Isn't it kind of crazy to think that Vietnam vets are all old and about to enter die off phase? Only a few more batters to go before our generations step to the plate. :)
Anyway, we never talk about Vietnam here. I was reading about Vietnam recently, so figured I'd start a thread. Basically, I think Nixon & the hawks were as wrong in the 1950s as the hawks in the early 2000s. But I'm not sure Nixon basically didn't get it right once he became president (if only because of public pressure) and the general strategy would have found success if attempted by Johnson. Incursions into Laos and Cambodia with stepped up bombing of the North and an overall strategy of Vietnamization were the only policies that really made sense with an American commitment.
The Johnson administration really messed up by putting in so many troops without being willing to cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail (at the least). The troops not only began to look like occupiers, but with so much prestige on the line made South Vietnam an extremely valuable target for the USSR.
Also, our long run strategy looks really bad. We put in an enormous amount of effort in the 60s, but in the mid 70s weren't willing to put in far far less to keep the south from being overrun.
Hell no, we won't go.
The only strategy that ever made sense was invading or at least destroying the north. We weren't willing to do that, so why bother doing anything?
The winning strategy, making a deal with the Commies in 1954 to unite the country but be allied with us against the Soviets and company seems obvious now. But prior to Nixon and Kissinger we were politically unable to execute that sort of strategy even if we were capable of considering it.
With just a few more drag marks the US would have won.
Hey, my dad and father in law are both Vietnam vets. Don't say they're about to enter 'die off phase'! :(
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 02:57:29 PM
The winning strategy, making a deal with the Commies in 1954 to unite the country but be allied with us against the Soviets and company seems obvious now. But prior to Nixon and Kissinger we were politically unable to execute that sort of strategy even if we were capable of considering it.
How would we have been able to convince Ho Chi Minh to ally Vietnam with the United States? Wouldn't he have just assumed we wanted to assume the colonial mantle from the French?
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 02:57:29 PM
The winning strategy, making a deal with the Commies in 1954 to unite the country but be allied with us against the Soviets and company seems obvious now. But prior to Nixon and Kissinger we were politically unable to execute that sort of strategy even if we were capable of considering it.
That's a bit far-fetched. I don't see the Vietnamese communists being good allies for us in the Cold War. More like they take whatever aid we give them, say "ha ha suckers" and join the Soviet sphere of influence regardless.
Quote from: Caliga on March 24, 2014, 03:09:56 PM
Hey, my dad and father in law are both Vietnam vets. Don't say they're about to enter 'die off phase'! :(
Sorry. :(
Quote from: derspiess on March 24, 2014, 03:14:30 PM
That's a bit far-fetched. I don't see the Vietnamese communists being good allies for us in the Cold War. More like they take whatever aid we give them, say "ha ha suckers" and join the Soviet sphere of influence regardless.
The Vietnamese had no love for the Soviets. They pretty much dislike everybody. All we really needed was just for them not to be Soviet allies and I think we could have swung that.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 03:45:26 PM
The Vietnamese had no love for the Soviets. They pretty much dislike everybody. All we really needed was just for them not to be Soviet allies and I think we could have swung that.
The thought of them being another Yugoslavia is an interesting one-- I'm just awfully skeptical we could have pulled it off. Let alone the notion of willingly condemning the entire country to suffering under communism.
The Vietnam War was not winnable using means that were cost effective for the US. It would have been better to just let the North invade the South.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 04:12:12 PM
The Vietnam War was not winnable using means that were cost effective for the US. It would have been better to just let the North invade the South.
Two questions for Yi...
--if in the mid 60s the US had cut off the Ho Chi Minh Trail (and never allowed the sihanouk trail to open), what would have happened?
--forget winning the war. Losing the war involved the north invading the south with conventional forces, which was comparatively easy for the US to stop. What if we reduced our commitment in the 70s to just prevent that?
I believe the war could have been winnable had we invaded North Vietnam directly, but in that situation China surely would have directly intervened and nobody wanted to fight another Korean War.
Quote from: Caliga on March 24, 2014, 03:11:41 PM
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 02:57:29 PM
The winning strategy, making a deal with the Commies in 1954 to unite the country but be allied with us against the Soviets and company seems obvious now. But prior to Nixon and Kissinger we were politically unable to execute that sort of strategy even if we were capable of considering it.
How would we have been able to convince Ho Chi Minh to ally Vietnam with the United States? Wouldn't he have just assumed we wanted to assume the colonial mantle from the French?
I'm not an expert on Vietnam at all, but it was my impression that Ho Chi Minh was a big fan of the US initially. I believe he patterned the Vietnamese declaration of independence on that of the US, and was hoping for an alliance.
Of course given the times and the people and so on, it seems a bit of a stretch to imagine the US and a Communist client state to maintain an ongoing healthy relationship; but I don't think the Vietnamese were particularly keen on either the Soviets or the Chinese until they were forced to embrace them.
It's my strong impression that the business with the Declaration was all an attempt to hornswoggle the US. After Din Bin Foo they certainly didn't rule the North in accordance with American values.
Quote from: Jacob on March 24, 2014, 04:27:24 PM
I'm not an expert on Vietnam at all, but it was my impression that Ho Chi Minh was a big fan of the US initially. I believe he patterned the Vietnamese declaration of independence on that of the US, and was hoping for an alliance.
Of course given the times and the people and so on, it seems a bit of a stretch to imagine the US and a Communist client state to maintain an ongoing healthy relationship; but I don't think the Vietnamese were particularly keen on either the Soviets or the Chinese until they were forced to embrace them.
Yep this is my understanding as well. But we had a hard time with these sorts of situations prior to Nixon.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 04:29:57 PM
It's my strong impression that the business with the Declaration was all an attempt to hornswoggle the US. After Din Bin Foo they certainly didn't rule the North in accordance with American values.
During the Cold War we were pretty flexible with American Values if it meant keeping a country out of the Soviet sphere.
Quote from: Jacob on March 24, 2014, 04:27:24 PM
I'm not an expert on Vietnam at all, but it was my impression that Ho Chi Minh was a big fan of the US initially. I believe he patterned the Vietnamese declaration of independence on that of the US, and was hoping for an alliance.
He also referenced the declaration of the rights of man, but I don't think he was a fan of the French or wanted an alliance with them (considering he was fighting them). I think he was just playing public relations. The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
Quote from: Caliga on March 24, 2014, 04:20:16 PM
I believe the war could have been winnable had we invaded North Vietnam directly, but in that situation China surely would have directly intervened and nobody wanted to fight another Korean War.
Um correct me if I am wrong but the Chinese and Vietnamese despise each other. I have a hard time imagining them welcoming Chinese intervention in any situation.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:32:30 PM
The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
The first part yes...the second no. Heck Mao wanted an American alliance but he was a Communist of the worst kind.
Right... here are the opening lines to the Vietnamese declaration of independence:
QuoteThe compatriots of the entire country,
All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free...
According to the wikipedia entry on Ho Chi Minh, he reportedly petitioned Harry S. Truman for support for Vietnamese independence after the August '45 revolution.
It's not inconceivable that had Truman supported Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam at that point he could have turned the country down a different road. I'd probably still be full of factional massacres and end up as some sort of dictatorship, but it may have ended up more friendly to US interests.
... it's all alt history of course.
Quote from: Jacob on March 24, 2014, 04:35:48 PM
I'd probably still be full of factional massacres and end up as some sort of dictatorship
Well yeah there is no doubt about that.
Land reform in Vietnam before the Vietnam War started (per wikipedia):
QuoteLand reform in Vietnam was a program of land reform in North Vietnam from 1953 to 1956. It followed the program of land reform in China from 1946 to 1953.
