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Disturbing Similarity To Vietnam

The Vitnam was a compleetely different scenario. It was a rainforest war rather than a hill top battle. Moreever PA has successfully disrupted and secured all the suplly lines of the miscreants which the US in veitnam failed to have controll over the Golong Bridge at the Combodian border.
Not to mention the services rendered by Colonol Curtz.
 
The Vitnam was a compleetely different scenario. It was a rainforest war rather than a hill top battle. Moreever PA has successfully disrupted and secured all the suplly lines of the miscreants which the US in veitnam failed to have controll over the Golong Bridge at the Combodian border.
Not to mention the services rendered by Colonol Curtz.

Oh No Not "Apocalypse Now"!!
How could you include that as a source ..
Oh Shame..:tsk:

The "Ho Chi Minh trail" was a huge complex of paths running from North to South through Laos/Cambodia. It was never fully closed of due to its overall complexity.
That is why supplies were never stopped.

As far as one being jungle and the other hill tops has fundamentally little to do with the philosophy of operation and the resulting outcomes.
There is more to the Vietnam operation/conflict that most here can be bothered to deal with. It is complex and not just a smattering of what most here seem to put forth.

Swat, Buner and Dir have in essence just begun. You still have the Waziristans to go as well as any thing left behind.

The jury is still out with your operation so it is not significantly correct to compare it to Vietnam yet.
Time, your media, your politicians will tell the real story.. give it time.
 
The Vitnam was a compleetely different scenario. It was a rainforest war rather than a hill top battle. Moreever PA has successfully disrupted and secured all the suplly lines of the miscreants which the US in veitnam failed to have controll over the Golong Bridge at the Combodian border.
Not to mention the services rendered by Colonol Curtz
.

im sorry cant resist it!
sniffing too much of the nitrogen are you!:rofl:

we r in a real war not a hollywood movie - young officers and jawans are giving their lives for the country - millions are uprooted!
 
Here ya' go, laddie. Your orders await you.:lol::usflag: Straight from the CIA. Substitute Mehsud for Kurtz and you can go play war just like they do in the movies, Cpt. Willard/H2O3C4Nitrogen-

 
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S-2 Stop that it will just boost his infertile imagination. :tsk:

Next we will be getting outpouring based on “The Green Berets”..
:rofl:
 
To continue with the discussion of a Vietnam analogy, I think that the one comparison that PA and GOP do not want is that of the events after the Tet offensive.

When Giap launched his grand attacks, the American army, it is said by respected historians, was at the end of its tether. Tet broke the proverbial camel's back and, sometime later, the Americans gave in and got out.

Fast forward 30 years and it turns out that the Vietminh were equally shattered by their own grand assault. 'All' that the US establishment had to do was to retain the will to hold on and North Vietnam was more or less spent. US would have won that war. Or so goes the current interpretation. revisionist history? I dunno. Regardless, my point is that willpower is going to be decisive; who can hold out the longest?

Another related point; comparisons to Vietnam and US Army failures there are alright, but most people tend to forget the intense soul searching that the US army did post Vietnam. I'm an outsider but it seems to me that, unless the game changes completely, the American establishment is not going to let go, far less the US Army, if only because they remember Vietnam and remember it well. Most people underestimate the American's capability to reinvent themselves.

America often blunders in her dealings with the rest of the world; she comes across as arrogant; she can be naive - but these are failings of all superpowers since the Roman Empire.

In the end, never underestimate American grit. And the amazing, undiluted, in your face, focus of the average American. I have seen this for myself and learnt to appreciate it.
Giap was actually against the 1968 Tet Offensive, he felt that neither the NVA and the Viet Cong were ready to make a direct frontal assault on the US/ARVN forces. Such battles are called 'set piece' battles.

Set piece - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In warfare, a set piece battle may involve large formations moving according to a plan and responding to the opposing force also by plan. An example might be the Schlieffen Plan
Giap was never a success at such battles, even when he was fighting against the French forces in North Viet Nam. The Politburo overruled Giap's objections because they were under the belief that with embedded Viet Cong forces among the South Vietnamese population the people would rally to communist cause and rebel.

