The Vietnam War: Reasons for Failure – Why the U.S. Lost

https://youtube.com/watch?v=vELYvvPT4aI

goodnow america's longest war its most costly war its first military the treaty and as
well as nightmares national problem people spell often what went wrong how it applied to the u_s_ get involved with vietnam a tragic mistake as
liberals crying did the u_s_ lose because of
self-imposed constraints as conservatives crying could we have won the war quijote
unleashed a military machine and bond the north vietnamese back to
the stone age what was the cost of vietnam the human cost the political
cost the economic cost about united states and the vietnamese one person who have been researching
these questions for over ten years is william gibson we've just published a
book the perfect war techno war in vietnam with atlantic
monthly press though is a graduate of the university
of texas where he did his undergraduate work and he got his p_h_d_ at yale university and is now a professor of sociology at
southern methodist university and dollars and we're very pleased to have
you with us today alternatives built a discussion of
vietnam dot this is an incredible book erbil uh…

You have read a lot about vietnam or if you have
never read anything about vietnam this is the one you should read because uh… it shows the picture from the top from the bottom and it gives a explanation this to what
really happened there and quite things happen usually come back what kind of empty
feeling unwell frustration or not really knowing that you after reading your book yet you
understand him incredible and i were thinking and you
got the emotional feeling the impact as well as what was happening in the
mind an incredible stories like hell the north vietnamese were able to bring down american justice by lying on
the back and firing forty-five rifles weapons but i'm getting out of the story
doesn't know what they did and i talking about that in your opinion is
distinctive about the vietnam war what about that brought
about u_s_ involvement in this bill clinton adventure the most distinctive features of the
vietnam war but it was the first warren modern times to be taught from a managerial jisme
perspective during world war two u_s_ industry may
domestic contribution to the war african american military man and political
leaders fully appreciated that effort during world war two the military
partially adopted a business model organization put their supply operation after world war two they began to think
of combat there's also a production process the option of core racine otters
gladiator heroes who were meeting in combat but is a poor managers internally enlisted men we're no longer the citizens of the
nation but they were workers managers and workers that worked on the
production line to produce deaths and the product and was in the body
counts so just in american society st
supposedly was high technology capital-intensive business so too it we fight wars is high-technology capital-intensive
work there we would be able to drive the other side
bankrupt so if this production model of war or
what i call techno war that distinguishes at a primary structural level vietnam from other warfare and will bend and uh…

In this way we
couldn't lose because we were fighting and ball underdeveloped uncritical third world country look has inspected exactly from an american perspective the only thing that counts in warfare is technology in economics welcome your economy and how you
translate our economy into your military dead week it was impossible for us to
loosen theoretically impossible who are going to develop hasn't economy to beat the united states it just
couldn't happen therefore whenever we ran into a problem in four fifty four or sixty or sixty
four every time you asked me to do this we always thought that if we cast
related to the next highest level we would win it's a closed system and there's always vietnam chosen at the
start for the first etna war uh…

There's no stork will resume for vietnam it was really vietnam as a
country as a people as a culture didn't really matter to the americans so there was nothing about about the country per se to make despite their it was certainly the time winner of this
whole apparatus of warfare was developing vis-a-vis the time and situation in vietnam was deteriorating from an american
perspective techno war or this this production model of war got
its big push in the fifties because after world war two when we had
to hydrogen bomb atomic bomb newsletter the hydrogen bomb the russians didn't it seemed clear restaurant mastery of
the world was just unsurpassed we could not be challenged between the russians had the bomb we
were in a situation of potentially mutual destruction where they could
destroy our industrial apparatus then this may be americans feel good but so the question came as how can we
develop our form of warfare too into exercise our power in the world without threatening nuclear war in the idea developed by doctor henry
kissinger it with the time was a professor of
political science at harvard we what's called limited before and the idea was because our economy was
so big and powerful we could have guns and butter butter
m_t_v_'s in popcorn in drive-ins poured hula hoops for the americans at
home event limited war for an indefinite period of time that
they were all because we were so much richer we we just got the other side
bankrupt and there was a period where it's certainly guerrilla movements of
the national liberation lives were allegedly said cuban
revolution in nineteen fifty nine a network third-world revolutionary movement to
outline of the western the opposite side of the french and british empire could
deteriorate worldwide sitting behind yet not a classic case of the vietnam have
been a french colony will prolong crosses a revolt soviet noticeably it was ready we had
our theory for limited war we had our apparatus in
place at the time vietnam's was uh…

Well by the time difference had been
thrown out can you give us a brief at history uh… vietnam a nurse scrabble burst into chinese and the
french et cetera leading up to american intervention certainly the word vietnam initially
came seventeen newman yet and it was a uh… uh… part of china that weaponry break off it's like chinese
immigrated anna quindlen pulmonary racially-based ingrid and tried to ukraine claim independence chinese amperage would invade it now
hold the country for several hundred years it is amazing grows up riders we're booked by the
chinese after chinese within invading colder for another fifteen hundred years
limited means would throw them out and hold on for fifty years this is the struggle between vietnam and
china for vietnamese attendance went on for
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years finally a bit kind of vietnamese had i repeat china they were improbable we thought in them because of the time of the west
was expanding and france was looking for a way to get
the china for the uh…

Spiced ratings and so on
ended up taking vietnam so perhaps took a vietnam's economy in
the eighteen nineties vietnamese often run against the french
were making earnings are not they just kept on putting with the new
world war two the communist uh… especially headed back which you
may remember million chapin pepto organized better they fought against the japanese and then after declared their
independence in forty five and ironically american uh…
intelligence operatives are supported that effort extensively and putting them as i understand it look
at that time the united states as a model to developers country not to the
soviet union position was that he had paid off whatever he had tempe
ideologically otr soviet union and that he was a free agent was not getting any
assistance and that the american over the
declaration of independence it stated time period this policy there's a far better possible that a lot at the bottom of the market's leaflet
and good at that part of the nationalist and a democrat to some extent so there are certainly a national osama
how much a democrat i'm not i'd i wouldn't prize-winner lip service there was no
values that walton trailer but certainly an actual club and they got to be amazed
if he did the french in fifty four after eight years of extensive work fare stand to grow up
there into court impressed understand the war in vietnam was one country if you'd be intended to be divided into
three administrators owned by the french but work there was going on all free when the war ended in fifty four the
country look like a checkerboard celebration in march tom gjelten the
soviet union or some french cities held in the south other areas held by the uh…

By the company's communist more than seven hundred evenings this
was only checkerboard been at the geneva peace talks in
nineteen fifty four there was a land swap vietnamese forces move north french
consolidated their forces in the south awhile is drawing a provisional
administrative boundary nada national boundary not political boundary
administrators on a boundary the idea was the country would be
divided for two years now with the international election two fifty six there were no such an order uh…
elections united states meredith would support understand this idea of
north vietnam as a separate country saturday's south vietnam was wrong there was no more from south vietnam as
two separate countries that was uh… uh… obstet there was a checkerboard at the end at fifty four they got they
got changed that had happened at least out to be
getting the resistance struggle women the grill twenty eight fifty four the vietcong himself we're told to put down their guns and
that they were going to engage in political struggle for two years in preparation for fifty
six elections out that became extremely dangerous uh… dam demand the americans printout immediately went after and honey down
most of the communist leftist democrats nationalist meridian and his family will
get numb pretty much a dictatorship um…