The aim of the land reform program was to break the power of the traditional village elite, to form a new class of leaders, and redistribute the wealth (mostly land) to create a new class that has no ownership. It was an element of the Communist revolution. The reform led to allegations of many villagers being executed, land being taken away even from poor peasants, and of paranoia among neighbors. Several foreign witnesses testified to mass executions.[1][2] A number of sources have suggested that about 30% of the "landlords" executed were actually communist party members.[3][4][5][6][7] Former North Vietnamese government official Nguyen Minh Can, told RFA's Vietnamese service: "The land reform was a massacre of innocent, honest people, and using contemporary terms we must say that it was a genocide triggered by class discrimination".[8]
Between 50,000 and 172,000 perceived "class enemies" were executed.[9][10][11] Reports from North Vietnamese defectors at the time suggested that 50,000 were executed. A Hungarian diplomat was told that 60,000 were executed.[12] Declassified Politburo documents confirm that 1 in 1,000 North Vietnamese (i.e., about 14,000 people) were the minimum quota targeted for execution during the earlier "rent reduction" campaign; the number killed during the multiple stages of the considerably more radical "land reform" was probably many times greater.[13] Lam Thanh Liem, a major authority on land issues in Vietnam, conducted multiple interviews in which communist cadres gave estimates for land reform executions ranging from 120,000 to 200,000. Such figures match the "nearly 150,000 houses and huts which were allocated to new occupants".[14] Landlords were arbitrarily classified as 5.68% of the population, but the majority were subject to less severe punishment than execution. Official records from the time suggest that 172,008 "landlords" were executed during the "land reform", of whom 123,266 (71.66%) were later found to be wrongly classified.[11] Victims were reportedly shot, beheaded, and beaten to death; "some were tied up, thrown into open graves and covered with stones until they were crushed to death".[15] The full death toll was even greater because victims' families starved to death under the "policy of isolation."[16] As communist defector Le Xuan Giao explained: "There was nothing worse than the starvation of the children in a family whose parents were under the control of a land reform team. They isolated the house, and the people who lived there would starve. The children were all innocent. There was nothing worse than that. They wanted to see the whole family dead."[17] Former Viet Minh official Hoang Van Chi wrote that as many as 500,000 North Vietnamese may have died as a result of the land reform.[18]
Gareth Porter wrote The Myth of the Bloodbath, claiming that the death toll was only in the thousands[19] but was criticized by historian Robert F. Turner for relying on official communist sources. Turner argued that the death toll "was certainly in six digits."[17] Nevertheless, historian Edwin Moise has defended this practice; asserting that the official communist newspapers of North Vietnam were "extremely informative" and "showed a fairly high level of honesty" when compared to those of other communist states.[20] Porter and Noam Chomsky argued that Hoang Van Chi used to be "employed and subsidized" by South Vietnam and the US, and challenged the reliability of translated North Vietnamese documents on which Chi's view was based on.[21] Turner defended Chi, noting that while he received a grant from the Congress for Cultural Freedom (which was later revealed to have been funded by the Central Intelligence Agency), there was no evidence this affected his conclusions.[17] Chi opined that "Mr. Porter studies....a few propaganda booklets published by Hanoi....I lived through the whole process, and I described what I saw with my own eyes."[22] Both Chi and Turner noted that Porter barely could not speak Vietnamese (despite his claim that sources about the land reform were mistranslated), and that he relied on sometimes inaccurate English translations of Nhan Dan done by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (as well as English-language propaganda meant to encourage anti-war groups).[22][17] Moise himself estimated that at least 8,000 were executed.[23] Moise's denial that China played an important role in the reform is no longer accepted by modern scholarship.[24] Chomsky cited Colonel Nguyen Van Chau, head of the Central Psychological War Service for the South Vietnamese army from 1956 to 1962, who claimed that early figures for the land reform were "100% fabricated" by the intelligence services of Saigon.[21] Chau was one of dozens of officers dismissed from their positions while under investigation in South Vietnam;[25] he later made public appearances alongside North Vietnamese, Viet Cong, and French Communist Party representatives.[26] Recent scholarship from Vietnam also suggests that a larger number of landlords were persecuted than previously believed.[11]
More than 1 million North Vietnamese people fled to the South, due in part to the land reform.[27] It is estimated that as many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh.[28]
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:37:33 PM
Land reform in Vietnam before the Vietnam War started (per wikipedia):
QuoteBetween 50,000 and 172,000 perceived "class enemies" were executed.
That's it? The Soviets and the Red Chinese are not impressed.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:34:32 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:32:30 PM
The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
The first part yes...the second no. Heck Mao wanted an American alliance but he was a Communist of the worst kind.
There was no way for us to ally with a communist government at the time. Who would we be allied against? How would that help us draw a hard line against communism globally as we tried to keep other countries from going wobbly?
For that and so many other reasons, if Ho was a communist that meant he wasn't available for an alliance.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:34:32 PM
The first part yes...the second no. Heck Mao wanted an American alliance but he was a Communist of the worst kind.
He wanted American help against the French, not an "alliance."
Quote from: Jacob on March 24, 2014, 04:35:48 PM
It's not inconceivable that had Truman supported Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam at that point he could have turned the country down a different road. I'd probably still be full of factional massacres and end up as some sort of dictatorship, but it may have ended up more friendly to US interests.
... it's all alt history of course.
It was 1945. The world was full of communists trying to put on a good face only to reveal themselves once they achieved power. The most likely case is that Ho just wanted support to ridding himself of the French and would then go his own way.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:41:56 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:37:33 PM
Land reform in Vietnam before the Vietnam War started (per wikipedia):
QuoteBetween 50,000 and 172,000 perceived "class enemies" were executed.
That's it? The Soviets and the Red Chinese are not impressed.
Neither is the Seventh Air Force.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 04:43:46 PM
He wanted American help against the French, not an "alliance."
Look the goal here was keeping them out of the Soviet sphere and keeping their commie-ness contained to Vietnam. I am not going to quibble over what an alliance is. The fact is we could have achieved that without the war. Now if we wanted a non commie non mass murdering regime there that is something else. But hey they ended up winning and mass murdering and things turned out ok anyway.
Quote from: Zanza on March 24, 2014, 04:46:50 PM
Neither is the Seventh Air Force.
Look I am no fan of the USAF but they never killed tens of thousands of their own people. Not even they have aim that bad.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 04:29:57 PM
It's my strong impression that the business with the Declaration was all an attempt to hornswoggle the US. After Din Bin Foo they certainly didn't rule the North in accordance with American values.
I think that the declaration was legitimately an attempt to establish a broad coalition against the return of the French, but that Ho abandoned the coalition-building after the West and the Vietnamese moderates all supported re-imposition of colonial rule. I think that you are right that, by the time the US-backed French effort to recolonize Vietnam failed in '54, Ho wasn't much interested in trying to curry favor with the US. I do think that the US should have let the Vietnamese Catholic ship sink with the French one, though. I don't think there was ever hope that Catholic rule would be either popular or honest.
Thought this was sorta interesting.
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/viet-minh-seeks-support-soviets
QuoteWhat is most striking about his report to the Soviets is its defensive nature. The envoy goes to great lengths, for example, to justify the Viet Minh decision to disband the Indochinese Communist Party (ICP) in 1945. He is keen to prove to the Soviets that the Vietnamese communists are a strong and influential force within Vietnam, just the opposite of the message he had conveyed to the Americans. Any figures he cites thus need to be taken with a grain of salt, as he was trying hard to convince the Soviet Union that the Vietnamese communists were worthy of support. He was also eager for an invitation to Moscow to have more direct contact with decision makers. As the envoy is identified as a representative of the secretariat of the "President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Vietnam," we can identify him as a direct emissary from Ho Chi Minh. At this juncture Ho's earlier conciliatory attitude towards France was already being criticized within the ICP, and he may have known that the US Communist Party leader Earl Browder had been forced from power for the sin of having disbanded his party during WWII. In the end, Ho's leadership would not be endorsed by the Soviet party until he made his trip to Moscow early in 1950, in the entourage of Mao Zedong. The Soviets finally recognized the DRV at the end of January 1950.
Quote from: grumbler on March 24, 2014, 04:58:49 PM
I do think that the US should have let the Vietnamese Catholic ship sink with the French one, though. I don't think there was ever hope that Catholic rule would be either popular or honest.
Yeah. We ended up being about 9 years late on that.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:47:25 PM
Quote from: Zanza on March 24, 2014, 04:46:50 PM
Neither is the Seventh Air Force.
Look I am no fan of the USAF but they never killed tens of thousands of their own people. Not even they have aim that bad.
I was under the impression that these genocidial regimes do not consider their victims their "own" people either. They are typically labeled enemies of the state/people/proletariat. So I don't really see a difference between the killing of Vietnamese by Vietnamese and of Vietnamese by Americans. I am sure the victims didn't really care either. In the end, both the Viet Cong and the USA killed a lot of Vietnamese civilians.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:46:51 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 04:43:46 PM
He wanted American help against the French, not an "alliance."
Look the goal here was keeping them out of the Soviet sphere and keeping their commie-ness contained to Vietnam. I am not going to quibble over what an alliance is. The fact is we could have achieved that without the war. Now if we wanted a non commie non mass murdering regime there that is something else. But hey they ended up winning and mass murdering and things turned out ok anyway.
I'm not sure how you can be certain of that, or even think it likely. We didn't keep them out of South Vietnam. We didn't keep communism out of Laos or Cambodia. Yes the domino theory didn't go beyond that, but keep in mind from 1945 - 1975 there was an almost constant war against them by the non communist west and following that severe sanctions against them after the invasion of Cambodia. Then Communism collapsed.
The Vietnamese had an ideological commitment that they acted on. This would naturally put them in the Communist orbit in some manner, and up against the US. At the very least, Cambodia and Laos were unstable and weak and easy marks for them.
Quote from: Zanza on March 24, 2014, 05:03:22 PM
I was under the impression that these genocidial regimes do not consider their victims their "own" people either. They are typically labeled enemies of the state/people/proletariat. So I don't really see a difference between the killing of Vietnamese by Vietnamese and of Vietnamese by Americans. I am sure the victims didn't really care either. In the end, both the Viet Cong and the USA killed a lot of Vietnamese civilians.
Ok crazy man. My point was that Commies were going to Commie but we could have still avoided war with them. Your response being 'Oh yeah? Well the seventh air force is like a genocidal regime!!!!!'
Um ok...so what...I think we never should have let the genocidal seventh air force loose on those guys.
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:33:30 PM
Quote from: Caliga on March 24, 2014, 04:20:16 PM
I believe the war could have been winnable had we invaded North Vietnam directly, but in that situation China surely would have directly intervened and nobody wanted to fight another Korean War.
