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Vietnam and Afghanistan - the same basic problem

Craig234

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Vietnam was a country of peasant, that was long colonized and exploited, more history than needed for this post, but in the period in question, it was a colony of France in the earlier 20th century, then of Japan in WWII, then France again - with US actively pushing France to re-colonize and assisting, eventually paying 90% of France's war costs.

The people of Vietnam weren't that political, they were farmers. But they didn't like the colonizers, and supported the fighters for independence - with Ho Chi Minh becoming the leader. He had fought for independence since he wrote an unanswered letter to President Wilson, and when Japan was expelled after WWII, he issued a declaration of independence based on the US, asking the US to support independence.

The US refused, supported France re-colonizing, until Ho defeated France, when they created a new plan, dividing the country and installing a US puppet, Diem. Diem ruled, with his wife, called the 'Dragon Lady' and her brother, who were guilty of a very harsh and largely unpopular rule. Buddhist monks famously burned themselves alive in protest of him, which his wife laughed at as a 'monk barbeque'.

It's not surprising the people of Vietnam did not feel special loyalty to this US puppet regime essentially continuing to colonize them. The US had promised elections, but cancelled them when Eisenhower estimated Ho would get 80% of the vote. The US public was mystified at the lack of South Vietnam's cooperating with our war, because they thought we were fighting for their freedom against hated communists.

In Afghanistan, the US invaded for our own reasons and overthrew a disliked government, the Taliban, and could set up a better government. Instead, the US installed a hugely corrupt - criminal - government hated by Afghans, who felt no loyalty to it. For 20 years, the US poured money into the corrupt government who defrauded the US and had a hard time 'winning the war', while the American people thought we were there to help them.

In both cases, the US installed and supported terrible governments that rightly lacked popular support, guilty of broad corruption and abuses, while telling the American people they were good governments representing the people and we were supporting their freedom against a terrible enemy.

In both cases, the wars had some good, but a lot of bad, costing the US a fortune in lives and money, with presidents 'not wanting to lose' until finally leaving claiming 'peace with honor' everyone saw through.

In both cases, these lessons were not widely understood by the American people, and nothing was done for accountability or to prevent repeating the same mistakes. Instead, there were popular misunderstandings that fit people's opinions - 'it's because of the politicians', 'it's because the military's hands were tied', 'it's because the people there didn't care and appreciate the help', and more, including just saying 'it was a mistake' and losing interest.

It's remarkable how inept in backing corrupt regimes, how needless, how harmful these wars were without our country better understanding them. Even with heroes like Daniel Ellsberg risking life in prison to get the truth to the American people, who were largely uninterested. I'd say the problems were awfully similar between them - each the longest US war in history at its time. We couldn't learn this one post info in 10-20 years of war?

It's not as if there weren't clues, and truthtellers. But the public largely responded to them along partisan lines, questioning their patriotism, viewing them as disloyal reporters if they heard them at all. Most media did not highlight the story of the 'real situation', instead reporting on 'human interest stories', details about battles, political debates about 'surges' and other plans to 'turn the war around'.

Both wars ended with claims the forces we'd built up would remain in power for years to come, but immediately fell in chaos, both with the American people glad to see them over, but not having learned much. You have to think about how US troops feel about risking their livers in such wars, looking to some good to come out of it while they served. It's not WWII, as much as presidents try to say otherwise.

A glaring unlearned lesson is, what if the US had worked with Ho Chi Minh instead of against him, a friend to the independence of the Vietnamese people? What if the US had installed a good government in Afghanistan the people supported? What if the US had installed a good government in Iraq after overthrowing Saddam, instead of Paul Bremer?

But we haven't learned the lessons, mostly.
 
Here's the weird part:

The main trading partners of VN are CN and US.

The country that mainly bullies VN is CN. The country that engages in oil exploration deals with VN is CN.

The main military ally of VN is RU. The country that's trying to sell arms to VN is US.

Surveys reveal that the country VN likes least is CN. The country VN likes most is the US. That even after two million died because of the VN war.

VIP is said to be the future, growing economies of the region: VN, ID, and PH.

