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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

#391

Post by bawolff »

VWWHFSfQ wrote: post #149
bawolff wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Its hardly identical, much of N. Korea's current struggles have direct causes that are more recent than the war (massive sanctions), and even if it was, a sample size of 1 is meaningless.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#392

Post by asd4232 »

badmadrad wrote: post #274
mort1merp0 wrote: post #164

I have a friend who served as a tank gunner in Vietnam. Has was wounded and sent home. He ended up with 4 teeth left after his jaw has been shot. He refused to accept that the US lost. No amount of reasoning would make him budge on that opinion. I dropped the subject as it was a risk to our friendship. I understand where he is coming from though. To have lost so many friends in addition to his personal injury, it wou…

it wasn't all for nothing. there was time when Americans cared about advancing a free world. Free from soviet style communism. And this was an ideal worth sacrificing for. Unfortunately, Americans have been demoralized by propaganda to the point of seeing freedom as something not worth dying for.

If exporting freedom involves bombing civilians you're supposed to free and spraying their country with herbicides, then perhaps you should rethink your strategy.

The Vietnam war was a lost cause all the way from the start, just like more modern endeavours of trying to make ultra-conservative societies of Iraq and Afghanistan democracies by invading them. Pointless waste of money and lives.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#393

Post by Kiro »

hiram112 wrote: post #362
chewz wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind that Monika was reporting for largest communist daily in Poland - her books are good reporting, lots of focus on people involved in the war but there is also a propaganda narrative. On the other hand her reporting angle is much better then some Western "useful idots"[1] like Tiziano Terzani [0] (der Spiegel), who had been calling Pol-pot 'great man with a vision for a nation' even on his deathbed. [0] https://en…

>> ... Vietnamese intervention in Cambodia >> ... American occupation [of Saigon] > but there is also a propaganda narrative. Yes you can see it explicitly from how he describes the two sentences above, one as an "intervention" and the other as an "occupation". I don't think most Cambodians considered the Vietnamese invasion in late '70's as an intervention, nor did the majority of the rest of the non-Soviet aligned…

You're quoting the same person you're replying to.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#394

Post by YetAnotherNick »

marcodiego wrote: post #71

The photo https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-StC-dVAdOns/YK081DEgPdI/AAAAAAAAd... is probably a captured M16 since, AFAIK, Vietnam used AK-47. What impressed me the most: "Using home-brewed chemicals, they developed their pictures in the open air or in underground tunnels" if by chemicals to develop photos in open air means no need for a dark room, that is really not something easy to do with then available technology. It is…

> How the US avoided international courts

You do know there is no such thing as international court, right? There are few organization which has name court in it like ICJ but they don't have any hard power like courts, and definitely have no force/military to stop a country.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#395

Post by fighterpilot »

Cipater wrote: post #377
badmadrad wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it wasn't all for nothing. there was time when Americans cared about advancing a free world. Free from soviet style communism. And this was an ideal worth sacrificing for. Unfortunately, Americans have been demoralized by propaganda to the point of seeing freedom as something not worth dying for.

When I think of the word "propaganda", the first two things that come to mind are the Nazis and the "fight against communism".

Because South Korea would be so much better off today had it fallen to Kim Il Sung rule...

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#396

Post by stickfigure »

marcodiego wrote: post #71

The photo https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-StC-dVAdOns/YK081DEgPdI/AAAAAAAAd... is probably a captured M16 since, AFAIK, Vietnam used AK-47. What impressed me the most: "Using home-brewed chemicals, they developed their pictures in the open air or in underground tunnels" if by chemicals to develop photos in open air means no need for a dark room, that is really not something easy to do with then available technology. It is…

> How the US avoided international courts is something that should be better explained.

It's probably relevant that the horrible health effects of Agent Orange were a result of accidental contaminants (dioxins), not the defoliant itself. Not that this makes it ok, but it's something different than dropping mustard gas on Kurdish civilians.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#397

Post by sofixa »

marcodiego wrote: post #71

The photo https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-StC-dVAdOns/YK081DEgPdI/AAAAAAAAd... is probably a captured M16 since, AFAIK, Vietnam used AK-47. What impressed me the most: "Using home-brewed chemicals, they developed their pictures in the open air or in underground tunnels" if by chemicals to develop photos in open air means no need for a dark room, that is really not something easy to do with then available technology. It is…

> How the US avoided international courts is something that should be better explained

Might makes right, aka US foreign policy since its inception. The US has never recognised any court that could try them ( like the ICC) and have veto powers in the UN, so they can go about committing war crimes with impunity.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#398

Post by cies »

The US is repeatedly on the wrong side of history. And they cannot even face that.

Red scare. Supporting neo-liberal-to-fascist govts. Yelling democracy but then killing democratically chosen representatives when they do not "suit de US likings". Bitching about some "meddling" in their election when the history is full of US meddling in democratic process of other nations. Giving "foreign aid" to apartheid regimes.

US looked like a force of good after WW2, but that deteriorated quickly. Not that other western nation states are holy, but the US seems to be the ringleader.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#399

Post by sofixa »

YetAnotherNick wrote: post #394
marcodiego wrote: post #71

The photo https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-StC-dVAdOns/YK081DEgPdI/AAAAAAAAd... is probably a captured M16 since, AFAIK, Vietnam used AK-47. What impressed me the most: "Using home-brewed chemicals, they developed their pictures in the open air or in underground tunnels" if by chemicals to develop photos in open air means no need for a dark room, that is really not something easy to do with then available technology. It is…

> How the US avoided international courts You do know there is no such thing as international court, right? There are few organization which has name court in it like ICJ but they don't have any hard power like courts, and definitely have no force/military to stop a country.

A court doesn't need a military force to impose its will. The ICC and the ICY work on consensus and UN backing, it's just that the US refuses to take part because they're afraid they have way too many war criminals and it'd be bad for PR. And not only do they not accept the ICC's jurisdiction, they have a law allowing themselves to invade the Hague if another country turns their war criminals in, and the previous administration sanctioned ICC prosecutors ( obstruction of justice) for daring to investigate US war crimes in Afghanistan on the behest of Afghanistan, an ICC member.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#400

Post by lenkite »

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…

A lot of wars in history have been won by invaders who chose near total genocide of the male population of annexed territories.

Many nations opposed by a military-superior enemy have lost no matter their sense of righteousness.

The Vietnamese won because they managed to inflict sufficiently large number of American casualties that the US lost the will to war. Some folks say wars are won by logistics and not tactics. But it seems that Vietcong guerrilla tactics were far superior to American ones at the time.

All credit to them. To be honest, few nations could have managed this. In that era they were likely the most battle-hardened people in the world.

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