The Vietnam War: Reasons for Failure - Why the U.S. Lost

goodnow america's longest war

its most costly war

its first military the treaty and as
well as nightmares national problem

people spell often what went wrong

how it applied to the u_s_ get involved

with vietnam a tragic mistake as
liberals crying

did the u_s_ lose because of
self-imposed constraints as

conservatives crying

could we have won the war quijote
unleashed a military machine

and bond the north vietnamese back to
the stone age what was the cost of

vietnam the human cost the political
cost

the economic cost about

united states and the vietnamese

one person who have been researching
these questions for over ten years is

william gibson we've just published a
book the perfect war

techno war in vietnam with atlantic
monthly press

though is a graduate of the university
of texas where he did his undergraduate

work

and he got his p_h_d_ at yale university

and is now a professor of sociology at
southern methodist university and

dollars and we're very pleased to have
you with us today

alternatives built a discussion of
vietnam dot

this is an incredible book

erbil

uh...

you have

read a lot about vietnam or if you have
never read anything about vietnam

this is the one you should read

because uh... it shows

the picture from the top from the bottom

and it gives a explanation this to what
really happened there and quite things

happen

usually come back what kind of empty
feeling unwell frustration or not really

knowing that you

after reading your book yet you
understand him

incredible and i were thinking and you
got the emotional feeling the impact

as well as what was happening in the
mind

an incredible stories like hell

the north vietnamese were able to

bring down american justice by lying on
the back and firing forty-five rifles

weapons but i'm getting out of the story
doesn't know what they did and i talking

about that in your opinion is
distinctive about

the vietnam war what about that brought
about u_s_ involvement in this bill

clinton adventure

the most distinctive features of the
vietnam war

but it was the first warren modern times

to be taught from a managerial jisme
perspective

during world war two u_s_ industry may
domestic contribution to the war african

american military man and political
leaders

fully appreciated that effort

during world war two the military
partially adopted a business model

organization put their supply operation

after world war two they began to think
of combat

there's also a production process

the option of core racine otters
gladiator heroes who were meeting in

combat but is a poor managers

internally enlisted men

we're no longer the citizens of the
nation but they were workers

managers and workers that worked on the
production line to produce deaths

and the product and was in the body
counts

so just in american society st
supposedly

was high technology

capital-intensive business

so too it we fight wars

is high-technology capital-intensive
work there

we would be able to drive the other side
bankrupt

so if this production model of war or
what i call techno war

that distinguishes

at a primary structural level

vietnam

from other warfare

and will bend and uh... in this way we
couldn't lose because we were fighting

and ball underdeveloped uncritical

third world country

look has inspected

exactly from an american perspective

the only thing that counts in warfare

is technology in economics

welcome your economy and how you
translate our economy into your military

dead week it was impossible for us to
loosen theoretically impossible

who are going to develop hasn't economy

to beat the united states it just
couldn't happen

therefore

whenever we ran into a problem

in four fifty four or sixty or sixty
four

every time you asked me to do this

we always thought that if we cast
related to the next highest level we

would win it's a closed system

and there's always vietnam chosen at the
start

for the first

etna war

uh... there's no

stork will resume

for vietnam it was really vietnam as a
country as a people as a culture didn't

really matter to the americans

so there was nothing about

about the country per se

to make despite their

it was certainly the time winner of this
whole apparatus of warfare was

developing

vis-a-vis the time and

situation in vietnam

was deteriorating from an american
perspective

techno war or

this this production model of war got
its big push in the fifties

because after world war two when we had
to hydrogen bomb atomic bomb newsletter

the hydrogen bomb the russians didn't

it seemed clear restaurant mastery of
the world was just unsurpassed we could

not be challenged

between the russians had the bomb we
were in a situation of potentially

mutual destruction where they could
destroy our industrial apparatus

then this may be americans feel good but

so the question came as how can we
develop our form of warfare

too

into exercise our power in the world

without threatening

nuclear war

in the idea developed by doctor henry
kissinger

it with the time was a professor of
political science at harvard we what's

called limited before

and the idea was because our economy was
so big and powerful

we could have guns and butter butter
m_t_v_'s in popcorn in drive-ins

poured hula hoops for the americans at
home

event

limited war

for an indefinite period of time that
they were all because we were so much

richer we we just got the other side
bankrupt and there was a period where

it's certainly guerrilla movements of
the national liberation

lives were allegedly said cuban
revolution

in nineteen fifty nine a network

third-world revolutionary movement to
outline of the western the opposite side

of the french and british empire could
deteriorate worldwide sitting behind yet

not a classic case of the vietnam have
been a french colony will prolong

crosses a revolt

soviet noticeably it was ready we had
our theory

for limited war we had our apparatus in
place

at the time vietnam's was uh...

well by the time difference had been
thrown out

can you give us a brief at history

uh... vietnam a nurse

scrabble burst into chinese and the
french et cetera leading up to american

intervention

certainly the word vietnam initially
came seventeen newman yet

and it was a uh...

uh...

part of china that

weaponry break off it's like chinese
immigrated anna quindlen pulmonary

racially-based ingrid

and tried to ukraine claim independence

chinese amperage would invade it now
hold the country for several hundred

years it is amazing

grows up riders we're booked by the
chinese after chinese within invading

colder for another fifteen hundred years
limited means would throw them out

and hold on for fifty years

this is the struggle between vietnam and
china

for vietnamese attendance went on for
hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and

hundreds of years

finally a bit

kind of vietnamese had

i repeat china

they were improbable we thought

in them because of the time of the west
was expanding

and france was looking for a way to get
the china

for the uh... spiced ratings and so on
ended up taking vietnam

so perhaps took a vietnam's economy in
the eighteen nineties

vietnamese often run against the french
were making earnings are not

they just kept on putting with the new
world war two

the communist

uh... especially headed back which you
may remember million chapin

pepto

organized better

they fought against the japanese

and then after declared their
independence in forty five

and ironically american uh...
intelligence operatives are supported

that effort

extensively

and putting them as i understand it look
at that time the united states as a

model to developers country not to the
soviet union position was that he had

paid off whatever he had tempe
ideologically otr soviet union and that

he was a free agent was not getting any
assistance

and that the american over the
declaration of independence

it stated time period this policy

there's a far better possible that a lot

at the bottom of the market's leaflet
and good at that part of the nationalist

and a democrat to some extent

so there are certainly a national osama
how much a democrat i'm not i'd i

wouldn't

prize-winner lip service there was no
values that walton trailer but certainly

an actual club and they got to be amazed
if he did the french in fifty four after

eight years of

extensive work fare stand to grow up
there

into court impressed understand

the war in vietnam was one country

if you'd be intended to be divided into
three administrators owned by the french

but work there was going on all free

when the war ended in fifty four the
country look like a checkerboard

celebration in march tom gjelten the
soviet union or some french cities held

in the south other areas held by the

uh... by the company's communist

more than seven hundred evenings this
was only checkerboard

been at the geneva peace talks in
nineteen fifty four there was a land

swap

vietnamese forces move north french
consolidated their forces in the south

awhile is drawing a provisional
administrative boundary nada national

boundary not political boundary
administrators on a boundary

the idea was the country would be
divided for two years now with the

international election two fifty six

there were no such an order uh...
elections

united states meredith

would support understand this idea of
north vietnam as a separate country

saturday's south vietnam was wrong

there was no more from south vietnam as
two separate countries

that was uh...

uh... obstet there was a checkerboard

at the end at fifty four they got they
got changed

that had happened at least out to be
getting the resistance struggle

women

the grill twenty eight fifty four

the vietcong himself

we're told to put down their guns and
that they were going to engage in

political struggle

for two years in preparation for fifty
six elections

out that became extremely dangerous

uh... dam

demand the americans printout

immediately went after and honey down
most of the communist leftist democrats

nationalist meridian and his family will
get numb pretty much a dictatorship

um...

annexed by midnight for the late fifties

the local

communist entangled miller and socialist
in democratic apparatus

was taking casualties so badly

doubt they had to renew the armed
struggle to survive

excessive bleeding and decide on
congress put pressure on the north

former communist party

to like reopen

the military front

and have a joint political and military
strategy as opposed to simply trying to

wait for international

uh...

