Tens of thousands of people in Vietnam and Cambodia died because of this defeat.

The low end estimate for deaths in Vietnam is 165,000. The number of deaths under the Khmer rouge was 1.5-2 million out of a population of 7 million. The vietnamese figures do not count the tens of thousands who died escaping Vietnam as the Boat people.

We won Vietnam but then through it away. South Vietnam feel to a massive external invasion not to a popular uprising. South Vietnam could have fended off the invasion with American material support and air support just has they had a year and half before. That is tragedy.

Would winning Vietnam have prevented the election of Reagan? I doubt it. Carter won because of Watergate. Not suffering the humiliation of Vietnam might have helped the democrats in 1980 but Reagan won due to a widespread rebellion against an overbearing, elitist and ineffective state.

It’s important to remember that our abandonment of Indochina permanently damaged our national security. Every major crisis since then, the rise of terrorism, the first
Gulf war, Somali, Kosovo, 9/11 and other lesser events occurred due to the widespread perception that we would not fight. Our adversaries believed that based on the example of Vietnam, we would not suffer casualties or have the fortitude to wage a long campaign.

It is very important that we do not repeat the mistake.

OK, it’s 1975. The GOP in Congress has taken a hell of a beating, losing 48 seats in the 1974 election. Why did they lose? Watergate was a big factor, but I think Vietnam had something to do with the “throw the GOP bums out” mood. Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger tried and failed to get Congress to keep the money flowing. Let’s wave the magic wand and give them the capacity to persuade Congress. Remember, this means “air and logistical support” is still in American hands. What does this mean? It means that sooner or later, American servicemen will die a) by being shot down, or worse captured or b) by being attacked on the ground. After the joyous homecoming of the POWs in 1973, this slow resumption would have been a bitter pill for the American public to swallow. A nation with whom we are officially at peace (see the 1973 Paris treaty) would be killing and capturing our servicement. Grotesque. Two choices a) get back in with ground forces and get the job done or b) get out completely, just as happened in our timeline in 1975. I do not think anyone would make the case that the South Vietnamese were capable of conducting the war entirely with their own means, even if the US paid all the bills and supplied all the equipment.

What happens in 1976. Ford lost narrowly to Jimmy Carter. I can’t see how an American presence in Vietnam, complete with casualties and POWs would have helped him. Assume it didn’t and Jimmy Carter marches in as he did on 20 January 1977. Who can doubt that he would have turned tail and ran? The man who amnestied all draft dodgers of Vietnam on 20 January would have had no problem following George McGovern’s 1972 comment of going to Hanoi “on his knees if necessary” to end the war. Unless you would argue that South Vietnam would have turned it around to stand completely on its own feet by 20 January 1977, I think Vietnam would have continued to poison American political discourse.

OK, turn the clock back to 1976. Wave the magic wand again. Ford not only manages to persuade Congress to keep the money flowing, but wins the 1976 election. What happens next? The second OPEC oil embargo would have happened. All during his term, Ford would have had Vietnam bleeding him. Certainly the press would not have let it go. So what happens in 1980? If Ford had run again in 1980, he would have been slaughtered. OK, turn the clock back: Ford decides he’s had enough and says, let someone else try. Reagan gets the nomination. But instead of having to run against Jimmy Carter and His Four Years of Screwups, he has to defend the Nixon-Ford 1968-1980 record. Lincoln and Washington combined could not have won the election. So: Ronald Reagan never becomes President. Still think staying in Vietnam, however you plot Vietnam’s survival, is worth the price? I don’t. A Vietnamese could reproach me for dishonoring a commitment. I’d have to accept this reproach. The price of losing was high. But the price of staying in was even higher. Consider this: Reagan is widely given credit for winning the Cold War. I think he was the right man at the right time. Staying in Vietnam would have ensured that there never would have been a “right time” for Reagan. But even if you wave the magic wand at 3000 RPM, and get Reagan elected in 1980 (though how you’d bring in a Republican Senate if we were still in Vietnam is beyond even the magic wand’s power I think.) One other condition of the “right time” is that the United States was no longer distracted by Vietnam. No men, no money, no commitment there, and Caspar Weinberger is starting his great effort to rebuild the American armed services. He didn’t do it by himself, but not having Vietnam bleeding him was a huge help. What’s one final advantage Reagan had at this “right time”? This: he was not distracted by Vietnam. But Leonid Brezhnev was distracted by the Soviet Union’s Vietnam: Afghanistan. This bled the Soviet Union in ways we still don’t completely understand, and helped weaken it enough to have trouble facing down Reagan.

