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Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

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Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#611
post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 th…

This is just more "Lost Cause" tripe. If you think the Civil War was about "states rights" etc etc, read the Confederate Constitution. “In all such territory the institution of negro slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected by Congress and by the Territorial government; and the inhabitants of the several Confederate States and Territories shall have the right to take to s…

> If you think the Civil War was about "states rights" etc etc, read the Confederate Constitution.

You seem confused. Nobody said that.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#612
post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of wars in history have been won by invaders who chose near total genocide of the male population of annexed territories. Many nations opposed by a military-superior enemy have lost no matter their sense of righteousness. The Vietnamese won because they managed to inflict sufficiently large number of American casualties that the US lost the will to war. Some folks say wars are won by logistics and not tactics.…

> The Vietnamese won because they managed to inflict sufficiently large number of American casualties that the US lost the will to war. Some folks say wars are won by logistics and not tactics. But it seems that Vietcong guerrilla tactics were far superior to American ones at the time. It's also worth mentioning that the US had no reasonable way to "win". The threat of Chinese involvement prevented them from invading…

America lost Vietnam because they failed to understand how to undertake counter insurgency operations, they threw untrained conscripts (who didn’t want to be there, and fucked up) into it. They also didn’t care about winning hearts and minds of the local population to drive support away from the VietCong, measuring success by bodycount.

Vietnam massively scared the US military for a long time, only really going away with the massive success of the Gulf War. It is always valuable to get the other sides perspective on a conflict.

Ultimately in a civil war, both sides are usually good and bad, depending on the perspective you take. The vietnam war was no different. It is good to see that the wounds of the war are mostly healed.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#613
post #19

I am a software developer in the US with a Vietnamese origin, so I am no historian and my views are probably skewed. I am among the minority Northern Vietnamese people in the US, most Vietnamese people in the Bay Area are (refugees) from the South. People can tell where one comes from with one's accent. It was undeniable that much suffering and injustice was done for Southern people, especially after the war ended. S…

>Many of the Northern people also have resentments with the current government as much as anyone else. However, I have to say much of the suffering and conflict is fading. I am so glad that in the last three years I was in the Bay Area, I have made many new Vietnamese friends, and have gone to many Vietnamese-owned shops buying groceries. I have not once had bad experiences with anyone in here. We spoke to each other…

> It's merely a matter of time that you will not only see hatred from anti-Communist side disappearing but also pro-Communist side triumphs.

As a Vietnamese I don't see this happening, if you think because it happened in China then it'll happen in Vietnam too, there are a couple of differences:

1) Vietnam doesn't have a "middle kingdom" mentality, we've always been and always will be a small country navigating our success with bigger powers around, so less of that blind nationalism bs, eventhough it's there

2) More importantly, we don't have a great firewall, so people are only going to be more disillussioned about the regime as more of them learn about the outside world.

I am pro socialism btw but of course it's a different thing. Socialism is a growing mindset in the west for sure.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#614

The Vietnam War: a series of huge tactical wins for the US that lead to an overall strategic failure. Very few wars in history end that way.

More or less. The Tet Offensive was crushed and had Saigon supporting troops pushed into the North quickly, there’s a chance the war would have ended differently. The North was massively depleted at this point. But the political and propaganda goals of the Tet Offensive worked and made the USA timid when it should have been aggressive. It was at this point that citizen support for the war began to fade quickly as the…

Not saying I want that to have happened but the USA don't have colonies, in the traditional way that the French and the Japanese do

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Humanity has seen the most positive growth by far under Pax Americana. It's not really much of a Pax Americana in the middle east or Central/South America. East Asia seems to be next too. "Pax Americana" has definitely been amazing for the west and it's friends but as countries like China and India start to challenge that, true colors will probably start to show as the existing world power(s) fight to keep that titl…

Global poverty has plummeted over the last 70 years

The United States is happy to accept all credit for any correlation, no proof of causation necessary.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#616
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.

Communism invented space travel, the mobile phone, and the artifical heart.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#617
post #604
post #579

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what's confusing about it. After WW2, Stalin immediately began claiming as much of western Europe as possible. Historical documents reveal he wanted the Warsaw Pact to extend over all of Europe. The only thing that prevented this was the US/UK forces immediately after WW2. The Berlin Airlift wasn't supported by the French government, because they viewed Berlin as a lost cause. The Netherlands would have…

Cannot complain about your evil overlords if they give you prosperity, right?

I don't really know what you mean by evil overlords.

Can you please name one example where people in the Netherlands are unable to do something because the United States says they can't?

Please feel free to name a single specific example of where the United States has forbidden people in the Netherlands from pursuing what they want to do.

Perhaps you have other motivations for not liking the United States like maybe you really really hate Israel. That's not an uncommon thing I found with Europeans. I've never met one that was anti-American that wasn't also anti Israel.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#618
post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Global poverty has plummeted over the last 70 years

The United States is happy to accept all credit for any correlation, no proof of causation necessary.

Since the US has been at the forefront of technological development, global stability, and investing in many of the biggest economic players today (south Korea, Japan, and Germany) it deserves significant credit for the current state of the world.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#619
post #615

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States is happy to accept all credit for any correlation, no proof of causation necessary.

Since the US has been at the forefront of technological development, global stability, and investing in many of the biggest economic players today (south Korea, Japan, and Germany) it deserves significant credit for the current state of the world.

> it deserves significant credit for the current state of the world.

Ok good, so both the good things and the bad things they did, yes credit where credit is due.

Re: Vietnam War images from the North Vietnamese side

#620
post #564

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.

That the US (rich) rapes poor nations not something we can critique because people from the poo nations want to immigrate to the US. This is such a bad argument I dont even know where to begin with unpacking. Regimes being bad to their own people (US is also in this category, but not like some poorer countries), is separate from it behaving bad to other nations. Internal affairs vs foreign affairs.

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