intervention are killed by the united
nations or something

so that that's the origin of reserves to
the heart of the best response to this

day

for your response is quite simple verses
up

wearing the green berets had originally
been formed a parachute into eastern

europe

uh... after

to organize guerrilla movements in
eastern europe

cotton reformulated

ads counterinsurgency experts and they
were sent to vietnam by president

kennedy in nineteen sixty euros on
massive increase in c_i_a_ operations

the whole idea colour workday remembered

and counterinsurgency war criminal we
failed at the bay of pigs in nineteen

one sixty one

and so the idea was we must become
experts say fighting these world wars of

national liberation

and that we must have new warrior
technicians who can intervene

underdeveloped countries countries

fix things

and the green berets now were one
branches fix-it men

c_i_a_ operatives were another

various logistics people we cannot
economist

well were others

which memory

understand the class structure of
vietnam in support of rule society

most of the people of landless peasants
our own very small plots of land there

under subsistence agriculture

where a large part of the crop goes to
the landlord

asmara land owning cleverest p presents
a buddhist with practiced elements of

confucian isms well

a small and an in-class like many of
them at every p_g_ eastman north

many have been catholic

controls the nation's wealth

so

d_m_ i'm

the government d_m_ users in the army as
a mechanism to collect lips

and during the first war against the
french debit card will be distributed

the land to the peasantry

so indium came to power in fifty four
with the army

in a naked is agents of the landlord to
collect here's a bachlorette

notice intruding in total class

polarization increased one more time

adelphia cultivate part into
evolutionary perspective exactly

and then g_m_ had to use more more
repression

as a result of the dissatisfaction with
the regression internet the nurses at

the time that the get karke honors
courses felt like they had to resort or

something

so this is why you made your statement
in your book that the m had an army but

given that he was not a government

that's right knowed it was no expected
administration under the military

administration deliveries to replace all
forms of village council all forms of

intermediary powers that

any linkage to to below

were destroyed instead our loyalty was
from the potsdam

yet the american escalation didn't
really dramatically

accelerating talked again this
fascination what brought about this

dramatic

acceleration and what you call type of
work to vietnam

will be able to go on and all the other
vietnamese generals begin a power

struggle among themselves

consequently whatever government
repressive apparatus t_m_ had collapsed

desertion is increased radically

defections um... yet communist became
stronger and stronger

by sixty-four american policymakers
feared that there would be a provisional

will be revolutionary government open

provisional revolutionary government
much in the countryside

which we have lost

i mean it's good to say

u_s_ forces lost or the french lost him

forty five

we lost again in fifty four we lost
again sixty three sixty four we escalate

kenya nothing escalated and pasted eaten
not in the face of victory right

massive defeating sixty-three and
sixty-four broadband

yemeni put u_s_ ground troops

and sustained bombing of the north and
want to try to sell versace's reject why

couldn't you have to accept the decedent
has a small corner of the world

the united states has been unwilling to
deal with communism as a political

social economic movement instead if
you've seen that

we as americans are the natural beams of
the world of capitalism is the national

economic order

and i'm in our system innocently

the essence of

feeling good nursing absence of nature

therefore something very very different
from ours

is none other society within one
compares differences in extremes with

its own and so forth

but instead

intimidating presence where nature their
entire nature

or what i call the for another

during world war two

the soviet union

did take over right after world war two
did invading take over eastern europe

the red army didn't want to hold it as a
buffer zone and they didn't stop epic

dictatorships there

this became a model

all-american views of communist and
social severely cut

americans did not understand it to a
revolution they did not understand the

chinese revolution

in the forties that they were like
millions upon millions of poor peasants

who wanted land survive in a mouse a
toner

communist party offered in lance arrival
where's chiang kai-shek was a warlord

who offered and nothing

unable to see in total struggles for

uh...

socialism or communism or

while you are unable to see even in
cairo struggles for national

independence against queen elizabeth

the longest dividing to be an
interesting

and we have three guys who the bad guys
they are looking for another day trying

to move and so all forms of communism
kit

movements get scene in that

so in this incident

in particular limit in the world is not
just a particular moving up toward poor

country and it's really one hundred
poorly written on this matter

and we had uh... a little bit smith
there

is still any movement is a sign of a
global movement

there are so you know if you're poor
peasants with vietnam

that doesn't mean just that they have
little to a few more people have a few

more honest

instead that means

the before and other

monolithic machine his encroached one or
step

into each other step

the rest of the world becomes a pair of
this of course the dominant very sulekha

contagious disease sort of that sort of
like

each country having school his treatment
own culture in his own people

intercept

the world's leading to shell

i could just poured into the arson at
this time

once they get going to somehow i'm
making a stigma minimal propel cognizant

of victory

it's a billion

adequate mechanistic anticrime
initiative is a mechanistic framework of

the world make enemies

is for the other day are we doing it all
construction

but isn't that also water two sides of
this the other side of the people of

the big decision makers dave's
foreign-policy establishment retirement

looking at the world on a more realistic
basis

as uh... general maxwell taylor said in
his book we have to

keep an iron grip on the third world
country because they're poorer and they

want which is in the riches would have
to come from us

so they look at any type of victories
that unique as an he can such as in

vietnam

providing an example to other third
world countries

that if they can do it and get away with
in vietnam they can get away with it in

order to universal siddiqui vietnam's
universal sign of her

national liberation victory everywhere
defeated vietnam means that

all liberation movements will give up
their struggle

suburb given the fact that i have uh...
there is uh... that uh... that still

caught back to the united states

that have built up in the military
machine bottled water given a

mechanistic anti communism was motivated
the foreign policy decisions i have the

u_s_ foreign policy establishment and
given the clots began sake of these

government in vietnam there is almost
inevitable that u_s_ involvement would

intensify that this war was not an
accident

that is what i was not just uh... policy
mistake that was a consequence

basically u_s_ foreign policy u_s_
industrial military

uh... development since world war two
that this was a test case this is where

they

test of whether she needs dot communism
i really restriction together

i am

more than the crucial

arguments on trying to like

critique

in my book is this notion that that we
just made one mistake after another that

nobody

which really smart or breaking the bank
just sort of slipped up

you don't go to war that where you go to
work are far in advance

in sixty four oh one

johnson was making announcements about
the gulf of time canon just sort of like

i was surprised attack which

it wasn't

uh... in and early sixty five

when they were making goodness mister
naked public domain which in two

thousand more trips to vietnam

they fully expected kissing two hundred
thousand people bugging the sixty five

and another hundred sixty two and a
thousand sixty-six another hundred

thousand are sixty seven with the est
which were already there could be a

ticket happening in the end

but i had a bad it up and down towards a
plan warfare plant escalation

well let's talk about the war itself

and three others techno war actually

worked out itself in the ground in the
air by the use of helicopters the

helicopter warren search-and-destroy can
you describe the somehow they were

tonight

well not quite a bit there is general
junio

generals write books

they're kinda like academicians venita
like like to publish in order to get

poorer promoted at the hierarchy we
normally don't believe them but i think

that way but it is stripped of his death
by their actions justify their actions

are used book is called shopping the
combat engineers analysis to reinforce

military just uh... notre judgment it's
published by putnam the army

and in the first chapter

yourself that we can compare a
search-and-destroy operations in vietnam

to an assembly line

it was a pill angrily and what that
could be objectivity unlike a world war

two world war one would you have a
continuous fight going on thousands of

miles

you have a major offensive is in a
counter-offensive internal lol

in vietnam

it's back re economist backyards united
one full blast

all but i think that's the grand jury a
problem how do you just allocate your

resources given the fact that you've
already decided

to run

an actual capability

that that is bad and it is body count

search-and-destroy means that

settle somewhere between several hundred
and several thousand american soldiers

are going to search

a block of countryside

for viet cong

or north vietnamese troops

and they're going to try to engage them
in combat and of course and destroy

whatever troops or whatever supplies
they capture

imperious strategic often sick

meaning it's a way that could put the
viet cong

weaker at the moment to hunt them down

were hunters

democratic

the objective

used to cure all the enemy so fast

that we reach what's called we called
the crossover ports a general william

westmoreland st

the crossover point needs

you're killing me any faster

then they can replace their cash or
checks

like you to drive the other side
bankrupt

un saludo a high-technology without
helicopters are jet fighter bombers our

tanks

we don't put

condom up

now that's the theory

the practice of search-and-destroy often
turned out

very differently

in that part

a sickly

other factory

will decide the routine operations

and this routines we're quite visible to
the vietnamese

for example

we just didn't also didn't show up on
emails

into an area

in began

the search

instead

you had to like reconnaissance planes
had to go over it

artillery guns had to shoot smoke rounds
into the jungle into the landing zone

all the other artillery guns could side
and so they could like fire protective

artillery strikes around the landing
zone

if you really kind of unikom commander

if you see a smoke when i'm coming up in
the jungle

while you know that the americans are
getting ready to move on chat

um... a helicopter assault

there aren't that many clears out of it
clears in in nablus territory real

swamps ordinary

in jungle you can tell whether women's
own mazak

so many times the viet cong commanders

head of a very

substantial advance notice upon women
americans were going to begin operation

consulate they have a choice do we run
in height

are doing a bit

the americans we might

the secular pushed way takes the landing
zone

the second and third whereas bring in
more artillery

if you're a viet cong commander you get
out your compass in your map

you draw a circle of radius and on the
map

and that will tell you because you know
the dominican artillery hunting

five-millimeter howitzer has our two
thousand your radius

so you know that the americans will not
much broader outside the range of their

howitzers

so you can tell

where the americans are going to watch

do you run and hide dignified

this sort of thing kind of principle
goes on the it's in essence

they knew where we work but we did not
know where

they work

and they have the uh... they have been
issued a very heavy initiative

at that rate if you have to rain

so if you have the military's own
statistics

roughly three quarters of the battles in
vietnam were initiated by the economy in

