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Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

rarehistoricalphotos.com

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Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#141

Post by crossroadsguy »

stolen_biscuit wrote: post #74

There's a lot of people in the comments saying that Vietnam didn't really "win" the war. Their political and military objectives were ultimately successful, those of the US/South Vietnam were not. That's what a victory is. The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese.

It’s just how we Indians keep telling ourselves we didn’t really lose those wars against China. But we literally were thrashed at will and when they (China) kind of got tired or thought they taught us a lesson they stopped.

Exactly the same way our close neighbours Pakistan keeps thinking they didn’t really lose any wars against us.

Even the people who were not even a foetus during those wars. Emotion trumps facts it seems.

Being in denial for so long.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#143

Post by bawolff »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #103
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #74

There's a lot of people in the comments saying that Vietnam didn't really "win" the war. Their political and military objectives were ultimately successful, those of the US/South Vietnam were not. That's what a victory is. The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese.

I think if you're talking about the acute win/loss of the Vietnam war, then absolutely the North Vietnamese won. If the USA really wanted to win the war then they could have done it outright in 1967. But that would have been very ugly. Not an option. Did the Vietnamese people win the war? No. They've been living in poverty for 50 years and most of them still are in 2021, 50 years later.

> Did the Vietnamese people win the war? No. They've been living in poverty for 50 years and most of them still are in 2021, 50 years later.

Do "the people" ever win a war? Something like 600,000 - 2 million civilians died in that war. If you're implying that people would be better off ecconomically if the other side won, that seems highly speculative with no evidence to back it up.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#144

Post by marcodiego »

jimmies wrote: post #19

I am a software developer in the US with a Vietnamese origin, so I am no historian and my views are probably skewed. I am among the minority Northern Vietnamese people in the US, most Vietnamese people in the Bay Area are (refugees) from the South. People can tell where one comes from with one's accent. It was undeniable that much suffering and injustice was done for Southern people, especially after the war ended. S…

> The bomb killed all of his family members and all the pigs he raised and left him with nothing. He cried and vowed to fight till he dies.

That's why Sun-Tzu teaches to always leave an escape route for enemy, otherwise he will fight to the last man and inflict more damage than giving up.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#145

Post by refurb »

tjpnz wrote: post #5
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #4

These are some great photos! But I really do wonder if "the winning side" was _actually_ the winning side. It seems to me that nobody won, and it's very likely that the Vietnamese people ultimately lost bigtime. USA fought a similar war a decade earlier in Korea and now South Korea is one of the preeminent countries in the entire world. Imagine what could have been for South Vietnam? Instead the entire country has be…

Have you seen Vietnam in the last 10 years? Sure, it's not what I would call a wealthy country but I didn't see much poverty either over my 6 months there - some of it spent in the countryside.

Vietnam is similar to China - the cities have a small middle class, a few very wealthy yet most of the country is quite poor, some of them brutally poor.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#146

Post by [deleted] »

xwdv wrote: post #135
Firerouge wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not? I've also colorized pictures and video frames using these same sorts of processes. It's reasonably quick and works pretty well

It’s fake, and pretty soon people will not even want to entertain the idea of looking at photos or videos that are not in color.

[deleted]

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#147

Post by temp8964 »

thereare5lights wrote: post #86
rudolfwinestock wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to the above, as much as some people want to mock America's involvement in Vietnam, one must note that The Domino Theory (used to justify that involvement) came true. Granted, the worst case scenario did not happen (Australia was spared communist takeover), but what actually happened was horrific, nonetheless. Laos and Cambodia fell to communism, in part thanks to communist forces from Vietnam. And anyone who…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre That's just one of them that we have evidence of. We know this was not a one off event. Anyone who pulls the line of "Domino Theory" and "America was just fighting communism" must note all the war crimes that the US committed and was never held responsible for.

That part is true, but communists killed millions more. There is no perfect history to love, sad ?

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#148

Post by jimmies »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #139
jimmies wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put that into perspective, the US has lost more than half a million people due to the Coronavirus. Vietnam lost 50 people. And there was no war.

How do you know that Vietnam has only lost 50 people?

Let's just say the government is super evil and they covered up 99 deaths every 100 deaths for some reason, although we have no evidence that they did. They lost 50,000 people.

The US lost half a million.

Are you happy now?

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#149

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

bawolff wrote: post #143
VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you're talking about the acute win/loss of the Vietnam war, then absolutely the North Vietnamese won. If the USA really wanted to win the war then they could have done it outright in 1967. But that would have been very ugly. Not an option. Did the Vietnamese people win the war? No. They've been living in poverty for 50 years and most of them still are in 2021, 50 years later.

> Did the Vietnamese people win the war? No. They've been living in poverty for 50 years and most of them still are in 2021, 50 years later. Do "the people" ever win a war? Something like 600,000 - 2 million civilians died in that war. If you're implying that people would be better off ecconomically if the other side won, that seems highly speculative with no evidence to back it up.

USA fought a very similar war in Korea 10 years prior.

Would you rather live in North Korea or South Korea right now?

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#150

Post by enraged_camel »

ska wrote: post #83
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #74

There's a lot of people in the comments saying that Vietnam didn't really "win" the war. Their political and military objectives were ultimately successful, those of the US/South Vietnam were not. That's what a victory is. The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese.

It's impressive how deep some of these psychological things run nearly 50 years on. It was such a blow to self-image that, let alone all the related domestic political fallout, people still have a hard time accepting what happened. The sheer amount of ink and celluloid spent trying to come to terms with this is awesome, and a little depressing.

I'm not a native-born American and don't feel like I have skin in that game. I just feel like in war, there may be victors, but there are no winners. Especially in the modern age, if you get in a war, all sides lose. Victory is just a matter of who manages to lose less.
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