The American War: The US In Vietnam

Here's a tip - the prefix 'according to Chomsky' is like a giant neon sign that says 'what follows with be a mixture of half truths, misrepresentations and propaganda'. That is especially true when it comes to events that can be explained by historians. In my 20s I was a dedicated Chomskyite. I read a half dozen of his books & went to see the man speak several times.

Fortunately for me I was a student of American history & in particular the Vietnam War. When I re-read what I had once thought were compelling accounts of the Vietnam War I realized that Chomsky's work was almost comically bad. Embarrassingly so. Then there is the implicit racism. When Chomsky writes about non-whites or non-Westerners they are never real people. They aren't capable of making their own decisions or taking their own actions. They have no responsibility for their actions. They are either victims, or dupes. When they do something bad it is the fault of the US or some other Western nation. If someone on the right talked about non-whites like this we would see it for what it is.

The idea that Sth Vietnam was some manner of 'colony' can only be maintained by studiously ignoring the Sth Vietnamese themselves. It can only be maintained by treating them like hollow cyphers or helpless victims and it can only be maintained by the most selective reading of events possible.

Read some real history if you want to understand Vietnam. Chomsky is only of value as an example of the worst sort of propaganda.

 

Easy stuff.
Vietnam is half a world away from America and absolutely no threat but you invaded anyway, all to support a dictator worse than the one in the north.
The prolonging of the war resulted in massive numbers of dead who would have been alive had you kept out.

 

Congratulations on making a post that is wrong in virtually every respect. Do you have to practice to achieve something as spectacularly bad as this or is it a natural gift?

 

So the guy in the south was a fluffy bunny or did he murder as many political enemies as possible.

 

Neither, but he (there were actually a lot of he's, but I don't think detail is your thing) was a lot more 'fluffy' than the DRV. Dissent was much easier & safer in the South, and there were opposition politicians & critical media for the entire history of the regime.

Neither was true for the North, a nation that imprisoned & killed tens of thousands. That process of murdering opponents began even before WW2 and accelerated once the Communist Party took control of government in 1945. In one particularly infamous example the Communists actually combined with French troops to wipe out key elements of the Nationalist VNQDD, who the French wanted rid of because they saw them as less willing to compromise than the Communists.

The mass murder that took place in the years after victory over the French killed at least 50,000 people. I doubt the RVN murdered that many in its entire 20 year existence. The DRV also invaded & occupied parts of Laos in the late 50s & Cambodia shortly thereafter against the wishes of those governments, paving the way for later Pathet Lao & Khmer Rouge governments. Following the conquest of the South hundreds of thousands of people were sent to 're-education' camps and a million fled as refugees. Many fled persecution and tens of thousands died in the process.

American intervention was at the request of a government representing millions of people who did not wish to live under a Communist dictatorship. Sadly people like you act like they didn't exist & had no right to want what was clearly a better future. Had Hanoi chosen not to invade the South - and it seriously considered not doing it - then not only would South Vietnam have been freer & more prosperous than it is now, but millions of Vietnamese, Lao & Cambodians would still be alive.

The decision to invade the South cost something like 5 million lives across Indochina, perhaps more. A regime responsible for that is not one I would be comfortable defending.

 

The basic fact goes, regardless of trying to fluff over it, the US supported a mass murdering dictator because he was their mass murdering dictator.
Vietnam was a mess on both sides but the politicians of the time still believed in the domino effect, something the US defeat proved wrong.

 

OK, so you aren't much on detail, though you seem keen on repetition. I'm getting the impression you are well out of your depth here.

Who is 'he', who did he mass murder, how many & when?

Now, compare this to the Communists. Which side was worse?

As for the 'domino effect', the nations of Sth East Asia certainly believed in it. Both Laos & Vietnam went Communist as a result of Vietnamese intervention. When the US first became involved with the RVN there were several Communist insurgencies in Malaya/Malaysia, one of them major. There was a smaller insurgency in Thailand. There were also Communist aligned governments in Burma and Indonesia. The latter mounted a campaign to destabilize Malaysia and had a huge Communist party that attempted to take over the government at one point.

I'll give the last word to Lee Kwan Yew, the most successful Asian leader of his generation & a man who is vastly better qualified to discuss this than you:

 

Sorry I assumed you knew the basics of history and how Rhee purged the south of anyone accused of being a commie, that including the Ganghwa massacre where his opponents were executed without trial.

