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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Vietnam War
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
A divine right of course. That's what the sermon on the mount mandates. Obviously.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I can't speak for anyone else here, Kaplan but I'm certainly not out to defend or exonerate either the Viet Cong nor Castro's Cuba.
Accusing successive US administrstions of lies, dirty tricks snd crimes against humaniyy does not imply giving carte blanche to those they opposed. To denounce US drone strikes in Afghanistan isn't to condone road-side bombs and the sctions of the Taliban.
It must be painful for Lamb Chopped to read some of the posts here and I am grateful to hr and admire her for adding her oown first hand and informed observations.
No, I don't believe the Viet Cong were 'village Hampdens' fighting with whatever came to hsnd. But I have no doubt - no doubt whatsoever - that had the US occupied North Vietnam as Bibliophile suggests they would have carried out mass killings, used weapons of mass destruction, lied repeatedly to their own public and to the international community. That is why I believe Bibliophile's position to be compromised. You seem to suggest that we give the USA a free pass on these things simply because hippy-dippy middle-class Westerners can have a romanticised view of the Viet Cong.
Sure, you have acknowledged that the US is fallible - so has Bibliophile, and I am by no means suggesting that the US is always wrong or anywhere near as monstrous as Stalin or Mao.
I don't see what's so wrong with having a both/and position on the injustices on both sides.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
People from Vietnam and Cuba have left their countries for economic reasons, not for political reasons. I thought everyone knew that.
What you really mean is, “I thought everyone realized that only middle-class Westerners of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon lineage appreciate higher values such as democracy and freedom, and that the duty of hoi Third World polloi such as Cubans and Vietnamese is to be content in their socialist paradise theme parks which we visit on our slumming holidays. If they try to escape, they must be motivated by shameful greed and materialism – no other motive is conceivable”.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
This perpetuates the romantic myth that the Viet Cong were heroic, freedom-loving "village Hampdens", forced to fight with whatever lay to hand.
No it doesn't. It just states a fact - they beat the strongest, best armed, best organised army the world has ever seen with better tactics in a war of attrition. No romanticism involved.
As seen in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, once a uniting enemy is removed, these times of forces are entirely capable of fighting each other if they choose to. In Vietnam they chose not to.
quote:
They were in fact communist ideologues out to forcibly impose neo-Stalinism on their fellow-Vietnamese; they intimidated and conscripted civilians to help them,; they were assisted by North Vietnamee regulars; and they were equipped by both China and the Soviet Union.
If you were talking about North Korea, I would agree with you. But not much evidence of this in Vietnam. You are just making up excuses to cover up the poverty of your position: the evils of Vietnamese Communism predicted by the US politicians in the 1970s never happened.
Vietnam is not free and is not by any means a perfect society, but is far better than many other societies which were not Communist. There is no evidence of North Korean Stalinism, this is just an exaggeration.
quote:
Because an authoritarian regime with an intelligence and vengeance organisation which infiltrates down to the grass-roots village level (very similar to the Mafia) can quite easily intimidate a society and deter any semblance of dissent.
The country clearly is authoritarian, but it is in no sense the evil that the USA made it out to be. This is a very weak argument.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
What you really mean is, “I thought everyone realized that only middle-class Westerners of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon lineage appreciate higher values such as democracy and freedom, and that the duty of hoi Third World polloi such as Cubans and Vietnamese is to be content in their socialist paradise theme parks which we visit on our slumming holidays. If they try to escape, they must be motivated by shameful greed and materialism – no other motive is conceivable”.
Not really - consider all the failing states which have never been Communist - from Sudan to Papua New Guinea to Cambodia.
Vietnam has many freedom problems but overall has achieved much more than any of these.
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arse
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
We are all of us governed by our ideological preferences, of course, so Kaplan with his somewhat right-wing leaning position is bound to take a different line to those of a more leftward or liberal persuasion.
I don't see why it has to be as binary as that.
I can't see why we can't hold to a view that accepts that the Viet Cong were backed by both China and the USSR - both of whom were committed to the spread of world-wide revolution at that time - and that they could and did act in reprehensible ways -- whilst at the same time accepting that the South Vietnamese government was a corrupt puppet-state backed by realpolitik US administrations who were quite prepared to lie to their own electorate, to flout international law and carry out illegal and repressive actions themselves to further their cause.
Pot, meet kettle.
That in no way lets the Viet Cong, the Soviet Union nor Maoist China off the hook - nor does it necessarily play into the hands of the comfortable, middle class liberals that Kaplan appears to despise so much.
