From a well-known US journalist who does not want to be identified: "From the NYT: Vo Nguyen Giap, the relentless and charismatic
North Vietnamese general whose battlefield victory at Dien Bien Phu drove
France out of Vietnam and whose tenacious resistance to the United States in a
long and costly war there eventually sapped America’s political will to
fight, died on Friday in Hanoi. He was believed to be 102.
Would it have been too much to say 'whose resistance led to the defeat of the United States?" Instead of pussyfooting around with losing "political will"--as if stronger political will would have led to a U.S. victory? The Pentagon Papers made clear the US knew for a long time it had no chance of winning--that's why they were given Top Secret status, to keep the lie that the US could win from the American people. And we have Daniel Ellsberg to thank for revealing that.
Would it have been too much to say 'whose resistance led to the defeat of the United States?" Instead of pussyfooting around with losing "political will"--as if stronger political will would have led to a U.S. victory? The Pentagon Papers made clear the US knew for a long time it had no chance of winning--that's why they were given Top Secret status, to keep the lie that the US could win from the American people. And we have Daniel Ellsberg to thank for revealing that.
General Giap was among the last survivors of a generation of Communist revolutionaries who in the postwar decades freed Vietnam of colonial rule and fought a superpower to a stalemate?