the air

meaning they endorsed u_s_ forces

and can make a decision also

most battles immediately in the economy
in the a wanted them you need

they could like initiate contact him
break contact

and methods are two crucial definitions
of combat initiative

and your other statistic that only a m

to percent of the search-and-destroy
missions

did we actually

may contact uh... or original contact
with the vietnamese

so was their choice the whole time and
as i understand the soldiers themselves

on the ground they didn't like this
because they're the ones who would have

to take the casualties first

to lure the vietnamese into battle

so that then they uh... americans with
no word on the plane who worked on the

artillery

he sent out a patrolling in order to get
an ambushed

in order to market target with a smoke
rocket from the helicopter or such so

then the judge can come in and napalm in
the area in other words

you have to get ambushed

before you can find the enemy

you know when i began logan research i
had a hint

that i was going to find a very cavalier
attitude towards work an idea of

vietnamese later died

i was surprised to understand the
command attitude towards their own

saulters

but this think about it what kind of
production model organic techno war

either yes or no easiest one manager sir

we have a draft we can replace all the
calvo labor

that we loose can be replaced

and indeed it's like migrant labor force
chromosome alexei whereupon you bring an

end per year when you have heard a death
in chicago they were

qy dot well not much but a lot of our
other poor working-class

twice

the ideologues

so what

if they walk into an ambush we take some
casualties that way but they will call

in our airstrikes in colorado artillery
fire will use our technology and to do

to get the body count

sorrow in essence

the grant ritual bait

they will be sent out

on operations to being ambushed

and that not agood

wait to survive

and welfare

unites a movement

it was suicide

i was one of the worst patrols you could
ever go ahead

the purpose of it was four years walk up
on charlie and for him to hit you

and then for a hardware to wipe them out

we were used as scapegoats to find out
where they were

there was no we were

haley couldn't find charlie any other
way

so the locals around into a whole bunch
up mentally they could plastering than

it had a big body count mahendra general
gets another god damn metal in a big

promotion

uh...

let's also note again

the highest officer routinely on the
ground

during vietnam was a captain the
captain's

company commander

company had at noticed about a hundred
and forty people in it that would be at

full strength

most combat units never operate
upholstery

everyone above captains level

battalion commanders demand of kcl
commands four companies

all battalion level officers beginning
to gage commander several battalions

divisions has several regiments
abrogated

all the rest of those toppers

course for those commanders in
helicopters

trying at minimum of fifteen hundred
feet

because fifteen hundred feet is the
maximum range of the fifty caliber

machine gun when used as an antiaircraft
weapons which until the latter part of

the war

with the largest any aircraft weapon
that contact

so the managers were relatively state

in this process which is the workers

who are suffering the occupational
safety

uh... after-dinner hazards on on the
ground logistics taps

in terms of the numbers in the body
towns

did they actually uh... immunologic
succeed or where the costs greater than

the benefit even in terms of the logic

travel

things happened

for one

all the american commanders in
helicopters communicated in uncommitted

english

to their subordinate officers of ground
troops

the common in the a

were able to buy

american radios in the black market
capture others they routinely

listening to all the orders

there are many stories

keyboard appear calm hearing american
orders from him

taking actions to circumvent

the share arrogance of

nowhere in my helicopters we have all
the stuff we don't have to attempt

unit to pay attention to her in the and
end up costing american life span so

that part

didn't work

army took

within a year so by late sixty six or so

economy in the idea of how long it was
going to take an american air strike to

get there

sometimes they can make a terrible
miscalculation get caught up in open

but in the state

in the commander

it could

make a resort judgment how long he can
stay in combat before he had to run like

hell

because the uh... air force of again
look at the hearings are going to have

to come and go after him

so a lot of times

embassies would be quite brief community
would break off contact

well we've mentioned body count a couple
of times let's get into that kind of

whole framework of corruption and lies

and cover-ups that are curtail it's
simple portland

without so far

successor worst trillion anybody can

escrito try driving oversight bankrupt

and his presume that

uh... we humans does our was just on the
gentleman that night

your tenants are captain time and your
captain kirk company commander sailor

you're under pressure

under pressure to produce a body
captains of carmel semicolon battalion

commander if i don't leave my quota

my career's over with

obvi relieved of command if you really
the combat command

then you're going to take it

but the hierarchy

is is gone

saga squeeze you

and back in some units

it kind of where the informal rule was
if you don't meet your body count quota

and we're going to like they're not
going up to steal we'll just need your

help bring small ammount somewhat kuchma
water but don't expect you know you've

got like produced goods

and unify came back without a body count
or at least prisoner

and and get my hands to

so i kept the patrol out

like talk to uh...

leading to many soldiers who were
wounded they're the ones i saw in japan

and they told me that some units were
given a quota for the week

and if they didn't get it

but they were just sent right back out
again

uh... you're under pressure we severe
severe pressure

would you do

well you can do several things

one you can just to get a bike

you can just add up in the air just like
a a

say call up and have elected everyone in
your unit

kioto your entire class there you two
para frame sixteen for about uh... for

many common admit it

and i'll call up on the radio in the
report that i have a your body count of

thirty

articulate five or something like that

so you get in touch with a communal
company chambers

um... you call an air strike in calling
artillery strike

and the charming you nearby

um...

in you actually having kids when you
find too many bodies

well you know

needed it

if you've got to bodies and you've got
three different units

artillery air

in a country of ours

who is going to get the credit

what if you don't give credit to the
artillery

what do you think might happen

what did he say you fired that munis

does that sound like a large palestinian
artillery commanders dry giving support

to unite become sligo path that m around
how those air force pilots might have to

have a an inaugural solitude

it in your interest

to reward everyone inserts everyone is
under the same system everyone reads

body count

well sure

we give you fifty air force we give you
fifteen gunships we give you get the

autoimmune we on the ground

uh...

i've got

five bodies and i've got five rifles
were counting truck was a five persons

killed so i guess is twenty five

and while we were outstanding around
with continuing coverage

out i beg your pardon tim graves

or count them too

um...

everybody park in body parts a we fine
on my leg injury because sometimes

really whitman air strikes a deal yet
you can blow people smithereens unlike

the warm everywhere everyone is nice
discrete data yeah anne-marie award

it's quiet

there are stories of poor people from
different units had the fight over arms

and legs

to determine who is going to get the
kill cal

pregnant

and of course they got the getting more
pernicious because

they would slaughter vietnamese
civilians and include emini

children women all people include them
as part of the body count

who should get clear on on asking about

in some areas of the war whimper u_s_
forces were fighting uniform north

vietnamese troops

too many civilian casualties

a whole a whole lot of vietnam battles
occurred wait inside the country

where there were the economy a card and
the villagers were off will very much

the same people

went home search and destroy the nations
little-known stuckey limiting the moon

solely

killed everybody

he's happy to be

standing alongside officer

on the radio man said wexler we've got
some children rounded up what do you

want to do it

coming officer says god damn it bring in
a lot to do it and kill the bastards

you ain't got to god damn balls to kill
a marine i'll come down killed a bunch

of myself

marine said yes sir

and hung up the phone

at about two or three minutes later i
heard a lot of automatic fire

and a lot of

children screaming

hired babies crying

angered children

scream in her life

search-and-destroy we support whereas if
you say you

new units burned down villages routinely

um... continue going to be a legendary
again

and

you see the brokers there's only one in
vietnam had about providing it

you here in orange maybe maybe screaming
try get somebody out there that maybe

you just rather than a million

uh... more people start to wet away from
you

and well if they weren't community must
be ready

and so you shoot them in central running
becomes a sign of anatomy

we've been out for about three hours

and i'm really haven't seen anything was
too hot

but then i saw this figure of black
pajamas running along up and he died

about three hundred meters ahead

and to the left a flow how you know i
got what i mean i hollered ten o'clock

even mine

man i a matter of the warning to halt to
regulations

don't lie dont lie

so i got to learn me

squeezed the trigger

blackmun trying like a piece of paper
and augusta win

chlorine got stomped morgan shouted

not shot dead natasha nukem

when you reach the body and that's a
corp space up with my boot

the long run

uh... picked five to sixty

meanwhile he says

stupid goog

when she ran for

uh... we were run

and a free-fire zone

and we saw women a woman and child
running across them that captain says

well they're they're they're running

well free-fire zone

they're running the wrong and they're
the enemy

so he shot him

polls club opened up on

the next morning we went out

and we could see the cap of the child

that was bloody

and you can see where the mother dragged
a child away

prove separate they're afraid

they're trying to survive

and desperate situation but under high
pressure to produce a body count

so yes we got into sustained slaughter

uh...

