File picture of a female Viet Cong soldier in action with an anti-tank gun during fighting in the Mekong River Delta during the Tet Offensive in 1968. (Photo: AFP / Getty Images)
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Tet Offensive. On January 30, 1968, thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers and their Viet Cong support organized a sweeping attack of multiple cities in South Vietnam. The event is said to have reinforced the United States opposition to the Vietnam War. The following is a compilation of thoughts across a diverse spectrum of academics, activists, organizers and progressive thinkers on the significance of this event in history.
Daniel Falcone: Could you briefly share with me your thoughts on the Tet Offensive and its meaning and significance historically? Can you also expand on our political culture in the US and how it might be related to knowledge gaps regarding the Vietnam War? Professor Norman Finkelstein has called this war and others difficult to grasp because of the intense differences between “[US] government propaganda and reality.”
Noam Chomsky, professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology: The Tet offensive is perhaps the most remarkable example of popular resistance in history. The attack on South Vietnam had been so severe that Bernard Fall, one of the most knowledgeable and respected specialists and direct observers, had warned a year earlier that Vietnam might not survive as a cultural and historical entity under the most extreme attack that had ever been launched against an area that size. South Vietnam was saturated with half a million US troops, and a much larger army of the client state. Hardly a square meter was not under surveillance.
The uprising came as a total shock, all over the country. It took immense firepower and destruction to control it. US elites understood that the rosy predictions about victory were complete nonsense. [President Lyndon Johnson] was pressured to begin to move towards withdrawal. The…