Bonus (and it gets even weirder):

The oldest ally of the US in the region is PH. The country that's bullied by many in the region and by the US is PH. The first "Vietnam war" of the US in the region took place in PH, where hundreds of thousands were killed and where parts of the country were turned into a "howling wilderness." One article even compared the occupation of PH with the occupation of Iraq decades later.

Much later, in multiple surveys, it's revealed that the US has one of the highest approval ratings in PH. In several cases, not only the US itself but US Presidents of both parties are more popular in PH than in the US.

The US also has high ratings in JP, but the dominant trading partner of countries in the region is CN.

CN, VN, MY, TW, and even little BN claim much of the West Philippine Sea (WPS) over PH. One of them, TW, is an ally of the US, and claims much of the WPS, together with CN.

JP is disliked by CN, TW, and even SK. JP is very friendly to PH, where like the US it also killed many during the last world war. JP is trying to convince PH to join JP, the US, and AU to protect TW (which bullies PH over the WPS) against CN.

CN is disliked by IN, which is cool towards US but very friendly to RU and PH.

CN is now setting up peace deals between SA and IR. YE is also included. CN is also meeting with RU. Some argue that the goal is to let them be part of BRICS (of which most of the countries above are part, and including UA) to create a multipolar world, to water down control by the US and even the EU.

Most Americans don't know about the wars the US were involved in, including the VN war, and the occupation of PH. Many also don't know that most countries don't recognize TW as a country (including the US) or identify UA on a map (and in various cases, can't identify their home state on a map of the US).

Last point:

There's probably no "we" when it comes to war. That is, the ones who call the shots in the U.S. are the rich and the government and military that work for them. The main ideologies followed are neoconservatism and neoliberalism, and the goal is to protect the U.S. dollar.
 
Surveys reveal that the country VN likes least is CN. The country VN likes most is the US. That even after two million died because of the VN war.

Vietnam's positive attitude toward the US is shocking given the history, but I suspect it's because they see relations with the US as much better for them now than with China. The US is no longer supporting colonizing and invading them.
 
Vietnam's positive attitude toward the US is shocking given the history, but I suspect it's because they see relations with the US as much better for them now than with China. The US is no longer supporting colonizing and invading them.
Why would their attitude be shocking? They won.
 
The easiest way to assess the war in Afghanistan is that a hypothetical future re-invasion would cost the same number of deaths as the first invasion on all sides including Afghan civilians. In fact a re-invasion could cost far more American lives because the Taliban are battle-hardened from the first war and also inherited American weaponry left behind. The idea that the war succeeded in deterring Islamic extremism ignores how jihad has been part of Islam since its origin with the Prophet Muhammad. As such the west can only play it by year when it comes to tackling Islamic extremism. Christianity has been at odds with Islam since the crusades where putting a permanent end to extremism in Islam is delusional. This is why so-called pre-emptive strikes from Israel against Palestine will never work. Unless the west wants to colonise every Islamic country and force them to apostatise from Islam then the west will have to concede that they cannot pacify Islam. Even if we take logical extremes of conquering Islam than there’ll be a re-invented version of Islam where freedom of religion cannot be defeated. That is to say Islam is inherently militant in a way that Christianity is not.
 
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The idea that the war succeeded in deterring Islamic extremism ignores how jihad has been part of Islam since it’s origin with the Prophet Muhammad.

That's not really right, Islamism sort of began in the late 1800's pushed by England, using it to conquer existing governments. Remember Lawrence of Arabia?

As such the west can only play it by year when it comes to tackling Islamic extremism. Christianity has been at odds with Islam since the crusades where putting a permanent end to extremism in Islam is delusional. This is why so-called pre-emptive strikes from Israel against Palestine will never work. Unless the west wants to colonise every Islamic country and force them to apostatise from Islam then the west will have to concede that they cannot pacify Islam. Even if we take logical extremes of conquering Islam than there’ll be a re-invented version of Islam where freedom of religion cannot be defeated. That is to say Islam is inherently militant in a way that Christianity is not.
That's ironically wrong. Backwards. Did the Middle East partition and exploit the west, or did the west partition and exploit the Middle East? To repeat, the west is *behind* radical Islam which was formed in the late 1800's. Heck, Israel is behind the creation of Hamas. The US empowered the forces that became the Taliban, etc. I can suggest a book...
 