Annexed by midnight for the late fifties the local communist entangled miller and socialist
in democratic apparatus was taking casualties so badly doubt they had to renew the armed
struggle to survive excessive bleeding and decide on
congress put pressure on the north former communist party to like reopen the military front and have a joint political and military
strategy as opposed to simply trying to wait for international uh… intervention are killed by the united
nations or something so that that's the origin of reserves to
the heart of the best response to this day for your response is quite simple verses
up wearing the green berets had originally
been formed a parachute into eastern europe uh… after to organize guerrilla movements in
eastern europe cotton reformulated ads counterinsurgency experts and they
were sent to vietnam by president kennedy in nineteen sixty euros on
massive increase in c_i_a_ operations the whole idea colour workday remembered and counterinsurgency war criminal we
failed at the bay of pigs in nineteen one sixty one and so the idea was we must become
experts say fighting these world wars of national liberation and that we must have new warrior
technicians who can intervene underdeveloped countries countries fix things and the green berets now were one
branches fix-it men c_i_a_ operatives were another various logistics people we cannot
economist well were others which memory understand the class structure of
vietnam in support of rule society most of the people of landless peasants
our own very small plots of land there under subsistence agriculture where a large part of the crop goes to
the landlord asmara land owning cleverest p presents
a buddhist with practiced elements of confucian isms well a small and an in-class like many of
them at every p_g_ eastman north many have been catholic controls the nation's wealth so d_m_ i'm the government d_m_ users in the army as
a mechanism to collect lips and during the first war against the
french debit card will be distributed the land to the peasantry so indium came to power in fifty four
with the army in a naked is agents of the landlord to
collect here's a bachlorette notice intruding in total class polarization increased one more time adelphia cultivate part into
evolutionary perspective exactly and then g_m_ had to use more more
repression as a result of the dissatisfaction with
the regression internet the nurses at the time that the get karke honors
courses felt like they had to resort or something so this is why you made your statement
in your book that the m had an army but given that he was not a government that's right knowed it was no expected
administration under the military administration deliveries to replace all
forms of village council all forms of intermediary powers that any linkage to to below were destroyed instead our loyalty was
from the potsdam yet the american escalation didn't
really dramatically accelerating talked again this
fascination what brought about this dramatic acceleration and what you call type of
work to vietnam will be able to go on and all the other
vietnamese generals begin a power struggle among themselves consequently whatever government
repressive apparatus t_m_ had collapsed desertion is increased radically defections um…

Yet communist became
stronger and stronger by sixty-four american policymakers
feared that there would be a provisional will be revolutionary government open provisional revolutionary government
much in the countryside which we have lost i mean it's good to say u_s_ forces lost or the french lost him forty five we lost again in fifty four we lost
again sixty three sixty four we escalate kenya nothing escalated and pasted eaten
not in the face of victory right massive defeating sixty-three and
sixty-four broadband yemeni put u_s_ ground troops and sustained bombing of the north and
want to try to sell versace's reject why couldn't you have to accept the decedent
has a small corner of the world the united states has been unwilling to
deal with communism as a political social economic movement instead if
you've seen that we as americans are the natural beams of
the world of capitalism is the national economic order and i'm in our system innocently the essence of feeling good nursing absence of nature therefore something very very different
from ours is none other society within one
compares differences in extremes with its own and so forth but instead intimidating presence where nature their
entire nature or what i call the for another during world war two the soviet union did take over right after world war two
did invading take over eastern europe the red army didn't want to hold it as a
buffer zone and they didn't stop epic dictatorships there this became a model all-american views of communist and
social severely cut americans did not understand it to a
revolution they did not understand the chinese revolution in the forties that they were like
millions upon millions of poor peasants who wanted land survive in a mouse a
toner communist party offered in lance arrival
where's chiang kai-shek was a warlord who offered and nothing unable to see in total struggles for uh…

Socialism or communism or while you are unable to see even in
cairo struggles for national independence against queen elizabeth the longest dividing to be an
interesting and we have three guys who the bad guys
they are looking for another day trying to move and so all forms of communism
kit movements get scene in that so in this incident in particular limit in the world is not
just a particular moving up toward poor country and it's really one hundred
poorly written on this matter and we had uh… a little bit smith
there is still any movement is a sign of a
global movement there are so you know if you're poor
peasants with vietnam that doesn't mean just that they have
little to a few more people have a few more honest instead that means the before and other monolithic machine his encroached one or
step into each other step the rest of the world becomes a pair of
this of course the dominant very sulekha contagious disease sort of that sort of
like each country having school his treatment
own culture in his own people intercept the world's leading to shell i could just poured into the arson at
this time once they get going to somehow i'm
making a stigma minimal propel cognizant of victory it's a billion adequate mechanistic anticrime
initiative is a mechanistic framework of the world make enemies is for the other day are we doing it all
construction but isn't that also water two sides of
this the other side of the people of the big decision makers dave's
foreign-policy establishment retirement looking at the world on a more realistic
basis as uh…

General maxwell taylor said in
his book we have to keep an iron grip on the third world
country because they're poorer and they want which is in the riches would have
to come from us so they look at any type of victories
that unique as an he can such as in vietnam providing an example to other third
world countries that if they can do it and get away with
in vietnam they can get away with it in order to universal siddiqui vietnam's
universal sign of her national liberation victory everywhere
defeated vietnam means that all liberation movements will give up
their struggle suburb given the fact that i have uh…
there is uh…

That uh… that still caught back to the united states that have built up in the military
machine bottled water given a mechanistic anti communism was motivated
the foreign policy decisions i have the u_s_ foreign policy establishment and
given the clots began sake of these government in vietnam there is almost
inevitable that u_s_ involvement would intensify that this war was not an
accident that is what i was not just uh… policy
mistake that was a consequence basically u_s_ foreign policy u_s_
industrial military uh…

Development since world war two
that this was a test case this is where they test of whether she needs dot communism
i really restriction together i am more than the crucial arguments on trying to like critique in my book is this notion that that we
just made one mistake after another that nobody which really smart or breaking the bank
just sort of slipped up you don't go to war that where you go to
work are far in advance in sixty four oh one johnson was making announcements about
the gulf of time canon just sort of like i was surprised attack which it wasn't uh… in and early sixty five when they were making goodness mister
naked public domain which in two thousand more trips to vietnam they fully expected kissing two hundred
thousand people bugging the sixty five and another hundred sixty two and a
thousand sixty-six another hundred thousand are sixty seven with the est
which were already there could be a ticket happening in the end but i had a bad it up and down towards a
plan warfare plant escalation well let's talk about the war itself and three others techno war actually worked out itself in the ground in the
air by the use of helicopters the helicopter warren search-and-destroy can
you describe the somehow they were tonight well not quite a bit there is general
junio generals write books they're kinda like academicians venita
like like to publish in order to get poorer promoted at the hierarchy we
normally don't believe them but i think that way but it is stripped of his death
by their actions justify their actions are used book is called shopping the
combat engineers analysis to reinforce military just uh…

Notre judgment it's
published by putnam the army and in the first chapter yourself that we can compare a
search-and-destroy operations in vietnam to an assembly line it was a pill angrily and what that
could be objectivity unlike a world war two world war one would you have a
continuous fight going on thousands of miles you have a major offensive is in a
counter-offensive internal lol in vietnam it's back re economist backyards united
one full blast all but i think that's the grand jury a
problem how do you just allocate your resources given the fact that you've
already decided to run an actual capability that that is bad and it is body count search-and-destroy means that settle somewhere between several hundred
and several thousand american soldiers are going to search a block of countryside for viet cong or north vietnamese troops and they're going to try to engage them
in combat and of course and destroy whatever troops or whatever supplies
they capture imperious strategic often sick meaning it's a way that could put the
viet cong weaker at the moment to hunt them down were hunters democratic the objective used to cure all the enemy so fast that we reach what's called we called
the crossover ports a general william westmoreland st the crossover point needs you're killing me any faster then they can replace their cash or
checks like you to drive the other side
bankrupt un saludo a high-technology without
helicopters are jet fighter bombers our tanks we don't put condom up now that's the theory the practice of search-and-destroy often
turned out very differently in that part a sickly other factory will decide the routine operations and this routines we're quite visible to
the vietnamese for example we just didn't also didn't show up on
emails into an area in began the search instead you had to like reconnaissance planes
had to go over it artillery guns had to shoot smoke rounds
into the jungle into the landing zone all the other artillery guns could side
and so they could like fire protective artillery strikes around the landing
zone if you really kind of unikom commander if you see a smoke when i'm coming up in
the jungle while you know that the americans are
getting ready to move on chat um…

A helicopter assault there aren't that many clears out of it
clears in in nablus territory real swamps ordinary in jungle you can tell whether women's
own mazak so many times the viet cong commanders head of a very substantial advance notice upon women
americans were going to begin operation consulate they have a choice do we run
in height are doing a bit the americans we might the secular pushed way takes the landing
zone the second and third whereas bring in
more artillery if you're a viet cong commander you get
out your compass in your map you draw a circle of radius and on the
map and that will tell you because you know
the dominican artillery hunting five-millimeter howitzer has our two
thousand your radius so you know that the americans will not
much broader outside the range of their howitzers so you can tell where the americans are going to watch do you run and hide dignified this sort of thing kind of principle
goes on the it's in essence they knew where we work but we did not
know where they work and they have the uh…

