Wrong About Vietnam

We should not hail Robert McNamara as a hero for denouncing the Vietnam War as a mistake. More than 58,000 Americans died there and they did not die for nothing. While the traitorous and cowardly peace protesters, McNamara's "honorable Americans," might have believed otherwise, America intervened to preserve the freedom and independence of South Vietnam and to stop Communist aggression--noble and just aims that we should not ignore. Further, North Vietnam received substantial support from the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, support that further justified American intervention.

While our efforts to save South Vietnam proved vain in the end, we should not dismiss the role the Vietnam conflict played in our ultimate victory in the Cold War. Our intervention in Vietnam held back the forces of Communism long enough so that other Southeast Asian nations, such as Thailand and Malaysia, were able to strengthen themselves and thereby never succumb to communist aggression. The Vietnam War, though a defeat, helped stem the tide of Communism in Southeast Asia and therefore contributed to our victory in the Cold War. McNamara's mistake lay not in fighting the Vietnam War but rather in losing it.