Indeed Col Rouge, it is important to remember that the battle for Vietnam had several positive and several negative effects.
Positive effects include the stopping or slowing of the communist steam roller in SE Asia.
Negative effects include the loss of military will due to the Big Media (thanks alot guys) and communist propoganda and demoralization in the USA. Followed by the loss of political will led to the encouragement of communist efforts in other places of the world.

It is a very messy situation, but it could have been worse, and it could of been better. If the USA and Australia had stayed the course, millions of lives world wide might have been saved.

The years immediately after the Vietnam war proved the domino theory to be incorrect. Like "weapons of mass destruction" the domino theory proved a false premise to go to war because communism never spread to the rest of Asia as was thought. Perhaps the reason for this was because it was a nationalist war to take back Vietnam's sovereignty and unite a country that was and kept divided by colonial powers?

For the south the transition to communism made no difference. People simply don't know. South Vietnam back then wasn't a shining light of democracy in Asia. Everything you thought the commies were; merciless, torturers, human rights abusers, corrupt, banned freedom of speech, association and free press...It was already there under the southern bureaucracy anyway.

For the US soldiers, like Iraq, it was opportunity to kill gooks, indulge in wanton destruction and engage in racist genocide. All backed up and given a legitimacy because they there to help the South Vietnamese and save the world from Communism.

The positive effects was that the North won a worthy victory. They were more determined, willing to sacrifice and in the end they achieved their objective. Vietnam won its sovereignty.

The negative was that more bombs were dropped on Vietnam than by all sides during the entire WWII, 80 million litres of agent orange dumped onto it, 3 million Vietnamese north and south died, Vietnam became an international pariah at the behest of a sore loser.

If there was any positive effects from the war it was, like now, the profits to be made from war by contracts to the American military. Over $US 50 billion was spent.

You're views are typically USA fan-boy perspective. Probably dismayed the US didn't use nuclear weapons on the gooks. Keep playing those video games.

SpaceCowMooMoo “You're views are typically USA fan-boy perspective. Probably dismayed the US didn't use nuclear weapons on the gooks. Keep playing those video games.”

I have an opinion.

I have a right to express it, without the asides or derogatory allusions contained in your infantile spate.

I have that right “to express” partly because someone decided to draw a line at Vietnam, instead of leaving all the “dominos” to fall.

As I said before – the “War” was won not on the “battlefields” of Vietnam but in the collapse of the Berlin wall and the liberation of the communist countries of Eastern Europe and the former USSR.

The remaining communist dictatorships will likewise fall – unable to maintain the subjugation of their populations in the face of superior democratic systems and the world will be a better place.

All, in part, because of the “resolution” displayed in Vietnam and the years subsequent to it. - Typically - Ronald Reagan was the architect who knew, with regard to the “Star Wars” initiative, a deterrent does not have to “work” to “work” as a deterrent.

That such a worldly respective is beyond your limited grasp comes as no surprise or disappointment. Pseudo-intellectuals / ineffectuals are, invariably, the source of their own frustration – I suggest you get used to it.

So postulate and pontificate all you want – but if you get “insulting” with me, I am quite capable of responding with something which outclasses any rudeness you are capable of attempting.

OOO-er. Col has an opinion and he has a firm grip on it and will continue to waggle it in your face despite an everest of facts to the contrary ;)

Was the Vietnam war worth it - as worthy as any war I guess where innocent citizens are gassed, bombed, burned and generally turned into mince.

While communism is far from perfect and I am v/pleased we are a democracy here - it is not as evil as the reactionary types would have us believe.

War is about power - who has and who wants it.

For Col just having a different POV is considered an insult by him.

"So postulate and pontificate all you want – but if you get “insulting” with me, I am quite capable of responding with something which outclasses any rudeness you are capable of attempting."

Col, bullying is not debating. I enjoy a stoush but your posts are more about thumping your 'opponent' than actually engaging a lively discussion.

My attempt at humour (above) will probably not help either, however I am getting very fed up at just how personally some posters take a difference of opinion.

Grey you are right – the problem with war – it is fought under conditions of some stress and lacks the opportunity of hindsight or reflective judgement.

A lot of things would have been different with better intelligence and understanding of the enemy.

Regarding the media circuses both current and Vietnam, to be honest, whilst the embedding of journalists into military units seems all the “rage”, like newsreels were in Vietnam –

The problem with “news” is it will interfere with the serious business of “War” and most seriously, to the detriment of the blokes we send to wage it.

Xena – to say I have ignored your posts is to endow them with more attention than they deserve.