it means

villagers

you go through the work in a man's hands

energy

if he's a true farmer he has campuses

any pisa grew up

he really fake farmer he doesn't see you
go when you look at the hands of those

if he doesn't have enough calluses when
you called in the way he seemed to

interrogation center

would you look at the ankles

a man he was a guerilla he must be and
when that dana julian is any causal

scratch where these are finally when you
have something scratches so people will

go american soldiers will go and look at

ankles

work is going to be actually a problem
identified about nine months time to get

much sleep

so you can answer those are your eyes

so u_s_ soldiers are going to look into
the act

of the vietnamese and try to send him an
incoming banks they hadn't been

convention did he get hauled off

when people in our country

it was not our culture

would not speak the language

imbaba netware looking at war

language culture history class structure
this matter student didn't matter what

matters we had the hollywood minute
didn't

well is that

part of a helicopter gunship we had a
rule

about the use of the day steve actually
met anyone taking dated action to be

fired upon

major explains why

or even what was going to know where
there is one answer that i recall where

we flew over a large rice paddy

and there were some people down they're
working on the rice paddy maybe dozens

fifteen individuals

and we passed over their heads

but in taking action who would you tell
the remembers

amarendra hyder anything

so we are covered by just a few feet off
the ground among about two helicopters

return on our police sirens and
eliminated at least fighters they

started to disperse

instantly open up on this channel nine

when i was six thirty in the evening

and uh... still daylight and they said
there was some greasy out there in the

call on us

so we fired out there until all seven of
them

wentworth comes back to us we killed
seven rice farmers care in their homes

they're trying to make it back to the
village

seaweed set up to this uh... cook for
you

six p_m_ to six a_m_

himself

he was up to them to be out of here by
that time

pale they didn't carry any wrist watches
they didn't have any idea what i mean a

lot

so yes

people got home away from traditional
never came back

uh...

really villagers were brought into the
ground

and blown up

and yes

meaning it means

men women children

chickens water buffalo

pigs complex

often who will care often times you into
village destroyed right shot everything

hamburger crops across and alcohol use

lieutenant and houses

the only you know for people who treat
you right when you walk through that

billy jean do you hate

you know they can be that's not even if
they can be read they won't say nothing

to eat

and we expect him to run out the welcome
those like at world war two type of

stuff you know how do you do you know i
havnt

seems we step outside the door leads the
captain radios them

where under heavy contact

and right away who who spent on jetstar
come in and dropping them five

hundred-pound bombs the whole villages
were leveled

and we go into the next election

and that is search and destroyed

all this was like a part of what you
call the miracle worker

it's essentially

if it's getting to get a new jersey city

in which hope

when it is just orange hat documents
call rules and gatien's they're supposed

to specify when you can open up by when
you can't on civilians bother anyone

used match at all new

instead of other kind of rules have to
let me say that they were under any okay

at but the job that was one looks
unusual containing the emmys wearing

black

uh... the heart was the enemy course all
peasants

that more that international address

soto all kinds of the state rules that
supposedly distinguish b imprint compo

the army's rules were wrong in that we
just didn't know the culture they were

kind of like fabrications that americans
invaded

to try to make themselves feel
legitimate

about who got shot

you know but honestly

people saw through this and said look

we listened to practices in the urban
google disability and he's just bc

immediate means wish you were talking
about

insulting

but also the factor of racism through
like sudden death how much they would

have done that they've been fighting
turbo ites probably much less

course for a chance to go to slopes
planted tank

one definition of the day vietnamese was

their leaders

if they've been napalm they were called
crispy critters

and made one minor went

when we killed a pregnant woman

we can do is to bc

one soldier

and one cadet

now what you do is you know with all the
friendly smith friendly vietnamese onto

ships

and taken out to the south china sea

and then you bomb the country flag

he asleep issued

i'd like to burn the whole country down

and then start again with americans

bombed the schools and churches bombed
iraq steals tuning

showed the children in the courtyard is
just what napalm candy too

strafed apana kill the people dropped
napalm and the square

and get out early ever sunday n ketchum
at the morning in prayer

broke and it to the are being gather
them all around they keep writing

millimeter canon and mold the bastards
and down

there's also

capped a certain

sadism

not only in soldiers on the field but
also intelligence people

people who would

collective years and

fingers and even heads and even
intelligence people with with admit that

they really got off to beating up

the uh...

people they were interrogating

if you don't get nice

bud thrill to do it

when you look for some reason i wore
them once

many had made valiant efforts to try to
talk about

the covers a lot of some sort of warfare

uh...

over there he said his arm clearly a
very strong statist

dimensions

a lot of right

uh... in the field as well as killing a
lot of rates followed by killings

and relations

when we do know

women only before five of us we go into
the village in take a girl

and bring her out to be into the jungle

we tell her to lie on the ground don't
scream otherwise weed killer immediately

and uh...

well how many regards there were well
they did what they want to do it

guys are a good mood they let her go

anyone

and killer

how the girls were

unconscious

that's a big band repeatedly raped

and then after we got your raping and
three of them

g_i_s type and the players and eighty

shot him in the girls vaginas

negroes were bleeding from their mouths
noses

spaces at the jonas

than the g_i_s uh... the plight of the
exterior portion of the players

they exploded

inside the girls click

their stomachs just exploded

well one day i was driving back

travel abroad and on about growth

and a guy comes over to me and he says
he needs some counseling

and say why

i look over and i see this girl when she
strapped

and she's tied the two mistakes

i don't know what they've done to her
before i got there

well they poured gasoline all over the
girl tabela why did it

they let it

and then they just

doug dare

and watched ur bernau

it if you look at the body consistently
see attached only thing that counts

the body can attached but that's what we
were to punishments are distributed by

if that's your etc

energy on command

does it really care

whether you survive

recruiting in a world where anything
goes

it becomes a good times will talk to you
all

it was a rival

or or to hold onto your ethics

i think a good example of this oliver
stone's movie platoon which is currently

in release which has a u_s_ military
unit which severely defied uh... divided

between one group

who commits atrocities and others who
thinks it's a horrible or war situation

and i think that's a good with the good
illustration of public on a dynamics

that could mean the years

illusions ep everyone

is a killer

or or or safe list

its rejection in a structure

wearer

a significant component

of your troops engage in such behavior
but none of it

so it seems that then you know we talk
about coffee

we talk about the line

when you use that term atrocity

it was an exception to a new law that's
not a good way to look at our world

let me lie

and atrocities we're just business as
usual

in in a life seems a little
well-organized in particular organized

but certainly

certainly mail i wasn't really village
in vietnam was burned out and everybody

in sight we shot that is that that is
that is not true at all

who said that is precisely the reason
ability on the ground war to distinguish

between

friend unfair obesity and peasant farmer

the lead to the next dimension uh... at
the world the participation

program the fact that they weren't able
to tell who the enemy lads that they had

to put out the whole country journey
company if you can't open from perot

the needy populate the countryside him
rudimentary few into concentration camps

and retreat urban slums

it's not easy to be popular countryside
for several major techniques were used

to kill podi asian should be destroyed a
third base of the country

this is where wage in orange county

agent orange in asian blue nationwide
were sprayed on

millions of acres of crop land

uh... other millions of acres a force
with affiliated

so if it based on

people have to work

secondly

certainly bottoming attacks

on villages which were quite quite
extensive discouraging courage people to

move

an employer actual search-and-destroy
operations were villages

sandwich everyone is killed others in
which you should be surrounded village

mood everyone out being burned at the
village

in mood in the middle east three minutes

uh...

millions and millions of years and
hospitals worse yet

too

concentration camps into urban slums

what's so interesting is the american
solicit progress this was our

organization

rural is bad berman is good

so

even though they have nothing

it was brought into the uh... sees a
sign of progress

through bring vietnamese and where

you could show them t_v_ and

uh...

and make them work in american uh...

bases and so on and so forth

was seen in setting up a more
sophisticated job and being a peasant

farmer

this is also part i think senator i'm
i'm not saying the enemy and a as

uh... culture or as individuals or
people the same time just as mirror

images of urself

like they'd bombing of north vietnam was
forced her to mcveigh's during their

capacity to have consumer goods

certainly interesting idea

you would take the numeric restricted

no getting scared about their hope

that they would care about their way
other than a dog in their ancestors

grave in their life's field to retrieve
it instead

simply just to have vishnu good have
this close to surrender deliver the

earlier

but that in itself was just unmitigated
good like people's lives were not

important part of the root of human
dimension

was completely lost listed america's bid

we can count

ham a_t_t_'s reported this month how
many hundreds and how they're by i think

that the war was applicable

the vietnam in a way

certainly hit exactly it could be in
many ways to create a tremendous

destruction

but he could not stop

a very powerful united people who

trying to change the law that this will
be a our topic then expelled them with

that at a time

for the day and next week we received
the limitations of that the world white

it failed in vietnam also discuss what's
wrong with the liberal and conservative

interpretations in vietnam we'll see
what lessons we can drop couldn't he had

not experienced we also will talk about
some other aspects of the vietnam war of

the tet offensive for instance

but uh... the big turning point in the
world body revisionist historians

particularly conservative said that it
was an american victory

whether there was it not also talk about
this

fascinating phenomenon which the
american army

refused to fight or many elements in our
bed

as a matter of fact they start attacking
their own officers and uh... senior

enlisted people

phenomenon is

and will conclude with a discussion of
some of the parallels

the central america of some of the
failures

of u_s_ policy in central america how
they can be eliminated by the failures

of the policy in vietnam so that thanks
for coming tonight denies that he had a

nice being informative discussion i will
look forward

through next week

welcomed alternative use them for the
second or two part series

about the vietnam war

bill gibson who wrote an incredible book
about vietnam war called the perfect war

technol war

and his blood the perfect lloyd cutler
war in vietnam

was recently published by a blanket
monthly press and itself i was there is

an extremely good reviews it was
favorably reviewed in the wall street

journal curtis review described it as a
perceptive coach insignificant

and so far the best analysis of the main
of america's on the military defeat

highly recommended gloria emerson in a
review described the broadcast although

many valuable books on the word fifty as
records obtained an endurance there's no

work through the cheese but this does

because he might just say this from our
most comfortable

life instead delusions william gibson
should the honored and john stockwell

describes his broadcast

and all of my research on the subject
that are not going to compare with

doctor gibson's perfect war her
invaluable insights in the u_s_

methodology

it's hideous the results of the war
tonight we're going to talk about

the things we didn't cover um...