They have been
issued a very heavy initiative at that rate if you have to rain so if you have the military's own
statistics roughly three quarters of the battles in
vietnam were initiated by the economy in the air meaning they endorsed u_s_ forces and can make a decision also most battles immediately in the economy
in the a wanted them you need they could like initiate contact him
break contact and methods are two crucial definitions
of combat initiative and your other statistic that only a m to percent of the search-and-destroy
missions did we actually may contact uh… or original contact
with the vietnamese so was their choice the whole time and
as i understand the soldiers themselves on the ground they didn't like this
because they're the ones who would have to take the casualties first to lure the vietnamese into battle so that then they uh… americans with
no word on the plane who worked on the artillery he sent out a patrolling in order to get
an ambushed in order to market target with a smoke
rocket from the helicopter or such so then the judge can come in and napalm in
the area in other words you have to get ambushed before you can find the enemy you know when i began logan research i
had a hint that i was going to find a very cavalier
attitude towards work an idea of vietnamese later died i was surprised to understand the
command attitude towards their own saulters but this think about it what kind of
production model organic techno war either yes or no easiest one manager sir we have a draft we can replace all the
calvo labor that we loose can be replaced and indeed it's like migrant labor force
chromosome alexei whereupon you bring an end per year when you have heard a death
in chicago they were qy dot well not much but a lot of our
other poor working-class twice the ideologues so what if they walk into an ambush we take some
casualties that way but they will call in our airstrikes in colorado artillery
fire will use our technology and to do to get the body count sorrow in essence the grant ritual bait they will be sent out on operations to being ambushed and that not agood wait to survive and welfare unites a movement it was suicide i was one of the worst patrols you could
ever go ahead the purpose of it was four years walk up
on charlie and for him to hit you and then for a hardware to wipe them out we were used as scapegoats to find out
where they were there was no we were haley couldn't find charlie any other
way so the locals around into a whole bunch
up mentally they could plastering than it had a big body count mahendra general
gets another god damn metal in a big promotion uh…

Let's also note again the highest officer routinely on the
ground during vietnam was a captain the
captain's company commander company had at noticed about a hundred
and forty people in it that would be at full strength most combat units never operate
upholstery everyone above captains level battalion commanders demand of kcl
commands four companies all battalion level officers beginning
to gage commander several battalions divisions has several regiments
abrogated all the rest of those toppers course for those commanders in
helicopters trying at minimum of fifteen hundred
feet because fifteen hundred feet is the
maximum range of the fifty caliber machine gun when used as an antiaircraft
weapons which until the latter part of the war with the largest any aircraft weapon
that contact so the managers were relatively state in this process which is the workers who are suffering the occupational
safety uh…

After-dinner hazards on on the
ground logistics taps in terms of the numbers in the body
towns did they actually uh… immunologic
succeed or where the costs greater than the benefit even in terms of the logic travel things happened for one all the american commanders in
helicopters communicated in uncommitted english to their subordinate officers of ground
troops the common in the a were able to buy american radios in the black market
capture others they routinely listening to all the orders there are many stories keyboard appear calm hearing american
orders from him taking actions to circumvent the share arrogance of nowhere in my helicopters we have all
the stuff we don't have to attempt unit to pay attention to her in the and
end up costing american life span so that part didn't work army took within a year so by late sixty six or so economy in the idea of how long it was
going to take an american air strike to get there sometimes they can make a terrible
miscalculation get caught up in open but in the state in the commander it could make a resort judgment how long he can
stay in combat before he had to run like hell because the uh…

Air force of again
look at the hearings are going to have to come and go after him so a lot of times embassies would be quite brief community
would break off contact well we've mentioned body count a couple
of times let's get into that kind of whole framework of corruption and lies and cover-ups that are curtail it's
simple portland without so far successor worst trillion anybody can escrito try driving oversight bankrupt and his presume that uh…

We humans does our was just on the
gentleman that night your tenants are captain time and your
captain kirk company commander sailor you're under pressure under pressure to produce a body
captains of carmel semicolon battalion commander if i don't leave my quota my career's over with obvi relieved of command if you really
the combat command then you're going to take it but the hierarchy is is gone saga squeeze you and back in some units it kind of where the informal rule was
if you don't meet your body count quota and we're going to like they're not
going up to steal we'll just need your help bring small ammount somewhat kuchma
water but don't expect you know you've got like produced goods and unify came back without a body count
or at least prisoner and and get my hands to so i kept the patrol out like talk to uh…

Leading to many soldiers who were
wounded they're the ones i saw in japan and they told me that some units were
given a quota for the week and if they didn't get it but they were just sent right back out
again uh… you're under pressure we severe
severe pressure would you do well you can do several things one you can just to get a bike you can just add up in the air just like
a a say call up and have elected everyone in
your unit kioto your entire class there you two
para frame sixteen for about uh… for many common admit it and i'll call up on the radio in the
report that i have a your body count of thirty articulate five or something like that so you get in touch with a communal
company chambers um…

You call an air strike in calling
artillery strike and the charming you nearby um… in you actually having kids when you
find too many bodies well you know needed it if you've got to bodies and you've got
three different units artillery air in a country of ours who is going to get the credit what if you don't give credit to the
artillery what do you think might happen what did he say you fired that munis does that sound like a large palestinian
artillery commanders dry giving support to unite become sligo path that m around
how those air force pilots might have to have a an inaugural solitude it in your interest to reward everyone inserts everyone is
under the same system everyone reads body count well sure we give you fifty air force we give you
fifteen gunships we give you get the autoimmune we on the ground uh…

I've got five bodies and i've got five rifles
were counting truck was a five persons killed so i guess is twenty five and while we were outstanding around
with continuing coverage out i beg your pardon tim graves or count them too um… everybody park in body parts a we fine
on my leg injury because sometimes really whitman air strikes a deal yet
you can blow people smithereens unlike the warm everywhere everyone is nice
discrete data yeah anne-marie award it's quiet there are stories of poor people from
different units had the fight over arms and legs to determine who is going to get the
kill cal pregnant and of course they got the getting more
pernicious because they would slaughter vietnamese
civilians and include emini children women all people include them
as part of the body count who should get clear on on asking about in some areas of the war whimper u_s_
forces were fighting uniform north vietnamese troops too many civilian casualties a whole a whole lot of vietnam battles
occurred wait inside the country where there were the economy a card and
the villagers were off will very much the same people went home search and destroy the nations
little-known stuckey limiting the moon solely killed everybody he's happy to be standing alongside officer on the radio man said wexler we've got
some children rounded up what do you want to do it coming officer says god damn it bring in
a lot to do it and kill the bastards you ain't got to god damn balls to kill
a marine i'll come down killed a bunch of myself marine said yes sir and hung up the phone at about two or three minutes later i
heard a lot of automatic fire and a lot of children screaming hired babies crying angered children scream in her life search-and-destroy we support whereas if
you say you new units burned down villages routinely um…

Continue going to be a legendary
again and you see the brokers there's only one in
vietnam had about providing it you here in orange maybe maybe screaming
try get somebody out there that maybe you just rather than a million uh… more people start to wet away from
you and well if they weren't community must
be ready and so you shoot them in central running
becomes a sign of anatomy we've been out for about three hours and i'm really haven't seen anything was
too hot but then i saw this figure of black
pajamas running along up and he died about three hundred meters ahead and to the left a flow how you know i
got what i mean i hollered ten o'clock even mine man i a matter of the warning to halt to
regulations don't lie dont lie so i got to learn me squeezed the trigger blackmun trying like a piece of paper
and augusta win chlorine got stomped morgan shouted not shot dead natasha nukem when you reach the body and that's a
corp space up with my boot the long run uh…

Picked five to sixty meanwhile he says stupid goog when she ran for uh… we were run and a free-fire zone and we saw women a woman and child
running across them that captain says well they're they're they're running well free-fire zone they're running the wrong and they're
the enemy so he shot him polls club opened up on the next morning we went out and we could see the cap of the child that was bloody and you can see where the mother dragged
a child away prove separate they're afraid they're trying to survive and desperate situation but under high
pressure to produce a body count so yes we got into sustained slaughter uh… it means villagers you go through the work in a man's hands energy if he's a true farmer he has campuses any pisa grew up he really fake farmer he doesn't see you
go when you look at the hands of those if he doesn't have enough calluses when
you called in the way he seemed to interrogation center would you look at the ankles a man he was a guerilla he must be and
when that dana julian is any causal scratch where these are finally when you
have something scratches so people will go american soldiers will go and look at ankles work is going to be actually a problem
identified about nine months time to get much sleep so you can answer those are your eyes so u_s_ soldiers are going to look into
the act of the vietnamese and try to send him an
incoming banks they hadn't been convention did he get hauled off when people in our country it was not our culture would not speak the language imbaba netware looking at war language culture history class structure
this matter student didn't matter what matters we had the hollywood minute
didn't well is that part of a helicopter gunship we had a
rule about the use of the day steve actually
met anyone taking dated action to be fired upon major explains why or even what was going to know where
there is one answer that i recall where we flew over a large rice paddy and there were some people down they're
working on the rice paddy maybe dozens fifteen individuals and we passed over their heads but in taking action who would you tell
the remembers amarendra hyder anything so we are covered by just a few feet off
the ground among about two helicopters return on our police sirens and
eliminated at least fighters they started to disperse instantly open up on this channel nine when i was six thirty in the evening and uh…

