Pol Pot was a way to screw with Vietnam, not the USSR
To screw with Vietnam, yes, and through them the USSR. Vietnam was pro-Soviet, Pol Pot was supported by China...
Pol Pot was a way to screw with Vietnam, not the USSR
Your point?Pol Pot was a way to screw with Vietnam, not the USSR
Is it Genocide to willingly walk into the maw of Moloch? And the Communists were killing more villagers that the South ever did with the terrorism campaign
To screw with Vietnam, yes, and through them the USSR. Vietnam was pro-Soviet, Pol Pot was supported by China...
Pol Pot was also supported by Margaret Thatcher. After she knew what he was.
That dealing with Pol Pot didn't do a thing against the USSR, they weren't the targetYour point?
That's very poetic. But a quick search doesn't turn up any clear evidence that the South Vietnamese population was so thoroughly depopulated of combat age males that the Viet Cong would have found it difficult or impossible to regenerate. There were certainly massive numbers of casualties, but no sign of the social collapse that this level of depopulation would have required. Can you back up your argument? It's an interesting one.
Or regale me with the tales of all what the actual VC was doing during Easter offensive thru the fall of Saigon
Propping up Pol Pot (a) was a middle finger to the USSR's bloc, which was the entire point, and why the USSR-backed Vietnam invaded, and (b) allowed him to murder a shitload of people because Pol Pot was a fucking psychopath.That dealing with Pol Pot didn't do a thing against the USSR, they weren't the target
Like who?Maybe if South Vietnam’s leader were less of a corrupt shithead, it would have gone better. The US could have backed someone who was pro-West and had his shit together a bit better.
Propping up Pol Pot (a) was a middle finger to the USSR's bloc, which was the entire point, and why the USSR-backed Vietnam invaded, and (b) allowed him to murder a shitload of people because Pol Pot was a fucking psychopath.
You're kind of way off-base.
You realize that Diem was ousted in a coup in 1963 right? Things got worse from there on out, not better.The US had no clear objective or goal in Vietnam beyond "stabilize the government," and the only strategy really deployed was just to have soldiers fuck around on random patrols and rack up bodycounts on the nightly news to make them look like they were winning. It's hard to win a war that doesn't have a victory condition beyond maintaining the status quo.
The only way to win is to have somebody other than Ngo Dinh Diem running the show in South Vietnam, somebody who wasn't trying to impose a catholic theocracy on a majority buddhist country. And the way to do that would be if the 1955 referendum election wasn't blatantly rigged in Diem's favor. And at this point it's not so much winning as it is not playing.
Pick any random villager who says he doesn't like the Viet Cong. Boom. Better leader than the cavalcade of idiotic fucknuts South Vietnam had in charge.Like who?
Company and Battalion level village defence in PRG areas. (JCRC (1974-05-23). Casualty Report. https://www.loc.gov/item/powmia/pw136257/ )
Pick any random villager who says he doesn't like the Viet Cong. Boom. Better leader than the cavalcade of idiotic fucknuts South Vietnam had in charge.
No political base is a good thing. All of South Vietnam's established politicians were lying thieving crooks and everybody knew it. Honestly Random Peasant Dude would probably last a couple years just because the US put him there and nobody wants to piss off the big dog.except no political base, and woudn't last a week
No political base is a good thing. All of South Vietnam's established politicians were lying thieving crooks and everybody knew it. Honestly Random Peasant Dude would probably last a couple years just because the US put him there and nobody wants to piss off the big dog.
The US didn't give a shit about the coups because they could temporarily help with PR and all the thieves were solid US toadies because the commies wanted their blood. Again, it's all about the geopolitical rivalry with the Russians. As long as South Vietnam worked with America they were our allies no matter who was in charge this week.Despite Communist claims, the RVN government were not US puppets. They had Political Generals for exactly the US did in the 1860s. The most the US could do was turn a blind eye to coups, or even at most, exclaim a Henry II style 'Will no one rid me of this meddlesome President?' as with Diem
Like who?
Could the US have won the Vietnam war?
(Creating a stable Republic of Vietnam)
There are two strategies I have in mind. The first is marching on Hanoi. The objective would be to either take it over entirely, or to cripple it enough so that it could not reinforce or supply combat operations by VC or NVA forces south of the DMZ. I do not know much about USSR or Chinese commitment to North Vietnam, but I feel that this would lead to a major escalation.