Course Description
Did the United States win or lose the Vietnam War? We are taught that it was a resounding loss for America, one that proves that intervening in the affairs of other nations is usually misguided. The truth is that our military won the war, but our politicians lost it. The Communists in North Vietnam actually signed a peace treaty, effectively surrendering. But the U.S. Congress didn’t hold up its end of the bargain. In just five minutes, learn the truth about who really lost the Vietnam War.
Taught By
Bruce Herschensohn
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Decades back, in late 1972, South Vietnam and the United States were winning the Vietnam War decisively by every conceivable measure. That’s not just my view. That was the view of our enemy, the North Vietnamese government officials. Victory was apparent when President Nixon ordered the U.S. Air Force to bomb industrial and military targets in Hanoi, North Viet Nam’s capital city, and in Haiphong, its major port city, and we would stop the bombing if the North Vietnamese would attend the Paris Peace Talks that they had left earlier. The North Vietnamese did go back to the Paris Peace talks, and we did stop the bombing as promised.
On January the 23rd, 1973, President Nixon gave a speech to the nation on primetime television announcing that the Paris Peace Accords had been initialed by the United States, South Vietnam, North Vietnam, the Viet Cong, and the Accords would be signed on the 27th. What the United States and South Vietnam received in those accords was victory. At the White House, it was called “VV Day,” “Victory in Vietnam Day.”
The U.S. backed up that victory with a simple pledge within the Paris Peace Accords saying: should the South require any military hardware to defend itself against any North Vietnam aggression we would provide replacement aid to the South on a piece-by-piece, one-to-one replacement, meaning a bullet for a bullet; a helicopter for a helicopter, for all things lost – replacement. The advance of communist tyranny had been halted by those accords.
Then it all came apart. And It happened this way: In August of the following year, 1974, President Nixon resigned his office as a result of what became known as “Watergate.” Three months after his resignation came the November congressional elections and within them the Democrats won a landslide victory for the new Congress and many of the members used their new majority to de-fund the military aid the U.S. had promised, piece for piece, breaking the commitment that we made to the South Vietnamese in Paris to provide whatever military hardware the South Vietnamese needed in case of aggression from the North. Put simply and accurately, a majority of Democrats of the 94th Congress did not keep the word of the United States.
On April the 10th of 1975, President Gerald Ford appealed directly to those members of the congress in an evening Joint Session, televised to the nation. In that speech he literally begged the Congress to keep the word of the United States. But as President Ford delivered his speech, many of the members of the Congress walked out of the chamber. Many of them had an investment in America’s failure in Vietnam. They had participated in demonstrations against the war for many years. They wouldn’t give the aid.
On April the 30th South Vietnam surrendered and Re¬education Camps were constructed, and the phenomenon of the Boat People began. If the South Vietnamese had received the arms that the United States promised them would the result have been different? It already had been different. The North Vietnamese leaders admitted that they were testing the new President, Gerald Ford, and they took one village after another, then cities, then provinces and our only response was to go back on our word. The U.S. did not re-supply the South Vietnamese as we had promised. It was then that the North Vietnamese knew they were on the road to South Vietnam’s capital city, Saigon, that would soon be renamed Ho Chi Minh City.
Former Arkansas Senator William Fulbright, who had been the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee made a public statement about the surrender of South Vietnam. He said this, “I am no more distressed than I would be about Arkansas losing a football game to Texas.” The U.S. knew that North Vietnam would violate the accords and so we planned for it. What we did not know was that our own Congress would violate the accords. And violate them, of all things, on behalf of the North Vietnamese. That’s what happened.
I’m Bruce Herschensohn.
Justplainbill's Weblog 
Why 12 U.S. Presidents have kept Cuba Isolated, Capt Joseph John, USN, [nc]
Joseph R. John
To
jrj@combatveteransforcongress.org
Jan 19 at 5:45 PM
During Obama’s run for the Presidency in 2007, we alerted our supporters that there were photos of Che Guevara plastered on the walls of Obama’s campaign headquarters in Texas. Che was the hard core Communist revolutionary who was killed while trying to export Communism to Bolivia; he was being lionized by Castro and by supporters in Obama’s presidential campaign. While Castro’s Cuba is on the ropes economically, Obama is coming to the rescue of such a dangerous and oppressive Communist regime by recognizing Castro Cuba; lifting economic sanctions, supporting tourism, and allowing free trade, without insisting on concessions before recognizing such an oppressive Communist Cuban Government.
The New Black Panther Party has been receiving instruction in terrorist tactics and bomb making in Castro’s Cuba for the past 6 years, and Obama’s new travel policy will enhance that terrorist training (all terrorist training for the New Black Panther Party must cease prior to recognition). American Black Revolutionaries, who have assassinated US Police Officers over the years, then fled to Cuba, have been given a safe haven by Castro (their return should be demanded prior to recognition). There are 100,000 political prisoners in Cuban prisons & labor camps and Obama should demand that Castro allow fundamental human and religious freedoms for political prisoners (they should be should be freed prior to recognition). The financial support generated by the new tourist trade will permit Castro to export Communism and weapons to communist revolutionaries throughout South America; (there should be restrictions imposed on the export of Communism throughout South America prior to recognition) A US Embassy in Cuba should not be funded by Congress until the above listed concessions are imposed and actually put in place by Castro’s Cuba.
