141–150 of 193 posts
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Nobody is "erasing" other experiences, they are just very uncommon. When talking about how "people in a country" live, you look at the average person. You don't say "but the King and his ministers live differently, we shouldn't erase their experiences". The inner circle always lives differently from the masses, but by definition, they are very few. Look at the lives of the many, not the few. And regarding Iraq: durin…
With respect to Saddam's mass murder the uncommon experience for Iraqis is is having been personally affected. That doesn't mean it wasn't an atrocity, or rather a series. And no, most people are not likely to have had someone affected, as most of them were focused on certain groups and areas. If you belonged to those groups you'd be disproportionately affected. If you did not, you might have gone most of your life w…
Another ~100k Kurds and Shiite Arabs were killed during the '91 uprisings. Together, they make up more than half of the population.
Unless Saddam was super surgical (#heWasnt), they were affected. Unless of course, by "personally affected", you mean they personally did die. But that would be a very strange idea.
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No, you’re distorting history. After the communist victory at Dien Bien Phu, the French negotiated a peace (without much choice) that forced them to give up the North (where the communists were strongest). The French slowly disengaged from the South over the next decade leaving a fragile Vietnamese government in the South that had no interest in joining the communists in the North (1 million fled during partition). T…
The US propped up a dictatorship in the South and canceled free elections because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win. This is a matter of recorded fact, not a conspiracy theory. They had also been supporting the French with materiel and even limited numbers of advisors during the First Indochina War. There was a war of national liberation against a colonial power, and the US sided with the colonial power.
Of course Ho Chi Minh would win - there were no free elections in the North (100% of votes went for him!) and substantial support in the South. I wouldn’t call that a fair and free election.
Yes, and I agree the US supported the French materially and with advisors.
But South Vietnam was no longer a colonial power. The French were gone and the Vietnamese called the shots (not without foreign influence, I agree, but similar to the USSR and China influence in the North - you pay the bills you get a say).
But none of that infers the South wasn’t a real country.
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This is the story that is told, but one can’t avoid the similarity between the South’s alliance with the US, AUS, NZ, Korea and the North’s with the USSR and China (which had many soldier stationed there). Without material support the USSR and China provided, the North never could have won the war. There was no “rightful” liberation. It was a civil war in its essence with two opposing groups of Vietnamese fighting fo…
> It was a civil war in its essence with two opposing groups of Vietnamese fighting for control of a fractured post-colonial state It wasn't a civil war, not to begin with at least. The US installed a dictatorship in the South (the dictator they propped up was so bad they ended up greenlighting his removal and "accidental" assassination), with the promise of free elections. When predictions showed Ho Chi Minh would h…
The US never installed a government in the South. That was the French as a part of the ‘54 Treaty.
And your comment about a “free and fair” election makes me laugh. What do you suppose the vote would have been in the North? 100%? Probably.
Clearly a lot of Vietnamese opposed the communist regime. They lost, despite the support of the US. And the North won, with the support of China and the USSR.
There is not “rightful” winner, just the winner.
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I’d have to disagree on the popular vote. By the time of the proposed election, the Communists had complete control of the Northern population. There was no “free” vote for unification - any more than there would be a free vote in Vietnam today. And the US didn’t get significantly involved (beyond material support for the French) in Vietnam until the early 1960’s with the help of military advisors. The build up didn’…
The South never existed without US backing. It was a made up thing, without popular support, ruled by successive dictatorships (some even had to be toppled with the ok of the US, so terrible they were). It's not your right to decide whether people have free will or not. It's their call. "Deciding" for them is called colonialism. Ho Chi Minh had huge popular support; precisely what the US feared. PS: before the US fuc…
And your comment about “free will” is telling. How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today?
The only difference is it’s Vietnamese elite that control the masses, not some foreign power.
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> Big mistake of 1991 was to let Russia form. Russia form? Russia already existed, as the Russian socialist federal republic, a part of the Soviet Union. What would have been the alternative to letting Russia inherit the Soviet Union by being the last one remaining?
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Do the world a favor please.
