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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

#541

Post by sandworm101 »

camillomiller wrote: post #538
sandworm101 wrote: post #533

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> We've really only been shown our side of history. Really? Maybe if one confines one's self to US TV news channels. There have been plenty of books, films, and documentary series that address the Vietnamese side of the war. If I were to recommend one, I suggest "Vietnam Minefield" (2005), covering the Australian's improper use of a minefield that resulted in countless bombings as Viet Cong forces repurposed capture…

I've always known that, yes. Yet, as an Italian kid of the 80s I've been raised by American and American-influenced media way more that I would like to admit. I knew the US were wrong, but there was still a disconnect between that and the depiction of the American War (as they call it in Vietnam) I took as "standard" for so long. My wake up call was 2017, during the first of a few trips to Vietnam. The War museum in…

You hadn't heard of Mi Lai? That's like know about the Iraq war but not Abu Ghraib, the war on terror but not Gitmo. If I had to list things to know about the Vietnam war, Mi Lai would be in the top five. If people are hearing about the Vietnam war, but not that part, then American media indeed has problems communicating history.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#542

Post by dionidium »

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…

> And they cannot even face that.

Except for maybe the Germans, Americans have a credible claim to more "facing" of their sins than any other country on Earth. Have you consumed any U.S. news over the last 20 years? Wrestling with our past is practically the national pastime.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#543

Post by andrew_ »

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…

This was really cool. Thank you for taking the time to put that together.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#544

Post by cloverich »

kiliantics wrote: post #287
cloverich wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a maximum military effort, with everything short of atomic bombs That book is extremely pro communist (hence the title). This is a pretty poor take on the war for several reasons, not least of which "maximum military effort" and didn't use most powerful weapons are somehow in the same sentence. They literally did not use their maximum military effort (not just on the atomic bomb front). It was a political war full…

they dropped more bombs in Vietnam than in WWII, I'd say that sounds pretty maximal

If they didn't use their full force it is by definition not maximal. But that's skirting the point a bit. The quoted passage (and the book) are a very biased take on history in general. Zinn wants the narrative to be that powerful technocrats couldn't overcome the people backed by some mythical cause (communism) whose good is the ultimate destiny of mankind. The reality is Vietnam was in civil war, and super powers were backing differnt sides. The US literally could not use its maximal force because it risked escalating into a larger conflict (China, Russia, etc). The real story is nuanced, complex. The US did lose -- nobody is contesting that here. But the quoted passage (and much of the book) is as much an attempt to spin the narrative as is "The US could have won if it wanted to".

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#545

Post by treis »

Nimitz14 wrote: post #403

> Viet Cong meet the enemy face-to-face, most likely in the Mekong Delta or Plain of Reeds. This rare image shows both sides in combat, ARVN soldiers at the top and Viet Cong in the foreground. The VC have flanked the enemy at left and right, which likely meant the ARVN unit was wiped out. This photo is a well known to be staged. Makes me doubt the authenticity of everything else.

The operating picture looks staged too despite the caption claiming otherwise. Battlefield hospitals tend to be chaotic and bloody things. Not peaceful and calm operating rooms without a drop of blood in sight.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#546

Post by cnlevy »

andrepd wrote: post #500
roenxi wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

And Iraq invasion of 2001, that replaced a stable (albeit dictatorial) regime by a civil war, and enabled ISIS to become a state.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#547

Post by [deleted] »

andrepd wrote: post #499
joyeuse6701 wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet the US is still the premier nation that everyone tries to immigrate to, because as a nation it actually works. The same can’t be said of many of the nations you mentioned, and that was before U.S involvement. The cool narrative of today is to point a finger at the west, but most people I think who espouse this view haven’t had the misery of living under the absolutely nuts regimes that exist in this world.

>Yet the US is still the premier nation that everyone tries to immigrate to Yes, because they are richest natiom in the world. How is that statement not a complete non sequitur to what was being discussed?

[deleted]

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#548

Post by marcusverus »

greedo wrote: post #540
marcusverus wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Furthermore, the US fought itself to free millions of slaves in it's own Civil War. This is simply not true. The North prosecuted the war to preserve the Union. It was only afterward that it was re-imagined as a war of liberation. This reimagination makes perfect sense from a propaganda perspective. After all, the Confederacy was a democracy. Its people voted to leave the Union. The Yanks, for the stated purpose of…

A democracy? Not for Blacks in the South...

Black folks couldn't vote in the North in 1860, either. In fact, when Lincoln started the war by calling up 50,000 volunteers to "put down the rebellion", there were more slave states still in the Union (DC, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and Delaware) than there were in the Confederacy! Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee seceded only after they realized that Lincoln intended to wage war on the South.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#549

Post by simonh »

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…

Things the US fought against: Japanese occupation of East Asia. Nazi occupation of Europe. Soviet occupation and oppression of Eastern Europe. Oppression of Iran by a theocratic fascist government. Russia again. Establishment of a nuclear capable unbelievably horrible regime in North Korea. More Russia. A regime in Afghanistan that murders girls for wanting to read. Lots of more recent Putin shit, for details ask the populace of any neighbour of Russia on it's western side.

So yes, they've done a lot of bad crap. Their history of supporting corrupt murderous fascists in latin America is a notable series of lows. Not that the communist alternatives were all that wonderful. However it's a very mixed bag. Take the US out of the post-war period, and does it really look a whole lot better?

If you're going to go off on one about countries the rest of the world could have done fine without for the last 70 years I could probably name a few for you.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#550

Post by pmoriarty »

marcusverus wrote: post #534
Dumblydorr wrote: post #515

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is true that the US has done morally questionable and practically useless world-policing, it's not as cut and dry as you state. In both world wars, the US was undeniably a force for good, against the extremely evil Nazis, the extremely cruel Imperial Japanese, and helping more monetarily and supply wise in WW1. Furthermore, the US fought itself to free millions of slaves in it's own Civil War. While it's tru…

> Furthermore, the US fought itself to free millions of slaves in it's own Civil War. This is simply not true. The North prosecuted the war to preserve the Union. It was only afterward that it was re-imagined as a war of liberation. This reimagination makes perfect sense from a propaganda perspective. After all, the Confederacy was a democracy. Its people voted to leave the Union. The Yanks, for the stated purpose of…

"The North prosecuted the war to preserve the Union."

This is known as the Lost Cause myth, and it's investigated in an Atlantic article titled "Why Does the Myth of the Confederate Lost Cause Persist?"

From the article:

It was then, in the late 1800s, that the myth of the Lost Cause began to take hold. The myth was an attempt to recast the Confederacy as something predicated on family and heritage rather than what it was: a traitorous effort to extend the bondage of millions of Black people. The myth asserts that the Civil War was fought by honorable men protecting their communities, and not about slavery at all.

We know this is a lie, because the people who fought in the Civil War told us so. "Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--the greatest material interest of the world," Mississippi lawmakers declared during their 1861 secession convention. Slavery was "the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution," the Confederate vice president, Alexander Stephens, said, adding that the Confederacy was founded on "the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man."

The Lost Cause asks us to ignore this evidence. Besides, it argues, slavery wasn't even that bad...

[1] - https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/06/confede...

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