Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

rarehistoricalphotos.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 624 posts

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#461

Post by roenxi »

cies wrote: post #398

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. U…

There is no 'right' and 'wrong' side of history. There are complicated shades of grey coloured by propaganda. And if there was a right side of history, the US has a very credible claim to it. They've pushed science and the arts forward, promoted freedom as a cultural aspiration rather than rule by a monarch and generally acted as a credible supporting force for the greatest improvement of living standards the world has ever seen in Asia.

There was a lot of cruelty, bloodshed and lies. But there has not yet been anyone in history who avoided that while being large. The US could certainly have been much worse.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#462

Post by cies »

roenxi wrote: post #461
cies wrote: post #398

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. U…

There is no 'right' and 'wrong' side of history. There are complicated shades of grey coloured by propaganda. And if there was a right side of history, the US has a very credible claim to it. They've pushed science and the arts forward, promoted freedom as a cultural aspiration rather than rule by a monarch and generally acted as a credible supporting force for the greatest improvement of living standards the world h…

You say:

> There is no 'right' and 'wrong' side of history.

But then you conclude:

> There was a lot of cruelty, bloodshed and lies. [...] The US could certainly have been much worse.

So you do accept there's a gradient of right and wrong.

> The US could certainly have been much worse.

But also a lot better!

> But there has not yet been anyone in history who avoided that while being large.

What we've seen is next level. This is due to the increase in mobility and world trade, sure. But it has been abused heavily, and seemingly to every extend possible. I dont know how it could have been worse without being a straight up dictatorship. (having only two parties come very close to being a dictatorship if you ask me; only one party better than the China the US like to bash so much lately).

> They've pushed science and the arts forward, promoted freedom as a cultural aspiration rather than rule by a monarch and generally acted as a credible supporting force for the greatest improvement of living standards the world has ever seen in Asia.

Tell that to the Vietnamese and North Koreans. Indonesia and Philippines also have a bit of a US hangover.

Science is fucked nowadays. Very "proprietary", as by the US-push patent law.

I think there is right and wrong. Read some Jesus and you know that ideas of what it good behavior and what is bad is not at all new. I'm not religious, but just to show that it is not merely the last decades that we know we should be nice to people and now do any horrible act for a bit of profit.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#463

Post by pembrook »

dncornholio wrote: post #458
pembrook wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the world is a chaotic reflexive system and trying to manipulate it always creates unintended consequences. The US absolutely does dumb stuff all the time, and power always gets abused. But for a contrarian view on the “US Bad” narrative, check out a book called The Accidental Superpower Here’s a good summary of the book: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-a... It presents an interesting…

The amount of goodwill the US had from ending WWII is sadly running out. US felt invincible after it and tried to do the right thing. But did not actually manage to replicate to what they did in WWII. Backup these results with data is not the way to go. You have to proof the same results could have not been achieved without force. Which is impossible to proof IMO

Sure, it’s impossible to prove what would have happened otherwise (given the chaotic reflexive system).

But an interesting thought experiment, imagine, after ending WWII the US and its people simply sunk into the ocean.

Then you’ve got a massive imbalance of power tilted towards Stalin and the Soviets with nuclear weapons and allied with China, vs a weak UK and France.

While it’s impossible to prove the USSR wouldn’t have started caring about democracy and human rights and stopped caring about expansion on their own...I don’t think it’s a leap to say the world would be a worse place.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#464

Post by numpad0 »

nabla9 wrote: post #456
numpad0 wrote: post #445

Is the trend of "publish with sensational title, switch to benign version to continue growth" creeping into HN or is it the fate

I don't think it's sensational to say that North Vietnam won and South Vietnam lost.

Original title for this post was “Rare Vietnam War images from the winning side”

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#465

Post by nemo44x »

tha0xb3 wrote: post #404

The Vietnam War: a series of huge tactical wins for the US that lead to an overall strategic failure. Very few wars in history end that way.

More or less. The Tet Offensive was crushed and had Saigon supporting troops pushed into the North quickly, there’s a chance the war would have ended differently. The North was massively depleted at this point.

But the political and propaganda goals of the Tet Offensive worked and made the USA timid when it should have been aggressive. It was at this point that citizen support for the war began to fade quickly as the media incorrectly reported that VC were making progress and couldn’t be stopped, in essence unwittingly passing along the propaganda that VC hoped would spread.

Not sure the outcome would have been different in the end though. The people were colonized by the French and then the Japanese and then the French again - the USA wasn’t looking like the great liberator.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#466

Post by cm2187 »

cies wrote: post #398

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. U…

So the "right side" is a communist dictatorship?

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#467

Post by nemo44x »

edgyquant wrote: post #275
Daub wrote: post #194

European now living in Vietnam. One thing I learned pretty quickly about the Vietnam war... it was two wars:the French War and the American war.

Technically it was three, the third Indochina war took place between Vietnam and China

Don’t forget the 5 years of Japanese occupation sandwiched in there.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#468

Post by ookdatnog »

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.

The US has historically been perfectly happy to advance its agenda of "freedom" by installing or supporting brutal dictatorships that suppress all political opposition. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9ta....

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#469

Post by throwaway6734 »

cies wrote: post #398

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. U…

>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.

Humanity has seen the most positive growth by far under Pax Americana.

What's your alternative?

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#470

Post by cies »

dncornholio wrote: post #458
pembrook wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the world is a chaotic reflexive system and trying to manipulate it always creates unintended consequences. The US absolutely does dumb stuff all the time, and power always gets abused. But for a contrarian view on the “US Bad” narrative, check out a book called The Accidental Superpower Here’s a good summary of the book: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/your-book-review-the-a... It presents an interesting…

The amount of goodwill the US had from ending WWII is sadly running out. US felt invincible after it and tried to do the right thing. But did not actually manage to replicate to what they did in WWII. Backup these results with data is not the way to go. You have to proof the same results could have not been achieved without force. Which is impossible to proof IMO

> goodwill the US had from ending WWII is sadly running out.

Sadly? It's about time. Vietnam, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, most of Latin America, many places in Africa. They all have a US hangover.

> US felt invincible after it and tried to do the right thing.

Serious? What propaganda outlet do you read? They try to help their big biz make max profits. That's all. That's not "the right thing". Yeah sure they sell it as "the right thing". Who does not...

Post reply on HN