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They had a bloody war with the US after they sided with their colonial oppressors and lost thousands of people to that war; that might have something to do with it. The US policy in Vietnam boiled down to one thing: body count. US only real measure of success was how many Vietcong/PAVN they killed; and because they had no way of telling the difference -- nor did they care much -- this effectively meant "kill as many…
Wait, what? Because they had a bloody war they couldn’t actually deliver what they promised? I mean we’re nearly 50 years past their victory? When are they going to “enact the American rights Ho Chi Minh showed so much admiration for”?
They delivered on independence from colonial powers, and on gaining self determination. No small feat!
I'm not sure what you believe they promised.
Vietnam was devastated as a country. The land itself, and the people. Countless Vietnamese were killed, far more than whatever the US lost in the war. The US did a number on them, the effects of which are still felt. It's a wonder these days they don't hate America (which by all accounts they don't).
Initial admiration for US values naturally fell once the US waged war on them, and within Vietnam leadership the hardliners gained power. Being attacked tends to give voice to the hardliners and sideline the "liberals".
It's a matter of record Ho Chi Minh initially admired the US and expected their support. It's a matter of record the US feared he would win the elections and so they cancelled them. You can argue till you're blue in the face, those two facts will remain.
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Quite the opposite - in the west you won’t realistically get really rich unless your family is already rich (see Musk). In communist countries you can just become a party member and then go up the ladder; see most polish leaders from those times.
How do you define “rich”? I’m talking affording those things the elite in communist countries had - consumer goods, foreign vacations, your own house. Those are all accessible by the middle to middle-upper class in the West. And no, party membership is not guaranteed to make you rich. And membership is not easy to get.
(Disclaimer: my grandpa was a party member, he managed local part of the polish power grid.)
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The South never existed without US backing. It was a made up thing, without popular support, ruled by successive dictatorships (some even had to be toppled with the ok of the US, so terrible they were). It's not your right to decide whether people have free will or not. It's their call. "Deciding" for them is called colonialism. Ho Chi Minh had huge popular support; precisely what the US feared. PS: before the US fuc…
And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. I’m not sure what your point is? And your comment about “free will” is telling. How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today? The only difference is it’s Vietnamese elite that control the masses, not some foreign power.
False. Did you know the Viet Minh initially counted with support from the US? When it was an anti Japanese struggle, of course. Initial US assessments even thought the French should get the fuck out; those sentiments were overruled by others in the US, sadly.
The Vietnamese struggle was a struggle of national liberation. Aided from the outside like all resistance organizations, sure -- like the French resistance against the Nazis was. Didn't make France any less real. Imagine if the Allies had partitioned France in two after the war, claimed the last Nazi held parts were to be ruled by Germany's successors or whatever, and that the ensuing fight to reunify France was "a civil war" and that the free (non German) France was "just as artificial".
> I’m not sure what your point is?
That the US sided with colonial powers and against an independence movement. Not their finest hour.
> How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today?
More than they would have had had the US backed dictatorship won.
Not that it matters: it's not for you to decide. There's no White Man's Burden to send civilization to other countries. Let them have their self determination and arrange their governments how they like.
Above all, don't murder them by the thousands, destroy the countryside and poison their land when you don't like the government they choose.
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The US propped up a dictatorship in the South and canceled free elections because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win. This is a matter of recorded fact, not a conspiracy theory. They had also been supporting the French with materiel and even limited numbers of advisors during the First Indochina War. There was a war of national liberation against a colonial power, and the US sided with the colonial power.
This is false. Of course Ho Chi Minh would win - there were no free elections in the North (100% of votes went for him!) and substantial support in the South. I wouldn’t call that a fair and free election. Yes, and I agree the US supported the French materially and with advisors. But South Vietnam was no longer a colonial power. The French were gone and the Vietnamese called the shots (not without foreign influence,…
False.
The US own internal documents stated they believed Ho Chi Minh held enormous popular support, especially in the countryside.
They cancelled the elections and instead propped up a bloody dictatorship. Nothing natural about the South, it was completely artificial, incompetent, and repressive.