No, because there is no way to "finish" something like that. Understand that by "something like that" I mean a situation in which:

1) The enemy is fighting for a cause it believes in with complete and total determination;
2) The enemy has far more at stake in the war than we do, and is willing to take lopsided casualties as long as necessary to win; and
3) As a result, the only way to finally win the war is to literally exterminate the enemy -- genocide.

Look, the Vietnamese had been fighting for their independence for almost 100 years by the time they finally won it. In the American phase of the war, they took 10-1 casualties (or worse) year after year, battle after battle, as well as having their cities and civilian populations slaughtered from the air by carpet-bombing. And they showed every willingness to go on doing so. It was their country, and they wanted its independence from foreign rule. The U.S., on the other hand, had nothing at stake in Vietnam except a delusion, and because of this we were (quite rightly!) unwilling to take even the relatively light casualties were were taking for very long. And in fact, we would have had to go on taking them forever -- until we left.

The only way we could have "won" the war in Vietnam would have been to literally exterminate the Vietnamese, probably using nuclear weapons. Since we were unwilling to do anything that abominable, our defeat was guaranteed.

We face very much the same sort of situation in Iraq. Our military capability is far greater than that of the insurgents, but it was in Vietnam, too. We inflict lopsided casualties on the enemy, but we did in Vietnam, too. We win every engagement -- but we did in Vietnam, too. And the enemy just keeps coming and keeps coming and will keep coming forever, until we leave. Just as it did in Vietnam.

There is no victory against an enemy that determined. All you can do is delay defeat. Now -- if we were defending our own homeland, it would be different. Then, our determination would probably exceed the enemy's. But when there isn't any good reason for us to be there in the first place, we lack the will, we're unable to go on taking casualties forever, and rightly so.

Some jobs cannot be finished, and the only way to avoid catastrophy is not to start them.

No, Cambodia's oil revenue is yet to come. Their current economic growth is based on manufacturing (garments), other natural resources not consumed domestically and tourism.

Sure we sell our oil. There just isn't enough left to make any difference in imports due to our highest in the world consumption rate. Do you understand that even if ANWR (6B/barrels) and the Caribbean Coast (10B/barrels) were pumped dry it would supply the current rate of US consumption for only two years? There's still far cheaper production oil available than those areas. Even if more oil was pumped it would only benefit publicly subsidized oil interests and a tiny number of citizens as pricing is determined by global commodity markets. You could always favor the Chavez method, nationalize it and provide cheap gas for the public until, like Venezuela, it's gone. Then what?

We already put billions of taxpayer dollars into politicians pockets through special interests. What's the difference in that instance between Cambodia and the US? That Cambodia bypasses the lobbyists?

Yes, they have become tremendously successful in terms of economic growth and also in terms of healing after being the subject of brutal american aggression.

It is easily correlated to the US leaving because the US left the 'enemy' in power and the 'enemy' in power are the ones responsible for the success.

Had the US stayed the guerrilla war never would have ended, the nations economy never would have recovered, and the healing after being subject to the horrendous atrocities america committed in Vietnam would never have begun - until america left.

Andrew

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But how much did america's interference in Vietnam have to do with what happened in Cambodia? How many bombs did america drop on Cambodia? (539,129 tons, three times more explosives than were dropped on Japan during World War II). The Khmer Rouge was a direct result of this bombing campaign.

Cambodian Recent History and Contemporary Society: An Introductory Course

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

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A becoming repetitious US story with Iraq now in the spotlight under the exact same circumstances. With the US out of Iraq investment capital for their oil industry would pour in so quick their now destitute standard of living would be completely reversed in three years.

Probably.

Andrew

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Ethanol is a fabulous solution to our energy dilemma because it will provide more fuel for us to drive around and look for food.

-- Unknown

Isnt an unending war better than the alternative? Mass murder of civilians?

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An unending war is mass murder of civilians.
When the war ends, the mass murder of civilians ends shortly thereafter.
At least that's the way it's always worked in the real world.

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What Goober said. A lot more civilian Vietnamese were killed by U.S. soldiers and bombers during the years of the war than were killed afterwards by the Vietnamese government. If the war had gone on indefinitely, that total would be astronomical by now.

In recent years, the U.S. has been far too ready to go to war. War not only kills people and destroys things, but it's also inimical to liberty. In wartime, a people compromises liberty, sacrificing rights and freedoms that we would never give up in peacetime. Perpetual war means tyranny.