One doesn't have to have a romanticised view of the Viet Cong to suggest that any attempt to quash them - as in any guerilla war - was going to involve covert action, dirty tricks, strikes against civilian targets and all the other evils that took place in the name of freedom and democracy.
Any army that has faced a guerilla insurgency has resorted to repraisals, internments, atrocities against civilian populations. That applies as much to Nazi Germany combating the French Maquis as it does to any other invading or occupying force - of whatever ideology.
That isn't to suggest equivalence. No-one here is suggesting that the USA was on a par with Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia. At least the US brought the perpetrators of the My Lai massacre to trial.
What it is to suggest is that Bibliophile's view of the legitimacy of a strong-arm US approach to North Vietnamese aggression is naive. He writes about cutting off the head of the snake before it had a chance to uncoil. It doesn't seem to have occurred to him that:
- A US invasion of North Vietnam would have provoked a reaction from both the USSR and China - who would undoubtedly supplied insurgents leading to a prolonged and increasingly bloody guerilla campaign which would have led to many thousands of US casualties as well as to untold misery among the civilian population as the occupying forces desparately turned to more and more draconian measures to maintain a hold on the country.
- That it could have led to an inevitable and humiliating US withdrawal and consequent loss of 'face' and prestige - which is what happened in the longer term anyway.
- That the US occupying forces may - for reasons they would have justified to themselves - have conducted brutal crack-downs, massacres and repraisals. The international reputation of the USA would have suffered the blow-back from that for decades.
That isn't to say that the US military are or were worse human beings than anyone else. Nor is it to say that invading Communist guerillas or resistance to US occupation would have been squeaky-clean either. Informers would have been tortured and executed. Collaborators would have been murdered. Officials would have been assassinated.
The whole thing would have been a bloody mess.
No matter how efficient, well-intentioned or organised the occupying US forces would have been this - or something like it - on a larger or smaller scale would have been the inevitable result.
It would have been the ordinary North Vietnamese people who suffered most. As well as the relatives and friends of those US military killed in an unwinnable and intractable quagmire of a war.
Bibliophile's suggestion is naive. It fails to take into account the inevitable behaviour of occupying forces of any kind - whatever nationality or ideology they represent.
Heck, there have been enough examples from Britain's own colonial history to demonstrate my point - not to mention the French. And none of that lets the USSR or China or any other regime off the hook.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
This is nothing about letting anyone off the hook. Some like to pretend that Communist states are the worst thing that have ever happened - even when examples such as Vietnam and Cuba clearly are many times better than many many worse non-communist states.
Human right abuses in Vietnam and Cuba should be highlighted and discussed, but we should also note that these are not the worst currently existing on the planet either. Our "friends" are frequently far worse than our communist "enemies".
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
they beat the strongest, best armed, best organised army the world has ever seen
I think there would be quite a few people who could raise significant questions about that statement. In particular the "best organised" bit.
[code]
[ 16. June 2015, 09:05: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
This is nothing about letting anyone off the hook. Some like to pretend that Communist states are the worst thing that have ever happened - even when examples such as Vietnam and Cuba clearly are many times better than many many worse non-communist states.
Human right abuses in Vietnam and Cuba should be highlighted and discussed, but we should also note that these are not the worst currently existing on the planet either. Our "friends" are frequently far worse than our communist "enemies".
I for one have never claimed that communist states are the only, or the worst, abusers of human rights.
My unavoidable point is that the Western intelligentsia have cut them more slack than other abusers by ignoring, rationalising or, in rare cases, supporting the abuse, not out of communist sympathies, but out of a desperate fear of appearing unfashionably anti-communist.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
so Kaplan with his somewhat right-wing leaning position is bound to take a different line to those of a more leftward or liberal persuasion.
Like most people, I am a mixture of conservative, liberal (in the etymological and historical, not American, sense of the term) and left-wing (to anyone of the Teapot Tendency, my grateful support for the welfare state would come across as fanatically Bolshevik).
My attitude toward left-wing tyranny is the same as that of the rabid right-wing maniac George Orwell.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
My unavoidable point is that the Western intelligentsia have cut them more slack than other abusers by ignoring, rationalising or, in rare cases, supporting the abuse, not out of communist sympathies, but out of a desperate fear of appearing unfashionably anti-communist.
Conservative USAmericans like to exaggerate issues with Cuba and keep them front-and-centre of discussions. In contrast, with, human rights abuses (which are far worse) Western Sahara which is never covered or talked about by anyone.
