[A-List] FW: Oliver North, John Kerry and Gen.Vo Nguyen Giap: Birth of an Urban Legend

[Craven, Jim]

Stan,

The CBC ran Michael Mclear's documentary on the Vietnam War (both
agaisnt the French and the Americans) last week. Mclear was noted as a
CBC journalist in the Vietnam war and was the first western
correspondent to do stories from the North.  He suffered in his career
as a result. Anyway, in the two documentary he has several interviews
with General Giap (still alive and well in his 90s) in which Giap stated
they never had any doubt whatsoever that they would defeat the French
and that in the end they would defeat the Americans. He talked in purely
military, strategic, tactical and economic terms. He never mentioned the
anti-war movement in the US.

He stated the US always underestimated who they were fighting. He said
that instead of the US estimate of 1 million soldiers sent down to the
south they in fact sent down two million.  That for the US to have even
come close to defeating them they would have needed not 500,000 but two
million men.

Chris

Response (Jim C):

First of all, another "urban legend" is that VVAW was "Kerry's VVAW".
VVAW started long before Kerry became associated with it and his role
was largely peripheral and for a relatively short period of time. As is
usual with the bourgeois press, celebrities are given instant
certification as "leaders" of movements, and, dialectically, their
summarily-conferred "leadership status" gives them more celebrity...


Among the reasons for the defeat of U.S. imperialist forces in Vietnam
were:
A) The long history of Vietnamese as a Nation coupled with a long
history of fighting against foreign invaders;
B) The fighting spirit of a People fighting a just cause on their own
soil and for their own soil, defeats technology in the hands of foreign
forces lacking purpose and a just cause;
C) Military doctrine, strategies, tactics, orders of battle, training
and equipment totally not appropriate to the nature of the war and the
environment in which it was being fought;
D) Wrong, misleading and even falsified intelligence estimates designed
to produce numbers showing "progress" in the War by the U.S. (e.g.
falsified body counts designed to show winning hearts and minds,
taking/holding territory and constant attrition of enemy forces)with the
result that U.S. troops were deployed and sent into areas designated as
"pacified" causing more deaths;
E) Conventional criteria/yardsticks of "success and victory" (body
count, territory taken/held,) of conventional war used in unconventional
war situtation and environment;
F) Rank opportunism, lack of proper training, careerism, lack of focus
and discipline, lack of morale, officers and enlisted--U.S. and ARVN;
G) ARVN forces poorly trained, equipped, motivated and having no popular
support/bases;
H) Vietnamese long-run goals, thinking and ability to sustain necessary
sacrifices versus U.S. short-run thinking, goals and inability to
sustain necessary sacrifices;
I) Series of despotic Regimes in S. Vietnam with no mandates or popular
support; 
J) Vietnamese NLF and NVA dispersed among populations in South such that
attacks against them led to producing more enemies than supporters;
K) U.S. support of religious minorities (e.g. Catholics)constituting
privileged strata against majorities (Buddhists);
L) Anti-War movement in U.S. and around the world--played a more
decisive role in limiting options and possible reactions of U.S.
imperialism than in inspiring the Vietnamese;

The list could go on and on.

Jim C.