On 7 Dec 2006 04:39:21 -0800 'PJ O'Donovan'
posted this onto uk.politics.misc:
>"Our purpose is, through a
>progression of all-out attacks, to cause many U.S. casualties and so
>erode the U.S. will that the antiwar influences will gain decisive
>political strength," said Pham Van Dong, former prime minister of
>North Vietnam. Moreover, Ho Chi Minh famously predicted, "For everyone
>of yours we kill, you will kill 10 of ours. But in the end, it is you
>who will grow tired."
>
>See www.vietnam.war.info/casualties and you will learn that Ho Chi
>Minh figures of 10 Vietnamese casualties would be needed to effect a
>single US casualty was grossly conservative in accordance with figues
>estimated by the North Vietnamese themselves after the conflict.
>
>Since the US tragically experienced 58000 combat casualties, their
>Vietnamese combatants experienced in excess of 1,000,000 combat
>casualties in the process to inflict those US Army combat casualties.
>In other words it took more than 17 Vietnamese combatant casualties to
>effect a single US casualty in accordance with the link estimating
>combat casualties for both sides of the conflict.
>
>Anyone construing those figures to spin that America got its "arsed
>kicked in Vietnam" is either living in a mythological fantasy world or
>is desperately in need of a course in remedial arithmetic.
Surely it isn't important how many Vietnamese were killed for each
American, America still got its ass kicked and fled Saigon in
helicopters. It's adventure there is recorded largely as a failure.
We see the same today in Iraq - American military power can often
prevail in the short term, but it finally loses the war. ISTM the
principle reason for this is a misguided belief in the US that bombs
win over ideology coupled to a lack of understanding of cultures.
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