It is like Left has nothing better to do than remind everyone how evil Communism is, even whilst the evidence is against them.
[ 16. June 2015, 10:04: Message edited by: mr cheesy ]
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
They were in fact communist ideologues out to forcibly impose neo-Stalinism on their fellow-Vietnamese; they intimidated and conscripted civilians to help them,; they were assisted by North Vietnamee regulars; and they were equipped by both China and the Soviet Union.
If you were talking about North Korea, I would agree with you. But not much evidence of this in Vietnam.
Sorry, but they are all historical facts, deny them as you will.
Communism doesn't have to be as bad as the Kim dynasty's North Korea or Hoxha's Albania to be neo-Stalinist.
It just has to deny democracy, along with rights such as information, expression, assembly and independent judiciary, along with arbitrary arrest, detention and mistreatment of dissenters, all of which are true of Vietnam.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
My unavoidable point is that the Western intelligentsia have cut them more slack than other abusers by ignoring, rationalising or, in rare cases, supporting the abuse, not out of communist sympathies, but out of a desperate fear of appearing unfashionably anti-communist.
In a few perhaps. Alternatively, we know that despotic, authoritarian one-party states are supposed to behave like despotic, authoritarian one-party states. That's not cutting them slack. The slack-cutting comes when we turn a blind eye to our liberal democratic selves behaving like despotic, authoritarian one-party states, because we're the good guys, right?
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
And Christ's in us response to that should be what?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
I think repression by anyone - whether they're a Communist country, a disgusting wahabist monarchy or a hidden North African despot - should be resisted.
But the idea that there is anything to be gained by attempting by bombing countries back to the stone-age or imposing unilateral trade embargoes on dubious grounds is utterly busted.
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arse
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
It is like Left has nothing better to do than remind everyone how evil Communism is, even whilst the evidence is against them.
"Left"?
There's no evidence of evil under communism?
Sorry, monsieur fromage, but you've lost me.
My fault, no doubt.
Posts: 3355 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Sure, my point about political stances and sympathies applies just as much to mr cheesy, Doc Tor and everyone else here - including me - as it does to your good self, Kaplan.
FWIW my attitude towards repressive Communist or hard-left regimes is the same as that notoriously, right-wing rabid commentator, George Orwell too.
I don't think thee and me are miles apart on this issue.
None of us are completely even-handed I don't suppose but I'd like to think I've been just as critical of the Viet Cong, the USSR and Maoist China as I have been of successive US administrations during the late 60s, the 70s and up to the present day.
I think Doc Tor's point is well made - we 'expect' repressive one-party regimes to act in a dictatorial and democracy-denying way ... we expect better of Western liberal democracies such as the USA, the UK, Canada, Australia and so on.
What seems to be happening here is that Bibliophile is accepting that the US acted reprehensibly in Vietnam but is putting the blame for that fairly and squarely on the US's enemies - the Soviet Union, Maoist China and North Vietnam.
'Sure, we sucked, but they made us suck - we had no alternative ...'
I can see what he's getting at but that would like blaming Irish Republican terrorist groups for dirty-tricks operations carried out by UK security forces in response. Acknowledging that UK security forces sometimes acted beyond the boundaries of accepted or legitimate practice - and may well have colluded with other illegal terrorist groups in the process - does not obviate the fact that those they were seeking to counteract were vicious terrorists and killers.
The point I'm trying to make is that it is difficult for any liberal democratic government to counteract terrorism or fight a campaign against determined guerillas without themselves descending to similar tactics at times.
To pretend otherwise and to shrug one's shoulders and say, 'Ah well, the Soviet Union was really to blame ...' or 'It wasn't our fault, we were provoked ...' strikes me as trying to brush things under the carpet or absolve one's own country and government of any responsibility.
That's what I find so reprehensible about the line that Bibliophile seems to be taking here.
Yes, the USA was fighting its war against the Viet Cong with one arm behind its back - it could not have unleashed its full military muscle without either stepping beyond 'conventional weapons' or inflicting vast numbers of casualties on non-combatants.
It's all very well saying, 'Well, we had to do that because we weren't allowed free-rein in the first place ...' which is what Bibliophile's argument boils down to, it seems to me - but my point is that had the US been 'allowed' free-rein to invade and occupy North Vietnam we would have seen exactly the same sort of behaviour.
We would have seen massacres, we would have seen the despoilation of crops, the burning of villages, the displacement of populations.
