Hindsight clarifies that Vietnam was a really bad war

[NWO Sentryman]

Bit_Pattern

If that were the case, then how come the Chamber of Deputies voted 81-47 to delcare that Allende was a Criminal?

Well, it is if the majority in the legislature hated Allende. Becase the majoirty of people voted them in and Allende's coalition became a minority in the Chamber of Deputies.

thousands were killed by the Bolsheviks. Did that stop support of the Whites in the Russian Civil War? I was just trying to say that Allende wasnt so popular because Pinochet didn't feel the need to go for Stalin level killings.

1. True, and i concede that point.

2. How does that explain attacks on shopping centres, marketplaces etc?

as for the revisionism point, no i am serious. It's like the "Other losses" allegations or the Claims that millions only starved in Ukraine or the Concentration camps because of natural disasters or warfare. While the circumstances HM pointed out did contribute, Ho Chi Minh's Communist Economic Policies were also at fault.

 

[bit_pattern]

I don't even know what you are talking about now and this debate bores me. I was mistaken about the level of support for Allende but at the end of the day it was only a cursory comment and your standards for what does or does not constitute popular support are munted, to say the least - a much better tactic would have been to make me look at the raw electoral numbers (36%, in hindsight, is a long way from being 'popular'). But either way, this is a thread about Vietnam, not Chile, and since you concede that popular support and military success aren't the same thing (which, iirc, was the whole point of bringing up Latin America) then I guess this Chile derail of ours has become rather redundant. And, in which case, we should get back to talking about Vietnam.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

I believe joining the "resistance" was compulsory in most of the rural Communist controlled areas.

But my point was different.

The Viet Cong as a separate South Vietnam movement and party were being phased out. I guess Ho didn't have much use for a second communist party.

Although for many people just about all Vietnamese fighters were Viet Cong, and conversely all Viet Cong were some kind of murderous guerillas, really the Viet Cong was a separate and independent communist party in South Vietnam, with its own identity and ideas. They _were_ pro-North, make no mistake, but still a separate party and a separate set of military units, well, those which went the military way.

(Which also brings me to the point: a lot of those executed by the CIA actually hadn't even touched a gun in their life. Operation Phoenix wasn't targeting the military units camped in unknown jungles and caves across the border, but protesters and idealistic commie students and housewives and union leaders in the cities. And since a lot of the data identifying them as Viet Cong actually came from the South Vietnam dictatorship, actually likely a heck of a lot weren't even commies at all, but merely political opponents of the local tin-horn dictator.)

So, anyway, what happened was that increasingly new recruits in the northern-occupied areas were just added to the Northern Vietnamese army and party, instead of replacing the Viet Cong casualties. There was no disappearing support for the commies in the South, and even the CIA reports make that clear. What was happening was that there were fewer and fewer people in Commie Party #1 (the Viet Cong) and more and more in Commie Party #2. People were counted in group A instead of group B. That's all.

And the CIA was actually quite happy to keep targeting only the Viet Cong for extermination, while leaving the northern commies alone -- and in fact creating incentive to join the northerners instead of the Viet Cong that way. Because the Viet Cong had had the nasty aspect of insisting all along that it's a purely South Vietnam movement, which was kinda inconvenient. As later there were fewer and fewer people in the Viet Cong and more and more in the NV structures, it basically just became easier to pretend that it's just a foreign invasion and occupation by NV.

 

[Taarkin]

NWO Sentryman, do you acknowledge that it is possible for a popular thing to be defeated? If not, please look up the definition of the word "popular" before pretending that you know what it means.

I mean, Jesus-onna-stick, I'm used to revisionist history, but your delusions have got to take the cake.

Here's another one:

Was Serbia's refusal of the [Austro-Hungarian] ultimatum an act of war?

yes, it was.

I'm not sure if that counts as "revisionist" or just "not knowing that words mean things".

 

[TraneWreck]

2/3rds of the American public opposes the war in Afghanistan.

Because anything with more than 50% support is "unstoppable," we must not have troops in Afghanistan. The seven that died yesterday must be figments of my imagination.

 

[NWO Sentryman]

I already acknowledged that i was wrong regarding the 50% and the Austro-Hungarian Ultimatum.

 

[Puppycow]

Report on Operation Speedy Express by Kevin P. Buckley

 

[brenn]

A few comments about the war and subsequent history:

Hindsight clarifies that the side we were helping was the bad guys. It might have been an honest mistake, but it is true nonetheless. I mean, these were people who admired Hitler and tried to emulate him.

And the people we were fighting against didn't turn out so bad in the long run, did they? Else we wouldn't be having such good relations now, would we? Unlike with North Korea. After we left Vietnam, the North Vietnamese fought against the Khmer Rouge (unambigously bad guys) and against Mao, also a bad guy.

Also, Nixon was a real bastard

And before any smartass asks, no I do not hate America.

Discuss.

You don't say what you base the wacky claims about good guys and bad guys on - I have studied the viet nam war quite a bit and I seriously can't imagine, for a second, evidence that would support that. I guess if communism = good(as it does to some far left nuts), then the north are the good guys regardless of their human rights issues. Otherwise???

Your statements are conclusions without factual support and your quotes seem entirely unrelated. A very poor argument to start a thread.

 

[brenn]

Because they were badly beaten in a series military engagements. (Remember, it is possible for popular things to be defeated)

If you mean to argue that the VC had popular support, I doubt that will work out for you. Neither side had popular support in viet nam and you could find that same today in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc. The majority of people living at the bare subsistence level of the populations in these third world countries just don't care about politics and the wars are always between minorities.

 

[Cainkane1]

This is old news. Even while the war was being fought there were many many people who demonstrated against the Vietnam conflict and it was probably the protesting that got the war stopped.

 

[Puppycow]

You don't say what you base the wacky claims about good guys and bad guys on - I have studied the viet nam war quite a bit and I seriously can't imagine, for a second, evidence that would support that. I guess if communism = good(as it does to some far left nuts), then the north are the good guys regardless of their human rights issues. Otherwise???

I didn't make any claims about "good guys." I said that the Khmer Rouge were bad guys. Do you dispute that? I can provide evidence if you don't know about the Khmer Rouge.

Your statements are conclusions without factual support and your quotes seem entirely unrelated. A very poor argument to start a thread.

Your statements don't seem to indicate that you comprehended what I wrote.

 

[Puppycow]

This is old news.

That's why it's in the History forum.