I'm not defending the North Koreans but the South's leaders were just as bad.
Fools assume you support a given cause because you dislike the other cause. Many people assume I support the idiot Hillary Clinton because I make my views on Trump very clear, all without the slightest thought my objection is to all idiots, not just the idiot others think should be let off because the other guy is also a cretin.

North and south were both run by murdering ***** so the UN supporting the South was a bit stupid.
Has you simply allowed the north to win, there would have been far fewer deaths and the Kims would have been kicked out years ago as a set of pointless idiots.

 

Sorry, I assumed you knew this was a thread about VIETNAM. Its in the title of the thread. It should have been obvious from the numerous references in my post, but that also assumes you are informed. Maybe you should find a thread about Korea....or just go away and do some reading....or something. Like I said, detail doesn't seem to be your thing.

 

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The commander of U.S. forces in Vietnam, U.S. Army General Westmorland, claimed that Orientals don't feel pain like we do:

 

Third day after I landed in DaNang, I was sent to Khe Sahn by chopper. I had studied history and I knew about Dien Bien Phu - which was a French base on a plateau surrounded by hills. The roads couldn't be used and everything had to go in or out by plane. The French had the hills around the base. The VC picked off the hills one by one and finally took the main base. After a day at Khe Sahn, I was sent to one of the hills around Khe Sanh - I thought to myself - Am I the only one who read history??? This didn't end well for the French, and the situation sure is similar.....
My wife lost a brother. I lost friends.
FOR WHAT?????

 

Don't read the mainstream. Read stuff in the alternative press. Enter "Vietnam" in the search features of these two websites.
http://thirdworldtraveler.com/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/

You sound like you're one of those people who doesn't know about American imperialism.
http://www.politicalforum.com/index.php?threads/american-imperialism.371897/

Here's another about Vietnam.
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/chomskyin1282.html

 

Sorry,

mixed up two threads but the answer is almost the same.
The US friend (Installed dictator) murdered everyone he thought could be a communist. The names change but the story id pretty much the same, and both were assisted by the CIA/US government.

 

I read works by historians, not dubious articles by people pushing political barrows on conspiracy websites. I read the work of people who do in depth research and provide detailed citations. I leave stuff on conspiracy & political websites for the intellectually lazy and shallow - people who don't want to do the hard work of reading detailed fact based accounts.

I have a comprehensive understanding of what you would call 'American Imperialism'. I have read more about Vietnam than most of the people writing the stuff you read. When you can be bothered putting in some work on the subject get back to me. I won't hold my breath.

 

OK, so you really don't have a clue what you are talking about and you are just repeating general, simplistic, fact free generalities. I suspected as much at the start. This just confirms it. You don't actually know enough to know how little you know. Unfortunately the internet gives everyone, no matter how ill informed, a platform to display their ignorance & the assurance that they will find similarly ignorant souls to tell them they are right.

Bored now.

 

Are you saying America's man didn't murder a lot of political opponents?

 

There were the issues in Europe, the ME, and Africa re the Cold War as well; those factors loom just as large re South Vietnam as they did re Korean War and why we were there. Abandoning allies and welshing on treaties in SE Asia would have poisoned a lot more relationships than just the one country. In the event our action in S. Vietnam played a major role in bankrupting the Krushchev/Breznev Doctrine and the Soviet economy as well; they became dependent on western grain and refined petroleum products among other things from 1973 until the final collapse came. The Israeli victory over the Arab imperialists via our support ruined their cred with the ME dictators and African puppet states as well.

 

You've been reading propaganda. Try reading the truth.

 

So I have assume you served with the 26th Marines ?

So did I.

I didn't arrive in-country until June of 69 and for my first five months in-country I was assigned to 1/13 NGF Plt. usually TAD to 1/26 and 2/26. Ran across a few who shipped over for an extended tour of duty who were at Khe Sanh.

Welcome home VietVet.

 

I have been. Its called 'history'. I would recommend you try it, but I see no evidence you are capable of getting beyond your own prejudices to embrace fact-based accounts of events.

 

http://politicalforum.com/index.php...oves-the-real-american-war-in-vietnam.503127/

 

There was no invasion.

Our troops went because their presence was requested by the government of the south.

With the long documented history of communist genocide your claim that massive numbers died who otherwise would not have is lame

 

He murdered some but not nearly as many as your guy in the north.

Usually just for the terrible crimes of being educated or owning property. Very typical for communist regimes

 

Actually it was proven true as first south vietnam then laos then cambodia all fell to communism

 

First casualty does not mark the start of the war.

The war started under LBJ with the Gulf of tonkin resolution