I think it is highly naive to suggest otherwise.
The US wasn't fighting against a conventional army. It was fighting a guerilla force. Sure, it was supplied and assisted by Russia and China but it was still a guerilla force operating as such forces do - through embedding themselves amongst the civilian population.
Britain faced a similar dilemma in anti-insurgency measures in Malaysia. The Communist rebels were embedded in villages and plantations and relied on the local population for supplies. The British strategy - eventually - was to 'win hearts and minds' and to attempt to win the villagers over and so stop supplies reaching the rebels.
This didn't mean that they didn't employ heavy-handed tactics at times - there was the notorious Batang Kali massacre for instance - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batang_Kali_massacre
What I'm suggesting is that we would have seen similar incidents on a far greater scale had the US been 'allowed' to fight with both hands and invade and occupy North Vietnam - not because the US forces were any more vicious, bestial or undisciplined than British troops were (although that's debatable ...) but because of the larger scale of the operation.
Instead of the shameful bombing of Cambodia, the use of agent-orange against civilian targets and the atrocities we all know about and deplore - there would have been a whole set of other and earlier atrocities that we'd be debating about here.
That's what Bibliophile doesn't appear able to accept and why I am persisting on calling him on it. Because what he is saying is morally repugnant and morally wrong.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Communism doesn't have to be as bad as the Kim dynasty's North Korea or Hoxha's Albania to be neo-Stalinist.
It just has to deny democracy, along with rights such as information, expression, assembly and independent judiciary, along with arbitrary arrest, detention and mistreatment of dissenters, all of which are true of Vietnam.
There's a fair number of non-Communist states, including many Western allies, that tick those boxes. Democracy is actually quite rare, and I doubt there's a country on earth that scores better than 8/10 for the rights and freedoms you mention.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, Sioni Sais, but that doesn't let North Vietnam or Cuba off the hook, any more than having liberal democratic intentions lets the US or any other Western democracy off the hook for their particular short-comings.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
People from Vietnam and Cuba have left their countries for economic reasons, not for political reasons. I thought everyone knew that.
What you really mean is, “I thought everyone realized that only middle-class Westerners of Celtic and Anglo-Saxon lineage appreciate higher values such as democracy and freedom, and that the duty of hoi Third World polloi such as Cubans and Vietnamese is to be content in their socialist paradise theme parks which we visit on our slumming holidays. If they try to escape, they must be motivated by shameful greed and materialism – no other motive is conceivable”.
Don't tell me what I really mean. I never said that. They are not socialist paradises, and are not as regimented as you make out, nor are the people two-dimensional like you make out.
With respect to LC, I understand that political issues were major reasons to leave Vietnam in the aftermath of the the America surrender. But that's not the major reason people immigrate today. It's not the reason people leave Africa for Europe, nor Mexico for USA.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
My unavoidable point is that the Western intelligentsia have cut them more slack than other abusers by ignoring, rationalising or, in rare cases, supporting the abuse, not out of communist sympathies, but out of a desperate fear of appearing unfashionably anti-communist.
In a few perhaps. Alternatively, we know that despotic, authoritarian one-party states are supposed to behave like despotic, authoritarian one-party states. That's not cutting them slack. The slack-cutting comes when we turn a blind eye to our liberal democratic selves behaving like despotic, authoritarian one-party states, because we're the good guys, right?
Concisely put. Exactly.
And as Arenas said, at least in America we get to scream. In fact, people screaming may be what really saves us. So, this is us screaming.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
Portraits of child labourers, from Aljazeera. It provides stories children, pre-teen years who are working long hours. These are some who would certainly move for economic reasons.
quote:
According to the International Labour Organization's 2015 report, around 120 million children between the ages of 5 and 14 are involved in child labour around the world - boys and girls in this age group are almost equally affected.
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Out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety.
\_(ツ)_/
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Ikkyu
Shipmate
# 15207
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
It's hard to say what Salavdor Allende's Chile would have looked like. Marxist, democratically elected, but offended American investors who helped the aforementioned in this thread, Pinochet.
I also consider the USA-engineered coup in favour of the United Fruit Company in Guatemala, which the Americans lied and labelled as over-throwing communistic governance, but wasn't. Wiki summary.
Both of these examples do let us know that it didn't matter if you were a commie or not, if it challenged the foreign investment from the USA, you were sold as a commie to the American public and thus worthy of overthrown. The Americans didn't ever export democracy, that was what they were over-throwing. Has not America preferred authoritarian regimes in the decades of the cold war and after?