Vietnam's positive attitude toward the US is shocking given the history, but I suspect it's because they see relations with the US as much better for them now than with China. The US is no longer supporting colonizing and invading them.

Check the rest of my post: the U.S. has been trying to sell armaments to Vietnam. The country that bullies Vietnam but is also a major trading partner is China. Its main military ally is Russia.

Vietnam also claims parts of the West Philippine Sea and has the most installations in the region, not China.

Before the U.S. engaged in hamletting in Vietnam, it did so in the Philippines decades earlier, turning parts of the islands into a "howling wilderness" ("kill everyone over ten").

Some articles even see that in light of what happened to countries like Iraq:

 
Israel is behind the creation of Hamas.

Palestine cannot militarily invade Israel meaning their multi-decade quest to bombard Israel doesn’t make logical sense. Palestine is continuously trying to retaliate for Israeli air raids even though Israel is always capable of more vengeance. Fundamentally Arabs in Israel aren’t sufficiently adamant about self-defence rights to justify Palestine trying to liberate them. If anything Palestine is being extorted by Israeli Arabs when Israeli Arabs have a much better standard of living compared to Palestine.

“Israel continued its air attacks on Gaza killing at least 27 Palestinians, including several leaders of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. More than 70 people have been injured as the Israeli military offensive enters its third day.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced the death of Ali Ghali, commander of the group’s rocket launch unit, in a pre-dawn strike carried out by Israeli forces in Khan Younis.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/...e-live-news-gaza-rocket-unit-commander-killed
 
Vietnam's positive attitude toward the US is shocking given the history, but I suspect it's because they see relations with the US as much better for them now than with China. The US is no longer supporting colonizing and invading them.
Ho and Giap were trained and equipped by the OSS during WW2. The problem was the French- they wanted to keep Vietnam as a colony, so the US was forced to support them or else De Gaulle would side with the Soviets.

Vietnam and China have always been enemies since the dawn of history, and they only took Chinese help after the US rejected them. The OSS veterans opposed US intervention, but nobody listened to them.

Afghanistan has been a mess since the Soviets invaded it, and there was no good government we could have supported to make it better. We should have just left the moment AL Qeada was kicked out.
 
Far more Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers compared to Arab Israelis. This undermines the notion that Palestine is trying to help them rather than just being anti-Israeli. Israeli Arabs should serve in their own armed police force rather than in the Israeli army.

‘Roughly 5,000 Palestinians living inside Israel currently volunteer to serve in the Israeli military. These soldiers' multiple and contradictory loyalties highlight the contingent nature of identity and the complex relationships subalterns have to institutions of rule. This paper calls for a move beyond viewing these volunteers simply as “traitors,” or, less negatively, as “accommodationists.”’ palestine-studies
 
Palestine would have the same tourist potential as Portugal were it not for the conflict. The dilemma with referencing poverty as a global problem is that responsibility is so dispersed that the bystander effect can occur. If God endorsed each religion then each religion should at the very least look after their own poor instead of relying on other religions to do so. For example Saudi Arabia isn’t a religion in and of itself. Islam is their religion where despite building vast high-tech cities in their own country they’re not doing enough to invest in Palestine.

“Saudi Arabia's ruling royal family has a net worth of about $1.4 trillion, which is 16 times more than that of the British royal family.
The ruling monarchy draws most of its income from vast oil reserves that were founded 75 years ago, changing the country's fortune and making the House of Saud the richest family on earth.”
https://www.trtworld.com/middle-eas...1-4-trillion-wealth-and-lavish-spending-36040
 
Palestine cannot militarily invade Israel meaning their multi-decade quest to bombard Israel doesn’t make logical sense.

Not sure what your point is. France was unable to military invade Nazi Germany, so were acts against the Nazis attacking them not making sense? You didn't respond to post 6.
 
