter televised speech in which he strongly denounced the United States. Sensing that South Vietnam was on the verge of collapse, the NVA accelerated its attack and reached Saigon on April 23. On the same day, President Ford announced to cheerful students at Tulane University that as far as America was concerned, âthe war was over.â The war officially concluded on April 30, as Saigon fell to North Vietnam and the last American personnel were evacuated. http://hnn.us/article/31400
You've got it totally wrong. What does Pinochet have to do with anything about the Vietnam war. You've been brain washed. minh was patriot who loved his country and its people, and they loved him. Those were criminals who went to the South and set up shop. Reischauer knew this. Why do you think so many in the country side were willing to die for their cause. Why do you think that no matter how many bombs we dropped and how many we killed and maimed they just kept coming. (we dropped more explosives on Vietnam than we did in all of World war two!!!) We wrecked their beautiful country, and yet they kept coming. Same with the French. They were fighting for their homeland against foreign aggressors.. You know nothing about U.S. lies. Viet cong came from the rural villages in the South. Obviously you are too young to know anything about the Vietnam war and American treachery in an attempt to gain a strategic foothold in Indochina. Read. We took Diem, a former Vietnamese official and a Catholic, out of New Jersey sent him to Vietnam, a Buddhist country, set him up in Saigon and "encouraged" him to not to hold the upcoming elections for unification. Much later when he was of no further use to us we abandoned him to his executioners. You know nothing of Vietnam.
For a devastating critique of pie's summary, which closely tracks leftwing author Neil Sheehan's book A Bright Shining Lie, see http://www.vdare.com/articles/a-bright-shining-lie-john-paul-vann-and-america-in-vietnam
Tea Party representatives were not sent to Washington to fund Obamacare and vote to raise the debt ceiling. I hope they all refuse to support Boehner. The best thing that could happen to the republicans is to get rid of their current leadership. That leadership has no backbone for a battle, does not seem to understand basic negotiating strategy and is utterly incapable of explaining conservative positions.
Beltway, that article is trying to identify cutting the funds off with the Democrats. This is totally wrong. Look up the vote. It was overwhelming on both sides of the aisle! There was enough votes on both sides to overturn a veto. The country had had it with Vietnam. We said with one voice, no more! There is no parallel, none between, funds being cut of for the Vietnam war and what is going on now. All of you guys, get your history straight!
They have no chance of prevailing. That's what makes there tantrums childish. They can not sustain either a government shutdown or a default. If they did manage that, they'd be finished politically, as would the entire Republican party. It is fine to express an opinion and come out strongly against Obamney care, but you look like a fool when you act as though you don't care if you wreck the entire country if you don't get your way. To moderate Americans these people look like childish morons.
You forgot to mention that the beloved JFK was the "we" doing all the evil things you mention. He and his succesor, the loathsome LBJ, handed Nixon a mess that he tried to extract us from with some honor and dignity, but the democrat congress was determined to force a humiliating defeat on him. They couldn't have cared a whit about the hundreds of thousands of vietnamese who were murdered by your kindly Uncle Ho and his commies. No one elected Ho or the commies, another inconvenient fact you omit. Saying we were there to get their resources is as big a lie as saying we went into Iraq to get their oil. You may not mind it, but most people at that time did not want to live under a communist dictatorship.
Repeat after me: They were commies in the north. And if the commies kept coming, and some of them were in the south and would fight to the death for the glorious commie cause, that makes it a heavenly pursuit? re: pinochet what pinochet has to do with it is that i didn't hear then or now any of you leftists screaming about how that dictator should be supported, like your doing here.
You can't win if you give up. The shutdown is just like the sequester. That was also supposed to be hopeless. We were read a parade of horribles that were inevitable. Guess what, most people didn't even notice, plus we made a big dint in the deficit. And why should the blame for the shutdown or a default fall on republicans? They have passed numerous bills funding the government, minus Obamacare. They are willing to extend the debt ceiling if spending cuts are made. If you exceed the limit on your credit card, Master Card is not getting the blame. You are.
Exactly. Commie dictator like Castro murders tens of thousands, silence from the international human rights crowd. Right wing hero saves his country like Pinochet did, and they want to lynch him. They hound him on his deathbed. The hypocrisy of the left knows no bounds.