Page 13 - The Viet-Cong Tet_Offensive_1968

to be the true d.efenders of hurran brotherhood and lovers of the father-
land.
The Cornrnunist effort was to serve no real purpose' Al-
though Hanoirs plan of action was rernarkabLe and the strategy and
tactic6 ernployed by Cornrnunist troops equally unique - these were to
put thern ternporarily at an advantage in Saigon and rnany other big
citi.e s - the situation was rever sed within a f ew hour s and it soon was
evident that the Winter-Spring Carnpaign was a catastrophe of rnajor
proportions for the attacker s.
Cne o{ the reasons Hanoi failed to achieve their airns
was the irnrnensely effective reaction of the South Vietnarnese Arrned
Forces, The south vietnarnese soldier fought bravely and effectively
in obvious contrast to the enerny criticisrns that had often been leveled
against hirn. On the contrary, Viet Cong soldiers did not show thern-
selves in their best light and were denied support frorn the very Peo-
ple they had always clairned to be trying to liberate'
What the Viet Cong radio described as rrglorious achie-
vernentsl during the two waves of attack in the early rnonths of 1968
arnounted to total of 60,000 Cornrnunists killed, another 10,000 taken
prisoner and over 17,000 of their weapons captured by governrnent
itoop". Allied losses, although heavy, did not aPproach one tenth of
thoee suffered by the insurgents.
These achieve rnent srr took the forrn of untold sufferings
rr
for the cornrnon people : 14,000 civilians killed, including persons of
allagesandsocialstrata'50,000housesdestroyedandthereduction
of ?00,000 persons to a state of dire poverty.
Frorn a rnoral view point, however, these were petty
things as cornpared to what the Cornrnunists did rnilitarily during the
carnlaign. With rnost of their experienced fighters no longer available
for the attacks, they resorted to dispatching teenage boys to find cer-
tain death in battle. They also pounded population centers with abso-
lutely no strategic or tactical value with hundreds of rockets for the
prirnary purpose of punishing innocent people for their non-coopera-

tion.
trThe Cornrnunist Tet off ensive 1968tr has been written
not so rnuch to bare Viet Cong crimes, vis-a-vis hurnanity, rather
it has been prepared with the hopes of awakening those, arnong the
twobillionpeopleoftheworld,whostillnurtureillusionsaboutCorn-

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