101–110 of 183 posts
I'd also like to recommend the Ken Burns "The Vietnam War," which can be found on PBS. It is amazingly well done and the depth of it is beyond most documentaries. For example, there is one episode (1.5+ hours) that covers a six month period from 1967 to '68. I was a small child during the war (10 in '68) and (to be truthful) only somewhat remember watching the coverage on TV. My mother said I used to ask her if I was…
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My parents are Vietnamese. My dad actually fought in the war with the South Vietnamese army alongside US troops. He's a lifelong Republican, as were all of his brothers who also fought, as well as the vast majority of his friends and their families who arrived as refugees. They supported the war. They saw the US as liberators against the communists who wanted to murder them and take over their country. They love Amer…
To be fair, the Vietnamese communities in Southern California are stuck in a time bubble. Vietnam has changed dramatically since the Vietnam War (or War of American Aggression as it's called in Vietnam), but the Vietnamese diaspora's image of the country has not. It's not the same place, and the government - while nowhere near perfect - is not the same as it was 50 years ago. The country still has many problems, but…
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Just one point: there is no, “The US” as I’ve learned over time. The US is geographically vast, and full of hundreds of millions of people from wildly different backgrounds. Those poeple have politics ranging from Ghengis Khan, to Ghandi. They seem to agree, as a nation, on very little.
That is true for every country so it doesn't add anything to the discussion.
I don’t appreciate your shallow dismissal.
How do people manage to condemn this type of thing but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I can't work out how Americans think being proud of their soldiers - both left and right wing people are. Is there something I don't know?
Yeah, the Iraqis were just sittin' around, doing nothin', having a Bud. Does anyone remember Kuwait?
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I'm sorry but the actions of the Viet Cong do not excuse the crimes committed the US, and neither does the nationality of your parents. To this day, many are maimed and killed by US land mines in the region, and the US does not give a shit.
"The US" no longer uses anti-personnel mines outside the Korean DMZ (which is actually managed by the South Koreans). The US does not deploy them anywhere, and hasn't for years. Maybe its India and Pakistan we're thinking of, hm?
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I'm sorry but the actions of the Viet Cong do not excuse the crimes committed the US, and neither does the nationality of your parents. To this day, many are maimed and killed by US land mines in the region, and the US does not give a shit.
"The US" no longer uses anti-personnel mines outside the Korean DMZ (which is actually managed by the South Koreans). The US does not deploy them anywhere, and hasn't for years. Maybe its India and Pakistan we're thinking of, hm?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/18/vietnam-unexpl...
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I'm sorry but the actions of the Viet Cong do not excuse the crimes committed the US, and neither does the nationality of your parents. To this day, many are maimed and killed by US land mines in the region, and the US does not give a shit.
"The US" no longer uses anti-personnel mines outside the Korean DMZ (which is actually managed by the South Koreans). The US does not deploy them anywhere, and hasn't for years. Maybe its India and Pakistan we're thinking of, hm?
So, just finished reading the article... I guess everyone should, just for the sense of thoughtfulness it should provoke. The thing is, the perpetrators started out as ordinary young American men. What tipped the balance, to turn them into stone-cold killers? It's not unique to this situation: this is what soldiers eventually tend to do. The ultimate modern example of pure, large scale monstrosity is the Red Army, at…
Stone cold killers is not the right description here. These soldiers, conscripts, were put into the most bizarre, dangerous, depraved situation you could imagine. The stress must have been unreal, in the jungles. They suffered a situational insanity.
How do people manage to condemn this type of thing but not the 100,000s murdered in Iraq because of the US invasion? I can't work out how Americans think being proud of their soldiers - both left and right wing people are. Is there something I don't know?
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That is true for every country so it doesn't add anything to the discussion.
Have you ever been to Iceland? Sweden is remarkably united in their politics as well. Japan is much less politically and culturally diverse than most US states. Few countries are as geographically large and populous as the US either, even before you work in hundreds of years of immigration. I don’t appreciate your shallow dismissal.