“At an address ….. he reported that, (the enemy was) “unable to mount a major offensive…I am absolutely certain that whereas …… the enemy was winning, today he is certainly losing…We have reached an important point when the end becomes to come into view.”
I’m sorry…..My bad…..I seem to have erred. That was Westmoreland speaking Novermber 21, 1967, two months before the Tet Offensive began.
I believe it was General Bruce Palmer, one of Westmoreland’s three Field Force commanders, who, at the same time, claimed that “the Viet Cong has been defeated” and that “He can’t get food and he can’t recruit. He has been forced to change his strategy from trying to control the people on the coast to trying to survive in the mountains.”
On January 30th, roughly 84,000 Viet Cong simultaneously attacked American bases everywhere across Vietnam. Despite suffering serious casualties,and losing every battle, they were able to cause Americans at home, to wonder if we were fighting under false pretexts.
Let us hope Iraq does not suffer the same fate…………despite the similar optimistic platitudes being spoken by those in bed with the national military industrial complex.
kavips 
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September 14, 2007 at 6:56 pm
Duffy
Your point is a salient one and the parallels are clear. Then, as now, we are winning and they are losing. The only front in which the enemy is showing any gains is in the media war. Then, as now, they have willing rubes who parrot their claims of victory and so on. Then, as now, this war is ours to lose if we listen to the media.
September 15, 2007 at 10:07 am
kavips
Your views are clear. Then, as now, our press is focused on what is best route for our nation within the frame of this conflict. A lesson, that should have been learned from every insurgency since the American Revolution, is that whichever side provides the best benefit for the indigenous “people” being fought over, will be the force that ultimately prevails.
In South Vietnam, we forgot to implement the changes that we did in South Korea. We allowed ourselves to be painted as occupiers and were thrown out by the population. Success in these engagements hinges on this. Whenever a nation’s population asks this question: who will help us achieve our dreams…..We, the United States, need to be the answer! As long as the answer is “us”, as apparently it became clear to those in Al Anbar province, then we are winning.
But the other side of the coin is this.
Both this war and that, have this as their common denominator: the plurality of Americans wonder why we are even there…….
That is why setting an aggressive timetable for withdrawal, (even if we fail to keep it), will ultimately become this nation’s key to “winning” in Iraq. (It doesn’t mean we are losing, mind you, just that our contract is running out.) It sends a strong signal,….You had better hurry up, and get ‘er’ done.”