Hue Massacre
What triggered the Communist slaughter? Many Hue citizens believe that the execution orders came directly from Ho Chi Minh. More likely, however, the Communists simply lost their nerve. They had been led to expect that many South Vietnamese would rally to their cause during the Tet onslaught. That did not happen, and when the battle for Hue began turning in the allies' favor, the Communists apparently panicked and killed off their prisoners.
Hue was not the only population center, major or minor, that suffered communist atrocities. After the offensive and the NVA repelled, the Viet Cong became the persecuted. Who once were their sympathizers became their enemies as attested by former Viet Congs, such as this man...

Amazon.com: A Vietcong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath: Truong Nhu Tang: Books

Even the NVA's chief propagandist became disillusioned...

Amazon.com: Following Ho Chi Minh: The Memoirs of a North Vietnamese Colonel: Bui Tin: Books

Colonel Bui Tin was the man who accepted South Viet Nam's surrender. Here are Bui Tin's comments about the Tet Offensive...
Chapter 3 War

In fact, the Tet Offensive launched on January 31, 1968, turned out to be a great victory for us, at least psychologically. Playing on the arrogance of the American commander, General Westmoreland, we achieved total surprise with a smart and bold move to launch simultaneous attacks on more than forty cities, towns and military bases; the targets included the US embassy in Saigon. Thanks to the media, which exaggerated the damage caused by this offensive, the American public was bedazzled, and under strong pressure the US administration had to agree to negotiations in Paris with the participation of the NLFSVN (National Liberation Front of South Vietnam) which it thus implicitly recognised. At about the same time it began the process of de-escalation leading to the Vietnamisation of the war.

On the other hand, during the Tet Offensive we suffered heavy sacrifices and made many military mistakes, the consequences of which continue to be debated in Hanoi. For example in Saigon we planned to create a 'big bang' by occupying the US embassy plus the Presidential Palace and taking over Saigon Radio, but none of these objectives succeeded. In fact, of the two groups sent with pre-recorded tapes to put on the radio, one lost its way and the other was attacked and capture en route. Then there was the situation in Hue where the fighting continued for well over a month and resulted in the massacre of thousands of people. Quite how many thousands nobody knows because they were buried in various places. Possibly it was the biggest massacre of the war, bigger than My Lai about which the Americans have been so obsessed. So who was responsible? Was it General Tran Van Quang who was in charge of our forces in this military region at the time? Or were the Americans partly to blame because of their fighting tactics? These are questions I have often asked because I have a personal interest. I spent nine years of my life, from the age of seven, going to school and growing up in Hue from where many of my friends and classmates later disappeared.
Where the Viet Cong were once able to wield battalion level attacks, after Tet 1968 they rarely came together enough above squad level. North Viet Nam's Politburo and the NVA's top leadership, other than Giap, overestimated their military capabilities and underestimated South Viet Nam's hostility towards communism, even though the Southerners have no love for their government.

Further evidence of Giap's incompetence at battles other than guerrilla tactics is the Easter Offensive...

Easter Offensive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

By this time, the process called 'Vietnamization' of the war was well in progress with the only active major US military branch was the USAF. Although the NVA gained valuable grounds, Giap failed to decisively defeat the ARVN and the war continued until 1975, when the US Congress decided to stop funding the war. In other words, had the US continued to be resolute in material and air support, South Viet Nam would have hold. Keep in mind that throughout the entire civil war, from military objectives to negotiations, the goal for the US/SVN political alliance was always about partition, not unification, so since the US was now largely out of the ground war by 1972 under 'Vietnamization', South Viet Nam was no longer politically restrained to below the 17th parallel and could have invade North Viet Nam. South Viet Nam held for three years with only US air support is proof that the ARVN was becoming more professional and competent at prosecuting the war. This fact is always conveniently omitted in many discussions about the Vietnam War and is supported by an admission from North Viet Nam...

