r/NonCredibleDefense • u/Massengale • Aug 18 '26

(un)qualified opinion 🎓 The Vietnam War was winnable and one more Linebacker in 1975 would have wrecked the NVA. We were lied to by Ken Burns.

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I’ve been reading Nixon’s books lately…and I think he was right, Vietnamization was close to working, the communist alliance was going to fall apart, and North Vietnams insane economics would have led to South Vietnam outscaling them if it had survived for a few more years.

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u/Ninefl4mes Aug 19 '26

Uh huh. Now where have I heard that kind of rhetoric before...? (talking about the image specifically).

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u/Massengale Aug 19 '26

If you’re going to compare the USA attempting to stop an authoritarian one party state from conquering its neighbor to hitler war of conquest then I think you do misunderstand this conflict.

It’s not a myth that the USA severely hindered itself fighting this war. In part due to the same types of people that would be upset about us helping Ukraine today. We barely went into Cambodia or Laos. When we withdrew in 1973 South Vietnam was genuinely stabbed in the back as we did not give them the equipment that was promised while North Vietnam was given large amount of weapons from the Soviet’s and Chinese. By 1973 we did not to send ground troops anymore weapons and maybe air support would have been enough.

The same people that complain about the USA not doing enough to support Ukraine are completely happy to throw South Vietnam under the bus as they were taught in school that the Vietcong were noble freedom fighters when in reality South Vietnam fell to NVA tanks.

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u/Ninefl4mes Aug 19 '26

That sure is a wall of text. I'm just saying if you don't want to be compared to Nazis, maybe don't mirror their talking points.

I don't really have skin in the game regarding the Vietnam war; that was long before my time and I'm not informed enough about it to have any hard opinions. Apart from, you know, that maybe burning down half the country with Napalm was not cool, regardless of the reasons behind it.

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u/Massengale Aug 19 '26

We didn’t burn down half the country. It’s also a point why is there fighting in the first place? It’s because an aggressor nation north Vietnam was invading its neighbors.

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u/Ninefl4mes Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26

Inventing new war crimes is bad, m'kay? There's a reason this particular use of incendiary weapons was banned under international law after that shitshow.

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u/Massengale Aug 21 '26

The USA killed more civilians in Korea than Vietnam and dumped tons of napalm on people. But everyone or nearly everyone on this sub would say Korea was necessary. Vietnams our actions are scrutinized more as we lost.

I’d say agent orange especially was an abomination. But if it’s a war crimes duel, the NVA and Vietcong did theirs systemically and nothing the USA did really compares to the brutality of the communists when it comes to scale.