Still daylight and they said
there was some greasy out there in the call on us so we fired out there until all seven of
them wentworth comes back to us we killed
seven rice farmers care in their homes they're trying to make it back to the
village seaweed set up to this uh… cook for
you six p_m_ to six a_m_ himself he was up to them to be out of here by
that time pale they didn't carry any wrist watches
they didn't have any idea what i mean a lot so yes people got home away from traditional
never came back uh… really villagers were brought into the
ground and blown up and yes meaning it means men women children chickens water buffalo pigs complex often who will care often times you into
village destroyed right shot everything hamburger crops across and alcohol use lieutenant and houses the only you know for people who treat
you right when you walk through that billy jean do you hate you know they can be that's not even if
they can be read they won't say nothing to eat and we expect him to run out the welcome
those like at world war two type of stuff you know how do you do you know i
havnt seems we step outside the door leads the
captain radios them where under heavy contact and right away who who spent on jetstar
come in and dropping them five hundred-pound bombs the whole villages
were leveled and we go into the next election and that is search and destroyed all this was like a part of what you
call the miracle worker it's essentially if it's getting to get a new jersey city in which hope when it is just orange hat documents
call rules and gatien's they're supposed to specify when you can open up by when
you can't on civilians bother anyone used match at all new instead of other kind of rules have to
let me say that they were under any okay at but the job that was one looks
unusual containing the emmys wearing black uh…

The heart was the enemy course all
peasants that more that international address soto all kinds of the state rules that
supposedly distinguish b imprint compo the army's rules were wrong in that we
just didn't know the culture they were kind of like fabrications that americans
invaded to try to make themselves feel
legitimate about who got shot you know but honestly people saw through this and said look we listened to practices in the urban
google disability and he's just bc immediate means wish you were talking
about insulting but also the factor of racism through
like sudden death how much they would have done that they've been fighting
turbo ites probably much less course for a chance to go to slopes
planted tank one definition of the day vietnamese was their leaders if they've been napalm they were called
crispy critters and made one minor went when we killed a pregnant woman we can do is to bc one soldier and one cadet now what you do is you know with all the
friendly smith friendly vietnamese onto ships and taken out to the south china sea and then you bomb the country flag he asleep issued i'd like to burn the whole country down and then start again with americans bombed the schools and churches bombed
iraq steals tuning showed the children in the courtyard is
just what napalm candy too strafed apana kill the people dropped
napalm and the square and get out early ever sunday n ketchum
at the morning in prayer broke and it to the are being gather
them all around they keep writing millimeter canon and mold the bastards
and down there's also capped a certain sadism not only in soldiers on the field but
also intelligence people people who would collective years and fingers and even heads and even
intelligence people with with admit that they really got off to beating up the uh…

People they were interrogating if you don't get nice bud thrill to do it when you look for some reason i wore
them once many had made valiant efforts to try to
talk about the covers a lot of some sort of warfare uh… over there he said his arm clearly a
very strong statist dimensions a lot of right uh… in the field as well as killing a
lot of rates followed by killings and relations when we do know women only before five of us we go into
the village in take a girl and bring her out to be into the jungle we tell her to lie on the ground don't
scream otherwise weed killer immediately and uh… well how many regards there were well
they did what they want to do it guys are a good mood they let her go anyone and killer how the girls were unconscious that's a big band repeatedly raped and then after we got your raping and
three of them g_i_s type and the players and eighty shot him in the girls vaginas negroes were bleeding from their mouths
noses spaces at the jonas than the g_i_s uh…

The plight of the
exterior portion of the players they exploded inside the girls click their stomachs just exploded well one day i was driving back travel abroad and on about growth and a guy comes over to me and he says
he needs some counseling and say why i look over and i see this girl when she
strapped and she's tied the two mistakes i don't know what they've done to her
before i got there well they poured gasoline all over the
girl tabela why did it they let it and then they just doug dare and watched ur bernau it if you look at the body consistently
see attached only thing that counts the body can attached but that's what we
were to punishments are distributed by if that's your etc energy on command does it really care whether you survive recruiting in a world where anything
goes it becomes a good times will talk to you
all it was a rival or or to hold onto your ethics i think a good example of this oliver
stone's movie platoon which is currently in release which has a u_s_ military
unit which severely defied uh…

Divided between one group who commits atrocities and others who
thinks it's a horrible or war situation and i think that's a good with the good
illustration of public on a dynamics that could mean the years illusions ep everyone is a killer or or or safe list its rejection in a structure wearer a significant component of your troops engage in such behavior
but none of it so it seems that then you know we talk
about coffee we talk about the line when you use that term atrocity it was an exception to a new law that's
not a good way to look at our world let me lie and atrocities we're just business as
usual in in a life seems a little
well-organized in particular organized but certainly certainly mail i wasn't really village
in vietnam was burned out and everybody in sight we shot that is that that is
that is not true at all who said that is precisely the reason
ability on the ground war to distinguish between friend unfair obesity and peasant farmer the lead to the next dimension uh…

At
the world the participation program the fact that they weren't able
to tell who the enemy lads that they had to put out the whole country journey
company if you can't open from perot the needy populate the countryside him
rudimentary few into concentration camps and retreat urban slums it's not easy to be popular countryside
for several major techniques were used to kill podi asian should be destroyed a
third base of the country this is where wage in orange county agent orange in asian blue nationwide
were sprayed on millions of acres of crop land uh… other millions of acres a force
with affiliated so if it based on people have to work secondly certainly bottoming attacks on villages which were quite quite
extensive discouraging courage people to move an employer actual search-and-destroy
operations were villages sandwich everyone is killed others in
which you should be surrounded village mood everyone out being burned at the
village in mood in the middle east three minutes uh… millions and millions of years and
hospitals worse yet too concentration camps into urban slums what's so interesting is the american
solicit progress this was our organization rural is bad berman is good so even though they have nothing it was brought into the uh…

Sees a
sign of progress through bring vietnamese and where you could show them t_v_ and uh… and make them work in american uh… bases and so on and so forth was seen in setting up a more
sophisticated job and being a peasant farmer this is also part i think senator i'm
i'm not saying the enemy and a as uh… culture or as individuals or
people the same time just as mirror images of urself like they'd bombing of north vietnam was
forced her to mcveigh's during their capacity to have consumer goods certainly interesting idea you would take the numeric restricted no getting scared about their hope that they would care about their way
other than a dog in their ancestors grave in their life's field to retrieve
it instead simply just to have vishnu good have
this close to surrender deliver the earlier but that in itself was just unmitigated
good like people's lives were not important part of the root of human
dimension was completely lost listed america's bid we can count ham a_t_t_'s reported this month how
many hundreds and how they're by i think that the war was applicable the vietnam in a way certainly hit exactly it could be in
many ways to create a tremendous destruction but he could not stop a very powerful united people who trying to change the law that this will
be a our topic then expelled them with that at a time for the day and next week we received
the limitations of that the world white it failed in vietnam also discuss what's
wrong with the liberal and conservative interpretations in vietnam we'll see
what lessons we can drop couldn't he had not experienced we also will talk about
some other aspects of the vietnam war of the tet offensive for instance but uh…

The big turning point in the
world body revisionist historians particularly conservative said that it
was an american victory whether there was it not also talk about
this fascinating phenomenon which the
american army refused to fight or many elements in our
bed as a matter of fact they start attacking
their own officers and uh… senior enlisted people phenomenon is and will conclude with a discussion of
some of the parallels the central america of some of the
failures of u_s_ policy in central america how
they can be eliminated by the failures of the policy in vietnam so that thanks
for coming tonight denies that he had a nice being informative discussion i will
look forward through next week welcomed alternative use them for the
second or two part series about the vietnam war bill gibson who wrote an incredible book
about vietnam war called the perfect war technol war and his blood the perfect lloyd cutler
war in vietnam was recently published by a blanket
monthly press and itself i was there is an extremely good reviews it was
favorably reviewed in the wall street journal curtis review described it as a
perceptive coach insignificant and so far the best analysis of the main
of america's on the military defeat highly recommended gloria emerson in a
review described the broadcast although many valuable books on the word fifty as
records obtained an endurance there's no work through the cheese but this does because he might just say this from our
most comfortable life instead delusions william gibson
should the honored and john stockwell describes his broadcast and all of my research on the subject
that are not going to compare with doctor gibson's perfect war her
invaluable insights in the u_s_ methodology it's hideous the results of the war
tonight we're going to talk about the things we didn't cover um…