we're going to talk about tet

the importance of appetite offensive

we're going to talk about cali united
states army

slot and and uh...

they decide they were not a fight that
war anymore

we're going to have an evaluation of the
vietnam war how many how the people look

at it

from various aspects and will also take
a final okay have we learned our lessons

are we still biting fighting techno war

and central america or at least planning
to

what is your interpretation of at the
water we get involved

in vietnam

techno warming to fight wars production
process

the military became deeply impressed
with big businesses contributions of

world war two

after world war two the military can
decided that not only would like to

supply operations be organized to a
corporate alliance but that actual

conduct the warfare will be organized
while corporate lines

the officer quoted managers they listed
meeting with the workers

the product was in the body count

just is american business prided itself
on high technology capital-intensive

production systems

so to our military have high-technology
capital intensive work there

to al produced

we would kill more them and they would
have us

stats technolo

why was it applied in vietnam

because

after world war two in the fifties the
soviets had the atomic bomb they could

be in destroy our economy

aka base a pop our if we intervene
militarily in the work in the world

with too much force the argue clear was
to fight limited war

indefinitely and the third world

we will use oddly just-in-time
production system over there and ride to

the other side bankrupt

why vietnam

beckons saw

communism not is another cut the social
organization is another culture as

another

political system

but instead they saw americans it has to
do it in the natural

she died like in congress will support
it other

and alien kind of being the world was
divided into super tuesday acts of

people communist

and non-communist

and therefore

if i get a good credit their side our
side

by the time

the credit in these over to the creation
of late fifties we had a period limited

warrant act we had a conventional forces

ready to go by the late fifties

vietnam should be convenient

load place to test out

this new theory of warfare techno war

and a place to drive before another
batch

kentucky but that's not been fascinated
in near a book about how

a major part of the u_s_ supported a
certain part

of the war was to win the hearts and
minds of the vietnamese through

important u_s_ commodities olympia that
u_s_ government actually put up the

money

to import these commodities and created
the whole infrastructure

and rather than win the hearts and minds
out of the overwhelming majority of the

vietnamese people the just created more
corruption in a quality you want to talk

about

that aspect of your details just hard to
us to realize how much money was poured

into the country and so many ways

if you're a high vietnamese

general crooner japanese government

army positions well business positions

and would most american aid was on the
list

for sale on the international market by
the time in iraq

the level of staffed

unbelievably high in the only reason you
decide whether to try to control with

that

the american government's issue every
decision

by the officer corps as the price we
have to pay for continuing the war

so therefore in order to get something
we choose the vietnamese people would

have seemed more

in more and more

and there's an element of truth in that
but also the greater truth was that

simply corruption became compounded

and uh... the riches became became
greater we're talking about

millions and millions upon hundreds of
millions of dollars may or even

currency manipulation currency fraud
wasn't gimmick

if you knew how to play the game

you could get rich simply by exchanging
your money from from dollars to be

esters to military scripting back again

just nothing just by playing play with
the rules a little bit

that you didn't

including massive inflation

admit little odd for most people got
worse its

what were your jobs available a few
people on top

were able to make money off this cluster
stealing the american editor of the

bottom of your jobs open for you

you can work for the american she could
work on the base

you could be an interpreter maybe if you
had minimal language skills resort

remain

hillerman

there has been set up like a half
million vietnamese women and gauge duke

some kind of commercial sex

prostitution massage parlors where ever
you want to call it which grossed of

there is hope

multilevel herb sexual marketplace

uh... threatening other drugs do drugs
subject huge huge caroline

importation coming from all places
coming from laos

and the c_i_a_ was running a warrant
last winter

the hills people and liberation
government

in order to buy it the leaders of the
kills people by the way ocean government

they had to acquiesce to the heroin
trade

tons of heroin were brought in a rare
america planes and limit means air force

planes we find in bangkok in other
places in seoul on in in in two u_s_

soldiers in vietnam

south you're going to use them in the
military leadership was also heavily

involved narcotics business

general and subsequent president of the
republic of vietnam when band to ran one

major operation

welwyn county

but i'm sure marshall

premier and vice president

ran another

for orphans what could you do

shoeshine business wasn't so i think
it's had to make money

on the side shining shoes was like a
definition

uh... going through garbage dumps

job today

dismal live in this new world in vietnam
not a consumer paradiso and then the

other hand you have the black market

where as you say in your book you could
buy a million by tank armored personnel

carriers

and of course viet cong where cabin on
the template themselves whenever they

need american goods they consider
themselves out the problem

the other aspect of the u_s_ policy

well as anti-war part of their your most
brilliant chapters in descriptions in

your book of the magnitude in nature of
the air war

and vietnam who was mentally i guess
directed against north vietnam

do i discussed on elements of anymore

therefore is a factory

then clearly when you look at their
their work

we got the biggest back we may have
nothing

by american reasoning you looked at me
shit given at the data first bombs

dropped on the market not because they
had such a small small industrial

apparatus

such a smoke

number of bridges and things

if you would think they would have just
given up

they didn't

um...

they were willing to sacrifice their
industrial apparatus billing to the

chips or the massive mention casualties

and indeed

contrary to american

mythology where the vietcong were simply
to being totally supported from

the north

rectly

eighty percent of supplies the viet cong
used to even have been eighty percent

supplies to india unusual raised himself
a small number supplies were sent out

it couldn't be stopped

no matter how hard the u_s_ bombed

no matter how hard you escalated his
campaigns

no matter even after the close the
pulitzer prize carmen distorted to

systematically bombing the railroad
lines between china and vietnam

he couldn't stop it

the number of supplies

wasn't that great

on that the other hand

air worded mobilizing north vietnamese
people

to exit considerable degree

uh...

everyone had a job of one kind or
another

either repairing the railroad repairing
the roads are taking over industry or

working in agriculture

so immobilized him consolidated that
society

too

terry on much like to nazi attack on
great britain

consolidated british morale which is
open on the other hand

the people you say well well obama back
to the stone age and we just practically

dead most people don't recognize yet

united states air force and navy drop
between eighteen fifty million tons of

bombs and rockets on southeast asia or
world war two united states dropped two

point one million tons

so the minimum s but then

it's about four times greater in world
war two amigos at almost eight times

greater than world war two

and u_s_ motives nineteen sixty-seven
report he has a party category summary

the largest category in after vehicles
is buildings

when you listen to the report support
observers on the ground with the report

is just about any modern cstaylor brick
structure

over to to store all but one story

because we're going to look like targets
unless there's a lot of those which are

just on a more hospitals a lot of more
schools yes book and i was bomb back the

stone age there's no doubt about that

but because they were not fighting a
technolo

at illegal implemented

now we saw in the previous program

where at this

uh... production assembly line type of
attitude

resulted in date demand for body count

or the land troops

in the air war

they also have production quotas but i'm
not going to organization of this

was right the unit of measurement

it's called a sortie want fight by one
airplane

and therefore squadrons queens

therefore it behold large units have

rates of production that they are
supposed to me

the navy the air force and indeed were
incumbent in competition with each other

to see you can quote you the most
productive

therefore the through the object was to
fly into many nations as possible

within a of finite period of time like a
week or a month

or whatever

so relevant and pay attention to really
what you were bombing or to pay

attention to

the safest way too

protect your pilots in the way to
minimize civilian casualties

instead

military war managers

devise ways to maximize sori rates

and consequently

entered into serious

irrational behavior

they black and grey award where u_s_
commander treated their own ground truth

is expendable

higher commensurate colleges expendable

they would often be center missions

alarm say looking for trucks in the
middle of rain storms when it's

impossible to see trucks

compiled into the ground you know you
can even see the ground when by thinking

about it

but that keeps the saudi rahi hai

or also say you're supposed to you know
which way we were given target

it is the targets crimean

but you still sing your planes up there
every day

five days in a robotic saxony murdered

in order so that

because that's simply

this like a factory you keep doing the
same retained

but we sure telegraphed punches

not all that many targets in that area
and i didn't take too many smarts to

figure out about

where they have forces headed

specially wen li

headed american date after a day

making them fly up to the target before
making a good or not go decision on the

weather that we already knew was not
acceptable

we turned over the target and came back
again the next day

to try again

but this miracle pilots does it

they died

because the vietnamese clearly
understood where the americans were from

flying the same pattern everyday and
they understood that

and then we just keep coming so

but often frequently vietnamese did was
simply move more and more antiaircraft

guns into an area that the americans for
some reason one of the bomb

in whatever happens

american pilots and that means fighting
uh...

