Vietnam War

[Scarlett]

I am confused. Who won the Vietnam war?

[Loosehead]

OK you've demonstrated your credentials, we know where you are comming from.

[raysparx]

Who won? surely you mean who lost, i'll tell you who lost,

All the poor innocent people who got killed,and the same thing will happen in iraq

[Stu in USA]

The simple answer would have to be Vietnam. FYI I doubt many Americans would say they lost the War, because War was never declared.

[gary baldy]

In a nutshell the North defeated the South and Vietnam was unified under the control of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam - so i suppose you can argue the Commies won.

[Trotbot]

All I would say is in Vietnam it is called the American War and the Vietnamese have no doubts whatsoever about who won.

[klodiggi]

I'll tell you who didn't win england america or france

[andy-hughes]

If you think in terms of 'winning', the North Vietnam and the Communists won.

Strange to think - America with all its military hardware and endless recruits took on a rag-tag army who's idea of a principle to live by was a bowl of rice, shoes made out of old tyres, and political independence. The Viet Cong fought a guerilla war on their own turf using men and women prepared to die for their freedom, against a bunch of conscripts who didn;t know why they were there, and only ever wanted to go home alive - you really could see the result a mile off.

Has America learned the lesson about not forcing its own individual notion of 'freedom' on other cultures? Judging by Iraq - this generation's Vietnam, it would appear not.

[gary baldy]

Whilst i share your sentiment andy i dont think Iraq can be compared to Vietnam. A better comparision would be the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan where the 'liberators' invited themselves to a party where they werent welcome, ended up getting slowly but surely beaten with the resulting internal political situation a lot worse than when they arrived.
In Iraq the Americans will eventually pull out and Iraq will be in the same , or worse, situation as it was before they started interfering.
The Americans cannot 'win' the Iraq war in the same way the couldnt have 'won' the Vietnam war.

[Scarlett]

The reason I asked is that I am teaching a song from Miss Saigon to my class, and they asked about the politics behind the story. I know roughly the background to the war and why it started and who was on whose side etc, and that the Americans gradually left, but I wasn't sure if there was a conclusion of any kind- an easy answer I could give to my students.

Loosehead- I have no idea what you are implying.

[onslow1]

The war was definitely won by the North Vietnamese. It cost them dearly in manpower amd whenever a pitched battle was joined they usually came off second best. However they were skilful manipulators of world opinion and won hands down at the Paris peace talks.

Although they were generally unable to take on the Allies in a pitched battle I would say they were far from a rag tag army. Their leaders down to probably regimental level had fought the Japanese and French previously and and the troops were motivated and skilled in jungle fighting, an area in which the US was sadly lacking.

It became a war of attrition and the US public got sick of it before the Vietnamese.