Um correct me if I am wrong but the Chinese and Vietnamese despise each other. I have a hard time imagining them welcoming Chinese intervention in any situation.
Yes, they hate each other, but wartime makes strange bedfellows. The Chinese rotated over 300,000 PLA anti-aircraft, engineering and logistical troops through North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, with the most deployed at 170,000 in 1967, with a total of 1,500 casualties to US firepower by 1973.
Quote from: grumbler on March 24, 2014, 04:58:49 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 04:29:57 PM
It's my strong impression that the business with the Declaration was all an attempt to hornswoggle the US. After Din Bin Foo they certainly didn't rule the North in accordance with American values.
I think that the declaration was legitimately an attempt to establish a broad coalition against the return of the French, but that Ho abandoned the coalition-building after the West and the Vietnamese moderates all supported re-imposition of colonial rule. I think that you are right that, by the time the US-backed French effort to recolonize Vietnam failed in '54, Ho wasn't much interested in trying to curry favor with the US. I do think that the US should have let the Vietnamese Catholic ship sink with the French one, though. I don't think there was ever hope that Catholic rule would be either popular or honest.
Yeah, by '54 it was too late to try to align ourselves with Ho. It might have worked in '46. Sure, it also might not have worked, but it still would have been possible at that point to try. Communist ideology aside, from the US point of view in 1946, helping Vietnamese nationalists against French attempts to re-impose colonial rule wouldn't have really been any different than helping Polish or Hungarian nationalists oppose Soviet attempts to turn eastern European countries into Soviet satelites.
Did we offer a great deal of help in that regard?
Quote from: derspiess on March 24, 2014, 04:07:16 PM
The thought of them being another Yugoslavia is an interesting one-- I'm just awfully skeptical we could have pulled it off. Let alone the notion of willingly condemning the entire country to suffering under communism.
It's especially interesting given how bad PRC-Vietnam relations often were.
Quote from: dps on March 24, 2014, 08:28:38 PM
Communist ideology aside, from the US point of view in 1946, helping Vietnamese nationalists against French attempts to re-impose colonial rule wouldn't have really been any different than helping Polish or Hungarian nationalists oppose Soviet attempts to turn eastern European countries into Soviet satelites.
How so?
Surely not in terms of power. France was crippled in 46 and wholy dependent on Marshall Plan money to fight its colonial wars.
Quote from: dps on March 24, 2014, 08:28:38 PMCommunist ideology aside, from the US point of view in 1946, helping Vietnamese nationalists against French attempts to re-impose colonial rule wouldn't have really been any different than helping Polish or Hungarian nationalists oppose Soviet attempts to turn eastern European countries into Soviet satelites.
As an aside, this is precisely what Enoch Powell (among others) was worried about the US doing to the British (especially re: India) at the end of WWII.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 09:04:31 PM
France was crippled in 46 and wholy dependent on Marshall Plan money to fight its colonial wars.
Yep. Money well spent.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:42:36 PM
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:34:32 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:32:30 PM
The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
The first part yes...the second no. Heck Mao wanted an American alliance but he was a Communist of the worst kind.
There was no way for us to ally with a communist government at the time. Who would we be allied against? How would that help us draw a hard line against communism globally as we tried to keep other countries from going wobbly?
For that and so many other reasons, if Ho was a communist that meant he wasn't available for an alliance.
I know it was not politically possible at the time, but pretty well all of the communist countries in SE Asia were on bad terms with each other - and indeed eventually fought wars against each other: Vietnam with Cambodia, China with Vietnam.
A US uninterested in ideology (if such were possible) and uncaring about the human cost of such regimes would have done better, in great-power stakes, playing one off against the other, that forcing them all to ally with each other.
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 10:34:14 AM
I know it was not politically possible at the time, but pretty well all of the communist countries in SE Asia were on bad terms with each other - and indeed eventually fought wars against each other: Vietnam with Cambodia, China with Vietnam.
A US uninterested in ideology (if such were possible) and uncaring about the human cost of such regimes would have done better, in great-power stakes, playing one off against the other, that forcing them all to ally with each other.
Yes...hence why it took Nixon to do this. It would have spared us a lot of trouble to do this back in 1946 but it was not going to happen.
Quote from: Valmy on March 25, 2014, 10:09:14 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 09:04:31 PM
France was crippled in 46 and wholy dependent on Marshall Plan money to fight its colonial wars.
Yep. Money well spent.
well, it was either sign the SS up to the Foreign legion or have them help Gregory Peck clone der Führer, so I say money well spent.
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 10:34:14 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:42:36 PM
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:34:32 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:32:30 PM
The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
The first part yes...the second no. Heck Mao wanted an American alliance but he was a Communist of the worst kind.
There was no way for us to ally with a communist government at the time. Who would we be allied against? How would that help us draw a hard line against communism globally as we tried to keep other countries from going wobbly?
For that and so many other reasons, if Ho was a communist that meant he wasn't available for an alliance.
I know it was not politically possible at the time, but pretty well all of the communist countries in SE Asia were on bad terms with each other - and indeed eventually fought wars against each other: Vietnam with Cambodia, China with Vietnam.
A US uninterested in ideology (if such were possible) and uncaring about the human cost of such regimes would have done better, in great-power stakes, playing one off against the other, that forcing them all to ally with each other.
We are mixing different periods. The discussion about allying with Ho is relevant only pre Vietnam War - the 40s and 50s. Communist China and Ho were on close terms at those points, and Cambodia and Laos weren't communist. The wars were post Vietnam War.
Communist China and Ho were of course pushed together by US policy at the time. However, communism in Asia was expansionary (the Korean War was during that time period) and almost all of Southeast Asia was wobbly regarding Communism.
I just don't see any opportunity to keep an alliance with Ho during the 50s. Once you conceded Vietnam to Communists, how could you rely on them not to intervene on behalf of other communists in nearby conflicts? Who could they be played off against? The only other communist country was China, and Vietnam is small potatoes next to them.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 24, 2014, 07:06:35 PM
Yes, they hate each other, but wartime makes strange bedfellows. The Chinese rotated over 300,000 PLA anti-aircraft, engineering and logistical troops through North Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, with the most deployed at 170,000 in 1967, with a total of 1,500 casualties to US firepower by 1973.
And all the Chinese-made AK & SKS rifles that turned up in South Vietnam didn't come from nowhere.
They all wound up in your gun safe, though. :lol:
Quote from: Jacob on March 24, 2014, 04:35:48 PM
Right... here are the opening lines to the Vietnamese declaration of independence:
QuoteThe compatriots of the entire country,
All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.
This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free...
According to the wikipedia entry on Ho Chi Minh, he reportedly petitioned Harry S. Truman for support for Vietnamese independence after the August '45 revolution.
It's not inconceivable that had Truman supported Ho Chi Minh and Vietnam at that point he could have turned the country down a different road. I'd probably still be full of factional massacres and end up as some sort of dictatorship, but it may have ended up more friendly to US interests.
... it's all alt history of course.
It's likely that the US wouldn't go along with this as it was against French interests, and also because of the growing rift between Communist ideology and the non-Commies.
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 25, 2014, 01:19:45 PM
They all wound up in your gun safe, though. :lol:
I wish. Damned things are expensive these days since they hadn't been imported in ages.
There are some Chinese-made SKSes on the market now that they imported from Albania, but there's no way I'm paying $300 for a beat to shit rifle like that with no finish and all sorts of dings in the stock.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 11:57:04 AM
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 10:34:14 AM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:42:36 PM
Quote from: Valmy on March 24, 2014, 04:34:32 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:32:30 PM
The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
The first part yes...the second no. Heck Mao wanted an American alliance but he was a Communist of the worst kind.
There was no way for us to ally with a communist government at the time. Who would we be allied against? How would that help us draw a hard line against communism globally as we tried to keep other countries from going wobbly?
For that and so many other reasons, if Ho was a communist that meant he wasn't available for an alliance.
I know it was not politically possible at the time, but pretty well all of the communist countries in SE Asia were on bad terms with each other - and indeed eventually fought wars against each other: Vietnam with Cambodia, China with Vietnam.
A US uninterested in ideology (if such were possible) and uncaring about the human cost of such regimes would have done better, in great-power stakes, playing one off against the other, that forcing them all to ally with each other.
We are mixing different periods. The discussion about allying with Ho is relevant only pre Vietnam War - the 40s and 50s. Communist China and Ho were on close terms at those points, and Cambodia and Laos weren't communist. The wars were post Vietnam War.
Communist China and Ho were of course pushed together by US policy at the time. However, communism in Asia was expansionary (the Korean War was during that time period) and almost all of Southeast Asia was wobbly regarding Communism.
I just don't see any opportunity to keep an alliance with Ho during the 50s. Once you conceded Vietnam to Communists, how could you rely on them not to intervene on behalf of other communists in nearby conflicts? Who could they be played off against? The only other communist country was China, and Vietnam is small potatoes next to them.
