Vietnam war - Domino

[Jeroen Wenting]

The US government did not actively support the removal of Diem.
True, they didn't oppose it and told the Vietnamese generals involved in the plot that there would be no US interference in their plans, but that's actually something you should like.
The US, contrary to what you state and allegdge, respected the sovereignty of the Vietnamese people to change their government...
The vast majority of the South Vietnamese didn't want Ho. In fact, the vast majority of the North Vietnamese in the 1950s didn't want him either.
When Ho took power with his Viet Minh, he was only a few thousand strong but those people so cruelly murdered all who dared oppose them that any opposition was quickly terminated. Better to live (for what it was worth) quietly and hope for the best than have your intestines torn out...

[Thomas Paul]

The US government did not actively support the removal of Diem.
We certainly did! The CIA complained long and loud to the NVA generals that Diem was making it more and more difficult to fight against the north.
The vast majority of the South Vietnamese didn't want Ho.
Since no free elections were ever held we will put this in the category of wishful thinking.
In fact, the vast majority of the North Vietnamese in the 1950s didn't want him either.
Ho was probably the most popular leader in the world in the 1950's. His people fought a war against the most powerful country in the world for him.
When Ho took power with his Viet Minh, he was only a few thousand strong but those people so cruelly murdered all who dared oppose them that any opposition was quickly terminated.
Do you have any evidence of this. Everything I have seen shows the opposite. Although there were executions, they were people who had collaborated with the Japanese. This was no different than what happened in France in 1944. Perhaps it is the French that you are thinking of since their cruelty and barbarism in Indochina is infamous.

[Matt Cao]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
The US government did not actively support the removal of Diem.
We certainly did! The CIA complained long and loud to the NVA generals that Diem was making it more and more difficult to fight against the north.

Why's on earth CIA had to complain to their adversary?

The vast majority of the South Vietnamese didn't want Ho.
Since no free elections were ever held we will put this in the category of wishful thinking.

The South Vietnamese was totally brainwash and fell for the North Vietnamese propaganda. They actually believed the Vietcong/North Vietnamese were 6' tall and looked just like American because they were well fed and supplied by North Vietnam allies.

In fact, the vast majority of the North Vietnamese in the 1950s didn't want him either.
Ho was probably the most popular leader in the world in the 1950's. His people fought a war against the most powerful country in the world for him.

There were 3 divisions of China Red Army helped them out. Vo Nguyen Giap was not that great, but for the political reasons Mao ordered his generals to yield.

When Ho took power with his Viet Minh, he was only a few thousand strong but those people so cruelly murdered all who dared oppose them that any opposition was quickly terminated.
Do you have any evidence of this. Everything I have seen shows the opposite. Although there were executions, they were people who had collaborated with the Japanese. This was no different than what happened in France in 1944. Perhaps it is the French that you are thinking of since their cruelty and barbarism in Indochina is infamous.

Ho Chi Minh was a master spy, there was nothing he would do to sale out all his non-comunist forces to the French/Japanese. Both China and USSR intelligence agents would not hesitate to unplug him if he wandered outside the communism manifesto.

Regards,
MCao

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Matt Cao:
Both China and USSR intelligence agents would not hesitate to unplug him if he wandered outside the communism manifesto.

Which ignores the fact that in 1945 Stalin didn't care one bit about SE Asia and China wasn't a communist nation.
The US agreed to the Geneva Accord in 1956 and then backed out of the deal when they realized that Ho would win an election in the South. But we still used those same accords as an excuse to bomb the North when war broke out later. Our actions in Vietnam were hypocritical.

[Thomas Paul]

Originally posted by Matt Cao:
There were 3 divisions of China Red Army helped them out. Vo Nguyen Giap was not that great, but for the political reasons Mao ordered his generals to yield.

This you will have to explain. When did China send troops to support Ho?

[Matt Cao]

Hi,
It was in Dien Bien Phu battle. Like I said you could go to Pentagon in Virginia and ask for the direction to Military Library. You probably have to explain why and what purpose to the security people. You cannot check out/photocopy anything if you are a civilian. You are welcome to take notes. Rules could be changed now because 9/11 did screw-up a lot of things.
Regards,
MCao

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:

This you will have to explain. When did China send troops to support Ho?

Fraternal communist duty to spread the Revolution (plus a generic communist desire to cause mischief).
IOW the same reason the PRC sent troops to North Korea.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
Which ignores the fact that in 1945 Stalin didn't care one bit about SE Asia and China wasn't a communist nation.