Have you ever read Orwell's 1984?

Yes, their growth has been even more impressive than China's, in some ways.

No, it can be correlated to marketization in the 1980s. Whether or not the reforms or some version of them would have happened had with a permanent had the US not left is debateable. The only thing that can be said with any sort of certainty is that whatever resulted would likely not look the same as Vietnam as it presently exists.

I agree with global market expansion being the primary reason for Vietnam's economic growth but disagree with your somewhat nebulous opinion on the issue of would that change have occured with ongoing US attempts at conquering Vietnam. Vietnam had already fought for 100-years and I don't feel it would ever have been conquered by the US without killing every last Vietnamese person. Like Iraq, capital investment would have avoided Vietnam without predictable civil order.

Can you quote me some numbers to back that up? How many civilians were killed in US bombing. How many were killed after the war?

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Wiki has a decent article in Vietnam War deaths in general, Vietnamese and American.

Vietnam War casualties - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The important figure is for total war dead, but I'll isolate bombing dead in a moment.

And for Operation Rolling Thunder in the north:

The Pentagon estimates 15,000 civilians killed, and a total of 171,500 killed in the "Cease-Fire War" that resulted in the final victory of Hanoi. I've found estimates of 65,000 Vietnamese executed for political reasons after the war, I'm not sure how accurate those are. I cannot find a good toll of accidental deaths of "boat people," nor of deaths in reeducation camps (that the death toll in those camps was not high, is generally agreed, and all of the prisoners were released in 1978, so that they spent a maximum of 3 years). The term "the killing fields" refers to Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, not to Vietnam; the Khmer Rouge were so awful that Vietnam actually invaded the country in 1978 to topple them.

Including the civilian war casualties and the executions, and fudging upward a bit for those unaccounted for, I think an estimated 100,000 civilian deaths would not be unreasonable, almost all of them in the first few years after the war ended.

You didnt answer the question. This is what you said:

According to your numbers, as many as 100,000 civilian vietnamese were killed by the US military. As you stated and the various sources show, after the war 65,000 were shot out of hand, as many as 250,000 died in reducation camps, thousands died fleeing, and though you tried to duck it, Cambodia is directly related. North Vietnam and the Khemer Rouge worked together during th war to attempt to control both countries. When the US left, the Khemer Rouge was unable to be stopped and democracy changed to communism, and millions were murdered. Now, militarily, we had won in vietnam. This means that most likely had we reinforced our position instead of retreating, the civilians deaths would have dropped precipiticely. This is where Iraq might draw a stunning parrallel. Only a year ago, we faced the same issue. Iraq nearing a civil war, politicians pressing the US to retreat. Instead of walking, we surged forward and decimated the enemy.

Point being, I would check your facts before making assumptions. Its obvious many times more civilians died as a result of the US leaving vietnam, not to mention the quality of life for those who survived, and the effect it had on the surrounding countries, plus the waste of american lives.

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Elminate all taxes on income and replace with a national sales tax.

Regardless of how I worded it, if you want to actually understand what went on as opposed to playing "gotcha," the important consideration is how many Vietnamese were killed during the war, because of the American presence. Remember, we are not trying to indict the U.S. for war crimes here, but rather to analyze the consequences of the U.S. departure. Thus, any Vietnamese deaths that resulted from the U.S. troops being there, whether killed by Americans or by the Vietnamese themselves, should count on one side of the equation, and those killed after the American departure by the Vietnamese government on the other. What's more, we must somehow project the Vietnamese war deaths into an indefinite future, resulting in a much higher toll than actually occurred.

And finally, we must ask ourselves how many of the Vietnamese who were executed by the government or died accidentally while trying to flee would have lived if the country had been unified in 1946 or 1956, or even 1965, rather than in 1975.

While some of these questions are difficult to answer, it is very easy to see that the death toll, even if we only count actual as opposed to potential deaths, is far higher due to U.S. intervention.

As for the Khmer Rouge, it is completely incorrect to tie what they did in with the Vietnamese when trying to answer this question. The two groups were allies in the war; the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II; does that make the U.S. responsible for Stalin's terror? The fact that Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 to overthrow the Khmer Rouge and put a stop to the slaughter speaks rather loudly to this question.

Also, we must ask ourselves whether the Khmer Rouge would even have existed absent U.S. intervention in the war.