>>>>Propoganda, almost by definition, is at least slanted and at worst a fabrication. I remember during the Vietnam war the "Information" put out by the US and the "Propoganda" put out by the North Vietnamese. It's interesting to me to see an American President using the word "propoganda" in a postive sense (or else I'm misreading the quote).
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>>>This reminds me. History is written by the winner. Now, considering that there was no actual winner of the Vietnam war.
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>>North Vietnam in the end ruled the whole country. Hanoi was renamed to Ho Chi Minh. The army of the south was disbanded. The foreign aides fled. Nobody won?
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>Let's face it though. US would have won if they'd just nuked a few cities. That's how they won WW II. All that power and can't use it. Like becoming a black-belt in karate but knowing that if you used it in self-defence you'd be thrown in prison, so you let yourself get beaten.

There is no doubt whatsoever we COULD have defeated North Vietnam militarily. But politically there was too much disagreement about our mission there, thus tying the hands of LBJ and the U.S. military forces. The bottom line is the North Vietnamese simply wanted to win more than we did. We sustainded about 58,000 casualties, which is a very large number. The Vietnamese -- not sure if this is just the North Vietnamese or the whole country -- lost an estimated 3 million. Pay any price, bear any burden -- that was them, not us.