Both Che Guevara and Fidel were very aware of what happened in Guatemala and it was a major factor influencing their future course of action.
Fidel advised Allende before the Chile Coup d'état
and if Allende had followed his advise things may have been quite different. A lot of the repression in Cuba has been in direct response to American aggression. If Cuba had been more "democratic" they would have gone the way of Allende or Arbenz quite fast. The US has invaded many Latin American countries to prop up dictators over and over again. Or supplied their chosen side with weapons while launching serious economic attacks on the other side.
That is not to "excuse" everything Fidel has done.
But Allende is Dead since 1973 and Fidel is still alive.
Posts: 434 | From: Arizona | Registered: Oct 2009
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu:
A lot of the repression in Cuba has been in direct response to American aggression. If Cuba had been more "democratic" they would have gone the way of Allende or Arbenz quite fast.
So you think repression and stopping free elections is a reasonable response for a government to protect itself from aggression. Do you think that repression and the lack of free elections in South Vietnam were a reasonable response to the communist aggression from North Vietnam?
Posts: 635 | Registered: Jun 2015
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
It is far from unusual for normal democratic processes to be suspended in times of war. Was it a sign of a dictatorship that Churchill was chosen to be PM in 1939, and that the 1940 general election was cancelled?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
As long as one insists on ignoring the elephant in the room of the Prince of Peace, one will have this endless false dichotomy.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
They don't even bother to put ideology out there as an excuse any more, it's not needed. the need for resources and cheap labour is right on the table.
quote:
"... the Persian Gulf, the critical oil and natural gas-producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices." -John Bolton, George W. Bush's ambassador to the United Nations
source of quote
I was doing a quick search for something Obama supposedly said recently about USA having a right to the resources it needs. Or was that Shrub? Sometimes I get politicians mixed up regardless of party. Well, here's a different guy talking about a different war, same theme; it will do to illustrate your point.
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
It is far from unusual for normal democratic processes to be suspended in times of war. Was it a sign of a dictatorship that Churchill was chosen to be PM in 1939, and that the 1940 general election was cancelled?
Now that's news. I always thought that Churchill came to power in May 1940, after the vote on the Norway disaster obtained a bare majority for Chamberlain.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
What seems to be happening here is that Bibliophile is accepting that the US acted reprehensibly in Vietnam but is putting the blame for that fairly and squarely on the US's enemies - the Soviet Union, Maoist China and North Vietnam.
'Sure, we sucked, but they made us suck - we had no alternative ...'
But America did have an alternative. America failed, producing a huge amount of unnecessary suffering by adopting the wrong tactics to start with. Lets look at President Johnson's statement on US war aims to see what I mean
quote:
Our objective is the independence of South Vietnam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves, only that the people of South Vietnam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.
We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary.
In recent months, attacks on South Vietnam were stepped up. Thus is became necessary to increase our response and to make attacks by air. This is not a change of purpose. It is a change in what we believe that purpose requires.
We do this in order to slow down aggression.
We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Vietnam who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years and with so many casualties.
And we do this to convince the leaders of North Vietnam, and all who seek to share their conquest, of a very simple fact:
We will not be defeated.
We will not grow tired.
We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.
The first step is for the countries of Southeast Asia to associate themselves in a greatly expanded cooperative effort for development. We would hope that North Vietnam will take its place in the common effort just as soon as peaceful cooperation is possible.
Well there's your problem right there. These are purely defensive war aims. This is purely about defending South Vietnam. Nothing about defeating North Vietnam just about 'convincing' its leaders to "take their place in the common effort" for 'peaceful co-operation'. This kind of defensive position left the US on the back foot from the start because you are trying to defeat an enemy whilst telling them you want them to stay in place. Wars are not won by 'Slowing down aggression' they are won by defeating it.
Notice as well the betrayal of the South Vietnam government in the middle of pretending to support it "Our objective is the independence of South Vietnam" The government in the South had a good case for being considered the legitimate government of the whole of Vietnam (the Northern government's only claim to being the lawful government of North Vietnam being the Geneva Conference). By talking about 'independence' for the South Johnson is already indicating his lack of support for this aim.
By adopting this purely defensive posture the US helped turn it to a war of attrition which may well have made the suffering worse not better (e.g. see my earlier comments about Agent Orange).
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Sober Preacher's Kid
Presbymethegationalist
# 12699
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
Operations Rolling Thunder, Linebacker and Linebacker II?