The Vietnamese and Chinese have been enemies since forever. Their alliance was purely one of convenience, and Vietnam could easily have been allied with the US against China (or vice versa). I agree that this was politically impossible for the US to do, because of domestic politics.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:32:30 PMHe also referenced the declaration of the rights of man, but I don't think he was a fan of the French or wanted an alliance with them (considering he was fighting them). I think he was just playing public relations. The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
Well, I think the critical moment - if it was for real - was 45-46 or so. Basically, at that time if the US had backed Ho it may have been able to influence how things went after that. Certainly by the 50s, Ho was pretty committed to the Soviet way of doing things. The "what if" revolves around the degree to which Ho's hardline Communism was the result of the people he got into bed with (the USSR vs the USA) versus to what degree it was "his true nature".
Quote from: Jacob on March 25, 2014, 02:19:32 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 24, 2014, 04:32:30 PMHe also referenced the declaration of the rights of man, but I don't think he was a fan of the French or wanted an alliance with them (considering he was fighting them). I think he was just playing public relations. The land reform in North Vietnam (among other things) in the 1950s I think makes it very clear his party was truly communist and not available for an American alliance.
Well, I think the critical moment - if it was for real - was 45-46 or so. Basically, at that time if the US had backed Ho it may have been able to influence how things went after that. Certainly by the 50s, Ho was pretty committed to the Soviet way of doing things. The "what if" revolves around the degree to which Ho's hardline Communism was the result of the people he got into bed with (the USSR vs the USA) versus to what degree it was "his true nature".
But in 45-46 not only was Europe coming under communist domination, but a civil war was raging in China as well.
In 45-46 it was far from clear that the Communists would win in China. Also I think Ho was enough of a pragmatist at that point that he didn't particularly care if he was a leftist dictator or a rightist one.
There was very little chance of Western Europe ever being taken over by communists. That's just your inner Joe McCarthy talking.
The domino theory that so brilliantly said the US must engage in Vietnam is only topped by the Soviet "let's invade Afghanistan" in its silliness as a theory for foreign policy.
Ho joined the Communist Party when he was a student in France, IIRC. There is no evidence I'm aware of that shows evolution in his thinking about the role of the workers' state and the party after 1945.
Norgy (change your fucking nick back): the communist parties of France and Italy had huge memberships prior to 56 and significant electoral success.
Quote from: frunk on March 25, 2014, 02:28:17 PM
In 45-46 it was far from clear that the Communists would win in China. Also I think Ho was enough of a pragmatist at that point that he didn't particularly care if he was a leftist dictator or a rightist one.
Disagree. Ho Chi Minh was trained and educated in Moscow. Whatever pragmatism he possessed did not translate into much action.
He was a communist before the war. Fidel wasn't before the Cuban revolution.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 02:31:23 PM
Ho joined the Communist Party when he was a student in France, IIRC. There is no evidence I'm aware of that shows evolution in his thinking about the role of the workers' state and the party after 1945.
Norgy (change your fucking nick back): the communist parties of France and Italy had huge memberships prior to 56 and significant electoral success.
I am fully aware of that. But they were also by and large democratic, and would at best hold a minority government.
Italy I agree could have fallen to communism. France? Doubtfully. Too much right-wingedness in the, ehm, wings.
And despite all the talk about democracy, none of them would've been allowed to become communist by their allies and neighbours.
Yo, Baron, katmai, Seedy, whoever, change my nick back to Norgy, please. Yi's acting up again.
Quote from: Beenherebefore on March 25, 2014, 02:35:34 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 02:31:23 PM
Ho joined the Communist Party when he was a student in France, IIRC. There is no evidence I'm aware of that shows evolution in his thinking about the role of the workers' state and the party after 1945.
Norgy (change your fucking nick back): the communist parties of France and Italy had huge memberships prior to 56 and significant electoral success.
I am fully aware of that. But they were also by and large democratic, and would at best hold a minority government.
Italy I agree could have fallen to communism. France? Doubtfully. Too much right-wingedness in the, ehm, wings.
And despite all the talk about democracy, none of them would've been allowed to become communist by their allies and neighbours.
Yo, Baron, katmai, Seedy, whoever, change my nick back to Norgy, please. Yi's acting up again.
Your account is still active:
http://languish.org/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=182
Just figure out your password, or if you can't, ask Neil about re-setting it.
I would like my nick changed back too.
Quote from: KRonn on March 25, 2014, 01:42:44 PM
It's likely that the US wouldn't go along with this as it was against French interests, and also because of the growing rift between Communist ideology and the non-Commies.
Oh yes, it's very unlikely it would've happened for a number of reasons... not the least of which is that it didn't happen :)
Quote from: Barrister on March 25, 2014, 02:37:15 PM
Quote from: Beenherebefore on March 25, 2014, 02:35:34 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 02:31:23 PM
Ho joined the Communist Party when he was a student in France, IIRC. There is no evidence I'm aware of that shows evolution in his thinking about the role of the workers' state and the party after 1945.
Norgy (change your fucking nick back): the communist parties of France and Italy had huge memberships prior to 56 and significant electoral success.
I am fully aware of that. But they were also by and large democratic, and would at best hold a minority government.
Italy I agree could have fallen to communism. France? Doubtfully. Too much right-wingedness in the, ehm, wings.
And despite all the talk about democracy, none of them would've been allowed to become communist by their allies and neighbours.
Yo, Baron, katmai, Seedy, whoever, change my nick back to Norgy, please. Yi's acting up again.
Your account is still active:
http://languish.org/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=182
Just figure out your password, or if you can't, ask Neil about re-setting it.
Thanks, mate. :)
Quote from: frunk on March 25, 2014, 02:28:17 PM
In 45-46 it was far from clear that the Communists would win in China. Also I think Ho was enough of a pragmatist at that point that he didn't particularly care if he was a leftist dictator or a rightist one.
Yeah, that's my read too.
Quote from: Jacob on March 25, 2014, 02:50:20 PM
Quote from: frunk on March 25, 2014, 02:28:17 PM
In 45-46 it was far from clear that the Communists would win in China. Also I think Ho was enough of a pragmatist at that point that he didn't particularly care if he was a leftist dictator or a rightist one.
Yeah, that's my read too.
I think that is unreasonable. First, he was a long time communist that spent time in the USSR. Second, both he and his party had ties to Chinese communists and resided in China at points. For him to become right wing probably wasn't possible for internal reasons. Third, everything about government actions after taking power indicate that they were in no way pragmatist but rather ideologically committed.
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 01:54:12 PM
The Vietnamese and Chinese have been enemies since forever. Their alliance was purely one of convenience, and Vietnam could easily have been allied with the US against China (or vice versa). I agree that this was politically impossible for the US to do, because of domestic politics.
Well no. I don't think the alliance between Chinese communists and Vietnamese communists can be considered an alliance of convenience, anymore than the links between Chinese nationalists and Vietnamese nationalists can be. They were natural ideological allies in the cold war world.
Also, I think it is odd to say that US couldn't ally with Ho because of "domestic politics". Only in the broadest sense is that true: to the same extent as saying the US had to go to war with Japan after Pearl Harbor because of "domestic politics". Containing communists like Ho was the point of US foreign policy in the Cold War world. The moral case in the 40s and 50s was obvious--just look at Stalin. Ho was of course different, but his government was still nasty and repressive as hell. You can't ally with people like that and credibly keep the moral high ground or continue to credibly stand up to Communism.
Quote from: Beenherebefore on March 25, 2014, 02:29:36 PM
There was very little chance of Western Europe ever being taken over by communists. That's just your inner Joe McCarthy talking.
The domino theory that so brilliantly said the US must engage in Vietnam is only topped by the Soviet "let's invade Afghanistan" in its silliness as a theory for foreign policy.
The Dulles brothers never read Emmanual Todd.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 03:35:03 PM
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 01:54:12 PM
The Vietnamese and Chinese have been enemies since forever. Their alliance was purely one of convenience, and Vietnam could easily have been allied with the US against China (or vice versa). I agree that this was politically impossible for the US to do, because of domestic politics.
Well no. I don't think the alliance between Chinese communists and Vietnamese communists can be considered an alliance of convenience, anymore than the links between Chinese nationalists and Vietnamese nationalists can be. They were natural ideological allies in the cold war world.
The Cold War was very much still on in 1979 (hell, that was only a few years after the US pulled out of Vietnam) and yet the two contries went to war against each other: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
This was in part a reaction to the Sino-Soviet split. So much for "natural ideological allies".
QuoteAlso, I think it is odd to say that US couldn't ally with Ho because of "domestic politics". Only in the broadest sense is that true: to the same extent as saying the US had to go to war with Japan after Pearl Harbor because of "domestic politics". Containing communists like Ho was the point of US foreign policy in the Cold War world. The moral case in the 40s and 50s was obvious--just look at Stalin. Ho was of course different, but his government was still nasty and repressive as hell. You can't ally with people like that and credibly keep the moral high ground or continue to credibly stand up to Communism.
But the US used exactly the suggested strategy -making an ally out of (nasty, repressive) China - under Nixon. Regan, that noted Commie-fighter, continued this policy - even his liking for Taiwan wasn't allowed to stand in his way.
http://www.csmonitor.com/1981/0325/032546.html
I'm not seeing why it makes sense to suck up to China in the 1970s, and not to Vietnam (or China) in the 1950s or 60s - other than, of course, it was domestically impossible to be "soft" on communism in the 50s and 60s. The Chinese regime was plently nasty when the US was making friends with them (for example, the *reason* that China was fighting the Vietnamese in 1979 was that Vietnam had attacked China's ally, the Cambodians - a spectacularly self-genocidal regime).