violations against you pick our kids
surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of

any aircraft weapons

in in this way

uh... by telegraphing are both countries

uh... american pilots died

i talked with a couple of the new
apoplectic f_-four pilot to blame

who told me to end up with a gun at
recently and im before playing mission

carrying a very small bomb load

one pilot told me his goodness t_p_ was
so mad we risk eight guys he said

when we could have come to hold on one
plane risking only two people

and on the job better

well then i have scheme or why did they
send out four planes

the pilot said and if i know

blessed just to keep our sortie rate
high

but i'll tell you this if they got and
crime

we know what you heard about this orgy
business on an aircraft carrier

consolation the navy pilots who told me
that he could do a better job of the few

eighty six is operating in the safety of
darkness then with all those sky hawks

kidding around the world wide load in
daylight

so i wouldn't think possible appear that
the maybe was trying to alps or t_v_ air

force

an air force was tried on sorting the
navy

my guys who were flying the sorties

took a dim view of it

and we had uh... incredible story in
your book or

about

probably north vietnamese was actually
bring down the american jets with

handguns and rifles

seems unbelievable arsonists

in an advance group of american
standpoint it is unbelievable

in the acually c advanced technology
system like a jet fighter bomber needs

another advance technology like a sam
missile not to bring it down

and there is a lot of some interest in
that but

north vietnam underwent a tremendous
social mobilization

part of that mobilization group while
giving almost every one of god

me that there's still a submachine gun
arrive forever or light machine guns

the entire society was organizes a giant
in new york way any aircraft system

emmett clark really low level

vietnamese present were under
instructions

to simply get out in the field en masse
lie down and shoot up in the act to try

to provide barrage

with make

level

altitudes unsafe to american pilots and
it happened

curly hair but by the pilots

to report

that several remaining planes were shot
down an extremely low level by peasants

what this means for them

but level flight became so dangerous
that they had to move higher are pretty

consistently be picked up on radar

is it just depends as could shoot down
planes as that but they do not an air

space to americans

that made all their operations had more
hazardous

so social mobilization was able to
compensate the technological inferiority

there is another example of this uh...
in the whole team and trail when the

united states bill padding incredibly
expensive

electronic warfare area

which the uh...

they were able

which mania

uh... vietnamese in that little shins
were able to overcome with barry

simple tricks

the joint chiefs of staff always wanted
to invade north vietnam

insipid takeover handle an ipod or have
ground troops in laos there's a place

where

between laos and thailand between uh...
the south china sea in thailand

something like thirty five miles or so

for the effort is

linden visual for justice for most
magical line will keep before another

out rivals

bottom at the past cutting out literally

let's just uh... that was changed to
expensive in terms of truth lies they

stated that area with electronic sensors

listening devices sizes the pickups
metal

sensors of various kinds

uh... these devices internship radio
signals to circling it that the aircraft

intercept interest to computer banks in
thailand in thailand intern organized

air strikes over the trail

the two things happen

one

the sensors woody collect

uh... bags if you're in honey entries

tape recorders with cricket noises in
which to try to mask the movement of

trucks

you find a sensor and you could just
normal general knowledge is a tape of

normal general knowledge is next to it

uh...

so you master sensors in one area where
you actually seeing your troops in

operations on the other

and up so you get a taxing uh... you
world

convoy drivers truck drivers

north vietnamese had sexual zagreb aids
they had rocket players

a lot of this is cabanas occurring at
night

so the attorneys would throw out

explosives to make americans feel like

they were doing something

um...

and americans into wanted to believe
that they were destroying vietnamese

truck convoys y

pilots but we work on the basis of
productivity

their majors you lieutenant colonels
most of them walked before congress will

probably asylum or desperately want to
be brigadier general

they need to be productive

therefore they wrote their tendency is
to report

is high destruction of a trucks as
possible

and it's a big joke eventually became
the enemy intelligence

was that the next day when congress was
flights would fly along with what she

meant well they could never find the
truck carcasses

anywhere near the numbers

that uh... the pilots reported destroyed

so glad you began that deep in the
laotian jungles

the great

truck either yeah and my truck you there
was a monster that totally

loved dead trucks midday meal is not
only have to read every night

if he got up in the day the skeletons a
good bit drugs so that when the

reconnaissance planes came out

and in the morning there were simply be
no records

this is not the site and thousands
trucks were destroyed that never to the

extent

necessary

remember

relatively few supplies which himself by
american calculations

something like twelve times a day was
enough to support the warmest self you

can put twelve times boxer mike tractor
truck without any problem attachment to

spare

but even if you multiply it by figure

fifteen or twenty fold stacy equity
tractor trailer trucks a day

approaching the entrails

or forty pickups or whatever

that still such a small number of people
are very expensive air war has a hard

time

i cannot stop

that level of supply

for most of the military general because
that is that the war whose memoir

hewlett and documents seized by the

indicated to the u_s_ really one most of
the battles of the war that the u_s_

records yes light was on its way to
victory and in particular there's a

right wing revisionist view that the
u_s_ could've won the war at the time of

the cat offensive

at the u_s_ build up

of maine courtney porsche units ground
troops began in sixty five

by the end of sixty seven

we have someone over four hundred
thousand at four hundred fifty thousand

maybe in the past five hundred thousand
christian country

according to american records

the official records kept in the
pentagon and kept at military assistance

commanded nam

we just about destroyed altogether on
trips

they were all nearly decimated

now why was that because of weapons were
falsified

perhaps we begin a strike that all that
last time

once you move into wars production
process and the opposition managers

lose their students at the devotee to
their subordinates below answers for the

fidelity the trip

upward mobility just like

in business where maybe go up you know
up to the highlander is the main again

that was a letter in the military

the currency what that was to report the
body count

so everybody buck their body count

date body counts were routine

not that not exceptional

any trouble

they worry that the body casket getting
hired uses the reports went up the chain

of command a larger figures became

well the first report i would send them

was from the facts from the information
we collect intent was objective that it

would be if it could be

now we founded and but uh... that would
always come back doctored up from higher

headquarters

that was standard operating procedure

when i was repeated historian there

so the result is that the battle news

was edited and revised until it was
acceptable to the higher ups

hail and in order to write open relies
on our civil aid program such as

increasing the fifteen english classes
of three hundred to make it look good to

the politicians and people back home

and i've been ordered to raise the
figures for food distribution and uh...

refugee villages

but i've also had retired battle reports

the old meeting uh... certain facts

uh... and thereby turning in north
vietnam army victory over superior

american forces

into our u_s_ victory

so our paper

we had warren

but in reality

two things

fired that was part one of our victory
the second point was

in nineteen sixty seven

the american high command

decided that viet cong guerrillas no
longer existed

because

insulate the polish them on paper
answered because just like american

forces we don't have any part-time
guerrillas

are full-time guerrillas

and also to google rulers have to do to
have tanks to guerrillas have

helicopters to guerrillas have

uh... heavy artillery

they don't have as much hardware as we
did

so they are clearly a threat to american
units

so several hundred thousand

uh...

viet cong guerrillas

were abolished from what's called the
order battle

so what you would eliminate the
guerrillas on paper

and then you charged

so you have a hot lower total estimate

uh... enemy forces

can you have an inflated by uh...
estimate of how many of those you've

killed

well it worked

lyndon johnson desperately needed a
political victory to follow sixty seven

so he got your westward to come back and
say we're winning we're winning the war

student enter an interface three

and that is that we are mop up for a
couple of years

and what was having a reality

well reality the viet cong courses

debated the local forces had expanded
radically from nineteen sixty four three

late nineteen sixty seven

according to u_s_ figures they were only
about two hundred thousand yahoo com

but minimum c_i_a_ man started like
going profiles a primary figure things

he calculated about a half million with
understand what that means at the c_i_a_

man is doubling

hit the estimate but it seems to me they
don't have any idea

at how many of them are on there

but it means a double is probably the
highest figure he can get away with

and still

will be listened to by anyone

in reality the enemies

gaining strength

we have with the crew viet cong

we have

work at least dissipation still in fifty
thousand troops here being sent south in

the border zones along cambodian laotian
borders and in sonar showed us that the

other

satisfy co-wrote the book of the country

in the u_s_ strategic offensive failed
of search-and-destroy

the bombing operations had failed

in late january early february nineteen
sixty eight

newark the display department viet cong
forces attacked in mass

simultaneously for the first time

normally

they fought

they dispersed operations

they were not andrea under

that under no snow still first time in a
simultaneous national tax

the attack succeeded in driving

one it we needed to pass occasional our
audience involved in past occasional

griffin m a countryside in the cities

almost all of the vietnamese and
american ground force units were driven

out of the countryside back into the
cities

dip in the city's mayor and some viet
cong forces inner cities

and i've saigon way

uh... regional capitals

and we began to to battle in the cities

so what happens

after a few weeks

the viet cong withdrew from the cities

their casualties were extremely high
they had not anticipated that the

americans with bombing and conduct
artillery strikes inside the cities

uh... but they did

so i watch herself vietnam was reduced
to rubble

their casualties were high

the americans in sap in the meantime
units were gone from the countryside

uh... desertion to be a massive

and

the economy which recruit

many many many people now that they
would know opposing forces in the

countryside their political cadres were
able to surface

so they were weakened in many ways than
the other hand they have achieved a

decisive victory

inviting

their parents out of the countryside

what is the regiment

because american forces

were able to

kill many of the commandos in the
economy troops inside the cities

the americans have general westmoreland
court victory

uh...