Why the latest good news from Iraq doesn't matter. - By Phillip Carter - Slate Magazine
In 1975, Army Col. Harry Summers went to Hanoi as chief of the U.S. delegation's negotiation team for the four-party military talks that followed the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. While there, he spent some time chatting with his North Vietnamese counterpart, Col. Tu, an old soldier who had fought against the United States and lived to tell his tale. With a tinge of bitterness about the war's outcome, Summers told Tu, "You know, you never defeated us on the battlefield." Tu replied, in a phrase that perfectly captured the American misunderstanding of the Vietnam War, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant."
War is first a political event and secondly supported by military successes. If there are negotiations regarding any possible outcomes of the conflict, the more military successes there are to one side the greater leverage that side has at the negotiation tables. Unfortunately, the Vietnam War was contrary to conventional military wisdom and that have been the source of US military angst since 1975 up to Desert Storm.

There are critical differences between Vietnam/Afghanistan(Soviet invasion) and Swat today.

1. In both Vietnam and Afghanistan you had 'invaders', with the support of locals, acting against other locals (supported by other foreigners).
The US involvement in Indochina, before 'The Vietnam War' and during, was never that of colonial interests, hence not as an 'invader'. By the time the US was fully militarily engaged, there were two distinct political entities in Viet Nam -- North and South. Each side has its own government, currency, economic system and even foreign relations.

Not only that, BOTH sides had considered full UN memberships...

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76ve14p1/media/pdf/d74.pdf
Hanoi and Saigon are withholding their applications for UN membership until they can determine whether the US will veto them. Meanwhile, the US has suggested that membership for the Vietnams be linked to admission of both Koreas, and Seoul is pressing Washington to demand that solution.

Hanoi Changes lts Mind. Until recently, the position of Hanoi, which first applied for UN membership in 1946, had been that national reunification must be completed before entry into the UN. In late May, however, representatives of both North and South Vietnam in Paris appealed to Secretary-General Waldheim to take soundings on the possibility of full UN membership for the DRV (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and the PRGSV (Provisional Revolutionary Government of South Vietnam). (The DRV and the PRG are already members of the WHO and the WMO.)
The UN does not recognize as full members factions that are in a civil war trying to gain control of a territory through bloody means. The consideration of such an application implied that North Viet Nam, China and the Soviet Union were at one time resigned to the possibility of an even greater political partition in Indochina than that of the two Koreas. So if there is going to be a charge levied that the US was an 'invader' in Viet Nam, it begs the question of who is the victim and what are the motives for the US?

If you wish to continue discussing this subject, knowing the penchant of many pop US critics regarding the Vietnam War to call anyone who disagree with popular perceptions about the war as 'ignorant' or 'naive', I will be fair in warning you (or anyone else) that you will be debating this subject with a Viet. I was born in Saigon, South Viet Nam in 1963. I have memories of the 1968 Tet Offensive. My family fled communism first back 1951, before the famine of the disastrous communist imposed land reform of the mid-1950s, and finally in Apr 1975. I am the product of the Vietnam War. I know what I am talking about and can call upon many resources to support my arguments.
 
Oh No Not "Apocalypse Now"!!
How could you include that as a source ..
Oh Shame..
I am not using it as a source. Just to draw your attention on a great movie being made on the vietnam war. The marlin brandos one of the best performance. The best part was when brando reads out the poem of T.S ELLIOT.

The Hollow Men

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats’ feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us—if at all—not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.

II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death’s dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death’s dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat’s coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer—

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom

III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man’s hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.

IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.

V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper


 
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The US involvement in Indochina, before 'The Vietnam War' and during, was never that of colonial interests, hence not as an 'invader'.

Whatever the US 'interests' were, my point is that you had 'outsiders' fighting directly, and/or aiding various factions overtly and covertly.

The 'outsiders' changes the dynamics quite a bit IMO, and is a very sensitive issue WRT to the operations in Pakistan, hence my points above.
 
