[quote=briansd1][quote=Aecetia] I would also agree that we won Vietnam, but it would have been nice to not have that nasty evacuation footage. [/quote]

Give me a break.

America capitulated when Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho (Nobel Peace Laureates) negotiated secretly to end the war. It was Nixon, a Republican, who capitulated to the enemy.

Notice that when the Viet Congs already encircled Saigon and were about to capture the city, they gave the Americans enough time get out and not a single American aircraft was fired upon.

Yes, we won the Vietnam War but it wasn’t our military superiority and our skills at nation building that won. Our way of live and our corporations with their capital won the war. Now, the Communist leaders send their kids to American universities.[/quote]

Brian: Totally incomplete explanation and one that ignores some hugely important FACTS (which you don’t seem to like at all, Brian).

I think you should look to the US Congress as why Vietnam was ultimately “lost”, especially the vote to deprive the armed forces of South Vietnam the necessary war materials to defeat the North.

For the record, the “Viet Congs (sic)” did not encircle the city of Saigon. That was the North Vietnamese Army (which was an actual army, unlike the Viet Cong, which were irregular/insurgent forces and I won’t even get into why using the term Viet Cong versus National Liberation Front is a misnomer).

As to Nixon’s “capitulation”, well, that sort of ignores LBJ’s absolutely abysmal handling of the war from 1965 (when US forces began actual full-scale combat operations starting with the Marines landing at Da Nang) through the end of his Presidency in 1968.

Again, Brian, another poorly advanced and unsupported “argument” that doesn’t square at all with history.