http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/e...9/the_revisionist_approach_to_vietnam/?page=1
Today there is a school of thought that says Tet was a terrible defeat for the Communist Vietnamese, that it should never have caused us to flinch, that the war was basically won by 1972, and that if we had only stayed the course we would have won it. Henry Kissinger has said as much, whole generations of soldiers were told that, and, it seems, that many around President Bush believe it as well.
When Iraq became the quagmire it is, I used to wonder how we could make the same mistake again so soon. But then I realized that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were in the Oval office with President Ford when Saigon fell. Perhaps they, and the worshipers of American power, felt that, this time, we would get it right.
In a strictly military sense, Tet was a defeat for the communists. But as the Prussian military strategist, Karl von Clausewitz, said, "War is a continuation of policy by other means . . . a real political instrument." And politically, Tet showed there was no light at the end of the tunnel, and that to fight on in an endless war was not something the American public was going to stand for. Vietnam showed that we could win every battle and still lose the war. And if I am not mistaken, we have never lost a battle in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Today there is a school of thought that says Tet was a terrible defeat for the Communist Vietnamese, that it should never have caused us to flinch, that the war was basically won by 1972, and that if we had only stayed the course we would have won it. Henry Kissinger has said as much, whole generations of soldiers were told that, and, it seems, that many around President Bush believe it as well.
When Iraq became the quagmire it is, I used to wonder how we could make the same mistake again so soon. But then I realized that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld were in the Oval office with President Ford when Saigon fell. Perhaps they, and the worshipers of American power, felt that, this time, we would get it right.
In a strictly military sense, Tet was a defeat for the communists. But as the Prussian military strategist, Karl von Clausewitz, said, "War is a continuation of policy by other means . . . a real political instrument." And politically, Tet showed there was no light at the end of the tunnel, and that to fight on in an endless war was not something the American public was going to stand for. Vietnam showed that we could win every battle and still lose the war. And if I am not mistaken, we have never lost a battle in Iraq or Afghanistan.