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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

#201

Post by xzlzx »

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…

IMO it’s a tad silly to say that the U.S. lost these wars. Can you really lose a war with a massive nuclear arsenal on your side? It’s crazy that this seems to never be mentioned.

This seems quite similar to Americans demanding their gun rights to protect themselves from the government. Well, I hate to inform you of this, but the government could out gun you since time immemorial. It’s a wild argument for gun rights.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#202

Post by [deleted] »

wahern wrote: post #153
refenestrator wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just googled when 'The Ugly American' came out. 1958! Nobody can say "noone could have known". I'm not an expert on Vietnam, but I'll just say that whatever their problems with a Chinese merchant class, the problems with a Western burning-villages class were probably bigger at the time.

I'm not trying to defend American policies in Vietnam. But Vietnam became independent in 1954, albeit split between North and South. The Vietnam War as typically understood by Americans, and as encompassing most well known atrocities, wouldn't begin for another 10 years . Also, American and, more generally, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist discourses tend to infantilize people in these countries. I doubt the Vie…

[deleted]

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#203

Post by rudolfwinestock »

nsonha wrote: post #59

"...by the mid-’70s, a force the U.S. military conceded was one of the finest in the world" I wonder how much of this is truth, or it's just the US trying to save face by claiming that they've lost to a world-class military.

It's saving face. Robert McNamara was several different kinds of fool. JFK & LBJ were even bigger fools for keeping him as SecDef.

Later, when Nixon became president, the situation changed for the better, but it was a slog. Nixon had promised the South Vietnamese premier better terms than what LBJ was offering, but, by the time he came into office, the situation had gotten so bad that it was all that he could do just to guarantee South Vietnam's existence.

Nevertheless, the situation stabilized. The North Vietnamese army was pushed out of South Vietnam. Nixon got the North to sign a cease-fire agreement, which the North (being perfidious communists) violated.

And the South Vietnamese army got good enough that, after Nixon had pulled American ground troops out of the area, South Vietnam was able to defend itself from North Vietnamese aggression, for a while.

In 1972, North Vietnam sent 150,000 troops—along with columns of tanks from the Soviet Union—to invade South Vietnam. The latter had American air support, but only its own troops on the ground.

Result: Less than a third of North Vietnam's invasion force made it back north. Roughly 650 Americans were KIA in a campaign as big as the Battle of Kharkov. The Army of the Republic of Vietnam had won, big time.

Then, Watergate happened.

In 1975, North Vietnam—violating the cease-fire agreement AGAIN—launched another invasion of South Vietnam. The Soviet Union continued to support North Vietnam. The Congress of the United States of America pulled all support from South Vietnam.

Result: Yet another workers' paradise blighting the history of the twentieth century. And the kind of gloating you can see in this discussion thread.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#204

Post by knz_ »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #126
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.

Maybe their soceity would have been more successful if it wasn't bombed to hell and back by the Americans then made a soft client state of the USSR and then boycotted by the West. If left to develop its communist government by itself, it could be like China today - a superpower that's going to overtake the USA by important measures. Lets stop pretending that years of war against a superpower didn't come at a cost for…

> If left to develop its communist government by itself, it could be like China today - a superpower that's going to overtake the USA by important measures.

Ho Chi Mihm was a puppet of china. There was no 'developing on their own'.

> Lets stop pretending that years of war against a superpower didn't come at a cost for them and the US should have left them alone.

Yeah, letting Russia and China subjugate the world would have gone SO MUCH better. What good has it done for nicaragua, cuba, north korea, afghanistan or the many noname countries in Africa? The USSR left only poverty and death whereever they went.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#205

Post by wolverine876 »

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.

> The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese.

N. Vietnam won, but that doesn't make war a success.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#206

Post by ufo »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #175
jimmies wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Let me ask you something. Do you think a south-east asian country with ~100,000,000 people only had 50 people die from the COVID-19 virus? Answer honestly

The CDC currently rates Vietnam's covid levels as "Low" https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/notices/covid-1/coronavirus-vie...

It's generally seen as having as effective response against the pandemic. They closed borders early and have employed an effective testing and tracing strategy. Their data appears to be transparent and is corroborated by neighboring countries.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#207

Post by mannerheim »

germandiago wrote: post #104
pirate787 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China, which intervened in the Korean War at the moment of North Korea's complete military collapse, has not been held to account for the horrific North Korean regime it saved and still protects. China doesn't want a unified Korea and the North Korean people pay the price.

Noone wants a unified Korea, except Koreans. Japan is not interested in having such a powerful economic mix nearby and China the same. Noone wants. If someone wanted, it would be the Koreans only.

I would assume Japan would rather have a powerful economic neighbour than a hostile nuclear one.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#208

Post by peteretep »

refenestrator wrote: post #118
wahern wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was huge ethnic and class component to the Vietnam conflict. In fact, in many ways it was far more important than the nominal communist character of the North, at least from the Vietnamese perspective. Here's a factoid I recently learned: something like 80+% of Vietnamese refugees were ethnic Chinese (Hoa people), despite constituting a minority of the population from which they fled. Rarely discussed in Americ…

I just googled when 'The Ugly American' came out. 1958! Nobody can say "noone could have known". I'm not an expert on Vietnam, but I'll just say that whatever their problems with a Chinese merchant class, the problems with a Western burning-villages class were probably bigger at the time.

> the problems with a Western burning-villages class

"Murder, kidnapping, torture and intimidation were a routine part of Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) operations during the Vietnam War. They were intended to cow the populace, liquidate opponents, erode the morale of South Vietnamese government employees, and boost tax collection and propaganda efforts. Estimates of the total number of South Vietnamese civilians killed by the VC/PAVN between 1954 and 1975 range from 106,000 to 227,000."

from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong_and_People%27s_Army_...

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#209

Post by refenestrator »

wahern wrote: post #153
refenestrator wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just googled when 'The Ugly American' came out. 1958! Nobody can say "noone could have known". I'm not an expert on Vietnam, but I'll just say that whatever their problems with a Chinese merchant class, the problems with a Western burning-villages class were probably bigger at the time.

I'm not trying to defend American policies in Vietnam. But Vietnam became independent in 1954, albeit split between North and South. The Vietnam War as typically understood by Americans, and as encompassing most well known atrocities, wouldn't begin for another 10 years . Also, American and, more generally, anti-colonialist and anti-imperialist discourses tend to infantilize people in these countries. I doubt the Vie…

Maybe trying to exploit and maximize ethnic differences in other countries is fundamentally a bad idea in the medium/long term.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#210

Post by hooande »

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…

The goal of the US in Afghanistan was to deny Al-Qaeda the use of one third of a country to plan their operations. That required taking control of that territory from the Taliban, who were allowing Al-Qaeda to operate without restriction. The US did that. They harassed the Taliban and denied them complete control of territory for 20 years. Not sure how this could be viewed as a strategic defeat in any way
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