Why make friends with them? The same reason the US made friends with Stalin in the 40s - great power machinations. Making friends with China helped "contain" the greater threat, the Soviet Union. It was only in the '50s and '60s that the US, again for reasons of domestic politics (and because its power was so realtively great it felt it simply did not need to play that game), lost sight of this sort of amoral, machiavellian power-politics manouvering.
You assume it made sense to suck up to PRChina, or recognize them, or not surround them with a ring of steel through which no jobs could pass.
Quote from: Ideologue on March 25, 2014, 04:06:32 PM
You assume it made sense to suck up to PRChina, or recognize them, or not surround them with a ring of steel through which no jobs could pass.
Who will feed North America's yellow fever if you do not allow for an endless importation of Chinese babes? :hmm:
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 04:09:18 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on March 25, 2014, 04:06:32 PM
You assume it made sense to suck up to PRChina, or recognize them, or not surround them with a ring of steel through which no jobs could pass.
Who will feed North America's yellow fever if you do not allow for an endless importation of Chinese babes? :hmm:
Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 25, 2014, 04:10:18 PM
Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc.
No offense to funky monkey but Phillipinas just don't cut it.
How about Thailand? Malaysia? Laos?
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 25, 2014, 04:10:18 PM
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 04:09:18 PM
Quote from: Ideologue on March 25, 2014, 04:06:32 PM
You assume it made sense to suck up to PRChina, or recognize them, or not surround them with a ring of steel through which no jobs could pass.
Who will feed North America's yellow fever if you do not allow for an endless importation of Chinese babes? :hmm:
Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc.
Vietnam is still Commie, the Korean and Taiwan variety aren't endless, Phillipinas are more brown than yellow, and Japan - well, that leads to rampant Lettowism. ;)
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 03:35:03 PM
Well no. I don't think the alliance between Chinese communists and Vietnamese communists can be considered an alliance of convenience, anymore than the links between Chinese nationalists and Vietnamese nationalists can be. They were natural ideological allies in the cold war world.
Quote from: Ho Chi Minh, 1946The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 03:35:03 PM
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 01:54:12 PM
The Vietnamese and Chinese have been enemies since forever. Their alliance was purely one of convenience, and Vietnam could easily have been allied with the US against China (or vice versa). I agree that this was politically impossible for the US to do, because of domestic politics.
Well no. I don't think the alliance between Chinese communists and Vietnamese communists can be considered an alliance of convenience, anymore than the links between Chinese nationalists and Vietnamese nationalists can be. They were natural ideological allies in the cold war world. .
"natural ideological" is a contradiction in terms.
The premise that Communism was some monolithic force that would overrride all other aspects of culture, history and geography was staggering naive, and one that ironically gave undue credit to Communist ideology itself. Certainly the Sino-Soviet split was open and notorious well before the US began escalation in Vietnam. One also does not have to postulate any spurious ideologically-based attachment between the PRC and DRV to understand why China might deem it wise to provide the Vietnamese with the means to dent US influence and southeast Asia. In fact, one need assume nothing but pure application of old-fashioned realist geopolitics.
By the same token, while a formal alliance between Ho and the US would have been inceivable, there was plenty of room for more informal arrangements that might have served the interests of both sides better than the course of action followed. The current state of relations between the US and its old communist adversaries in Vietnam is instructive in that regard.
Vietnam is probably the biggest source for the ones that are already here.
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 25, 2014, 04:00:07 PM
Quote from: Beenherebefore on March 25, 2014, 02:29:36 PM
There was very little chance of Western Europe ever being taken over by communists. That's just your inner Joe McCarthy talking.
The domino theory that so brilliantly said the US must engage in Vietnam is only topped by the Soviet "let's invade Afghanistan" in its silliness as a theory for foreign policy.
The Dulles brothers never read Emmanual Todd.
Lulz, those two. Never saw a Communist they couldn't invent.
Malthus, I'm aware of the war they fought, but the late 70s were dramatically different than the late 40s.
The rift in Chinese Vietnamese relations was brought about as part of the Sino-Soviet split which was in part due to a fracturing of ideological unity. The larger context was the fracturing of the communist block into a Soviet and (especially in Asia) Chinese sides.
The Sino Soviet split couldn't be exploited in the 40s and 50s because it still hadn't occurred. It couldn't be exploited for much of the 60s because it wasn't yet severe enough. For example, Vietnam got significant aid from both the USSR and China.
It made sense to work with the USSR in WWII--everyone understood we were fighting the greater evil, and we weren't supporting communism. When the communist world fractured in two, we began working with the Chinese block to isolate the Soviets (among other things).
In the 40s and 50s, communism was still generally united as a worldwide force. It was also in a quite nasty form, expansionary (including by military means), and countries around the world feared susceptible to its influence. We could not ally with the USSR for obvious reasons. We could not ally with China--we were actually fighting a major war against them in the early 50s. What would allying with Vietnam get us? They were strategically useless--we only really cared about them as a possible vehicle to spread communism across the region (which wasn't an especially important region anyway).
Quote from: Jacob on March 25, 2014, 04:14:35 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 03:35:03 PM
Well no. I don't think the alliance between Chinese communists and Vietnamese communists can be considered an alliance of convenience, anymore than the links between Chinese nationalists and Vietnamese nationalists can be. They were natural ideological allies in the cold war world.
Quote from: Ho Chi Minh, 1946The last time the Chinese came, they stayed a thousand years. The French are foreigners. They are weak. Colonialism is dying. The white man is finished in Asia. But if the Chinese stay now, they will never go. As for me, I prefer to sniff French shit for five years than to eat Chinese shit for the rest of my life.
He said that when the Chinese nationalists were in control of northern Vietnam. Not the communists.
What arrangement could NV and the US have come to other than throwing South Vietnam under the bus, and what could NV possibly have given to the US that would have justified the price?
China presented the upside of a significant counterweight to the USSR, and the only thing thrown under the bus was recognition of Taiwan.
Quote from: Caliga on March 24, 2014, 04:20:16 PM
I believe the war could have been winnable had we invaded North Vietnam directly, but in that situation China surely would have directly intervened and nobody wanted to fight another Korean War.
Yeah, but if we had won in Korea as we should have,
and crossed the 38th parallel and pushed those rice-eaters back to the Great Wall of China...then take the fucking wall apart brick by brick and nuke them back into the fucking stone age forever!!!(https://languish.org/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F1.bp.blogspot.com%2F-PGGkP0vMZyg%2FUs8cvWCfqnI%2FAAAAAAAAAcs%2F8-GKTMl_kHA%2Fs1600%2Ftumblr_m2cjerOXTN1qedb29o1_500.gif&hash=7f8bf480413f3fbf6f058bbbdc58ada60a130283)
...then we might not have had to worry about Vietnam. :P
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 04:11:36 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 25, 2014, 04:10:18 PM
Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc.
No offense to funky monkey but Phillipinas just don't cut it.
Wrong. :(
Quote from: The Minsky Moment on March 25, 2014, 04:14:36 PM
"natural ideological" is a contradiction in terms.
The premise that Communism was some monolithic force that would overrride all other aspects of culture, history and geography was staggering naive, and one that ironically gave undue credit to Communist ideology itself. Certainly the Sino-Soviet split was open and notorious well before the US began escalation in Vietnam. One also does not have to postulate any spurious ideologically-based attachment between the PRC and DRV to understand why China might deem it wise to provide the Vietnamese with the means to dent US influence and southeast Asia. In fact, one need assume nothing but pure application of old-fashioned realist geopolitics.
My understanding is that after the Sino-Soviet split there was actually a pro-chinese faction in north vietnam. Obviously they lost out. But portraying Vietnam as a constant bastion of China phobia over thousands of years is way too simplicistic.
No the communist world wasn't ideologically identical, but there was a much greater tendancy for communists to aid other communists across borders.
Quote
By the same token, while a formal alliance between Ho and the US would have been inceivable, there was plenty of room for more informal arrangements that might have served the interests of both sides better than the course of action followed. The current state of relations between the US and its old communist adversaries in Vietnam is instructive in that regard.
No kidding. I mean, the Vietnam War was a train wreck for everyone, so that isn't saying much.
However, our old communist adversaries in Vietnam really aren't communist anymore. They gave up on that stuff when it wrecked them even worse than the war had.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 04:26:35 PM
What arrangement could NV and the US have come to other than throwing South Vietnam under the bus, and what could NV possibly have given to the US that would have justified the price?
China presented the upside of a significant counterweight to the USSR, and the only thing thrown under the bus was recognition of Taiwan.
I regret starting this thread. It was supposed to be a discussion of the Vietnam War, not whether we should have allied with Ho Chi Minh roughly two decades before the war ever got cranking.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 04:37:43 PM
I regret starting this thread. It was supposed to be a discussion of the Vietnam War, not whether we should have allied with Ho Chi Minh roughly two decades before the war ever got cranking.
Stop being so anal. You start a thread, then it goes where it wants to go.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 04:26:35 PM
What arrangement could NV and the US have come to other than throwing South Vietnam under the bus, and what could NV possibly have given to the US that would have justified the price?
benign neglect/hands off rest of SE Asia
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 04:40:24 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 04:37:43 PM
I regret starting this thread. It was supposed to be a discussion of the Vietnam War, not whether we should have allied with Ho Chi Minh roughly two decades before the war ever got cranking.