We're going to talk about tet the importance of appetite offensive we're going to talk about cali united
states army slot and and uh… they decide they were not a fight that
war anymore we're going to have an evaluation of the
vietnam war how many how the people look at it from various aspects and will also take
a final okay have we learned our lessons are we still biting fighting techno war and central america or at least planning
to what is your interpretation of at the
water we get involved in vietnam techno warming to fight wars production
process the military became deeply impressed
with big businesses contributions of world war two after world war two the military can
decided that not only would like to supply operations be organized to a
corporate alliance but that actual conduct the warfare will be organized
while corporate lines the officer quoted managers they listed
meeting with the workers the product was in the body count just is american business prided itself
on high technology capital-intensive production systems so to our military have high-technology
capital intensive work there to al produced we would kill more them and they would
have us stats technolo why was it applied in vietnam because after world war two in the fifties the
soviets had the atomic bomb they could be in destroy our economy aka base a pop our if we intervene
militarily in the work in the world with too much force the argue clear was
to fight limited war indefinitely and the third world we will use oddly just-in-time
production system over there and ride to the other side bankrupt why vietnam beckons saw communism not is another cut the social
organization is another culture as another political system but instead they saw americans it has to
do it in the natural she died like in congress will support
it other and alien kind of being the world was
divided into super tuesday acts of people communist and non-communist and therefore if i get a good credit their side our
side by the time the credit in these over to the creation
of late fifties we had a period limited warrant act we had a conventional forces ready to go by the late fifties vietnam should be convenient load place to test out this new theory of warfare techno war and a place to drive before another
batch kentucky but that's not been fascinated
in near a book about how a major part of the u_s_ supported a
certain part of the war was to win the hearts and
minds of the vietnamese through important u_s_ commodities olympia that
u_s_ government actually put up the money to import these commodities and created
the whole infrastructure and rather than win the hearts and minds
out of the overwhelming majority of the vietnamese people the just created more
corruption in a quality you want to talk about that aspect of your details just hard to
us to realize how much money was poured into the country and so many ways if you're a high vietnamese general crooner japanese government army positions well business positions and would most american aid was on the
list for sale on the international market by
the time in iraq the level of staffed unbelievably high in the only reason you
decide whether to try to control with that the american government's issue every
decision by the officer corps as the price we
have to pay for continuing the war so therefore in order to get something
we choose the vietnamese people would have seemed more in more and more and there's an element of truth in that
but also the greater truth was that simply corruption became compounded and uh…

The riches became became
greater we're talking about millions and millions upon hundreds of
millions of dollars may or even currency manipulation currency fraud
wasn't gimmick if you knew how to play the game you could get rich simply by exchanging
your money from from dollars to be esters to military scripting back again just nothing just by playing play with
the rules a little bit that you didn't including massive inflation admit little odd for most people got
worse its what were your jobs available a few
people on top were able to make money off this cluster
stealing the american editor of the bottom of your jobs open for you you can work for the american she could
work on the base you could be an interpreter maybe if you
had minimal language skills resort remain hillerman there has been set up like a half
million vietnamese women and gauge duke some kind of commercial sex prostitution massage parlors where ever
you want to call it which grossed of there is hope multilevel herb sexual marketplace uh…

Threatening other drugs do drugs
subject huge huge caroline importation coming from all places
coming from laos and the c_i_a_ was running a warrant
last winter the hills people and liberation
government in order to buy it the leaders of the
kills people by the way ocean government they had to acquiesce to the heroin
trade tons of heroin were brought in a rare
america planes and limit means air force planes we find in bangkok in other
places in seoul on in in in two u_s_ soldiers in vietnam south you're going to use them in the
military leadership was also heavily involved narcotics business general and subsequent president of the
republic of vietnam when band to ran one major operation welwyn county but i'm sure marshall premier and vice president ran another for orphans what could you do shoeshine business wasn't so i think
it's had to make money on the side shining shoes was like a
definition uh…

Going through garbage dumps job today dismal live in this new world in vietnam
not a consumer paradiso and then the other hand you have the black market where as you say in your book you could
buy a million by tank armored personnel carriers and of course viet cong where cabin on
the template themselves whenever they need american goods they consider
themselves out the problem the other aspect of the u_s_ policy well as anti-war part of their your most
brilliant chapters in descriptions in your book of the magnitude in nature of
the air war and vietnam who was mentally i guess
directed against north vietnam do i discussed on elements of anymore therefore is a factory then clearly when you look at their
their work we got the biggest back we may have
nothing by american reasoning you looked at me
shit given at the data first bombs dropped on the market not because they
had such a small small industrial apparatus such a smoke number of bridges and things if you would think they would have just
given up they didn't um…

They were willing to sacrifice their
industrial apparatus billing to the chips or the massive mention casualties and indeed contrary to american mythology where the vietcong were simply
to being totally supported from the north rectly eighty percent of supplies the viet cong
used to even have been eighty percent supplies to india unusual raised himself
a small number supplies were sent out it couldn't be stopped no matter how hard the u_s_ bombed no matter how hard you escalated his
campaigns no matter even after the close the
pulitzer prize carmen distorted to systematically bombing the railroad
lines between china and vietnam he couldn't stop it the number of supplies wasn't that great on that the other hand air worded mobilizing north vietnamese
people to exit considerable degree uh…

Everyone had a job of one kind or
another either repairing the railroad repairing
the roads are taking over industry or working in agriculture so immobilized him consolidated that
society too terry on much like to nazi attack on
great britain consolidated british morale which is
open on the other hand the people you say well well obama back
to the stone age and we just practically dead most people don't recognize yet united states air force and navy drop
between eighteen fifty million tons of bombs and rockets on southeast asia or
world war two united states dropped two point one million tons so the minimum s but then it's about four times greater in world
war two amigos at almost eight times greater than world war two and u_s_ motives nineteen sixty-seven
report he has a party category summary the largest category in after vehicles
is buildings when you listen to the report support
observers on the ground with the report is just about any modern cstaylor brick
structure over to to store all but one story because we're going to look like targets
unless there's a lot of those which are just on a more hospitals a lot of more
schools yes book and i was bomb back the stone age there's no doubt about that but because they were not fighting a
technolo at illegal implemented now we saw in the previous program where at this uh…

Production assembly line type of
attitude resulted in date demand for body count or the land troops in the air war they also have production quotas but i'm
not going to organization of this was right the unit of measurement it's called a sortie want fight by one
airplane and therefore squadrons queens therefore it behold large units have rates of production that they are
supposed to me the navy the air force and indeed were
incumbent in competition with each other to see you can quote you the most
productive therefore the through the object was to
fly into many nations as possible within a of finite period of time like a
week or a month or whatever so relevant and pay attention to really
what you were bombing or to pay attention to the safest way too protect your pilots in the way to
minimize civilian casualties instead military war managers devise ways to maximize sori rates and consequently entered into serious irrational behavior they black and grey award where u_s_
commander treated their own ground truth is expendable higher commensurate colleges expendable they would often be center missions alarm say looking for trucks in the
middle of rain storms when it's impossible to see trucks compiled into the ground you know you
can even see the ground when by thinking about it but that keeps the saudi rahi hai or also say you're supposed to you know
which way we were given target it is the targets crimean but you still sing your planes up there
every day five days in a robotic saxony murdered in order so that because that's simply this like a factory you keep doing the
same retained but we sure telegraphed punches not all that many targets in that area
and i didn't take too many smarts to figure out about where they have forces headed specially wen li headed american date after a day making them fly up to the target before
making a good or not go decision on the weather that we already knew was not
acceptable we turned over the target and came back
again the next day to try again but this miracle pilots does it they died because the vietnamese clearly
understood where the americans were from flying the same pattern everyday and
they understood that and then we just keep coming so but often frequently vietnamese did was
simply move more and more antiaircraft guns into an area that the americans for
some reason one of the bomb in whatever happens american pilots and that means fighting
uh…