Said nowhere he talked about 1945...
Anyway Mao and his gangsters were busy outside as well as inside China before they took power in 1948. In fact, the pan-SE Asian communist movement dates back to the late 1920s and was headed by the Chinese communists at all times.

[Mapraputa Is]

plus a generic communist desire to cause mischief.
:roll:
Have you ever met a single communist in your life?
But that was a rhetorical question.

[Thomas Paul]

I ask for "when" and I get anti-communist rhetoric.
I ask for facts and I get opinion. The fact was that in 1945, Ho disbanded the communist party and asked the US for help. We responded by helping the French re-subjugate a country that they had ruled like mobsters for 50 years. If Ho became a hard line communist it is fair to say that it was because we pushed him into the arms of Mao and Stalin.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
plus a generic communist desire to cause mischief.
:roll:
Have you ever met a single communist in your life?
But that was a rhetorical question.

I've visited the USSR twice.
I've been to Hungary, Czechoslovakia and East Germany before 1990.
I've lived in a targetzone for a nuclear first strike for most of my life.
Yes I've met communists, I grew up with the specter of a communist invasion of my home country hanging over me for first 20 years of my life.
I've studied them, to recognise the signs of their encroachment as much as anything.
"Know your enemy" so you best know how to recognise him.
The US hippie generation was completely inundated with a drug hazed propaganda campaign by the North Vietnamese against their own government and can't be blamed for not knowing the facts and even denying them when they're shown plainly.

[Mapraputa Is]

JW: Yes I've met communists, I grew up with the specter of a communist invasion of my home country hanging over me for first 20 years of my life.
What is your home country?

[Frank Silbermann]

Here is an interesting story about the (Vietnam) anti-war movement John Kerry took part in, and which still influences people today, by a fellow who was at the center of it, By Ion Mihai Pacepa of Rumania.
[ February 26, 2004: Message edited by: Frank Silbermann ]

[Thomas Paul]

I think there were some good and brave people in the anti-war movement. John Kerry was not one of them. His claim of having been directly told by soldiers that they tortured civilians is unsupportable. His claim was almost assuredly a lie that he got third hand from someone else that the thought he could use to bolster the anti-war movement. After all, he was a decorated veteran so people would believe the lies and the war would end quicker and they were probably the truth anyway, he probably thought.

[Jeroen Wenting]

Originally posted by Mapraputa Is:
JW: Yes I've met communists, I grew up with the specter of a communist invasion of my home country hanging over me for first 20 years of my life.
What is your home country?

I live in the Netherlands, for the first 20 years of my life right in between a major airforcebase and the airbattle control center for the entire area covering the Benelux, Germany and Denmark.
From leaked Soviet plans the faith of that area in any war was clear: depending on the chosen plan, it would be either saturated with nuclear of persisten chemical weapons.
NATO plans called for a 2 week campaign needed to bring in reenforcements from the US. Soviet plans called for 1 week to reach the Atlantic...

[Mapraputa Is]

I am starting to think that anti-communism isn't much better than anti-Americanism or anti-Semitism. It's irrational.
There are lots of emigrants from former (or even present) communist states in the US, if communism was as evil as you apparently believe, how would we ever assimilate?
JW: Yes I've met communists, I grew up with the specter of a communist invasion of my home country hanging over me for first 20 years of my life.
And I grew up expecting the US dropping an atomic bomb on us. So what it proves?
[ February 28, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Joe Pluta]

Map, I have nothing against Communists per se; that is, I have nothing against persons originally from a Communist regime. I do have problems with Communism. I think it is a horrible type of government, and I don't understand how anyone who has seen the results of a pluralistic democracy and a Communist state could ever choose Communism as their preferred type of government. But luckily most of the world agrees: democracy is the most prevalent type of government on the planet, and more countries join the group every year.
But I have no natural animosity towards people who come from Communist states . I in fact find it reassuring that so many Communists want to get out of their regimes and come to places like the US.
Joe
[ February 28, 2004: Message edited by: Joe Pluta ]

[Mapraputa Is]

But luckily most of the world agrees: democracy is the most prevalent type of government on the planet, and more countries join the group every year.
That's another question. But to say that communists had "a generic desire to cause mischief" -- this doesn't help anything.
[ February 28, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Mapraputa Is]

But luckily most of the world agrees: democracy is the most prevalent type of government on the planet, and more countries join the group every year.
Yeah, I just read an article (disclaimer: it's in Russian) about a "Death Valley" (how they call it) in Tajikistan. People die from tuberculosis, whole families, because the Soviet health care system is totally destroyed and nobody cares anymore. But I guess, what's more important, that there is one "democracy" more on the earth!
The worst thing you can learn, Joe, is that there is something even worse than communism.