Whatever the US 'interests' were, my point is that you had 'outsiders' fighting directly, and/or aiding various factions overtly and covertly.

The 'outsiders' changes the dynamics quite a bit IMO, and is a very sensitive issue WRT to the operations in Pakistan, hence my points above.
You cannot so cavalierly dismiss these 'interests' as they are motivations and intents for an 'invasion'. France controlled Indochina for over one hundred years, Indochina was Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam. This is what US President Roosevelt said about the matter...

A. Roosevelt's Trusteeship Concept - Wikisource
I saw Halifax last week and told him quite frankly that it was perfectly true that I had, for over a year, expressed the opinion that Indo-China should not go back to France but that it should be administered by an international trusteeship. France has had the country-thirty million inhabitants for nearly one hundred years, and the people are worse off than they were at the beginning.

As a matter of interest, I am wholeheartedly supported in this view by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and by Marshal Stalin. I see no reason to play in with the British Foreign Office in this matter. The only reason they seem to oppose it is that they fear the effect it would have on their own possessions and those of the Dutch. They have never liked the idea of trusteeship because it is, in some instances, aimed at future independence. This is true in the case of Indo-China.

Each case must, of course, stand on its own feet, but the case of IndoChina is perfectly clear. France has milked it for one hundred years. The people of Indo-China are entitled to something better than that.
The US intentions for post WW II Indochina was UN trusteeship towards full independence. Roosevelt died and Cold War necessities compelled Truman to lead the US into reluctant support for France's return to Viet Nam.

Lest anyone thinks that only the US exercised Cold War expediencies, they are severely mistaken. Faced between China and France, North Viet Nam's communist leader Ho Chi Minh would rather take France...

The Battered Kite
Ho Chi Minh had considered it better to eat French sh!t for five years than Chinese sh!t for the rest of his life.
The Viet Minh welcomed France back into Viet Nam, not as a returning colonial master but as liberators. The Viet Minh then used France's support to violently oppress political oppositions to communism in North Viet Nam. Ho Chi Minh had even considered a limited partnership under French sovereignty, much like Puerto Rico and the US...

Ho Sainteny agreement - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Ho Sainteny agreement was an agreement made March 6, 1946 between Ho Chi Minh, President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, and Jean Sainteny, Special Envoy of France. It recognized Vietnam as a "Free State" within the French Union, and permitted France to continue stationing troops in North Vietnam until 1951.
The communists, once all major political oppositions in North Viet Nam killed off leaving only minor figures, turned against France with China and Soviet Union sponsorships. The lower half of Viet Nam have always been more 'Western' than agricultural North, became France's and political dissidents' refuge and so began 'The Viet Nam War'.

Interests create labels. Military adventures cannot exist unless there is a political foundation for them. What was the political foundation for the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan? Based upon known US sentiments for Indochina, what was the political foundation, if any, for US involvement in Viet Nam? Ignorance of history, willful or otherwise, inevitably create false labels and false understandings of a particular affair.
 
You cannot so cavalierly dismiss these 'interests' as they are motivations and intents for an 'invasion'.
Yes I can, since it was not my intention to discuss US or anyone elses 'interests' in Vietnam - it was to merely point out that 'outsiders' were fighting and supporting various factions fighting in Vietnam and Afghanistan and that in my opinion complicates and destabilizes the situation even more.

I contrasted that with the situation in Swat, and argued why that made the two environments different and incomparable, and why the Pakistani decision to not allow the US or any other Western nation to expand its footprint in Pakistan is a wise one.

One major reason behind the rather slow, 'stop & go' movement by the GoP in FATA and the NWFP has also been the desire to not turn the PA into an 'outsider' any more than it already is, by turning a religious insurgency into a nationalistic one. Thus the attempts to achieve a local and national consensus on whatever actions are deemed necessary - a point seemingly lost on many in the West, who perceive Pakistani efforts as 'not fighting to win', a completely shallow and erroneous conclusion.
 
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