Violations against you pick our kids
surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of any aircraft weapons in in this way uh… by telegraphing are both countries uh… american pilots died i talked with a couple of the new
apoplectic f_-four pilot to blame who told me to end up with a gun at
recently and im before playing mission carrying a very small bomb load one pilot told me his goodness t_p_ was
so mad we risk eight guys he said when we could have come to hold on one
plane risking only two people and on the job better well then i have scheme or why did they
send out four planes the pilot said and if i know blessed just to keep our sortie rate
high but i'll tell you this if they got and
crime we know what you heard about this orgy
business on an aircraft carrier consolation the navy pilots who told me
that he could do a better job of the few eighty six is operating in the safety of
darkness then with all those sky hawks kidding around the world wide load in
daylight so i wouldn't think possible appear that
the maybe was trying to alps or t_v_ air force an air force was tried on sorting the
navy my guys who were flying the sorties took a dim view of it and we had uh…

Incredible story in
your book or about probably north vietnamese was actually
bring down the american jets with handguns and rifles seems unbelievable arsonists in an advance group of american
standpoint it is unbelievable in the acually c advanced technology
system like a jet fighter bomber needs another advance technology like a sam
missile not to bring it down and there is a lot of some interest in
that but north vietnam underwent a tremendous
social mobilization part of that mobilization group while
giving almost every one of god me that there's still a submachine gun
arrive forever or light machine guns the entire society was organizes a giant
in new york way any aircraft system emmett clark really low level vietnamese present were under
instructions to simply get out in the field en masse
lie down and shoot up in the act to try to provide barrage with make level altitudes unsafe to american pilots and
it happened curly hair but by the pilots to report that several remaining planes were shot
down an extremely low level by peasants what this means for them but level flight became so dangerous
that they had to move higher are pretty consistently be picked up on radar is it just depends as could shoot down
planes as that but they do not an air space to americans that made all their operations had more
hazardous so social mobilization was able to
compensate the technological inferiority there is another example of this uh…
in the whole team and trail when the united states bill padding incredibly
expensive electronic warfare area which the uh…

They were able which mania uh… vietnamese in that little shins
were able to overcome with barry simple tricks the joint chiefs of staff always wanted
to invade north vietnam insipid takeover handle an ipod or have
ground troops in laos there's a place where between laos and thailand between uh…
the south china sea in thailand something like thirty five miles or so for the effort is linden visual for justice for most
magical line will keep before another out rivals bottom at the past cutting out literally let's just uh… that was changed to
expensive in terms of truth lies they stated that area with electronic sensors listening devices sizes the pickups
metal sensors of various kinds uh…

These devices internship radio
signals to circling it that the aircraft intercept interest to computer banks in
thailand in thailand intern organized air strikes over the trail the two things happen one the sensors woody collect uh… bags if you're in honey entries tape recorders with cricket noises in
which to try to mask the movement of trucks you find a sensor and you could just
normal general knowledge is a tape of normal general knowledge is next to it uh…

So you master sensors in one area where
you actually seeing your troops in operations on the other and up so you get a taxing uh… you
world convoy drivers truck drivers north vietnamese had sexual zagreb aids
they had rocket players a lot of this is cabanas occurring at
night so the attorneys would throw out explosives to make americans feel like they were doing something um…

And americans into wanted to believe
that they were destroying vietnamese truck convoys y pilots but we work on the basis of
productivity their majors you lieutenant colonels
most of them walked before congress will probably asylum or desperately want to
be brigadier general they need to be productive therefore they wrote their tendency is
to report is high destruction of a trucks as
possible and it's a big joke eventually became
the enemy intelligence was that the next day when congress was
flights would fly along with what she meant well they could never find the
truck carcasses anywhere near the numbers that uh… the pilots reported destroyed so glad you began that deep in the
laotian jungles the great truck either yeah and my truck you there
was a monster that totally loved dead trucks midday meal is not
only have to read every night if he got up in the day the skeletons a
good bit drugs so that when the reconnaissance planes came out and in the morning there were simply be
no records this is not the site and thousands
trucks were destroyed that never to the extent necessary remember relatively few supplies which himself by
american calculations something like twelve times a day was
enough to support the warmest self you can put twelve times boxer mike tractor
truck without any problem attachment to spare but even if you multiply it by figure fifteen or twenty fold stacy equity
tractor trailer trucks a day approaching the entrails or forty pickups or whatever that still such a small number of people
are very expensive air war has a hard time i cannot stop that level of supply for most of the military general because
that is that the war whose memoir hewlett and documents seized by the indicated to the u_s_ really one most of
the battles of the war that the u_s_ records yes light was on its way to
victory and in particular there's a right wing revisionist view that the
u_s_ could've won the war at the time of the cat offensive at the u_s_ build up of maine courtney porsche units ground
troops began in sixty five by the end of sixty seven we have someone over four hundred
thousand at four hundred fifty thousand maybe in the past five hundred thousand
christian country according to american records the official records kept in the
pentagon and kept at military assistance commanded nam we just about destroyed altogether on
trips they were all nearly decimated now why was that because of weapons were
falsified perhaps we begin a strike that all that
last time once you move into wars production
process and the opposition managers lose their students at the devotee to
their subordinates below answers for the fidelity the trip upward mobility just like in business where maybe go up you know
up to the highlander is the main again that was a letter in the military the currency what that was to report the
body count so everybody buck their body count date body counts were routine not that not exceptional any trouble they worry that the body casket getting
hired uses the reports went up the chain of command a larger figures became well the first report i would send them was from the facts from the information
we collect intent was objective that it would be if it could be now we founded and but uh…

That would
always come back doctored up from higher headquarters that was standard operating procedure when i was repeated historian there so the result is that the battle news was edited and revised until it was
acceptable to the higher ups hail and in order to write open relies
on our civil aid program such as increasing the fifteen english classes
of three hundred to make it look good to the politicians and people back home and i've been ordered to raise the
figures for food distribution and uh… refugee villages but i've also had retired battle reports the old meeting uh… certain facts uh… and thereby turning in north
vietnam army victory over superior american forces into our u_s_ victory so our paper we had warren but in reality two things fired that was part one of our victory
the second point was in nineteen sixty seven the american high command decided that viet cong guerrillas no
longer existed because insulate the polish them on paper
answered because just like american forces we don't have any part-time
guerrillas are full-time guerrillas and also to google rulers have to do to
have tanks to guerrillas have helicopters to guerrillas have uh…

Heavy artillery they don't have as much hardware as we
did so they are clearly a threat to american
units so several hundred thousand uh… viet cong guerrillas were abolished from what's called the
order battle so what you would eliminate the
guerrillas on paper and then you charged so you have a hot lower total estimate uh… enemy forces can you have an inflated by uh…
estimate of how many of those you've killed well it worked lyndon johnson desperately needed a
political victory to follow sixty seven so he got your westward to come back and
say we're winning we're winning the war student enter an interface three and that is that we are mop up for a
couple of years and what was having a reality well reality the viet cong courses debated the local forces had expanded
radically from nineteen sixty four three late nineteen sixty seven according to u_s_ figures they were only
about two hundred thousand yahoo com but minimum c_i_a_ man started like
going profiles a primary figure things he calculated about a half million with
understand what that means at the c_i_a_ man is doubling hit the estimate but it seems to me they
don't have any idea at how many of them are on there but it means a double is probably the
highest figure he can get away with and still will be listened to by anyone in reality the enemies gaining strength we have with the crew viet cong we have work at least dissipation still in fifty
thousand troops here being sent south in the border zones along cambodian laotian
borders and in sonar showed us that the other satisfy co-wrote the book of the country in the u_s_ strategic offensive failed
of search-and-destroy the bombing operations had failed in late january early february nineteen
sixty eight newark the display department viet cong
forces attacked in mass simultaneously for the first time normally they fought they dispersed operations they were not andrea under that under no snow still first time in a
simultaneous national tax the attack succeeded in driving one it we needed to pass occasional our
audience involved in past occasional griffin m a countryside in the cities almost all of the vietnamese and
american ground force units were driven out of the countryside back into the
cities dip in the city's mayor and some viet
cong forces inner cities and i've saigon way uh…

Regional capitals and we began to to battle in the cities so what happens after a few weeks the viet cong withdrew from the cities their casualties were extremely high
they had not anticipated that the americans with bombing and conduct
artillery strikes inside the cities uh… but they did so i watch herself vietnam was reduced
to rubble their casualties were high the americans in sap in the meantime
units were gone from the countryside uh… desertion to be a massive and the economy which recruit many many many people now that they
would know opposing forces in the countryside their political cadres were
able to surface so they were weakened in many ways than
the other hand they have achieved a decisive victory inviting their parents out of the countryside what is the regiment because american forces were able to kill many of the commandos in the
economy troops inside the cities the americans have general westmoreland
court victory uh… of course this ignores the fact that although he's going to the economy out
of the city's he himself isn't going to have a countryside and it's made a
mockery out of his own previous claims of victory um…

