Re: anarchy and crisis!?

Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Thu, 24 Dec 1998 10:14:20 -0500

Spike Jones wrote:

> Michael S. Lorrey wrote:
>
> > ...Now, considering that a small nation like Vietnam was able to defeat the
> > army of a much larger and more technologically advanced nation like ours
> > indicates that guerrilla movements can be highly successful...
>
> the phrase "defeat the army" doesnt work. the u.s. army defeated the viet
> cong army in their every encounter. the guerrillas certainly
> caused headaches for the u.s. armies, but defeated the army? no,
> the u.s. armies were called home, even tho they "won" every battle. spike

It depends on what you call winning. In our own Revolutionary War, we lost every major battle save two: Bennington and the last one, if you only go by such bean counting concepts like 'body counts', and even by older standards which counted who occupied the land afterward. Battles which we technically call victories in Vietnam, like LZ X-Ray, where we imposed five times more casualties on the enemy than we had, taught the Vietnamese how to fight modern airmobile forces with nothing but grenades, rifles, and mortars. I personally do not count any battle where we did not stay and occupy the land as a victory. That we were aliens who had no reason to occupy the land, in the eyes of the people there, basically doomed us, and the PR campaign mounted by the NVA in our own media was also a battle we lost, which was the most important one of all.

I don't think I even need to mention the Vietnamese's earlier experience at Dien Bien Phu, do I?

Mike Lorrey