Besides, Johnson LIED about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The first "incident" was real, but staged, in that the USS Maddox was set up on a deliberately provocative patrol in order to incur an incident for political purposes. The second report incident in fact never occurred, as admitted by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
That the Maddox was deliberately sent in to act provocatively has been substantiated by both US Navy officials and Maddox crew who were on the scene.
Vietnam claimed a 12-nautical mile territorial limit, identical to what French Indochina had claimed under France since. The incident occurred 8 nautical miles offshore.
Please, bibliophile, read some history.
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NDP Federal Convention Ottawa 2018: A random assortment of Prots and Trots.
Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
Nope, your actual problem is that by the time Johnson said those fine words, the war had been going on for 10 years, and the American-approved military coup (the first of many) had executed the Vietnamese president.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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art dunce
Shipmate
# 9258
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Posted
My family and I lived in Ireland for a year and one of the quirks of the year was the fact that people talked a great deal about the Vietnam war. My children were in primary school and even kids that age would comment and want to debate about the war. My kids, to be honest, had never heard much about the war really except that we didn't mention it in front of certain uncles who had served. They also took field trips to Kilmainham Gaol and so the whole year was filled with very deep conversations.
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Ego is not your amigo.
Posts: 1283 | From: in the studio | Registered: Apr 2005
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Belle Ringer
Shipmate
# 13379
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
they beat the strongest, best armed, best organised army the world has ever seen with better tactics in a war of attrition.
Well, the strongest best armed best organized army ever sent to fight a police action (not a war) with one arm tied behind it's back.
The rules of engagement were designed to uphold the idea that USA was there by invitation. So we could not shoot into an area unless the village chief agreed. As it was explained to me in a briefing by a colonel, sniper shoots from village land. USA radios for permission to return fire. Village chief says yes or no. We are guests so we must accept his no. Meanwhile, Charlie is listening in on the radio frequency and knows if his position has been correctly identified or no. If yes, he can move before the permission to return fire is received.
One of Charlie's tactics was to travel along district boundary lines so USA had to get permission from two local officials, one from each side of the line, before returning fire.
I don't know what you call this but "war" is not the right word.
I don't know if Charlie would have won a true war, maybe yes maybe no. I don't know if USA would have had to stay forever if it had won to prevent resumption of fighting in the area. And this has nothing to do with whether USA belonged there.
Just pointing out whatever the conflict as, war is the wrong word. There's a lot of bitterness among Vietvets about being sent to "war" but "not allowed to fight."
Some say we are doing similar restrictive rules of engagement in Afghanistan with the same goal - restrict USA response to being shot at in order to please local politicians by reducing civilian casualties. Worthy goals, but at some point the limitations should get the response "these conditions don't allow adequate response to deadly aggression so we are leaving as the only option for adequately protecting ourselves.
Not that I think Jesus would approve of all out war. Neither do I think Jesus approves of restricted by one side but not the other war.
I don't know the answer, but maybe intact families with intact bodies matter more than getting "our guys" into political power?
Posts: 5830 | From: Texas | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
Communism doesn't have to be as bad as the Kim dynasty's North Korea or Hoxha's Albania to be neo-Stalinist.
It just has to deny democracy, along with rights such as information, expression, assembly and independent judiciary, along with arbitrary arrest, detention and mistreatment of dissenters, all of which are true of Vietnam.
There's a fair number of non-Communist states, including many Western allies, that tick those boxes.
I have never pretended that communist states are the only ones which restrict democracy or human rights, but what we are talking about are comparisons between different communist states, and between communist states and democratic states.
And weaselly comments along the lines of "no state is perfect" can too easily elide into "all states are as bad as each other", which is simply not true.
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Kaplan Corday
Shipmate
# 16119
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The slack-cutting comes when we turn a blind eye to our liberal democratic selves behaving like despotic, authoritarian one-party states, because we're the good guys, right?
You don't get it.
Of course liberal democracies can behave stupidly and immorally, which is why I demonstrated against the Vietnam War back in the sixties, and opposed the Iraq War considerably later.
The point is not that we are "the good guys", ie infallible, but that our systems allow for open criticism of our governments, and the opportunity to bring them to book at the next election.
That might sound like boring Civics 101, but it is only dismissed with a yawn by those who don't know any history, or have never lived under a genuine despotism.
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
The point is not that we are "the good guys", ie infallible, but that our systems allow for open criticism of our governments, and the opportunity to bring them to book at the next election.