Sum up: I think the American defeat in Vietnam was bitter with Americans paying a price, and the Vietnamese a ferociously high price. But trying to stay in and salvage it would have had catastrophic costs, with Reagan’s exclusion from the Presidency being just one cost that the nation would have had to pay. i deplore the “we coulda won” revisionist history. It attributes too much power to the press and the left in this country, and does not bring any deeper understanding of the awful price national interest can exact.

Final statement: wave the magic wand at 6000 RPM at Ronald Reagan on the evening of 20 January 1981. Send him back in time to 20 January 1961. What advice would he have given Kennedy about Vietnam? Get in deep, fast, win nownownow? Or get out, accept the likely Communist takeover, hoping that it would not hve been as bloodthirsty as it became? Another awful choice to make.

I know I can’t “prove” this thesis, but I hope it is persuasive or at least stimulates thought. Many thanks for the time and space. For the record I am a Republican, strong backer of staying in Iraq and fighting radical Islam, and will voet for McCain this fall.

Sincerely yours,
Gregory Koster

http://www.abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1060a1IraqWhereThingsStand.pdf

And in fact that number is likely overtstated, as it wildly oversamples Sunnnis (p44), who tend to be most opposed to coalition forces. The survey puts them at 30%, which is about 10% too high by most estimates, which place them at 10-20%.

It’s also likely that number has continued to improve right along with the security situation, as it did from Aug to Feb.

So yes, absolutely let’s have a poll of Iraqis on whether they want our help for another year. Let’s have Iraqis debate whether Iran and the militias or the U.S. really have their best interests at heart. And let’s have the result be binding on both Presidential candidates.

Some lefties will point to polls that suggest the Iraqis want us leave. Most polling, however, generally breaks down thus: a large majority want us to leave eventually, a smaller majority want us to leave within a year, a minority want us to leave immediately. A majority want us leave when Iraq is secure.

The Sadrists believe they would win such a poll, but they’re most likely wrong. Should such a poll actually be held, you can bet Iraq’s politicians will be warning people security may get a lot worse if we do leave.

And to those who want the U.S. to stay there, what policy would you support if the Iraqis voted for us to leave?

We should leave. The Iraqi people probably have a better understanding of the situation than we do. If they think they are better off without us they probably then they probably are. Even if they are wrong, trying to help a country when true majority of the people there do not want you to won’t work.

On the other hand, if most Iraqi think we help then we should. The long term benefits would be enormous.

“The “elected” government doesn’t even represent large portions of the electorate because rightly or wrongly, many parties boycotted the elections.”

Au contraire, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

The boycotting parties have the representation they chose.

None.

Yours, TDP, ml, msl, & pfpp

Oh yes it is, Savage! You have set up a phony argument – America is in Iraq to manipulate the Iraqi government and people – and then try to knock it down it with dubious claims about the majority of Iraqis wanting us to leave.

Your argument about Germany does not make sense. Why is “American occupation” in Germany somehow magically different from Iraq? If the fact that the Iraqi government wants us to say longer is simply a product of American pressure, why cannot the same argument be made that German government is also being manipulated by Americans? In fact, I know some Germans personally who have made the claim that America manipulates Germany and other European countries through military and foreign aid. You cannot have it both ways, Savage.