Not sure what your point is. France was unable to military invade Nazi Germany, so were acts against the Nazis attacking them not making sense? You didn't respond to post 6.

The partial withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan for many years might imply that America should only ever have partially invaded Afghanistan. There was no point setting up a national Afghan government only for America not to even bother providing air support to permanently defend them. America merely needed a few military bases in Afghanistan to take on terrorists in that country much like American military intervention in 1990s Somalia.


Black Hawk Down - Struecker returns back to base
 
Ho and Giap were trained and equipped by the OSS during WW2. The problem was the French- they wanted to keep Vietnam as a colony, so the US was forced to support them or else De Gaulle would side with the Soviets.

Vietnam and China have always been enemies since the dawn of history, and they only took Chinese help after the US rejected them. The OSS veterans opposed US intervention, but nobody listened to them.

Afghanistan has been a mess since the Soviets invaded it, and there was no good government we could have supported to make it better. We should have just left the moment AL Qeada was kicked out.
The French......they have a history of the following:
"I spit on you!. Don't feel too bad though.....I spit on everybody."

Sums up the French in as few words as I can string together.

Not saying I hate them or anything like that. But supporting their French Colonial interests in Southeast Asia thinking that would earn you something was just too funny.

In truth though, the threat the US cared about and worried about was the French puling up stakes in Southeast Asia which for the most part THEY DID ANYWAY. I don't think we much cared about where they went. If you did not like where the French of that period went (with Russia for example), wait 5 minutes.....they would be somewhere else.
 
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The partial withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan for many years might imply that America should only ever have partially invaded Afghanistan. There was no point setting up a national Afghan government only for America not to even bother providing air support to permanently defend them. America merely needed a few military bases in Afghanistan to take on terrorists in that country much like American military intervention in 1990s Somalia.

The situation for Palestinians and the US with Afghanistan are quite different.
 
The situation for Palestinians and the US with Afghanistan are quite different.

The U.S. armed Israel, but also Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

In Afghanistan, it supported mujahedeen to counter the Soviets, and then let the Taliban overwhelm the left-moderate Kabul government, then attacked the Taliban in in favor of Northern Alliance rapists and drug lords.
 
The situation for Palestinians and the US with Afghanistan are quite different.

Jewish people cannot all migrate to Israel in the same way that Irish Catholics cannot all head to Catholic Spain when there are cultural and language barriers. Hence Israel cannot fully protect international Jews where Israel cannot blemish the ethics of Jews with a heavy-handed conflict against Palestine.
 
Jewish people cannot all migrate to Israel in the same way that Irish Catholics cannot all head to Catholic Spain when there are cultural and language barriers. Hence Israel cannot fully protect international Jews where Israel cannot blemish the ethics of Jews with a heavy-handed conflict against Palestine.
I've lost track of how your post relates to the topic. See post 12.
 
I've lost track of how your post relates to the topic. See post 12.

A pessimistic version of the Israeli Palestinian conflict is that the conflict continues perpetually as a reminder of Satanism. Israel’s intermittent bombardment of Palestine resembles a sustainable version of ethnic genocide where the Palestinian population is allowed to regrow until they’re bombed again. This would mimic the natural evil of overpopulation and starvation in the third world except that there’s active participation in warfare. The dilemma is that glorifying evil can be potentially unlimited when history is vast. So if Israel engages in Islamophobia and if Palestine promotes Holocaust denial then the ethics of killing one another becomes blurred. The conflict is at risk of sexual perversion where other countries turn a blind eye to the conflict. This means that Islamic immigrants in the west along with European tourists in Arabia are forced to tacitly consent to each other ignoring the conflict in Palestine. Unfortunately Palestinian civilians are also being mowed down in the lawn so to speak.

“(Israel’s) conflicts in Lebanon and Gaza in the last 12 years have been fought against Hizbullah and Hamas respectively.
To combat these two adversaries, Israel has adopted a policy of ‘Mowing the Grass’, a patient military strategy of attrition with limited goals: to diminish their opponents’ capacity to harm Israel, and to accomplish temporary deterrence – both of which are achieved through occasional large-scale operations, as seen with the three Gaza Wars and the Second Lebanon War.”
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/mec/2018/05/10/mowing-the-grass-and-the-force-casualty-tradeoff/
 
@Michael McMahon The thread topic is common lessons from US aggression in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Israel's oppression of Palestinians likely isn't very relevant, except that they did help create Hamas, which hasn't gone well for them.
 