Stop being so anal. You start a thread, then it goes where it wants to go.
I generally agree. But we never talk about the Vietnam War, most people here know a zillion things about the military, so I was hoping to learn stuff. Instead we went somewhere stupid.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 04:46:09 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 04:40:24 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 04:37:43 PM
I regret starting this thread. It was supposed to be a discussion of the Vietnam War, not whether we should have allied with Ho Chi Minh roughly two decades before the war ever got cranking.
Stop being so anal. You start a thread, then it goes where it wants to go.
I generally agree. But we never talk about the Vietnam War, most people here know a zillion things about the military, so I was hoping to learn stuff. Instead we went somewhere stupid.
I agree.
We should get back to the sensible business of rating SE Asian women. :)
I guess I could live with that.
https://www.facebook.com/cutiefilipinagirls (https://www.facebook.com/cutiefilipinagirls)
They seem to be more yellow than brown to me. :hmm:
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 04:40:24 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 04:37:43 PM
I regret starting this thread. It was supposed to be a discussion of the Vietnam War, not whether we should have allied with Ho Chi Minh roughly two decades before the war ever got cranking.
Stop being so anal. You start a thread, then it goes where it wants to go.
He has a point. I mean, if I started a thread wanting to discuss Allied strategy in WWII and some Texas dude who shall remain nameless blurted out that we should have killed Hitler when he was a baby I'd be kind of annoyed.
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2014, 04:59:11 PM
He has a point. I mean, if I started a thread wanting to discuss Allied strategy in WWII and some Texas dude who shall remain nameless blurted out that we should have killed Hitler when he was a baby I'd be kind of annoyed.
That is annoying. I would consider that more tactics than strategy.
Quote from: Malthus on March 25, 2014, 04:47:25 PM
We should get back to the sensible business of rating SE Asian women. :)
Korean chicks have the best tits. Discussion over.
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2014, 04:59:11 PM
He has a point. I mean, if I started a thread wanting to discuss Allied strategy in WWII and some Texas dude who shall remain nameless blurted out that we should have killed Hitler when he was a baby I'd be kind of annoyed.
Thanks Marty.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 04:46:09 PM
I generally agree. But we never talk about the Vietnam War, most people here know a zillion things about the military, so I was hoping to learn stuff. Instead we went somewhere stupid.
You asked for a strategy about how to win in Vietnam and I gave one. I didn't realize there were secret rules I had to abide by :P
Ide shouldn't be allowed to review movies, and Dorsey4Heisman shouldn't be allowed to talk about Communist history, since both are usually talking out of their asses.
Quote from: Ideologue on March 25, 2014, 04:28:05 PM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 04:11:36 PM
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on March 25, 2014, 04:10:18 PM
Vietnam, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, etc.
No offense to funky monkey but Phillipinas just don't cut it.
Wrong. :(
Flip chicks are subhuman.
Quote from: Valmy on March 25, 2014, 05:25:08 PM
You asked for a strategy about how to win in Vietnam and I gave one. I didn't realize there were secret rules I had to abide by :P
Well, duh! The First Secret Rule is to never mention the existence of The Secret Rules.
What is the second secret rule?
Quote from: Valmy on March 25, 2014, 05:23:34 PM
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2014, 04:59:11 PM
He has a point. I mean, if I started a thread wanting to discuss Allied strategy in WWII and some Texas dude who shall remain nameless blurted out that we should have killed Hitler when he was a baby I'd be kind of annoyed.
Thanks Marty.
:hug:
Quote from: Ed Anger on March 25, 2014, 05:40:13 PM
Flip chicks are subhuman.
I've run across a couple that were really cute (looked Polynesian more than anything), but that's about it.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 24, 2014, 09:04:31 PM
Quote from: dps on March 24, 2014, 08:28:38 PM
Communist ideology aside, from the US point of view in 1946, helping Vietnamese nationalists against French attempts to re-impose colonial rule wouldn't have really been any different than helping Polish or Hungarian nationalists oppose Soviet attempts to turn eastern European countries into Soviet satelites.
How so?
Surely not in terms of power. France was crippled in 46 and wholy dependent on Marshall Plan money to fight its colonial wars.
In that in both cases, we would have been backing the right of various ethnic or national groups to self-determination against outside interests.
And to answer Ide's question, in general we didn't do jack shit to help eastern Europeans against the Soviets. About the only exception would be Greece, but A) that was more the Brits than us, and B) one of the reasons that the non-communist forces won there was that Tito closed the Yugoslav border to the Greece communists.
Quote from: Capetan MihaliAs an aside, this is precisely what Enoch Powell (among others) was worried about the US doing to the British (especially re: India) at the end of WWII.
And that wasn't an unreasonable worry. The US was opposed to colonialism; we wanted the European powers to give up their colonies, though generally we thought it would be better for them to spend a time preparing the colonies for independence (like we did in the Philipines) rather than just immediately cutting them loose.
Quote from: KRonn
It's likely that the US wouldn't go along with this as it was against French interests, and also because of the growing rift between Communist ideology and the non-Commies.
Even by '48 or '49, it was probably too late due to the beginning of the Cold War. But before that, we wouldn't have given a shit that it was against French interests. Don't believe me, just ask DeGaulle.
Quote from: frunkI think Ho was enough of a pragmatist at that point that he didn't particularly care if he was a leftist dictator or a rightist one.
No, he was going to be a leftist dictator, but he could have been our pet leftist dictator.
Quote from: Admiral YiWhat arrangement could NV and the US have come to other than throwing South Vietnam under the bus, and what could NV possibly have given to the US that would have justified the price?
If we're still talking 1945-47, what is this South Vietnam of which you speak? The division of Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam was a product of US and French policy positions taken from 1946-54, not a pre-existing situation. That's not to say that there weren't some differences between the 2 parts of the country, but the political division as such didn't exist in 1945. (Technically, under French rule before WWII, Vietnam was actually divided into 3 parts.)
Quote from: alfred russelI regret starting this thread. It was supposed to be a discussion of the Vietnam War, not whether we should have allied with Ho Chi Minh roughly two decades before the war ever got cranking.
Well, the actual question you asked is a lot less interesting. By the mid-50's, the choices had pretty much boiled down to either standing aside and letting the Communists take over the whole country (which we did 20 years later anyway), or intervening militarily. And in hindsight, it's pretty clear that intervening militarily without being willing to actually fight to win (i.e., invade the north) was a stupid move.
Quote from: dps on March 25, 2014, 06:46:37 PM
If we're still talking 1945-47, what is this South Vietnam of which you speak?
Fine. Let's use it as shorthand for that part of the Vietnamese population who was not enthusiastic about living in a workers' paradise then.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 06:51:37 PM
Quote from: dps on March 25, 2014, 06:46:37 PM
If we're still talking 1945-47, what is this South Vietnam of which you speak?
Fine. Let's use it as shorthand for that part of the Vietnamese population who was not enthusiastic about living in a workers' paradise then.
OK, fine. We threw part of the population of eastern Europe that didn't want to live in a communist dictatorship under the bus, so why not do the same in southeast Asia?
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 25, 2014, 05:25:24 PM
Ide shouldn't be allowed to review movies, and Dorsey4Heisman shouldn't be allowed to talk about Communist history, since both are usually talking out of their asses.
I see your macroaggression and I'm moving past it.
Quote from: Valmy on March 25, 2014, 05:23:34 PM
Quote from: derspiess on March 25, 2014, 04:59:11 PM
He has a point. I mean, if I started a thread wanting to discuss Allied strategy in WWII and some Texas dude who shall remain nameless blurted out that we should have killed Hitler when he was a baby I'd be kind of annoyed.
Thanks Marty.
Valmy, I wasn't so much calling you out as stupid (though I don't think the alliance idea was necessarily well thought out). And I don't really mind a hijack. But look where this has gone. "Alliance" is rather vague--not sure what that means in practical terms here, but one side is mostly arguing for some sort of even more vague engagement short of that, while the other is arguing that an alliance is impossible/impractical. We are covering time periods from the mid 40s to the late 70s and have gone beyond just Vietnam to touch on Eastern Europe, the USSR, and China, with free world public opinion tossed in the mix.
This is so high level and poorly focused that even by languish standards seems to be pointless. Which is too bad because unlike WWI, WWII, and the ACW this seems like a somewhat fresh topic.
I along with grumbler, who presumably served during a good chunk of the period, actually remember the Vietnam war. (must be a few others here who remember it)
Not claiming any special insight, but given I was born a few weeks after Diem was wacked, I literally grew-up in step with growing US involvement/escalation and can remember running home from school to see history being made on tv.
On the very threshold of becoming a teenager, the war ended.
Vietnam was the first news that caught my attention. The Stars & Stripes had a daily (weekly?) map showing the current battles and territory controlled.
I think this was the first Northern invasion. Might have been the second.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 07:22:35 PM
Quote from: CountDeMoney on March 25, 2014, 05:25:24 PM
Ide shouldn't be allowed to review movies, and Dorsey4Heisman shouldn't be allowed to talk about Communist history, since both are usually talking out of their asses.
