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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

#231

Post by randallsquared »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #191
matt-attack wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think b&w photos are too deceptive. I mean too many people literally picture the world at the time to be black and white. Recall that look is just an artificial limit imposed by immature chemical technology. It’s not like people wanted their pictures looking like that. It’s even a common trope in modern films to use black and white when showing flashbacks to time periods around the beginning of the 20th ce…

Well a colorized photo will only be more deceptive since it's just a guess. B&W aren't deceptive, they just are.

B&W photos don't have a lack of color; they've just restricted the color to certain values. A colorized photo might or might not get the colors correct, but the B&W photo definitely doesn't.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#232

Post by redis_mlc »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #6

I wonder how the misadventures of the US in Iraq and Afghanistan would have played out had we had this sort of media coverage - CNN and others was just an extension of the Pentagon.

Iraq wasn't a misadventure.

The ultimate goal of removing Saddam and destroying the Iraqi army (4th largest) were important strategic goals because oil, although the reasons given to the American people were at best superficial. Saudi Arabia and other countries paid for part of the US military effort, around $40 billion.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-arabia-pays-us-500m...

Afghanistan is a strange story and isn't well-understood by Americans. Its location is important, as well as its natural resources. Ideally Russia, Pakistan and the US would have come up with a plan to occupy it since the Taliban is certainly a threat to Pakistan, as well as the Russian border.

(Pakistan is reluctant to fight the Taliban because of Islamic ideology swaying lower ranks in the Pakistani army. But Russia and the US worked at cross-purposes. In some ways Afghanistan and Palestine are similar - nobody wants them or to be responsible for them.)

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#233

Post by kumarvvr »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #141
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #74

There's a lot of people in the comments saying that Vietnam didn't really "win" the war. Their political and military objectives were ultimately successful, those of the US/South Vietnam were not. That's what a victory is. The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese.

It’s just how we Indians keep telling ourselves we didn’t really lose those wars against China. But we literally were thrashed at will and when they (China) kind of got tired or thought they taught us a lesson they stopped. Exactly the same way our close neighbours Pakistan keeps thinking they didn’t really lose any wars against us. Even the people who were not even a foetus during those wars. Emotion trumps facts it…

Totally agree. The narrative about China is mostly political tomfoolery, as the party that faced the war, was in power for decades after the war, giving it a tremendous opportunity to re-write history. They conveniently blamed some scapegoats and shut down the discussion, more or less.

Nehru was more interested in appeasement than long term strategic thinking, when it comes to international affairs. I think it stems from the deep seated inferiority complex that the British left in the elite and intellectuals of the country. Most of the leadership during the initial decade of Indian independence were heavily influenced by the British and looked up to them for guidance.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#234

Post by refenestrator »

peteretep wrote: post #230
refenestrator wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dienbienphu was in 1954, just for starters.

> Dienbienphu was in 1954, just for starters. Yes, that's the reason the French were out in 1954.

It was the same people on the north vietnamese side all throughout this entire multi-decade period, from the early 1940s till the mid-70s. They fought a rotating cast of western-backed fig leaf local rulers. I'm not sure what else I can tell you, here.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#235

Post by ryan_j_naughton »

matt-attack wrote: post #178
xwdv wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s fake, and pretty soon people will not even want to entertain the idea of looking at photos or videos that are not in color.

I actually think b&w photos are too deceptive. I mean too many people literally picture the world at the time to be black and white. Recall that look is just an artificial limit imposed by immature chemical technology. It’s not like people wanted their pictures looking like that. It’s even a common trope in modern films to use black and white when showing flashbacks to time periods around the beginning of the 20th ce…

> I actually think b&w photos are too deceptive...Recall that look is just an artificial limit imposed by immature chemical technology.

That limit materially constrained the information that could be captured, but it didn't invent false information. It was a dimensionality reduction from color to simple brightness intensity. Sure, the information captured was through that lens/filter, but there wasn't some AI inventing/guessing at what it was seeing. The photons directly exposed the chemicals in the film. They are not equivalent at all, and your reduction based upon the fact that humans add an additional interpretive perspective to each is a stretch.

I say all of this while being fine with colorized photos, but they should be accompanied by the original photo and the disclaimer that they were colorized. I think colorized photos can add a lot of immersion and trigger emotion, but so does generative, interpretive art.