A glaring unlearned lesson is, what if the US had worked with Ho Chi Minh instead of against him, a friend to the independence of the Vietnamese people? What if the US had installed a good government in Afghanistan the people supported? What if the US had installed a good government in Iraq after overthrowing Saddam, instead of Paul Bremer?

As a foreign occupying military force, it may not be possible to install a good government that the people of that country would support. The reasons to distrust the U.S. in such endeavors are numerous. In fact, any outside power trying to establish the governance of another country would likely be met with skepticism - history has shown us why.

If the elections had been held in 1956 and the results accepted and implemented, the biography of Vietnam would probably be very different. The contrast with Afghanistan and Iraq is that the Vietnamese fight for their own independence had been going on for a very long time and had broad support - they wouldn't have been starting from scratch trying to build governing institutions that would garner approval from much of the population.
 
As a foreign occupying military force, it may not be possible to install a good government that the people of that country would support. The reasons to distrust the U.S. in such endeavors are numerous. In fact, any outside power trying to establish the governance of another country would likely be met with skepticism - history has shown us why.

I think it's possible. Skepticism is a far cry from terrible government.

If the elections had been held in 1956 and the results accepted and implemented, the biography of Vietnam would probably be very different. The contrast with Afghanistan and Iraq is that the Vietnamese fight for their own independence had been going on for a very long time and had broad support - they wouldn't have been starting from scratch trying to build governing institutions that would garner approval from much of the population.

There are differences there, but Afghanistan had history with governments. The Soviets messed it up installing their puppet, the US messed it up replacing that with a vacuum filled by the Pakistan-created Taliban, and so on. Just as Iran could have had a reasonable democracy before the Shah was imposed leading to the Islamist government.
 
I think it's possible. Skepticism is a far cry from terrible government.

Perhaps it's possible - there seems to be an abundance of counter examples throughout history though.

There are differences there, but Afghanistan had history with governments. The Soviets messed it up installing their puppet, the US messed it up replacing that with a vacuum filled by the Pakistan-created Taliban, and so on. Just as Iran could have had a reasonable democracy before the Shah was imposed leading to the Islamist government.

Yes, foreign powers coming in and installing governments in Afghanistan and Iran in the past didn't result in good governance. The opposite happening would seem to be the exception.

In the early 2000's, Afghanistan and Iraq had not had anything close to functional governments for decades. It is difficult to build a government that the people will support when the institutional knowledge of bureaucracy is largely forgotten - who will run that government? Foreigners?

Good governance takes time and effort - there isn't really a how-to manual for building a government from rubble in a foreign land. Perhaps if it was a higher priority, the U.S. would be better at it. They had twenty years in Afghanistan - one would hope that would have been enough time.
 
Perhaps it's possible - there seems to be an abundance of counter examples throughout history though.

Well, such situations generally involve a country that is more concerned with power than good government. That's kind of the point of the thread, that repeated error.

In the early 2000's, Afghanistan and Iraq had not had anything close to functional governments for decades. It is difficult to build a government that the people will support when the institutional knowledge of bureaucracy is largely forgotten - who will run that government? Foreigners?

I think it's more possible than it might seem. For example, the best government Ukraine has had in a century is from a comedian non-politician. One who just fired the head of their defense in the middle of the war as part of his anti-corruption policy.
 
Good governance takes time and effort - there isn't really a how-to manual for building a government from rubble in a foreign land. Perhaps if it was a higher priority, the U.S. would be better at it. They had twenty years in Afghanistan - one would hope that would have been enough time.

We really tried to repeat the error in Iraq. We did so in dismantling the capable government, the Baath party; we did so further in installing an incompent czar, Paul Bremer; and we tried to complete it by installing a bad US puppet, Chalabi, but the CIA of all people realized how bad that was and prevented it.
 
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