America did not lose the war it waged upon the Vietnamese people.
This is patently true. Consider two countries that were defeated by the United States and its allies: Germany and Japan. There is no question that they were defeated, they surrendered. The United States armed forces continue to occupy military bases in those countries. The United States played a significant role in the writing of the constitutions of those countries. This is conclusive evidence that the U.S. (and its allies) defeated the nations of Germany and Japan.
Consider now the end results to the United States after the United States chose to stop waging war upon the people of Vietnam.
1. The United States did not surrender to Vietnam.
2. No Vietnamese armed forces occupy military bases on U.S. soil
3. The United States made no modifications to its constitution based on stipulations made by the Vietnamese government.
4. The U.S. never paid one dime of reparations to the Vietnamese Government.
In no way can there be claimed a military victory over United States forces comparable to the victory which was clearly won by US forces (and their allies) over Germany and Japan.
Politically, of course, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, (North Vietnam) and the Viet Cong (the "insurgents" or "freedom fighters", depending on one's perspective in the South) achieved a political victory. They continued to fight until the U.S. chose to cease fighting. This should surprise no one. They were fighting, after all, to decide the future of THEIR country, the land upon which they were born. They had nowhere else to go. It was literally, a fight to the death.
Meanwhile, the government that the U.S. supported was a fiction of its own creation. It was a government that was overwhelmingly considered to be illegitimate, if considered at all.
Does this sound at all familiar?
Think Iraq. Think Afghanistan.
One day, and sooner rather than later I pray, we will leave those nations upon which we have wreaked so much havoc and turmoil, committed so much murder.
And for what purpose?
Our armed forces will leave because they have somewhere else to go. The Iraqi people, the ones still left, and the Afghani people, the ones still left, they have nowhere else to go. The will outlast us. Defeat us militarily. A ridiculous notion, but one that will be paraded and used to cast aspersions upon the democratic President who oversees the complete and total withdrawal of U.S. forces.
Should a Republican choose to do so, he or she might go down in history as a great and wise leader. Consider the current crop of Republican Presidential hopefuls: Gingrich, Romney, Patraeus, Palin, Huckabee. Which of them do you see willing to go down in history as a great and wise leader.
No, the bombs will continue to rain down as long as the likes of those are what the Republican Party offers to the American people as a Presidential choice.
Deliver us, Lord.
Deliver us.
