Did the dems cutting funding for Vietnam "lose" the war?

[Hamlette]

I don't get this "conventional wisdom." Nixon ran both times promising to end the war (he had a "secret plan" to end the war...remember?) and he drastically reduced the number of troops from a high of 486,000 in 1968 to only 50 (!) in 1973. The first vote to "defund" the war wasn't until Ford was prez...so late 1974 at the earliest and Congress reduced funding from $1.26 billion to 700 million...hardly drastic (sheesh, $1.26 billion is about 4 DAYS in Iraq and while I understand inflation, the diff is not ALL due to inflation.)

I lived through this period of time and while I remember Congress getting pissed at Nixon and his negotiations which seemed to produce no results (and bombing Cambodia etc.), I certainly don't remember Congress being heavy handed. Do I remember it incorrectly? Was it really the Dems in Congress who ended the war or are we just "blamed" (for losing a war which could have been war and thus being responsible for the blood bath in Cambodia blah, blah) because the GOP doesn't want to admit a republican "lost" the war?

(Got my numbers here, which is about how I remember it...even though the history channel story in the first link is pretty inflammatory. The numbers in the article don't match the rhetoric of the Dems losing the war...to my thinking.)
http://hnn.us/articles/31400.html
http://members.aol.com/warlibrary/vwatl.htm

[Warpy]

1. no, the damned filthy disgusting hippies did

You know, those all powerful college aged kids without a dime to their names, no access to the halls of power, and no concept of cleanliness or responsibility lost the war. Didn't you get the memo?

I just wish we'd known how powerful we were at the time.

[Monkeyman]

2. You mean us the VVAW oh my

[NoPasaran]

3. US participation in the Vietnam War officially ended in January, 1973

US participation in the Vietnam War officially ended in January, 1973 with the signing of the Paris Peace Accords. Congress subsequently cut off funding for any further military operations or assistance in Indochina. Id they hadn't, we would probably still be there.

[Jacobin]

4. Yeah. If only we'd had another 50 years and 40 million troops

we could have beaten those dangerous people and ended their attacks on us? uhm, their attacks on us? uhm

Its the same bull shit as now. Colonial rapacious stupidFuckingShit machomilitarism idiocy

[TahitiNut]

5. In those days, 'liberal' did NOT necessarily mean 'Democrat' and ...

... 'conservative' did NOT necessarily mean 'Republican.' Those favoring a military strategy that actually matched the objective were hand-cuffed (not ALL of whom were 'conservative') ... and those favoring "peace with honor" were also handcuffed (not ALL of whom were liberal). Both political parties were split - and the liberal vs. conservative dialectic wasn't congruent either.

[Neshanic]

6. Wikipedia has a good summary.