Your comment about European countries having stand-alone armies is not accurate. The hard truth is that many European countries do not want to spend sufficient funds to defend themselves, and therefore “outsource” to Americans. That’s what happened in the Cold War. That is also why despite the anti-American posturing of some European politicians no European government is seriously suggesting that American soldiers leave their soil. Not exactly a case of “stand-alone” armies, I would say. By your own definition, Europe is occupied by America.

I am still trying to decipher your weird comment about “American mercenaries acting as a shadow force”. Perhaps you mean Blackwater, but it is not clear. At any rate, Blackwater seems to serve the same function as mysterious black helicopters, fluoridation of public drinking water, detonation of skyscrapers and Area 51 do in this country – an outlet for wacky conspiracy theories.

Keep the straw men coming!

Everyone here either believes that it is good for the U.S. to stay in Iraq, and that is how the Iraqis will vote, or it is bad for the U.S. to stay in Iraq, and that is also how the Iraqis will vote. They seem to just assume that their personal preferences would be reflected in what happens.

The real test is this: for those who wish the U.S. would pull out, what policy would you recommend if the Iraqi people voted for the U.S. to stay for now? And to those who want the U.S. to stay there, what policy would you support if the Iraqis voted for us to leave?

BTW this is from a recent poll, in March, the 5th anniversary of the invasion:

Indeed, on a basic level, the presence of foreign forces remains unwelcome: Just 26
percent of Iraqis support having U.S. and coalition troops in their country, up a scant 5
points. But this doesn’t mean most favor immediate withdrawal. Well under half, 38
percent, say the United States should leave now, down from a peak 47 percent in August.

One reason is that Iraqis are divided on what might follow U.S. withdrawal; 46 percent
think it would make security better, but the rest say it would make security worse or leave
it as it is now. Those who think immediate withdrawal would improve security are twice
as likely to support it.

So this recent poll does suggest that a vote would recommend that the U.S. not leave at this time. However as noted above, polls are not votes, so I don’t think any of us can be confident of what would actually happen in an election. Indeed, no one in the world would be able to know the outcome for sure in advance.

I notice there’s no reference to actual polls of the Iraqi people, in which case you will discover that they think the surge has failed and want us to leave.

I did not refer to polls because polls are unreliable. You can manufacture a poll to get whatever results you wish especially, with a naive 3rd world population. If you actually cared to challenge your own beliefs you could find polls that do show that the majority of Iraqi support us staying to help.

In the end, only elections really reflect the will of the people. I am willing to put my beliefs to the test. Are you?

The “elected” government doesn’t even represent large portions of the electorate because rightly or wrongly, many parties boycotted the elections.

The boycotts were mostly Sunni (20% and angry they had lost dominance) and the Sunni have since rejoined the government. The present government does reflect the will of the people. I suspect you are just one of those people who believe that any democracy that doesn’t decide as you wish isn’t really democracy (What’s the matter with Kansas).

Instead of arguing amongst ourselves, we should ask the people of Iraq directly.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6983841.stm

What I did find was a March 2008 poll [PDF] that showed only 1% of Iaqis wanted us to NEVER leave, but also showed that 62% of Iraqis do not want us to leave now. Chapman says:

Americans spend a lot of time debating the question of whether we should remain in Iraq. What never seems to occur to us is to ask the Iraqis the same question.

But the poll, sponsored in part by the AMERICAN Boradcasting Company, does exactly that, and it showed that at least 62% of Iraqis want us to stay until security is sufficiently restored, the Iraqi government is stronger, and Iraqi security forces can operate independently.

More commentary on the poll can be found here. It does not say what Mr. Hcaapman seems to want us to think it says.

What I mean to say is that if they actually believed the hacktastic party rhetoric claiming George W. Bush “stole the election” and/or was somehow responsible for the terrorist “Reichstag” attacks on 9-11-01, they are either an ignorant sheep-like-thing, or an outright lying bastard – either way they and their komraden are certainly little more than cowards.

