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I Lost My Past (2017)

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Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#151

Post by the_af »

refurb wrote: post #144
the_af wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Your lack of historical knowledge is showing. 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 suppor…

> Your lack of historical knowledge is showing.

Brave words for someone going against the current consensus about the Vietnam war.

Also, please avoid name calling.

The US in effect propped up and backed the dictatorship. They also helped topple it and install successive and increasingly incompetent military dictatorships to replace it. Woo!

> There is not “rightful” winner, just the winner.

Nah, in the case of a national independence movement against colonial oppressors, there's a rightful winner.

Their errors and failures are their own, but they were the right side in that war and the US was the wrong side.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#152

Post by bingohbangoh »

kstenerud wrote: post #27
ARandomerDude wrote: post #13

> the liberation of Saigon That was a jarring phrase that helped underscore the great divide between East and West.

In this particular case, the North was in the right. As far as they were concerned, the Americans were just one more occupier in a long line of Western occupiers. And even though the Americans didn't intend to become occupiers, that's ultimately what happened (a theme that's repeated itself many times). The Americans and the Vietnamese were fighting different wars with each other. So the North pushed out the occupier…

These claims act as if the Vietnamese weren't themselves divided on communism or that the USSR wasn't running propaganda campaigns to convince everybody they were in the moral right.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#153

Post by vidarh »

anovikov wrote: post #129
vidarh wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody might care, but nody also had any way of imposing a breakup.

Easily. Just to say: split up, or you will not get food. They had weeks of food left in storage and many regions already starved. Plus, everyone in Russia already expected breakup as inevitable. At that point, rejection of everything related to the country - being Soviet Union or Russia - reached the apogee and a well-propagandised, well-funded drive to just restart history from scratch - every switching away from Cy…

Who do you imagine would say this in your scenario? Most countries had no incentive to see Russia split and risk destabilizing the entire region and have no functioning government in control of the nukes. The split of the Soviet Union was already high risk.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#154

Post by vidarh »

refurb wrote: post #119
vidarh wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To really underline this, one should read the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence. Ho Chi Mihn greatly admired many things about the US and so it starts with a quote from the US Declaration of Independence, before it talks about the French revolution, and then attacks the French colonial rule.

I mean sure, but look at the country today. Apparently they didn’t admire it that much.

If you admire someone and they turn out to be a bully, just maybe you change your mind.

The US has a history of this - Castro wooed the US too. His party didn't even describe itself as socialist until years after the US slammed the door in his face and the Soviets didn't. Once the Soviets had bought him, Castro made concession after concession that he could have made to the US instead.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#155

Post by vidarh »

luckylion wrote: post #142
vidarh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The genocidal attacks on Kurds claimed somewhere between 50k - 180k. Kurds make up 20%-25% of the population, which would have been around 3-4 millions in 1988. If you kill 1-3% of a population, it's very likely that most families will be affected, especially in societies where families are large. Another ~100k Kurds and Shiite Arabs were killed during the '91 uprisings. Together, they make up more than half of the p…

Your own numbers don't support the claim that most would be affected.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#156

Post by luckylion »

vidarh wrote: post #155
luckylion wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The genocidal attacks on Kurds claimed somewhere between 50k - 180k. Kurds make up 20%-25% of the population, which would have been around 3-4 millions in 1988. If you kill 1-3% of a population, it's very likely that most families will be affected, especially in societies where families are large. Another ~100k Kurds and Shiite Arabs were killed during the '91 uprisings. Together, they make up more than half of the p…

Your own numbers don't support the claim that most would be affected.

I have no idea how you come to that conclusion. If you kill 4% of the population, you will have lots of people losing a relative. What's that moving of the goal post about?

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#157

Post by nzmsv »

refurb wrote: post #140
the_af wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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”?

Americans lost two skyscrapers and still talk every year about how the country was scarred. Yes, it was terrible, but imagine a country literally burned by fire from the sky, and future generations continuing to suffer through birth defects. The sheer magnitude of the suffering perpetuated in the name of "freedom" and proper values is staggering.

You and people like you are sickening.

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#158

Post by PicassoCTs »

the_af wrote: post #150
refurb wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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. 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 abou…

The original Viet Minh was a anti-colonial organization, fighting against japan and france, in WW2 - ironically with US-Advisors and taking the US- as a example for a successful liberation from european colonial powers. After the war ended, the us- switched sides and dumped them. They then went and picked the next-best set of allies - which was russia/china.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1940%E2%80%931946_in_French_In...

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#159

Post by mmarq »

adrian_b wrote: post #134
mmarq wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact all communist revolutions, bar the Russian, were nationalist/liberation revolutions or at least started like that. Then they became oppressive regimes (and that was the point since the beginning, maybe).

I hope that you do not count what happened in most Eastern European countries as communist or liberation revolutions. There the communists were installed to power by the invading Russian army, even if false revolutionary and liberation histories were made up after the facts. The few places where there were indeed communists fighting for liberation, i.e. Tito in Yugoslavia or Enver Hoxha in Albania, so they had some l…

What happened in Eastern Europe was Russian imperialism. I was referring to Cuba, Vietnam, several African communist regimes, etc…

Re: I Lost My Past (2017)

#160

Post by sofixa »

refurb wrote: post #145
the_af wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. I’m not sure what your point is?

The liberated themselves from Japanese and then French control, with limited ( some arms) outside help, so that's just false.

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