I see your macroaggression and I'm moving past it.
I dunno. If Money's take on communist history is like his take on movies, he's very well-versed in all the important developments of the Cold War, all the way from the mid-1970s to maybe even the late 1980s.
You both should be purged.
Hey, you're the landlord here.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 08:22:52 PM
Vietnam was the first news that caught my attention. The Stars & Stripes had a daily (weekly?) map showing the current battles and territory controlled.
I think this was the first Northern invasion. Might have been the second.
My first memories of Vietnam were mostly of it being a taboo subject. Then in the 80s you had the flood of movies & documentaries.
Quote from: mongers on March 25, 2014, 07:58:55 PM
I along with grumbler, who presumably served during a good chunk of the period, actually remember the Vietnam war. (must be a few others here who remember it)
I think you are taking the jokes about me serving in the Roman Army a little too literally. I was serving in high school when the war ended.
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 10:25:00 AM
Quote from: mongers on March 25, 2014, 07:58:55 PM
I along with grumbler, who presumably served during a good chunk of the period, actually remember the Vietnam war. (must be a few others here who remember it)
I think you are taking the jokes about me serving in the Roman Army a little too literally. I was serving in high school when the war ended.
Hmm, I thought from your comments (several years ago) about trying marijuana when it was decriminalized in Ann Arbor that you were in college already by 1972-74. But I see that they actually kept the civil infraction ordinance intact until 1990.
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 08:29:11 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 08:22:52 PM
Vietnam was the first news that caught my attention. The Stars & Stripes had a daily (weekly?) map showing the current battles and territory controlled.
I think this was the first Northern invasion. Might have been the second.
My first memories of Vietnam were mostly of it being a taboo subject. Then in the 80s you had the flood of movies & documentaries.
Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc... right after it ends in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.
It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 10:30:38 AM
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 08:29:11 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 08:22:52 PM
Vietnam was the first news that caught my attention. The Stars & Stripes had a daily (weekly?) map showing the current battles and territory controlled.
I think this was the first Northern invasion. Might have been the second.
My first memories of Vietnam were mostly of it being a taboo subject. Then in the 80s you had the flood of movies & documentaries.
Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc... in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.
It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.
70s. :contract: Within a year or two of The Deer Hunter IIRC.
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 10:25:00 AM
. I was serving in high school when the war ended.
The important thing is that you survived and were able to move past it.
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on March 26, 2014, 10:32:18 AM
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 10:30:38 AM
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 08:29:11 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 25, 2014, 08:22:52 PM
Vietnam was the first news that caught my attention. The Stars & Stripes had a daily (weekly?) map showing the current battles and territory controlled.
I think this was the first Northern invasion. Might have been the second.
My first memories of Vietnam were mostly of it being a taboo subject. Then in the 80s you had the flood of movies & documentaries.
Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc... in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.
It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.
70s. :contract: Within a year or two of The Deer Hunter IIRC.
I knew somebody would point that out :P, but it's much closer in style to the 80s movies. It's a precursor to them actually. Was released in 1979 IIRC.
Coppola was a pioneer. Shame the only good thing with his name on it these days is his claret.
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 10:25:00 AM
Quote from: mongers on March 25, 2014, 07:58:55 PM
I along with grumbler, who presumably served during a good chunk of the period, actually remember the Vietnam war. (must be a few others here who remember it)
I think you are taking the jokes about me serving in the Roman Army a little too literally. I was serving in high school when the war ended.
But enough about Dien Bien Phu :P
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 10:45:16 AM
I knew somebody would point that out :P, but it's much closer in style to the 80s movies. It's a precursor to them actually. Was released in 1979 IIRC.
Really? I see it closer thematically to Deer Hunter: Vietnam as a Greek tragedy.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 26, 2014, 10:52:11 AM
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 10:45:16 AM
I knew somebody would point that out :P, but it's much closer in style to the 80s movies. It's a precursor to them actually. Was released in 1979 IIRC.
Really? I see it closer thematically to Deer Hunter: Vietnam as a Greek tragedy.
Deer Hunter, like the other classic 70s antiwar films (would lump Johnny Took His Gun with them, despite not being about 'Nam), is an uncomfortable, dry watch. It has very little stylisation and doesn't glamorize war in any way. Apocalypse Now is way more fetishistic, and it plays with both the attraction and repulsion of war, through its dizzying, LSD-like visuals and a character like Kurtz who repels and fascinates you simultaneously. In AN, war is something that it's as fascinating as it is terrible - a view that's not present in the 70s films- and which it is played upon in films like FMJ, Rambo, the Oliver Stone ones... from different ideological povs. There's a reason why people can spout Apocalypse Now, Rambo and FMJ quotes to no end, there's a pop quality to them that was absent in the 70s films, which were born right on the heels of the war.
Yeah, I basically agree. The whole helicopter-blasting-Wagner/"I love the smell of napalm in the morning" aesthetic is much more in line with the later mid-80s movies.
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 10:30:38 AM
Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc... right after it ends in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.
It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.
The first Rambo movie was more like Deer Hunter than it was the later Rambo movies.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 26, 2014, 11:09:58 AM
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 10:30:38 AM
Films about Vietnam are a fascinating subject. You get traditional war films like Green Berets while it's still raging on, dry anti-war fare like Coming Home, The Deer Hunter, etc... right after it ends in the 70s, and cap it with Rambo re-winning the war in the 80s alongside the more potsmodern and quasi-celebratory anti-war films like FMJ and Apocalypse Now.
It's one of those cases where you can really trace the evolution of a society through the art it produces, all in two decades.
The first Rambo movie was more like Deer Hunter than it was the later Rambo movies.
The second is fascinating though! Rambo goes back to 'Nam to win the war and blame it on Washington.
I dunno celedhring. Deerhunter is a pretty trippy film. You don't think the Russian roulette scene (the first one) is fetishistic, stylized, etc, etc?
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 11:20:48 AM
The second is fascinating though! Rambo goes back to 'Nam to win the war and blame it on Washington.
Stallone had a formula down pat with Rocky and Rambo. Have a lead character with a name that starts with R, have his name be the movie title, have a serious first movie that gets good reviews, then go full on 80s cheese for a bunch of sequels.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 26, 2014, 11:24:29 AM
I dunno celedhring. Deerhunter is a pretty trippy film. You don't think the Russian roulette scene (the first one) is fetishistic, stylized, etc, etc?
No, I don't think so. It's the most stylised scene in the film, but it's pretty straight from the "war as horror" playbook. It's a fucking painful scene to watch. Conversely, when you watch the helis going all Wagner on the village in AN, or the Battle of Hue in FMJ, there's a certain banalization of war, an "oh that's cool" feeling, that the 70s films would never do - and which is probably in tune with the 80s zeitgeist. That's sort of what I think that's at the hearth of what makes Nam films different in the 70s and the 80s.
Again, you can't create strait jackets to shoehorn films, books, etc... into neat categories, so I'm sure you can find stuff in 70s and 80s war films that probably defy my broad classification. Art is organic.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 26, 2014, 11:27:44 AM
Quote from: celedhring on March 26, 2014, 11:20:48 AM
The second is fascinating though! Rambo goes back to 'Nam to win the war and blame it on Washington.
Stallone had a formula down pat with Rocky and Rambo. Have a lead character with a name that starts with R, have his name be the movie title, have a serious first movie that gets good reviews, then go full on 80s cheese for a bunch of sequels.
Interesting, but it only works overseas where the first Rambo movie was indeed called Rambo and not First Blood as in the US, in cinemas at least. :nerd:
I read somewhere that "Apocalypse Now" actually inspired army recruitment - which I thought was really bizzare (assuming it is true).
Willard is pretty badass.
Going back to the original topic, there is no way the US would have co-operated with Vietnam 1945-47. They were more pre-occupied with the situation in Europe, the Cold War hadn't even got going, and relations with the USSR, let alone any other communists were not yet frozen (though getting colder).
1948-53 was very much stabilising the situation in Europe and then the Far East (China/Korea/Taiwan/Japan). So the earliest the US could have realistically sort out Vietnam was the mid 50's. And by then they had already divided between North and South. Korea & Germany had shown a two state solution was viable, and anything else was too much work. Hence the ruling out of invading North Vietnam.
Other than putting more resources in making South Vietnam a viable country (as South Korea had become) capable of defending itself with US support and counter-insurgency effort, there was not much else the US could have done.
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 12:29:40 PM
I read somewhere that "Apocalypse Now" actually inspired army recruitment - which I thought was really bizzare (assuming it is true).
I can see that, easily. Everyone in my ROTC class could quote almost every line from the film. Full Metal Jacket might have been slightly more popular, though. GET SOME!!!
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 12:59:28 PM
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 12:29:40 PM
I read somewhere that "Apocalypse Now" actually inspired army recruitment - which I thought was really bizzare (assuming it is true).
I can see that, easily. Everyone in my ROTC class could quote almost every line from the film. Full Metal Jacket might have been slightly more popular, though. GET SOME!!!