Up until Obama was elected, Castro’s weak economy restricted him from aggressively exporting Marxism–Leninism Communism for 53 years (yet he still had some successes in Nicaragua, Venezuela, and Guatemala). Preventing the export of Marxism–Leninism Communism throughout the Western Hemisphere was the very reason why, for 53 years, 12 Democratic and Republican US President from President Dwight Eisenhower to President George W. Bush isolated Cuba, and why sanctions worked to a great degree for those 53 years (the below listed article further explains those facts). With the full knowledge that Castro murdered up to 17,000 free Cubans, Obama is coming to the aid of Castro’s Communist Cuba, by, pledging to lift all economic sanctions and establish diplomatic relations, just at the precise moment when Venezuela’s economic miseries have required it to cut off its huge billion-dollar subsidies to Cuba, and at the same time Russia’s economic weakness has cut off financial support to Cuba. Nothing has changed in Cuba’s oppressive Communist regime in 53 years, but “What a coincidence” that Obama is coming to Castro’s Communist regime financial aid, just at the very time Venezuela and Russia can no longer provide financial support.
Obama’s Radical Islamic foreign policies has destabilized the Middle East and his failure to properly engage ISIL while it is killing thousands of Assyrian Christians contributed in large measure to turning the Middle East into the most violent area of the world. Now Obama’s Marxist foreign policy aimed at South America will further destabilize another part of the world, The Western Hemisphere. The new financial support generated by tourism, by Obama lifting of economic sanctions, and by allowing expanded business trade will permit Castro’s Cuba to export communism aimed at undermining democratic governments throughout the Western Hemisphere, and it will continue to aid the New Black Panther Party to foment violent racist streets demonstrations within the United States. No other US President in 53 years has supported such an inept and dangerous foreign policy which will undermine the National Security interest of the United States and create a dangerous environment for its citizens. The Congress should use the power of the purse to prevent the construction of an embassy in Cuba, should oppose the lifting of economic sanctions of Castro’s oppressive Communist Governments, and should do all it can to restrict trade with Cuba.
Joseph R. John, USNA ‘62
Capt USN(Ret)
Chairman, Combat Veterans For Congress PAC
2307 Fenton Parkway, Suite 107-184
San Diego, CA 92108
Fax: (619) 220-0109
http://www.CombatVeteransForCongress.org
Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!”
-Isaiah 6:8
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Why We Isolated Cuba for 53 Years
Commentary By
Lee Edwards
Lee Edwards is the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation’s B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. A leading historian of American conservatism, Edwards is the author or editor of 20 books, including biographies of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and Edwin Meese III as well as histories of The Heritage Foundation and the movement as a whole.
Contrary to what President Obama has asserted, U.S. sanctions have worked. Communist Cuba is so economically weak it cannot export Marxism-Leninism as in the past, and pro-democracy advocates have become emboldened.
For more than five decades, presidents, Democratic and Republican, politically isolated and economically sanctioned Communist Cuba for the best of reasons. Here are four of them:
Cuba has been a communist prison since Fidel Castro came to power. From 1959 through the late 1990s, more than 100,000 Cubans were placed in forced labor camps, prisons and other places of incarceration. Between 15,000 and 17,000 people were shot. Castro justified his reign of terror with these words: “The revolution is all; everything else is nothing.”
Communist Cuba exported Marxism-Leninism throughout Latin America, in Colombia, Guatemala, Venezuela and especially Nicaragua, which was taken over by the Marxist Sandinistas in the late 1970s. Another target was the small island nation of Grenada, which was to function as the third leg of a communist triangle of Cuba, Grenada and Nicaragua. President Reagan foiled the communists’ plans by freeing Grenada from a pro-Moscow radical regime. As a Venezuelan communist leader explained, the Cuban revolution was like a “detonator.”
Communist Cuba often provided the ground troops for the Soviet Union’s strategy of inciting Third World revolution, especially in Africa. From 1975 to 1989, according to “The Black Book of Communism,” Cuba was the major supporter of the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. Castro sent an expeditionary force of 50,000 men to Angola, explaining in part why for decades Moscow propped up the Castro regime in the amount of $5 billion a year.
Communist Cuba brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in 1962 when it allowed the Soviet Union to build sites for offensive nuclear missiles aimed at major cities in the United States. Castro knew what he was doing: Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev has said that Castro requested a Soviet nuclear attack on the United States.
As The Washington Post editorialized, President Obama pledged to lift economic sanctions and establish diplomatic relations at the precise moment when Venezuela’s economic miseries seriously threatened its huge billion-dollar subsidies of Cuba and when more and more Cubans were pressuring the Castro regime to allow fundamental human freedoms.
The Castro regime was on the ropes, but in the words of Cuban dissident Yoani Sanchez, “Castroism has won.” Today, Fidel must be smiling and lighting up a large El Rey del Mondo cigar in his Havana palace.