Right. We get to scream. Which makes it weird when citizens exercising their right-- duty, I would say-- to bring their leaders to book, the response is contempt or fury.
The fact that we can protest is evidence that we are still free.
More than that-- it is our job to speak up. To ask any question we want, and to question the answers.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I thought it was communists who were supposed to be Godless?
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
Operations Rolling Thunder, Linebacker and Linebacker II?
Besides, Johnson LIED about the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. The first "incident" was real, but staged, in that the USS Maddox was set up on a deliberately provocative patrol in order to incur an incident for political purposes. The second report incident in fact never occurred, as admitted by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara.
That the Maddox was deliberately sent in to act provocatively has been substantiated by both US Navy officials and Maddox crew who were on the scene.
Vietnam claimed a 12-nautical mile territorial limit, identical to what French Indochina had claimed under France since. The incident occurred 8 nautical miles offshore.
Please, bibliophile, read some history.
OK lets read some history. From the Wikipedia article about Operation Rolling Thunder
quote:
Writing after the war, Robert McNamara stated that by spring 1967 he and other civilians in the administration had become convinced that both Rolling Thunder and the ground war in South Vietnam were not working.[88] McNamara claimed that he and others within the administration continuously opposed the Joint Chief's recommendations for an increased tempo of bombing and the loosening of target restrictions.[89] The generals found themselves on the horns of a dilemma of their own making. They continuously claimed that the campaign was working, yet they also had to continuously demand greater latitude in order to make the campaign succeed.[90] The limited goals entailed in American foreign policy and the military's goal of total victory were simply not reconcilable. The great conundrum had then become how to defeat North Vietnam without defeating North Vietnam.
and there's the problem right there.
As for the Gulf of Tonkin Incident that was propaganda for the Americans but the North Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam was enough justification for war by itself.
Posts: 635 | Registered: Jun 2015
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Nope, your actual problem is that by the time Johnson said those fine words, the war had been going on for 10 years, and the American-approved military coup (the first of many) had executed the Vietnamese president.
In other words the North Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam had been going on for ten years and the South Vietnamese government was no more democratic than the Northern one. Your point being?
Posts: 635 | Registered: Jun 2015
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The slack-cutting comes when we turn a blind eye to our liberal democratic selves behaving like despotic, authoritarian one-party states, because we're the good guys, right?
You don't get it.
No, of course I get it. I (and many others here, it seems) just don't agree with you.
However you want to frame it, civic duty, enlightened self-interest, holy imperative, my job is to hold my government to account in every way possible. You marched against the Vietnam war, and that went on for 20 years. Maybe you should have broken stuff and burned shit down instead, because it seems to me that your democratically elected governments (Presidential elections, 5, plus all the others for house and senate) just kept on doubling down on the war, slaughtering its own sons as well as some other bunch of people half a world away, without any kind of democratic reckoning, let alone interference, for a very long time.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Nope, your actual problem is that by the time Johnson said those fine words, the war had been going on for 10 years, and the American-approved military coup (the first of many) had executed the Vietnamese president.
In other words the North Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam had been going on for ten years and the South Vietnamese government was no more democratic than the Northern one. Your point being?
My point being that you quote a proven liar in mid-lie to support your argument.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Kaplan Corday:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
The slack-cutting comes when we turn a blind eye to our liberal democratic selves behaving like despotic, authoritarian one-party states, because we're the good guys, right?
You don't get it.
No, of course I get it. I (and many others here, it seems) just don't agree with you.
However you want to frame it, civic duty, enlightened self-interest, holy imperative, my job is to hold my government to account in every way possible. You marched against the Vietnam war, and that went on for 20 years. Maybe you should have broken stuff and burned shit down instead,
I believe that there were people who tried that. Not in North Vietnam or any of the Communist countries backing the North obviously, anyone trying that there would have been shot.
Posts: 635 | Registered: Jun 2015
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
I believe that there were people who tried that. Not in North Vietnam or any of the Communist countries backing the North obviously, anyone trying that there would have been shot.
Because being shot whilst innocently protesting (and/or just walking down the street) never ever happens in free countries.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
And, it's not as though people in countries with Communist regimes haven't made their voices heard in protest either. OK, so some of them got shot or imprisoned. Some stood in front of tanks.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Bibliophile
Shipmate
# 18418
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My point being that you quote a proven liar in mid-lie to support your argument.
No you said
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Nope, your actual problem is that by the time Johnson said those fine words, the war had been going on for 10 years, and the American-approved military coup (the first of many) had executed the Vietnamese president.
