The School Yard Fight
Many years ago, two high school kids decided to have a fight. One was a somewhat scrawny kid, long on guts but short on resources. The other was a big, popular kid who could fight up a storm. The scrawny kid wasn't well liked around campus and so many of the other kids were eager to have the big kid just put a whooping on him.
The fight got started one afternoon with a big crowd cheering and egging on the big kid. True to form, the big kid laid several light punches on the scrawny kid and then tagged him with a great punch that sent him to the turf. Scrawny was up quickly but that was just the presage to the whole course of the fight. Scrawny would land a good blow every once-in-awhile, but mostly he was getting tagged with big shots and getting uglier and bloodier as the fight wore on.
Finally the other kids started to get disgusted with the whole thing. Some of the watchers who had opposed the fight on general principal started to yell for the big kid to leave the scrawny kid alone. The rest of the crowd, looking partly ashamed and partly horrified, joined in because it looked more popular to stop the fight then to let it continue.
The big kid, realizing the emotional tide had turned, knocked the scrawny kid down for one last time and then walked away from the fight. He had proved his mettle and saw no reason to continue the fight. A funny thing happened just a few seconds latter. The scrawny kid who had just sustained a tremendous beating pulled himself onto his feet and started to scream that he had won the fight. The crowd of kids still in attendance joined in the chant despite the obvious evidence that the scrawny kid had just taken a major butt whooping.
That is the Vietnam war. The US military literally killed off the Viet Cong during the 1968 Tet offensive. The North Vietnamese army had lost huge numbers of troops and parts of North Vietnam had been devastated by bombing from the air. Yet, two years after US troops had left the battlefield behind, the North Vietnamese overran South Vietnam and declared victory over the US. One can expect that from a nothing country but when US citizens start to agree, you can't help but wonder if the country has lost all reason. The US whooped the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese army for ten years. They did not loose any major battles and left the battlefield only after securing a treaty that was supposed to protect the government of South Vietnam from invasion. That is victory and not failure. The big kid whooped the scrawny kid. They both know it and it seems only the crowd with a personal agenda don't seem to get it. Sad.