of course this ignores the fact that

although he's going to the economy out
of the city's he himself isn't going to

have a countryside and it's made a
mockery out of his own previous claims

of victory

um...

also sparklers created many many people

that they were far more

and south vietnam than americans and
willing to admit

westmoreland and made a trip request for
another two hundred thousand soldiers

this week request within the city
analysis

were seriously what was found

was that even within the production
model of war if you would just come up

at the same kind of what they would
simply add more resources to do it

still

the viet cong around just to people in
this out

good fight on for another four or five
years at least three years

to four years and then with anymore or
significant looked at least dissipation

they could find on

ten to twenty years

and which he just we just could not
drive the other side bankrupt and you're

saying that the north vietnamese army
basically had participated nodded yes i

did get marketers army did not because
they don't care

the fact that most of the war

they were quite a minimal over you
consider the number of via car trips in

proportion to the number of north
feeling well that's true depth

up until sixty eight after sixty eight
they entered the war in larger numbers

sir

uh... the car were getting worse

certainly

the concern to claim your vehicle took
severe losses which it appeared to be

stripped the claim that they were
decimated indicated a spot in the claim

that the americans onecare

is false

canisters remain healthy miracle war
managers

cities department stated their strategy
was bankrupt and that there was no pac

decree

so this finally created ah...
religiosity time somewhere in this

period i try not to long after

with this

a break in their self delusion that
techno war would win every hotmail here

is a serious problem that people don't
understand it

american television news

began to bite from the late nineteen
sixty eight on began report the idea

that the war was winding down

and that we were on our way out

just not true

this is a false statement

you should never believe it's when you
look at the casualty figures

how many american soldiers were killed
from sixty-five to sixty-eight for sixty

three sixty seven

and then you take sixty eight

when you look sixty nine crew seventy
three

the sixty nine three seventy three just
about is within a couple of hundred

is high

is the number of kill

sixty doctor sixty-seven so-called week
search-and-destroy continued way way on

internal until

old mate seventy-one what was that then
they finally convinced

the u_s_ foreign policy is that was for
the u_s_ public

that vietnam could be one

plummeted sixty eight on

american military began to

wickham progressively more restaurants
and bars certainly bible eight sixty

nine seventy is inactive revolt against
his commanders

remembered at seventy five percent of
the battles in vietnam where new shit

about the enemy of the average american
grunge band used to have the that most

people combat troops pennies to didi
walking an ambitious

most mainline fairly quickly that while
they were walking an ambush is that

their generals were getting medals and
they were safe in helicopters runs on

and so forth

uh... subpoenaed to begin what's called
fragment ragging means

you take a fragmentation grenade and you
put it at your superior

whether it's a non-commissioned officer
arjun or a battalion or captain or

whatever

it was a way to tell higher command

not to treat

ground troops' lives frivolously that
they would not pursue

aggressively pursue dangers combat
situations

simply in order to make a visit to make
his superiors look good

okay let me tell you had workweek start
having more calls

which is like uh... dole will at
midnight everybody you know if it starts

open inspiring screaming books on the
wire books on the wiring barbed wire

fences you know

and then you try to kill any of the
lifers that he didn't like

so we tried to get to see all couple of
times machine-gun one time he was uh...

rack took nine holes his cock nine
bullet holes but you don't go out of it

and got away with that'd be shipment so
we couldn't check weapons they use your

name

so they'd be throwing grenades at the
wiring yelling and shopping books on my

wired brooks and they'd blow the siren
and then run around and have to guide to

be facing outward shooting men the other
half would be waiting for a wife her to

come out of his pet

yeah i've seen them

told officers executed five or six times

just put a price on his head

makes one accusing gets the money

next time he was out on a mission

that everybody knew it was good

they just wait

to humans

and the right position

and he estimates run quite high and it
was the official i'm accounts about six

hundred fifty faking incidents

and

real reasons to doubt that because i
think quite small and sure there are a

lot of network reporter all of course
because no no commander wants to have

when you say it's like i said my my
moment for a grenade at me

we'll try to shoot me

i mean how do i do a good on your record
either get promoted up that there is a

great leader

when you're reporting that there were
people are shooting at you

no i'm sure the records are not the
figures must be substantially higher

this totally inadequate pulls the bonnie
alexander contracts

her particularly unpopular officers but
there's also certified and felt

mutilation a-level too

people would not desperate if they were
just uh...

do disoriented and they were not being
cared for by the command of the actual

operations often while slaughter of
uh... innocence

suicide rates a fairly high

standing up until apartheid is one
payments um... cartoon book by uh...

banning tech forster

it shows a picture of a man oversold
regarding metal rock with his trigger

finger in the air looking for the
million-dollar weren't feeling like

expose this nice index finger shot off

he could get out of the worst or you
don't take your malaria pills

um...

we're going to do

therefore remove the kosher passionately
area there are many many ways out

or people shooting themselves in

the lots and lots of stories of self
mutilation or you do if your friend

and algebra fran decided will be twice

analytically days mission and he's had a
premonition of death

which is taken very very seriously all
combat soldiers are deeply superstitious

sometimes issued or u_s_ you could use
to add your friend not none of our place

but it with him enough to get them out

you described by the work its way

you cannot fight a war where people are

are you going to search you avoid

i'll tell you avoid that uh... but that
is a very prevalent than himself

thirteen destroyed searching the void
and as you do you go out and you keep

playing nuclear war you try like to go
out and you know smoke some dopamine

thanks radio reports or

he gently try not to engage the enemy

we talked about everyday

told the guys felt the same way

reduced more accomplishing anything

back some guys reselling depressed and
disgusted that he was killed themselves

some guys were taken hand grenades and

and blown themselves away

they couldn't take the strain anymore

cop who's really heavy

i don't think a lot of the stuff was
reported

do you guys would just kill themselves

they are made probably send

stats home with a guy who was killed or

missing-in-action

did the antiwar movement called
clinton's saulters

in creating a sense of what they were
they were doing was wrong that they

would victims that are making mistakes
that have impact you think that it's

going to live com coffeehouse g_i_
coffeehouse mimicking anti-woman try to

send a copy houses near u_s_ bases

to uh...

permit literature thanks

but obviously when you read

soldiers memoirs and novels

refusing to talk about the anti-war
movement very much it's not to say there

was an influence but they talk about

we hacking

to the situation of warfare

that there and the one and uh...

um... enemy in with the moral qualms and
moral qualms intercede on the

battlefield but one of the credentials
of the anti-war movement

nobody would be the last five years ago
i did not come in once it was

stated that the u_s_ was going to
withdraw eventually

that made it more difficult

there was one place in your book where
he said that this actually it was a

class war class warfare that was going
on that vitals are black soldiers

clerked for fatherhood

bragging ripple

let's remember who went to vietnam

after world war two the u_s_ military
decided that too many college-educated

men have been killed danger of this was
that it was going to hurt the scientific

base of the country decided thanks chris
over the country was for

we couldn't have the next generation of
weapons

so the idea to this deployment of the
college deferment

was to keep

the cool alive

what this meant was remember this is an
era of very few student loans very few

scholarships and so forth

it meant that the sons of the middle
class could go to college where the

sounds of the working class

too

the military

in the military itself

military needs vast numbers of
white-collar skills

so if you had any kind of like uh...
clerical skills like middle class people

do often do typing filing someone you
could ease more readily yet

uh... and unarmed combat job

what this translated into is that what
you study got them to the corner who is

in your infantry

units armor artillery

they were overwhelmed they were
disproportionately minorities in the

were white

who were whites poor urban life

so we had a a working-class

uh...

largely working-class

military combat military

whereas a more middle class

anti-war movement more middle-class
logistic apparatus

inherent in the military so the class
revolt a clash about not one cor

revolution we're not talking to voters
now

but it is sort of like uh... it was
revoked against the manager yes if not

in our interest exploded in new zealand
yes and yet and it certainly would among

black soldiers there do they they were
definitely influence but my carmen

racial consciousness and critical
consciousness but

prepare now

and where many of the type signs of
bonding signs of you know that

scanning special handshakes on so forth

i would be a value a plane that media
handling

the amount and and now

i've spent a lot of time looking at the
tapes and i have pushed closed if i

could finish my outline i was going to
write a book about television news

covers the water started to think well
what

was not on the news for me

but i saw in this country i wrote this
other book critic war

was on the news

is a lot of pictures and helicopters a
lot of pictures objects

a lot of pictures of tanks a lot of
hardware

and wish techno what was the major
representation to visual representation

along with his today that these these
please presentation to the people

weapons

i love my favorite

when a_b_c_ show a_b_c_ series

where at the first one outings may see
the battleship new jersey

that ocean new jersey just been recon
mission in sixty nine

and we see it here's the sixteen each
gun dealers is john thirty-foot balanced

at the camera looks down a guy starts
talking about you to two hundred

fifty-pound projectile sixty miles

had broken thirty two feet of reinforced
concrete amanda had at the other way at

least thirty two miles

sixty feet we push them back again if
the two identity or kill radius

it simply i committed a corresponding to
a salesperson

and i i think i should buy two more the
battleship new jersey analysis is

currently a m believe

and in the film patterns in other
correspondent

angel and uh... the bank of the river

it's about the bbc frankly offline trash
can

and he remember the uh... roadrunner

rockets mineral that want to cut it was
always getting something from acme

rocket company that i was kinda fucked
up

trash can on a stick with the kind of
like trying on top of it

exactly

what this rocket look like was obviously
have a homemade crude rocket

end of the contrast of subletting seems
like american victory so insured

because we love our technical
superiority court within a point out

the vehicle on the fires that rocket
knows exactly what he's shooting it was

a battleship new jersey

there where they may not

where it's much more fun

so that it would be pissed off people
sold out

people ought not to bring many dead
people who were very few ended they have

the death conditioners was much like a
warmer the elections

number will go on

three-star body count each week

which shared

we were always winning we saw one
village one village was born in nineteen

sixty five dash yet

and again the kind of course bonnie
guidance of air travel

uh... mail i appeared as its is remember
did not come from the news and it didn't

