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Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

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Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#181

Post by whimsicalism »

nine_k wrote: post #168
ska wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How many wars did the US win (as in "achieved the political goals") since WWII? Korean war: half won, half lost. Vietnam war: lost. Grenada invasion: sort of won. Gulf war 1991: I'd say won, despite Saddam staying in power. Gulf war II: I'd say lost, despite Saddam deposition. Afghanistan: lost, despite the killing of bin Laden. Syria: can't tell yet. It's a pretty depressing tally. With that, I'd say that the US was…

I'd say we won Gulf war II, we've definitely lost Syria by now, Afghanistan probably lost.

That said, many of the well-known, long haul conflicts that the US are involved in are the ones they are most likely to lose. The ones they win they usually win quickly and are less well known.

There are plenty of interventions post-WWII that have been quick successes for the US, esp. in Latin America.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#182

Post by freddie_mercury »

diplomatpuppy wrote: post #99
platinumrad wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware that Vietnam was eventually reunified under the North right? And that it's nothing like North Korea today?

Yes, Vietnam is awesome - and there's a lot of capitalism going on even if it's not official. But it's also no South Korea or Taiwan as far as development. The Vietnamese people are smart, clever, hard-working, and I really do appreciate them and I hope their government gets out of their way so they can shine.

It is hard to make a comparison between South Korea or Taiwan and Vietnam.

South Korea was the recipient of one of the largest and most consistent foreign aid packages for decades. From 1946-1978 South Korea received as much foreign aid from the US as all of Africa combined over the same period. (South Korea has a population of 50 million; Africa has a population of 1.3 billion.)

And then on top of that was the military aid from the US, which made up 20-40% of all aid. Half a billion dollars just under the CRIK program from 1950-1956. Even today, the US spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on its military presence in South Korea.

And that's just from the US. Japan also contributed billions of aid and development money.

Meanwhile Vietnam received no foreign aid and was instead under a 30-year trade embargo until 1995. Unsurprisingly, as soon as the embargo was removed, the Vietnamese economy began growing strongly (9.5% growth in 1995).

A similar story can be told about Taiwan and the massive economic and military aid it received from the US.

Plus South Korea and Taiwan were both single-party dictatorships with state-directed economies for decades, so it isn't really clear what was so great about them being "state capitalistic but not democratic". See the 228 Massacre in Taiwan, for instance.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#185

Post by darkhorse22 »

jimmies wrote: post #108
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won, but the cost was enormous. We grieve 58,000 deaths, but they lost more than a million (the figures are very fuzzy). Their soldiers lived rough as hell, and weren't particularly well-equipped. We bombed the living hell out of them. We used napalm. Being an NVC was a tough gig. From what I can see, Vietnam is actually starting to thrive, and I sincerely wish them the best.

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.

This seems like a flame. Anyway, strategically speaking, US COVID-19 deaths had little impact on the country's fighting strength. So they're not really comparable to North Vietnam's war losses.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#186

Post by temp8964 »

thereare5lights wrote: post #173
temp8964 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The justification of America's involvement and the lionization of it does not rest upon "but communists killed millions more."

OK. So just let the communists kill millions more, or just call God to send the perfect army.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#187

Post by VWWHFSfQ »

worik wrote: post #177
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.

10% of USA people live in poverty. 50 years on, still in poverty. Win or loose, live in poverty.

Big difference between "USA poverty" and "Vietnam poverty".

But you're right, it's poverty nontheless.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#188

Post by [deleted] »

skzv wrote: post #100

I wrote a quick script the other day to colorize directories of family photos. I realized it would be cool to colorize these photos, too. Here's the album: https://imgur.com/a/aJbpMjf The script uses the Image Colorization API from DeepAi. Here's the repo for the colorizing model itself: https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify I don't think the DeepAi API allows you to adjust the model parameters, but you definitely can i…

[deleted]

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#189

Post by stjohnswarts »

ghostly_s wrote: post #125
skzv wrote: post #100

I wrote a quick script the other day to colorize directories of family photos. I realized it would be cool to colorize these photos, too. Here's the album: https://imgur.com/a/aJbpMjf The script uses the Image Colorization API from DeepAi. Here's the repo for the colorizing model itself: https://github.com/jantic/DeOldify I don't think the DeepAi API allows you to adjust the model parameters, but you definitely can i…

Please don't do this.

Never tell someone to not do things like this. If it increases the audience all the better. It's the way people learn things. When you declare things as taboo it only hurts liberty.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#190

Post by [deleted] »

skzv wrote: post #159
ghostly_s wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't do this.

I can understand the concern. It can mislead people about what the past really looked like. An example: this same model colorized the Golden Gate white: https://camo.githubusercontent.com/3487a03626fd86d4f8c814636... In my case I wasn't too concerned, since I was sharing the photos with my family, who understood they were artificially colorized. My father even asked me if it was possible to choose specific colours in…

[deleted]
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