Evidently, the pool of people who are inspired by the thought of ending up a divorced drunken failure put on impossible missions hunting after psychotic madmen on their own side in the middle of a pointless war is larger than I imagined. :hmm:
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 01:32:44 PM
Evidently, the pool of people who are inspired by the thought of ending up a divorced drunken failure put on impossible missions hunting after psychotic madmen on their own side in the middle of a pointless war is larger than I imagined. :hmm:
Anything that gets a movie made about you is inspiring.
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 01:32:44 PM
Evidently, the pool of people who are inspired by the thought of ending up a divorced drunken failure put on impossible missions hunting after psychotic madmen on their own side in the middle of a pointless war is larger than I imagined. :hmm:
Yes, that's the aspect of the movie everyone focused on. Not the Air Cav scene or any of the other war-glorifying aspects of the film.
Quote from: PJL on March 26, 2014, 12:40:49 PM
Going back to the original topic, there is no way the US would have co-operated with Vietnam 1945-47.
This was not the original topic.
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 02:12:17 PM
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 01:32:44 PM
Evidently, the pool of people who are inspired by the thought of ending up a divorced drunken failure put on impossible missions hunting after psychotic madmen on their own side in the middle of a pointless war is larger than I imagined. :hmm:
Yes, that's the aspect of the movie everyone focused on. Not the Air Cav scene or any of the other war-glorifying aspects of the film.
Well, that *is* the plot, so it should be no surprsie that people "focus" on it.
The Air Cav scene was a massacre of a bunch of villagers protected by a handful of totally outgunned militia - ends with a woman tossing a grenade into a medivac heli, and then being shot down. The Ride of the Valkyries was cool though.
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 02:12:17 PM
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 01:32:44 PM
Evidently, the pool of people who are inspired by the thought of ending up a divorced drunken failure put on impossible missions hunting after psychotic madmen on their own side in the middle of a pointless war is larger than I imagined. :hmm:
Yes, that's the aspect of the movie everyone focused on. Not the Air Cav scene or any of the other war-glorifying aspects of the film.
It's just awesome.
I bloody love that scene with choppers flying in, Wagner blasting. "Charlie don't surf".
Yes, it's hardly what you'd think some Euroweenie social democrat would love, but in some way it just explains the madness of war better than a five hour documentary.
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 02:16:44 PM
Well, that *is* the plot, so it should be no surprsie that people "focus" on it.
That's only one aspect (or layer, if you will) of the plot. But anyway that's fine if you focus on it. Just don't expect 16-23 year old males to be hung up on the plot when the film contains one of the greatest battle scenes ever filmed.
QuoteThe Air Cav scene was a massacre of a bunch of villagers protected by a handful of totally outgunned militia - ends with a woman tossing a grenade into a medivac heli, and then being shot down. The Ride of the Valkyries was cool though.
No. It was an assault on a VC strongpoint ("hairy", "they shot the hell out of us there", etc.) that had mortars and heavy machineguns. Had the VC not been there, a battle wouldn't have even been necessary. The 'dink bitch' 'sapper' part was jarring, but jarring is a key element to a well-shot battle scene.
Quote from: Norgy on March 26, 2014, 02:21:51 PM
It's just awesome.
I bloody love that scene with choppers flying in, Wagner blasting. "Charlie don't surf".
Yes, it's hardly what you'd think some Euroweenie social democrat would love, but in some way it just explains the madness of war better than a five hour documentary.
If it makes you feel any better, that scene was directed by a French dude.
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 02:39:16 PM
If it makes you feel any better, that scene was directed by a French dude.
He knew all about the futility of fighting in Vietnam.
I didn't really see Apocalypse Now as a anti-war or pro-war film. It's a film that takes place during the war, but the war is not the main issue. I thought of it more as a surreal horror film were things get crazier and crazier as they go up river.
In many ways it sticks fairly close to the book. And the book is about both the inner workings of the people in it and the issue of Belgian macroaggression.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 26, 2014, 02:48:08 PM
I didn't really see Apocalypse Now as a anti-war or pro-war film. It's a film that takes place during the war, but the war is not the main issue. I thought of it more as a surreal horror film were things get crazier and crazier as they go up river.
It's many things. That's what's so cool about it.
It's mainly about Special Forces officer obesity.
Quote from: Razgovory on March 26, 2014, 02:48:08 PM
I didn't really see Apocalypse Now as a anti-war or pro-war film. It's a film that takes place during the war, but the war is not the main issue. I thought of it more as a surreal horror film were things get crazier and crazier as they go up river.
As I think most people know, it is "Heart of Darkness" by Conrad. The war is a sideshow, the complete and utter insanity of Col. Kurtz is supposed to be the main theme. To me, though, having read up a bit on it, it's seeing Martin Sheen get more and more full of drugs.
Quote from: Norgy on March 26, 2014, 02:21:51 PM
Quote from: derspiess on March 26, 2014, 02:12:17 PM
Quote from: Malthus on March 26, 2014, 01:32:44 PM
Evidently, the pool of people who are inspired by the thought of ending up a divorced drunken failure put on impossible missions hunting after psychotic madmen on their own side in the middle of a pointless war is larger than I imagined. :hmm:
Yes, that's the aspect of the movie everyone focused on. Not the Air Cav scene or any of the other war-glorifying aspects of the film.
It's just awesome.
I bloody love that scene with choppers flying in, Wagner blasting. "Charlie don't surf".
Yes, it's hardly what you'd think some Euroweenie social democrat would love, but in some way it just explains the madness of war better than a five hour documentary.
I want to have your manbabies.
:wub:
Charlie don't surf
I'm in trouble deep
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on March 26, 2014, 10:29:38 AM
Hmm, I thought from your comments (several years ago) about trying marijuana when it was decriminalized in Ann Arbor that you were in college already by 1972-74. But I see that they actually kept the civil infraction ordinance intact until 1990.
I grew up in Ann Arbor, as well as attending the university. I think that's where the confusion may have arisen.
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 07:08:24 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on March 26, 2014, 10:29:38 AM
Hmm, I thought from your comments (several years ago) about trying marijuana when it was decriminalized in Ann Arbor that you were in college already by 1972-74. But I see that they actually kept the civil infraction ordinance intact until 1990.
I grew up in Ann Arbor, as well as attending the university. I think that's where the confusion may have arisen.
I didn't know you were Native American.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 26, 2014, 07:16:30 PM
I didn't know you were Native American.
I very much doubt any of us have the lifespan left to listen to you list all the things you don't know.
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 07:19:20 PM
Quote from: alfred russel on March 26, 2014, 07:16:30 PM
I didn't know you were Native American.
I very much doubt any of us have the lifespan left to listen to you list all the things you don't know.
I also doubt that any of us do, but I know you don't. :P
Quote from: alfred russel on March 25, 2014, 03:35:03 PMWell no. I don't think the alliance between Chinese communists and Vietnamese communists can be considered an alliance of convenience, anymore than the links between Chinese nationalists and Vietnamese nationalists can be. They were natural ideological allies in the cold war world.
But there's more than one world, or way of looking at it going on at this time. The US and the USSR are in the Cold War world. To a large extent the UK, France, Africa and chunks of Asia are thinking about colonial power and national liberation. The French and the British routinely used Communism (and casting their situation in Cold War terms) to get American help or for the Americans to step into their boots.
QuoteThe moral case in the 40s and 50s was obvious--just look at Stalin. Ho was of course different, but his government was still nasty and repressive as hell. You can't ally with people like that and credibly keep the moral high ground or continue to credibly stand up to Communism.
Well for a large chunk of the 40s Stalin was Uncle Joe and wasn't this the time of 'he may be a bastard, but he's our bastard?' I don't think moral high ground entered into it.
Though you're right on anti-Communism.
QuoteIn the 40s and 50s, communism was still generally united as a worldwide force.
Tito was expelled from Cominform in 48 and had purged Yugoslavia of pro-Soviet leaders way before then.
QuoteWhat arrangement could NV and the US have come to other than throwing South Vietnam under the bus, and what could NV possibly have given to the US that would have justified the price?
It would have been like Yugoslavia rather than throwing South Vietnam under the bus. That's not happening if the French are opposed in re-imposing their rule. Possibly something to help Chiang?
Sheilbh, if we are talking about 1945-1946, it is worth remembering that Vietnam is something like the 5,000th priority of the period. It is really hard to overstate how much of an afterthought it was in US policy.
However, Ho Chi Minh at the time didn't control Vietnam, or even North Vietnam. There were a number of different factions trying to control different parts of the country. It was in chaos. I don't see any plausible way for Ho Chi Minh to project force out of Vietnam and into China in that period in order to support Chiang Kai Shek. Which again, really wouldn't make sense anyway since Chaing was anti communist and Ho Chi Minh and many in his movement had recent ties to Chinese communists. It was really the Chinese Communists that put Ho Chi Minh in power after they took effective control of Southern China.
Quote from: alfred russel on March 26, 2014, 07:16:30 PM
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 07:08:24 PM
Quote from: Capetan Mihali on March 26, 2014, 10:29:38 AM
Hmm, I thought from your comments (several years ago) about trying marijuana when it was decriminalized in Ann Arbor that you were in college already by 1972-74. But I see that they actually kept the civil infraction ordinance intact until 1990.
I grew up in Ann Arbor, as well as attending the university. I think that's where the confusion may have arisen.
I didn't know you were Native American.
It was known as "Pangaea" then.