come from a normal networks a came from
a veteran who tried hard to get the

moves out

their little coverage of messages came
on

ordinary language of the war groups
slopes land bank

more american news correspondent ever
talked about those terms of what they

meant

it simply did not occur in status very
much official perspective

waco and got critical

from sixty eight on a case where you
would see reports

about failed technology

indication cutesy stories about tragic
american deaths

it was like a human interest tragedy
become permanent of criticism

rather than any kind of explanatory

notion of what i would not succeed

bill let's talk about a valuation of the
vietnam war a lot of people written

books about a historian generals and
etcetera

west coast image who's just come back to
where we start to disappoint

by nasa says the u_s_ head to get out
who couldn't fight

when i read it wouldn't do it in the
morning you could read it moved to the

air force campaigns but it was campaigns
have their problems to you can hold plan

with airplanes

silly money to the south vietnamese they
were corrupt they've just had more maybe

crap it

so we would hate it

my analysis and you know if it was
defeated

and that that's that's the stamp on to
the question is

how have the historians of a novelist

uh... so on treated this tragic of
american desi

the conditional path as a liberal
interpretation

that is it's just a strategy

it's just kind of a wrong out there
somewhere and lacking suspect were all

sorts of small mistakes are more
mimicking smallness moments later

schlesinger lovers i think it would be
the most famous the classical case

stanley cornell's book learning p_b_s_
series most recent example

the commotion presley's not an
explanation you know twenty years a

small mistakes doesn't explain

a war that has a very clear structure

which is my argument at the structural

contradictions about men who work there
and in its disillusioning failure

the second school the most prominent
right now is the cutest lost because a

self-imposed restraints

so bizarre experience of military term

often used in joint chiefs of staff
documents called for escalated air war

and vision is

gprs they should have invaded north
vietnam in nineteen sixty six

and taken handle an ipod

course telecom of that other one of
those persons who had those guns firing

again shooting against aircraft

the jet fighter pilots they were also
organized and prepared for invasions

argument you why do you know emission
factor north vietnamese didn't have any

troops himself that was one of the major
reasons

it wasn't that they didn't want to help
their comrades in their southern comment

it which which were being held back

any part of our project the home front
against a possible american invasion

stucco into jail

the plan for a year to fighting this
invasions let local militia and regional

forces fight for the first dated two
days

so once the americans are tired

after twenty four to forty eight hours
across the conduct

damen north vietnamese army waiting to
see

and we did this notion that the u_s_
could've had a successful invasion

thus far

o'neill fantasy unworthy of any kind of
serious consideration

and that they had been expeditionary
force in handling high phone we still

that would change the class structure in
south vietnam that would change the fact

that you had a peasant renewal in
atlanta that you want to do this to

wanted uh... self determination letter
in capital

and he warned that the whole country
were national unification 'cause the

whole basis of the culture was growing
up before debater

and that's all they don't all their
lives for two thousand years first

throughout the chinese to french

and now the american soldier it would
have changed at the self-imposed

restrain still

this fall will have we learned anything
fence line

we you've point out they total

corruption and self-delusion of the
military and the civilian leaders

throughout this

first of all thank you naked wages
technol war and secondly

having uh... not paying attention to
being realities

which like

uh... try to sleep up from the
intelligence

field

suppressing any intelligence that would
uh... contrary to the contrary to what

they wanted

on it

still in that thing

motivating n do where you probably think
you applying it to you

well i have a couple questions certainly
there was one example which has been a

tip

and we just barely took it even though
there was a minimum opposition most of

the u_s_ special forces command as bit
the dust in various operations governor

various mishaps one kind or another

also

the military's analysis is well not only
do we fight with one hand tied behind

our back a week or two slightly more
rapid escalation

so honduras has been prepared a series
of airfields and ports have been

prepared in honduras

in order to bring forty fifty thousand
troops into battle within a week

um...

they had to the subtleties fortress

and they still have million military had
the vision that they could probably take

when i won a few other places and a
couple weeks

rather than an extensive

central america war which was escalate

tremendously because the nicaraguan
today i have no choice except to expand

the war outside nicaragua to make the
battlefield bigger

the battlefields bigger than united
states has to disperse its troops it's

this virtues are dispersed

kit cheap decree

activated them back to vietnam but i'd
like to have one other thing i have not

learned a thing

with an author

most feminist anger many veterans of
course when you have sooo

mail

certainly don't want to see this they're
probably parts of the military inverse

mornin positions we don't want to see a
major escalation

but then we're on track

for another kind of of major
intervention whether or not will be

since the iran artwork crisis has
emerged

that may be off for a while i don't know
but they're certainly philippines

there's another growing insurgency there

um...

the chair of the chances for another
major intervention

in another series of self delusions

are very very high because the people
that officer corps who were successful

in vietnam or the people who were in
charge now

the people who would be dissonance

the to him for lieutenant colonels and
majors who would be the risk of repulsed

they got out

they reside most of it

ironically the arm yourself recognize
this nineteen seventy war college study

which indicated ah... that

there was a significant difference
between the ideal army values such as

honesty integrity bravery justice and
responsibility

and the real values which are practiced
by the military inorder to promote

career advancement

here is the studies conclusion

the present climate does not appear to
be self-correcting

the human drives for success and
recognition by singers

sustained if not inflamed and by the
system that rewards and management which

cater to media personal success

at the expense of moral and epochal
values

would appear to only be perpetuated

by the current environment

the fact alone that the leaders of the
future by those who survived and

excelled within the rules of the present
system

militates in part against any self
starting incremental return toward the

practical application of ideal army
values

and in the final reason and that the
problem of learning

is that there are cultural reasons that
make the american people want to believe

the self-reproach restrain school

and that is we are used to petition the
cowboy who comes and stays a society

against the enemies

and the power structure cannot defend
itself

the idea of a week authority that has to
be saved by a warrior shows that in many

places in american cultures in the
western

into detective you have the detective
you know is outside the law all the

super man in the nasty danger figures of
the twenties and thirties certainly

are able to portal criminals

legal authorities cannot

uh... but also that is that the police
technology cannot self-serving

embarrassed to talk to that if we have
enough

technological military force we can help
the win the war

if you have people it's hard not to
believe in your hardware americans don't

worry about social relations they don't
learn about class structure everyday in

the newspaper

or about cultural history every daily
newspaper

they learn about what's for sale

then part of the lesson of vietnam
concerning the limits of at the water

the situations in which technolo but
well i but it cannot achieve victory

they can destroy lenny can destroy
people but he can't create a government

cranky recreate a culture

it can create a society

and this is another thing we try to do
in vietnam

to oppose the model of the consumer
society are then add american-style

suppose democracy would it be elections
in situations where these just couldn't

work

it did work in a way you know what you
have people can become corrupted they

did get into their consular under some
things but

it just doesn't have a stable society it
doesn't builder

dad will people willing to die for that
society that was a hope i'll let you

have to be a crappy vietnamese that what
it looks like things we know they were

willing to go out and if insight on the
gap are not

biggest did they bought their tickets
out united states that the patrons were

divided that just collect

and jess four are getting rid of the
landlord to local oppressors here to

make perfect sense to them

and there's been this problem the
so-called vietnam syndrome which are

leaders have been complaining about all
these years

sensitive

there was a fitness in the land

quickly if i lost the will to fight yet

and uh... but it looks like the american

public

had a clearer

picture of what uh... the war was all
about them the than the leaders

but uh... acute how would you expect
that can do you think they were

overcoming that vietnam syndrome now so
that they can but i don't think the

american public ever had an idea what
with raw images knew something was wrong

and it wasn't getting better

contracting a leader fighting this

may be easier for people to believe the
self-imposed restrain school to believe

that we lost because we didn't fight
hard enough

um...

for the package that the package proctor
cultures presented here a bit of the

warrior imagery is well mined grammars
strong on the rise because many

classical war movies made in several
kind of very warm and he's made

um... it's definitely a war culture

how people go

clearly though there's there's still a
resistance there still a certain level

which disaster vietnam detached in at
least on people's memories

either merrill lynch say they'll have
understanding of why it failed a welder

structural reasons

there is a fear that

it will happen again