Also sparklers created many many people that they were far more and south vietnam than americans and
willing to admit westmoreland and made a trip request for
another two hundred thousand soldiers this week request within the city
analysis were seriously what was found was that even within the production
model of war if you would just come up at the same kind of what they would
simply add more resources to do it still the viet cong around just to people in
this out good fight on for another four or five
years at least three years to four years and then with anymore or
significant looked at least dissipation they could find on ten to twenty years and which he just we just could not
drive the other side bankrupt and you're saying that the north vietnamese army
basically had participated nodded yes i did get marketers army did not because
they don't care the fact that most of the war they were quite a minimal over you
consider the number of via car trips in proportion to the number of north
feeling well that's true depth up until sixty eight after sixty eight
they entered the war in larger numbers sir uh…

The car were getting worse certainly the concern to claim your vehicle took
severe losses which it appeared to be stripped the claim that they were
decimated indicated a spot in the claim that the americans onecare is false canisters remain healthy miracle war
managers cities department stated their strategy
was bankrupt and that there was no pac decree so this finally created ah…
religiosity time somewhere in this period i try not to long after with this a break in their self delusion that
techno war would win every hotmail here is a serious problem that people don't
understand it american television news began to bite from the late nineteen
sixty eight on began report the idea that the war was winding down and that we were on our way out just not true this is a false statement you should never believe it's when you
look at the casualty figures how many american soldiers were killed
from sixty-five to sixty-eight for sixty three sixty seven and then you take sixty eight when you look sixty nine crew seventy
three the sixty nine three seventy three just
about is within a couple of hundred is high is the number of kill sixty doctor sixty-seven so-called week
search-and-destroy continued way way on internal until old mate seventy-one what was that then
they finally convinced the u_s_ foreign policy is that was for
the u_s_ public that vietnam could be one plummeted sixty eight on american military began to wickham progressively more restaurants
and bars certainly bible eight sixty nine seventy is inactive revolt against
his commanders remembered at seventy five percent of
the battles in vietnam where new shit about the enemy of the average american
grunge band used to have the that most people combat troops pennies to didi
walking an ambitious most mainline fairly quickly that while
they were walking an ambush is that their generals were getting medals and
they were safe in helicopters runs on and so forth uh…

Subpoenaed to begin what's called
fragment ragging means you take a fragmentation grenade and you
put it at your superior whether it's a non-commissioned officer
arjun or a battalion or captain or whatever it was a way to tell higher command not to treat ground troops' lives frivolously that
they would not pursue aggressively pursue dangers combat
situations simply in order to make a visit to make
his superiors look good okay let me tell you had workweek start
having more calls which is like uh…

Dole will at
midnight everybody you know if it starts open inspiring screaming books on the
wire books on the wiring barbed wire fences you know and then you try to kill any of the
lifers that he didn't like so we tried to get to see all couple of
times machine-gun one time he was uh… rack took nine holes his cock nine
bullet holes but you don't go out of it and got away with that'd be shipment so
we couldn't check weapons they use your name so they'd be throwing grenades at the
wiring yelling and shopping books on my wired brooks and they'd blow the siren
and then run around and have to guide to be facing outward shooting men the other
half would be waiting for a wife her to come out of his pet yeah i've seen them told officers executed five or six times just put a price on his head makes one accusing gets the money next time he was out on a mission that everybody knew it was good they just wait to humans and the right position and he estimates run quite high and it
was the official i'm accounts about six hundred fifty faking incidents and real reasons to doubt that because i
think quite small and sure there are a lot of network reporter all of course
because no no commander wants to have when you say it's like i said my my
moment for a grenade at me we'll try to shoot me i mean how do i do a good on your record
either get promoted up that there is a great leader when you're reporting that there were
people are shooting at you no i'm sure the records are not the
figures must be substantially higher this totally inadequate pulls the bonnie
alexander contracts her particularly unpopular officers but
there's also certified and felt mutilation a-level too people would not desperate if they were
just uh…

Do disoriented and they were not being
cared for by the command of the actual operations often while slaughter of
uh… innocence suicide rates a fairly high standing up until apartheid is one
payments um… cartoon book by uh… banning tech forster it shows a picture of a man oversold
regarding metal rock with his trigger finger in the air looking for the
million-dollar weren't feeling like expose this nice index finger shot off he could get out of the worst or you
don't take your malaria pills um… we're going to do therefore remove the kosher passionately
area there are many many ways out or people shooting themselves in the lots and lots of stories of self
mutilation or you do if your friend and algebra fran decided will be twice analytically days mission and he's had a
premonition of death which is taken very very seriously all
combat soldiers are deeply superstitious sometimes issued or u_s_ you could use
to add your friend not none of our place but it with him enough to get them out you described by the work its way you cannot fight a war where people are are you going to search you avoid i'll tell you avoid that uh…

But that
is a very prevalent than himself thirteen destroyed searching the void
and as you do you go out and you keep playing nuclear war you try like to go
out and you know smoke some dopamine thanks radio reports or he gently try not to engage the enemy we talked about everyday told the guys felt the same way reduced more accomplishing anything back some guys reselling depressed and
disgusted that he was killed themselves some guys were taken hand grenades and and blown themselves away they couldn't take the strain anymore cop who's really heavy i don't think a lot of the stuff was
reported do you guys would just kill themselves they are made probably send stats home with a guy who was killed or missing-in-action did the antiwar movement called
clinton's saulters in creating a sense of what they were
they were doing was wrong that they would victims that are making mistakes
that have impact you think that it's going to live com coffeehouse g_i_
coffeehouse mimicking anti-woman try to send a copy houses near u_s_ bases to uh…

Permit literature thanks but obviously when you read soldiers memoirs and novels refusing to talk about the anti-war
movement very much it's not to say there was an influence but they talk about we hacking to the situation of warfare that there and the one and uh… um… enemy in with the moral qualms and
moral qualms intercede on the battlefield but one of the credentials
of the anti-war movement nobody would be the last five years ago
i did not come in once it was stated that the u_s_ was going to
withdraw eventually that made it more difficult there was one place in your book where
he said that this actually it was a class war class warfare that was going
on that vitals are black soldiers clerked for fatherhood bragging ripple let's remember who went to vietnam after world war two the u_s_ military
decided that too many college-educated men have been killed danger of this was
that it was going to hurt the scientific base of the country decided thanks chris
over the country was for we couldn't have the next generation of
weapons so the idea to this deployment of the
college deferment was to keep the cool alive what this meant was remember this is an
era of very few student loans very few scholarships and so forth it meant that the sons of the middle
class could go to college where the sounds of the working class too the military in the military itself military needs vast numbers of
white-collar skills so if you had any kind of like uh…
clerical skills like middle class people do often do typing filing someone you
could ease more readily yet uh…

And unarmed combat job what this translated into is that what
you study got them to the corner who is in your infantry units armor artillery they were overwhelmed they were
disproportionately minorities in the were white who were whites poor urban life so we had a a working-class uh… largely working-class military combat military whereas a more middle class anti-war movement more middle-class
logistic apparatus inherent in the military so the class
revolt a clash about not one cor revolution we're not talking to voters
now but it is sort of like uh… it was
revoked against the manager yes if not in our interest exploded in new zealand
yes and yet and it certainly would among black soldiers there do they they were
definitely influence but my carmen racial consciousness and critical
consciousness but prepare now and where many of the type signs of
bonding signs of you know that scanning special handshakes on so forth i would be a value a plane that media
handling the amount and and now i've spent a lot of time looking at the
tapes and i have pushed closed if i could finish my outline i was going to
write a book about television news covers the water started to think well
what was not on the news for me but i saw in this country i wrote this
other book critic war was on the news is a lot of pictures and helicopters a
lot of pictures objects a lot of pictures of tanks a lot of
hardware and wish techno what was the major
representation to visual representation along with his today that these these
please presentation to the people weapons i love my favorite when a_b_c_ show a_b_c_ series where at the first one outings may see
the battleship new jersey that ocean new jersey just been recon
mission in sixty nine and we see it here's the sixteen each
gun dealers is john thirty-foot balanced at the camera looks down a guy starts
talking about you to two hundred fifty-pound projectile sixty miles had broken thirty two feet of reinforced
concrete amanda had at the other way at least thirty two miles sixty feet we push them back again if
the two identity or kill radius it simply i committed a corresponding to
a salesperson and i i think i should buy two more the
battleship new jersey analysis is currently a m believe and in the film patterns in other
correspondent angel and uh…