They prove this by essentially ‘tolerating’ what they claim was a Coup d’état by the hated “Zionist” “Neocon” “Cabal” (i.e. lefty/islamist coalition code for “Der ewige Jude”).

Anyway, it sometimes feels as if the world clock has been rewound to 1932 or thereabouts, however in place of an FDRish [chicken]hawk, the copperhead American left decides to elevate a slightly repackaged version of Carter.

Good luck with that.

“Are you really this confused…”

You are the one who is confused. Snotty responses are not intelligent comment.

Although intelligence and snot both come from the head, “the difference is quite startling, you should look into it”.

For example they wanted Blackwater out, the U.S. wants Blackwater to stay so they are still there.

No, some Iraqi wanted Blackwater out and as usual opponents of Iraqi democracy chose to hold those up as representing all Iraqi. The actual parliament voted to transfer the licenses of private security firms from the Coalition nations to Iraq itself so that Iraq can regulate them. As such, they have the legal right eject them at will.

So whatever the UN says goes? Really? What has that got to do with anything?

It merely shows that recognition of Iraq as a sovereign country extends beyond those countries in the Coalition.

The UN said not in invade!

No, it did not. The UN never voted to oppose the liberation. Neither did it vote to rescind its previous authorizations to carry out military action in Iraq. Again a lot of individual members of the UN made a lot of informal comments and you chose to regard those statements as the legal will of the UN.

And since that government’s authority and stability comes from an occupying army the people’s votes are meaningless.

No, the government’s authority comes from the people. Threats to its stability come largely from external actors like Iran and the Jihadist. By you standards, Federal troops in the south during reconstruction meant that African-Americans did not a true vote or that Japan and Germany have not been sovereign for the last 60 years. We didn’t interfere with the vote so the vote is valid. A lot of people won office that we would have preferred not to.

That government also wants American gone.

From your own link:

Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) released a letter today from 31 Iraqi legislators asserting that the proposed agreement is opposed by a majority of the parliament if it does not include a specific timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. military troops.

So 31 of (IIRC) 295 Iraqi legislators sign an informal letter requesting timetables for withdrawal and you interprets that as a formal statement that the elected Iraqi government wants us to withdraw. Wow.

Me too

Poll are not votes. Polls produce widely varying results depending on the wording. Polls in Arabic face cultures are notoriously inaccurate because Arabs have a cultural bias against reporting their honest opinions to strangers. You will recall that in the last election something like 40% of those polled claimed they would not vote but in the end 80%+ of the electorate voted.

You clearly suffer from classic confirmation bias. You cognitively distort information to fit your preexisting conclusions. That is another reason I support a plebiscite. It’s the only mechanism I can think of whose results people like you could not distort.

You are a well-trained leftist equivocator using carefully-selected facts and carefully-presented distractions to mislead unfortunately-ignorant listeners.

1. Leftists Lied to Americans by claiming no military progress in Vietnam.

2. Leftists then forced America to Abandon Southeast Asia to the communists (Case-Church Amendment, 1973)

3. Leftists thus Enabled the resulting Southeast Asian genocides (Killing Fields, Boat People, Re-education Camps).

4. Leftists know – but just don’t care – that communists always mass-murder the “enemies of the people” whenever they take over countries (Russia in the ‘20s; China in the ‘40s; Korea in the ‘50s; Eastern Europe after the war, etc.)

5. Leftists are the moral equivalent of hyenas dressed in formal-wear. (No examples, just my
– entirely accurate – opinion.)

The nations of Europe that still have an American presence are not under occupation by any definition of the word, they have their own stand-alone military and police forces. The American government has no say on domestic issues. Furthermore there aren’t any American mercenaries acting as a shadow force.

Are you really this confused that you can’t tell the differences between Germany and Iraq? One of the big clues is how many American soldiers have been killed in Germany in the last five years due to enemy action vs. how many in Iraq. The difference is quite startling, you should look into it.