In other words the North Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam had been going on for ten years and the South Vietnamese government was no more democratic than the Northern one. So once again your point being
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Yes, the US was in a cleft-stick in Vietnam. I'd suggest that it was in that position right from the outset. There was no way it was going to defeat a guerilla force by conventional means and by playing by the rules.
If counter-insurgency and counter-terrorist actions tell us anything they tell us that it is well-nigh impossible to defeat guerillas on the ground without contravening what might be called the rules of 'civilised' warfare.
Equally, it's become obvious that wars aren't won purely by air-strikes either.
I'd like Bibliophile to explain how stepping up the bombing of North Vietnam could have been achieved without:
- Incurring vast numbers of civilian and non-combatant casualties.
- Alienating world opinion even further as footage of collateral damage leaked out.
- Being followed up by 'boots on the ground.'
Perhaps he'd also like to explain to us how the Americans could then have occupied and held North Vietnam without:
- Incurring terrorist attacks and reaction.
- Which would have led in turn to increasing levels of repraisal, internment and the use of interrogation and torture?
With the commensurate alienation of world opinion still further.
Guerilla forces operate by embedding themselves in civil populations. Some of their supporters will be be complicit, others tacit, still others will have been coerced into it by the threat of violence and intimidation. That's the truth of the matter.
Also, the French had been ground down by a war of attrition as had the Japanese to a certain extent when they occupied the region. The Viet Cong honed their tactics by fighting successive occupying forces.
What makes Bibliophile think that a US occupation of that same territory and against those same guerilla forces would have been any more successful?
Yes, the US was fighting the war with one arm behind its back - and I take Belle Ringer's point about the difficulties that posed logistically in terms of rules of engagement.
However, when the gloves were off and it came to slugging it out in the jungles US tactics were woefully inadequate for fighting a war of that kind.
My uncle by marriage, an Australian Vietnam veteran, describes how US units would blaze away into the jungle indescriminately even if they so much as heard a twig snap.
The standard Aussie allocation of heavy machine guns was one per platoon - or some other unit. The Americans had entire units armed solely with heavy machine guns and they would advance in line into the bush blazing away in the hope of hitting unseen assailants. Not only was this wasteful of ammunition - and of anyone, friend or foe, who happened to get in the way - but it didn't work. The Viet Cong would simply lie on the ground until the Americans advanced deeper into the bush then jump up and take them out from behind.
My uncle by marriage saw US ambushes set up along the Ho Chi Minh trail where units were positioned directly opposite each other - rather than at intervals or angles. So, when a Viet Cong supply convoy or column came through they'd take them out but also blast one another.
I'm not out to score cheap points and hits against US military doltishness - it's not as if British forces have never been commanded by dunderheads.
But I'm at a loss to understand how - by any measure of reality - Bibliophile can apparently belief that stepped-up US air-strikes or even invasion and occupation of North Vietnam could in any way have minimised casualties or even shortened the conflict.
It may have had initial success but very soon the US military and South Vietnamese allies would have been facing determined, bloody resistance and insurgency which it would have been unable to counter without mass internment, the suspension of trial by jury and the kind of violations of human rights, free speech and everything else that they were supposed to be there to protect.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
Bomb, bomb, bomb,
Bomb bomb Iran.
If Vietnam had been nuked, I guess there wouldn't now be any Communists to complain about.
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arse
Posts: 10697 | Registered: Sep 2002
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
My point being that you quote a proven liar in mid-lie to support your argument.
No you said
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Nope, your actual problem is that by the time Johnson said those fine words, the war had been going on for 10 years, and the American-approved military coup (the first of many) had executed the Vietnamese president.
In other words the North Vietnamese aggression against South Vietnam had been going on for ten years and the South Vietnamese government was no more democratic than the Northern one. So once again your point being
I've just realised that the university term's finished... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Okay. So - despotic North Vietnam vs despotic South Vietnam. Which side do you support? Explain your reasoning using no more than one side of A4, and remember that quoting known liars mid-lie will lose you marks.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Komensky
Shipmate
# 8675
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Posted
I'm still returning marks and attending meetings. The term is not quite over yet.
K.
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"The English are not very spiritual people, so they invented cricket to give them some idea of eternity." - George Bernard Shaw
Posts: 1784 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2004
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bibliophile:
]I believe that there were people who tried that. Not in North Vietnam or any of the Communist countries backing the North obviously, anyone trying that there would have been shot.
This. And this. And this. There are probably others.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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