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I agree. Same reason. Just because the war is fought against an unconventional enemy, Presidential administrations think they have the right to bend the rules a little bit.
The question is who lost the War, and the answer is The Media starting with Walter Cronkite and of course the Politicians that would not let the Military win it.
Cronkite at the time the most trusted man in America reported the war was lost in 1068 and the political support went to hell after that. Thing was Walter based his report on the Tet Offensive that was surprise attacks all over South Vietnam. Thing is we beat back the Offensive and never lost a major Battle.
Hardly. They had their fair share of support, no doubt, but did they really have a choice? Communism talks a good game, plus the Communist Party was an organizing principle that the south lacked sufficiently in opposition, but when it was over in '75, communists reverted to their true colors and purged ideological dissent. That is the only way a "communist" movement can survive post conflict: it becomes a autocracy. The people of Vietnam suffered decades of maltreatment.
Tell that to all of the poor people who decided to flee on boats...
I assume that you think peace negotiations would result in the NV stopping the war. It would not. You don’t understand Vietnamese culture and how they negotiate. If you did you would not write such a silly post.March your not even on the same page as me. Bombing Hanoi the enemy base stopped the vietnam war in 3 days
December 26, 1972 - North Vietnam agrees to resume peace negotiations within five days of the end of bombing.
The History Place - Vietnam War 1969-1975
The question is who lost the War, and the answer is The Media starting with Walter Cronkite and of course the Politicians that would not let the Military win it.
Cronkite at the time the most trusted man in America reported the war was lost in 1068 and the political support went to hell after that. Thing was Walter based his report on the Tet Offensive that was surprise attacks all over South Vietnam. Thing is we beat back the Offensive and never lost a major Battle.
btw How many MIAs total were there during the US involvement in Vietnam?
March your not even on the same page as me. Bombing Hanoi the enemy base stopped the vietnam war in 3 days
December 26, 1972 - North Vietnam agrees to resume peace negotiations within five days of the end of bombing.
The History Place - Vietnam War 1969-1975
No, they should have had it when the Japanese left instead of the US allowing the French to return.I'm not sure ,but if you added them up along with the US soldiers who suffered (and still suffer in many instances) from PTSD, from the effects of Agent Orange, from drug addiction, from a whole host of disabilities that are common to the soldiers who went to Vietnam, it wouldn't even come close to the impact on the Vietnamese civilians. It was a war that never should have been. The Vietnamese should have had their independence when they won it from the French.
It wasn’t the “poor” people that decided to flee on boats. The people that fled on boats generally had high class, high paying jobs in or closely related to the corrupt government of the South. I’m not saying that they were bad people, and most were in trouble for being on the losing side so they had reason to flee.
A friend & coworker of mine for over 15 years was a boat person. A friend and coworker of my wife was a boat person. Both families, father etc., were among the ‘poor’ people that escaped retribution. They lost everything. Both fathers were high ranking officers in the SVA. Neither family was poor monetarily, they were the wealthy elite. Virtually no common South Vietnamese people could afford to escape, nor were they motivated to escape. If you can talk to your friend, find out why they left. This may take a while, but I bet you’ll find that they were not the poor peasants of South Vietnam. He also may not know that a family member was in the government, e.g. a prison guard.You would be surprised how many poor people fled as well. One of my best friends in college was a small child when his family fled Saigon. They were certainly not wealthy when they fled.
A friend & coworker of mine for over 15 years was a boat person. A friend and coworker of my wife was a boat person. Both families, father etc., were among the ‘poor’ people that escaped retribution. They lost everything. Both fathers were high ranking officers in the SVA. Neither family was poor monetarily, they were the wealthy elite. Virtually no common South Vietnamese people could afford to escape, nor were they motivated to escape. If you can talk to your friend, find out why they left. This may take a while, but I bet you’ll find that they were not the poor peasants of South Vietnam. He also may not know that a family member was in the government, e.g. a prison guard.
No i think it is evil because it denies Liberty.LookingGlass is right. Calling Communism "evil" in and of itself is a stretch. Certainly Communist regimes in the USSR and China have been capable of doing some pretty evil things, but that makes their authoritarian governments evil. IRL, Communism itself isn't evil so much as it is a stupid idea that doesn't really work beyond groups of maybe a few dozen people.
No i think it is evil because it denies Liberty.
The Vietnam War should rightly be called a 'battle' as it was a part of the Cold War.
The Americans won the Cold War and, after murdering and enslaving over a hundred million people, the god-damned Communists lost.
1) liberty means different things to different people. Although perhaps misguided, many Vietnamese saw Communism/socialism as a way to free themselves from what they viewed as the oppressive imperialist presence of the French, and later the United States. In their eyes, Communism WAS a chance at freedom. In addition, the vast majority of Communist movements throughout history have been nationalistic in character first and foremost. For the most part they were nationalists first, Communists second.
2) communism doesn't necessarily mean authoritarianism. It depends at what scale, and how, it is being implemented.
Some cultures can't seem to handle liberty. Greed and self interest end up destroying it.
well, your right to a certain extent. communism as described by Marx is actually a global movement, any nationalistic communist revolutions should be called socialist. and your dead on about the vietnamese looking at communism as a chance at freedom, because all they had ever known was foreign imperial oppression.
well, your right to a certain extent. communism as described by Marx is actually a global movement, any nationalistic communist revolutions should be called socialist. and your dead on about the vietnamese looking at communism as a chance at freedom, because all they had ever known was foreign imperial oppression.
In my recollection the only individual in history who actively tried to promote and implement Communism as an international movement was Che Guevara. The vast majority of other Communist leaders in history were nationalists first and foremost. I disagree that those movements should be called socialist rather than Communist, however. Just because they weren't exactly Marxist in nature doesn't mean that they weren't Communist.
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