The bank of the river it's about the bbc frankly offline trash
can and he remember the uh… roadrunner rockets mineral that want to cut it was
always getting something from acme rocket company that i was kinda fucked
up trash can on a stick with the kind of
like trying on top of it exactly what this rocket look like was obviously
have a homemade crude rocket end of the contrast of subletting seems
like american victory so insured because we love our technical
superiority court within a point out the vehicle on the fires that rocket
knows exactly what he's shooting it was a battleship new jersey there where they may not where it's much more fun so that it would be pissed off people
sold out people ought not to bring many dead
people who were very few ended they have the death conditioners was much like a
warmer the elections number will go on three-star body count each week which shared we were always winning we saw one
village one village was born in nineteen sixty five dash yet and again the kind of course bonnie
guidance of air travel uh…

Mail i appeared as its is remember
did not come from the news and it didn't come from a normal networks a came from
a veteran who tried hard to get the moves out their little coverage of messages came
on ordinary language of the war groups
slopes land bank more american news correspondent ever
talked about those terms of what they meant it simply did not occur in status very
much official perspective waco and got critical from sixty eight on a case where you
would see reports about failed technology indication cutesy stories about tragic
american deaths it was like a human interest tragedy
become permanent of criticism rather than any kind of explanatory notion of what i would not succeed bill let's talk about a valuation of the
vietnam war a lot of people written books about a historian generals and
etcetera west coast image who's just come back to
where we start to disappoint by nasa says the u_s_ head to get out
who couldn't fight when i read it wouldn't do it in the
morning you could read it moved to the air force campaigns but it was campaigns
have their problems to you can hold plan with airplanes silly money to the south vietnamese they
were corrupt they've just had more maybe crap it so we would hate it my analysis and you know if it was
defeated and that that's that's the stamp on to
the question is how have the historians of a novelist uh…

So on treated this tragic of
american desi the conditional path as a liberal
interpretation that is it's just a strategy it's just kind of a wrong out there
somewhere and lacking suspect were all sorts of small mistakes are more
mimicking smallness moments later schlesinger lovers i think it would be
the most famous the classical case stanley cornell's book learning p_b_s_
series most recent example the commotion presley's not an
explanation you know twenty years a small mistakes doesn't explain a war that has a very clear structure which is my argument at the structural contradictions about men who work there
and in its disillusioning failure the second school the most prominent
right now is the cutest lost because a self-imposed restraints so bizarre experience of military term often used in joint chiefs of staff
documents called for escalated air war and vision is gprs they should have invaded north
vietnam in nineteen sixty six and taken handle an ipod course telecom of that other one of
those persons who had those guns firing again shooting against aircraft the jet fighter pilots they were also
organized and prepared for invasions argument you why do you know emission
factor north vietnamese didn't have any troops himself that was one of the major
reasons it wasn't that they didn't want to help
their comrades in their southern comment it which which were being held back any part of our project the home front
against a possible american invasion stucco into jail the plan for a year to fighting this
invasions let local militia and regional forces fight for the first dated two
days so once the americans are tired after twenty four to forty eight hours
across the conduct damen north vietnamese army waiting to
see and we did this notion that the u_s_
could've had a successful invasion thus far o'neill fantasy unworthy of any kind of
serious consideration and that they had been expeditionary
force in handling high phone we still that would change the class structure in
south vietnam that would change the fact that you had a peasant renewal in
atlanta that you want to do this to wanted uh…

Self determination letter
in capital and he warned that the whole country
were national unification 'cause the whole basis of the culture was growing
up before debater and that's all they don't all their
lives for two thousand years first throughout the chinese to french and now the american soldier it would
have changed at the self-imposed restrain still this fall will have we learned anything
fence line we you've point out they total corruption and self-delusion of the
military and the civilian leaders throughout this first of all thank you naked wages
technol war and secondly having uh… not paying attention to
being realities which like uh… try to sleep up from the
intelligence field suppressing any intelligence that would
uh…

Contrary to the contrary to what they wanted on it still in that thing motivating n do where you probably think
you applying it to you well i have a couple questions certainly
there was one example which has been a tip and we just barely took it even though
there was a minimum opposition most of the u_s_ special forces command as bit
the dust in various operations governor various mishaps one kind or another also the military's analysis is well not only
do we fight with one hand tied behind our back a week or two slightly more
rapid escalation so honduras has been prepared a series
of airfields and ports have been prepared in honduras in order to bring forty fifty thousand
troops into battle within a week um…

They had to the subtleties fortress and they still have million military had
the vision that they could probably take when i won a few other places and a
couple weeks rather than an extensive central america war which was escalate tremendously because the nicaraguan
today i have no choice except to expand the war outside nicaragua to make the
battlefield bigger the battlefields bigger than united
states has to disperse its troops it's this virtues are dispersed kit cheap decree activated them back to vietnam but i'd
like to have one other thing i have not learned a thing with an author most feminist anger many veterans of
course when you have sooo mail certainly don't want to see this they're
probably parts of the military inverse mornin positions we don't want to see a
major escalation but then we're on track for another kind of of major
intervention whether or not will be since the iran artwork crisis has
emerged that may be off for a while i don't know
but they're certainly philippines there's another growing insurgency there um…

The chair of the chances for another
major intervention in another series of self delusions are very very high because the people
that officer corps who were successful in vietnam or the people who were in
charge now the people who would be dissonance the to him for lieutenant colonels and
majors who would be the risk of repulsed they got out they reside most of it ironically the arm yourself recognize
this nineteen seventy war college study which indicated ah… that there was a significant difference
between the ideal army values such as honesty integrity bravery justice and
responsibility and the real values which are practiced
by the military inorder to promote career advancement here is the studies conclusion the present climate does not appear to
be self-correcting the human drives for success and
recognition by singers sustained if not inflamed and by the
system that rewards and management which cater to media personal success at the expense of moral and epochal
values would appear to only be perpetuated by the current environment the fact alone that the leaders of the
future by those who survived and excelled within the rules of the present
system militates in part against any self
starting incremental return toward the practical application of ideal army
values and in the final reason and that the
problem of learning is that there are cultural reasons that
make the american people want to believe the self-reproach restrain school and that is we are used to petition the
cowboy who comes and stays a society against the enemies and the power structure cannot defend
itself the idea of a week authority that has to
be saved by a warrior shows that in many places in american cultures in the
western into detective you have the detective
you know is outside the law all the super man in the nasty danger figures of
the twenties and thirties certainly are able to portal criminals legal authorities cannot uh…

But also that is that the police
technology cannot self-serving embarrassed to talk to that if we have
enough technological military force we can help
the win the war if you have people it's hard not to
believe in your hardware americans don't worry about social relations they don't
learn about class structure everyday in the newspaper or about cultural history every daily
newspaper they learn about what's for sale then part of the lesson of vietnam
concerning the limits of at the water the situations in which technolo but
well i but it cannot achieve victory they can destroy lenny can destroy
people but he can't create a government cranky recreate a culture it can create a society and this is another thing we try to do
in vietnam to oppose the model of the consumer
society are then add american-style suppose democracy would it be elections
in situations where these just couldn't work it did work in a way you know what you
have people can become corrupted they did get into their consular under some
things but it just doesn't have a stable society it
doesn't builder dad will people willing to die for that
society that was a hope i'll let you have to be a crappy vietnamese that what
it looks like things we know they were willing to go out and if insight on the
gap are not biggest did they bought their tickets
out united states that the patrons were divided that just collect and jess four are getting rid of the
landlord to local oppressors here to make perfect sense to them and there's been this problem the
so-called vietnam syndrome which are leaders have been complaining about all
these years sensitive there was a fitness in the land quickly if i lost the will to fight yet and uh…

But it looks like the american public had a clearer picture of what uh… the war was all
about them the than the leaders but uh… acute how would you expect
that can do you think they were overcoming that vietnam syndrome now so
that they can but i don't think the american public ever had an idea what
with raw images knew something was wrong and it wasn't getting better contracting a leader fighting this may be easier for people to believe the
self-imposed restrain school to believe that we lost because we didn't fight
hard enough um… for the package that the package proctor
cultures presented here a bit of the warrior imagery is well mined grammars
strong on the rise because many classical war movies made in several
kind of very warm and he's made um… it's definitely a war culture how people go clearly though there's there's still a
resistance there still a certain level which disaster vietnam detached in at
least on people's memories either merrill lynch say they'll have
understanding of why it failed a welder structural reasons there is a fear that it will happen again

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