We shouldn't treat Monet's water lilies as an accurate portrayal of his flower garden at his home in Giverny. Colorized photos, while not as extreme as impressionist paintings, are still a generated piece of art. Perhaps they are more akin to portraits, which have been historically shown bias towards an unflattering view of the subject -- as when they are unflattering, they tend to not to survive[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sutherland%27s_Portrait_of_Win...

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#236

Post by postalrat »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #111
stolen_biscuit wrote: post #74

There's a lot of people in the comments saying that Vietnam didn't really "win" the war. Their political and military objectives were ultimately successful, those of the US/South Vietnam were not. That's what a victory is. The cost of victory was very high, but it was a pretty unambiguous success for the Vietnamese.

People in the US misunderstand the Vietnamese perspective on the war pretty badly. Interestingly enough one of the best sources you can look at to learn about this is the documentary interview with McNamara, Fog of War. He's surprisingly frank about his own mistakes in perspective, as well as talking about conversations he had with his counterparts in later years: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YONEXPMVaQM

The fog of war is an incredible documentary. I'd suggest it to anyone who is willing to watch it.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#237

Post by kumarvvr »

whimsicalism wrote: post #181
nine_k wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many wars did the US win (as in "achieved the political goals") since WWII? Korean war: half won, half lost. Vietnam war: lost. Grenada invasion: sort of won. Gulf war 1991: I'd say won, despite Saddam staying in power. Gulf war II: I'd say lost, despite Saddam deposition. Afghanistan: lost, despite the killing of bin Laden. Syria: can't tell yet. It's a pretty depressing tally. With that, I'd say that the US was…

I'd say we won Gulf war II, we've definitely lost Syria by now, Afghanistan probably lost. That said, many of the well-known, long haul conflicts that the US are involved in are the ones they are most likely to lose. The ones they win they usually win quickly and are less well known. There are plenty of interventions post-WWII that have been quick successes for the US, esp. in Latin America.

I would not classify Gulf war II as a "war". It was a blatant incursion, which even Saddam knew would not last, hence the focus on looting the victim, rather than planning for an occupation.

Saddam bet that if no ones does anything concrete, he can get away with it, else, he can return back.

I would call than an "occupation" rather than a "war".

Edit : I retract my comment. I meant Gulf War I, the occupation of Kuwait.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#238

Post by whimsicalism »

dillondoyle wrote: post #228
whimsicalism wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say we won Gulf war II, we've definitely lost Syria by now, Afghanistan probably lost. That said, many of the well-known, long haul conflicts that the US are involved in are the ones they are most likely to lose. The ones they win they usually win quickly and are less well known. There are plenty of interventions post-WWII that have been quick successes for the US, esp. in Latin America.

Yeah Syria is interesting The problem with all these conflicts is winning is so poorly defined or multi-goal. What's winning in Syria? Getting rid of assad and then leaving? We could probably do that in a week or less and utterly demolish the country if we wanted. The consequences of 'winning' that war under that definition would probably be pretty horrible. But that doesn't seem to be the goal right now? There's the…

> We could probably do that in a week or less

Eh - I'm not sure. Getting aircraft overhead would be difficult east of the euphrates when they have lots of anti-aircraft guns and they are also supported heavily by Russia.

The only Western power currently conducting airstrikes east of the euphrates is Israel and they have had planes shot down by Syria & Russia.

The US has a preponderance of military power, but I do think people are quick to assume that this means the US could easily topple lots of foreign nations. For some, that is definitely true, for others, like Iran, I think that is a misplaced confidence.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#239

Post by [deleted] »

refenestrator wrote: post #234
peteretep wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dienbienphu was in 1954, just for starters. Yes, that's the reason the French were out in 1954.

It was the same people on the north vietnamese side all throughout this entire multi-decade period, from the early 1940s till the mid-70s. They fought a rotating cast of western-backed fig leaf local rulers. I'm not sure what else I can tell you, here.

[deleted]

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#240

Post by acomjean »

ghostly_s wrote: post #125
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…

Please don't do this.

It neat, and works amazingly well. I don't love it though, but I like the look of black and white photos (I was shooting black and white in the 90s when I worked at a college paper). Not having the color in there focuses your attention differently and in my case I would use the camera slightly differently.

But they've alway wanted colors in photographs. Going as far as actually hand coloring them. This is kinda like that but automated.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand-colouring_of_photographs

I wish there was a little symbol you could put in the corner to indicate "colorized" or "altered" for composite photos done with photoshop.

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