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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

#521

Post by fallingknife »

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…

> the wrong side of history

I can't stand this phrase. It reeks of the history is a narrative with good guys and bad guys point of view.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#522

Post by afterburner »

jollybean wrote: post #370
afterburner wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hilarious thing is, the entire time the US was in Vietnam, top leadership in the US admin was pretty much convinced they could never win, but had to put in a good show. So they were never even "winning" in the sense that the US leadership thought they were winning.

I'm doubtful of your assertion that 'top leadership didn't think they could win' and especially in the context of 'put on a show'. Which elements of 'top leadership' believed this? For whom would that 'show' be for? You'll have to state which individuals took that position. "never even "winning" in the sense that the US leadership thought they were winning. " This directly contradicts your first statement. Did US lea…

> Which elements of 'top leadership' believed this?

Macnamara. LBJ. Kennedy.

> For whom would that 'show' be for?

For the American people, for Congress, for the world. To prove that the US stands by its allies and can still win wars. To prevent accusations of being losers by domestic political opponents, both in the same and different parties. Pretty basic stuff, these political dynamics are in play in nearly every war.

> This directly contradicts your first statement. Did US leadership think they were winning or not?

You are misreading the line. I am saying there were not winning either in reality nor in the leaderships minds. The US leadership did NOT think they were winning.

> Imagine how history would have changed were, in 1965, the Pentagon were able to fight on it's own terms?

How do you propose to fix the problem of Chinese troops overwhelming any serious success like they did in Korea? That's nearly the entire reason the US couldn't fully commit to destroying North Vietnam.

How do you even fix the problem of having unreliable and problematic allies in Southern Vietnam that could never really rally the country properly?

You have learned no lessons.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#523

Post by fallingknife »

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

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

Wait, you think that was the motivation for US actions?

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#524

Post by pnutjam »

trboyden wrote: post #196
aantix wrote: post #60

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hiNanqC5aQ My dad was a hospital corpsman on the USS Repose (hospital ship) during Vietnam. Having seen some of his operating room photos, I can't imagine that we were on the "winning" side. The video above is his amateur footage he took while aboard the ship. Probably 1968/1969. I had the film digitized after he passed in 2016.

Quite a coincidence. My dad was an HM3 on the USS Frontier from 1964 to 1967. He also passed in 2016. He never talked much about his service though. I only remember one story he told where US soldiers were issued bullet proof vests for the first time, and they chose to try them out by shooting each other with M16s. The result wasn't pretty.

My Father-in-law was a Vietnam Vet, an older one who had been in the military for awhile and made a career out of it. I believe he retired in 1978, he passed several years ago. My wife was born after he retired and he spoke very little about the war. He had PTSD, but he'd mostly dealt with it by the time I met him.

The only vivid story I recall. He talked about when they were stationed at an outpost. The supplies would be stacked up in a central area and he was getting the rations for his men. There was an explosion and everyone thought they were being shelled.

However, it turned out that one of the other Sergeants was wearing a grenade on his vest. The pin caught on something and pulled out without him noticing.

They had to spend the next few days taping down the pins on all the grenades to avoid another accident.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#525

Post by arithmomachist »

JPKab wrote: post #506
andrepd wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> promoted freedom as a cultural aspiration rather than rule by a monarch https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in... Iran '53 and Guatemala '54 are some of my favourites, as is Timor.

Both Iran and Guatemala were operations undertaken by the CIA with absolutely no knowledge by the American public. You do understand this right? At no point were the American public consulted by the intelligence agencies when they did these operations. It's rather childish to retcon history by implying that declassified operations that were deeply unethical were endorsed by the American public at the time. These oper…

> At no point were the American public consulted by the intelligence agencies when they did these operations.

That's exactly the problem! Once the federal government started conducting secret projects during the world wars, it stopped being accountable to the public. And it used that latitude to commit war crimes, assassinate foreign leaders, and experiment on American citizens. All in the name of lower commodity prices and fat profit margins for well connected companies.

The CIA should have been disbanded after what came out in federal hearings in the 70s. We have known since the 90s that the joint chiefs of staff endorsed killing Americans in a terrorist attack to justify invading Cuba.

Americans as a whole are good people, or at least no worse than anyone else. But our government is a bloodthirsty imperial machine whose claims of any sort of moral high ground are laughable.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#526

Post by sebastianconcpt »

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…

Tell me more about the communist contributions to human history without omission on its costs.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#527

Post by chefkoch »

JPKab wrote: post #520
cies wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 lev…

Bro you live in the Netherlands. I have numerous Dutch friends who are not as young and foolish, and your perspective is not the mainstream one in that country. Your nation was under occupation by the Nazis until the United States came in with the UK and made it otherwise. Obviously that doesn't mean the United States isn't imperfect and of course it has tremendous flaws and has yet to live up to its true ideals in i…

While i don't agree with the whole US Bad sentiment, shooting down a civil airliner isn't something that never happened to the US military. And i don't think anyone went to jail for it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_Air_Flight_655

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#528

Post by rajin444 »

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

Watching some of the US WW2 propaganda is really eye opening. We're the lesser of 2 evils, but that's not saying much.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#529

Post by pnutjam »

trop wrote: post #229
vmception wrote: post #78

I saw a French movie about a French soldier in Vietnam set in 1945 I was also in France at the time when viewing the movie, it was very surreal in so many ways to be empathizing for a protagonist on one of the enemy sides - from an American perspective as I am an American. But I had never seen anything depicted about that war decades before the US got involved. I had never seen a war movie produced outside of Hollywo…

> I had never seen a war movie produced outside of Hollywood. Or a director with primarily french influences producing a war movie. Not sure if the stipulation is a war movie about Vietnam, or just plain a war movie. But certainly here's a list of some non-U.S. 20th century war movies, very vivid, biased towards France: The Battle of Algiers (French, Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966) Come and See (Russian, Elem Klimov, 1985) I…

A Man Escaped

SPOILER

- is that the one where the pow makes it to the front lines and gets shot by his own side who assume he's German, since he was disguised?

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#530

Post by camillomiller »

These pictures are stunning. Each one of them is so powerful. We've really only been shown our side of history. Le Minh Truong is an astounding photographer, and one that should be as celebrate as Robert Capa, or many other Western photoreporters. Impressive. The picture with the two women and the fishnet is one of the most beautifully composed pictures I've ever seen, period. And I've seen a lot. Insane that I never got to see these pictures before today.
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