[Joe Pluta]

because the Soviet health care system is totally destroyed and nobody cares anymore
But the health system wasn't destropyed by democracy, Map, and democracy doesn't magically make a country better overnight. However, it gives them a chance - a chance they didn't have under communism.
True democracy is never worse than communism, Map, no matter how you try to spin it. But this is bordering on too heavy a subject for me. If you TRULY want to argue that communism works, find somebody who has the time to waste on that conversation.
Joe

[Mapraputa Is]

However, it gives them a chance - a chance they didn't have under communism.
Chance for what?
True democracy is never worse than communism, Map, no matter how you try to spin it.
Ah, Ok. So what percent of democracies are "true democracies"?
If you TRULY want to argue that communism works,
Not really. Just remark that it's not "works" or "doesn't work", it's "compared to what" .

[John Smith]

Map: There are lots of emigrants from former (or even present) communist states in the US, if communism was as evil as you apparently believe, how would we ever assimilate?
I am not sure I understand your argument, Map. I lived in the Soviet Union for 25 years, and never assimilated. Here in US, it took me just 1 year. The important distinction is the regime and the people that live under that regime. Communism is, indeed, evil, but it doesn't mean that the people that live in a communist country are evil.

[Mapraputa Is]

I am not sure I understand your argument, Map. I lived in the Soviet Union for 25 years, and never assimilated.
A son of N. Khrushev lives here, I don't think he was raised particularly anti-communistic. I know at least one person who now lives in a Western country who actually believed in a communist doctrine!

[Axel Janssen]

Map,
maybe the current situation in Russia has its roots in 80 year of communism.

What I've read and heard about situation in your (ex-)country is absolutely shocking. One of our heavily state sponsored cultural chanels transmited russian film "brod" ("Brother"). Its about a sensitive looking guy who kills all those criminal businessman. There were clear fachist undertones. A german clochard served as a counter model against those ruthless crime-capitalists. The popularity of this movie is for me clear sign of the helplesness of the normal russian in a society with lack of rules and institutions.
What I read and see about russian province is lots of vodka and lack of orientation. Some little movements to start something new.
Soviet comunism was doomed to failure. There were not much energy left in 70/80ties (from what I hear).
There is not just 1 democratic system. Democratic system changes over time. My country had good politicians in 50-70ties. Now go on street and ask german for his opinion about politicians. Think that democracy is more flexible than communism. Democracy can re-invent itself. Find new ideas on which to build society. Communism appear to me just like "one big idea". And people are getting tired of it.
Axel

[Jason Menard]

Originally posted by Frank Silbermann:
Here is an interesting story about the (Vietnam) anti-war movement John Kerry took part in, and which still influences people today, by a fellow who was at the center of it, By Ion Mihai Pacepa of Rumania.

Interesting article. Thanks.

[Mapraputa Is]

Have you seen ads for this thread? Is it only me who think this game is a bad taste?

Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh Trail
In Vietnam War: Ho Chi Minh Trail, you are a Special Forces commando, and the enemy has quickly surrounded you. With gunfire abounding, you must find your way out of this bloody turmoil using an arsenal of weapons, including Howitzer artillery, Napalm air strikes, a Vulcan machine gun, an RPG, and your service pistol. Are you up for the challenge?
http://www.trygames.com/game.php?aff=zz_goovietnam&vid=d79326d41863334110874822744f24e0&linksh=&time_entered=

Another quote to compare:

Between 1965 and 1968, the United States steadily expanded its war effort in Vietnam, relying on its wealth, its formidable military weaponry, and its modern technology to defeat a seemingly primitive enemy. In a bombing program called Rolling Thunder, the United States expanded the tonnage of bombs dropped on North Vietnam from 63,000 in 1965 to 226,000 in 1967, inflicting an estimated $600 million damage on an already underdeveloped economy. Eventually, the United States would drop more bombs on the small country than were dropped by all nations in all theaters in World War II! Seeking to deny the enemy food and cover, the United States sprayed more than 100 million pounds of chemicals such as Agent Orange over millions of acres of forests, destroying an estimated one-half of South Vietnam’s timberlands and exacting horrendous human and ecological costs.
http://www.criterionco.com/asp/release.asp?id=156&eid=230§ion=essay&page=3

[Joe Pluta]

EK: Communism is, indeed, evil, but it doesn't mean that the people that live in a communist country are evil.
There. Eugene said it better than I could have. That exactly reflects my opinion.
Joe

[Mapraputa Is]

Brother Eugene wrote: Communism is, indeed, evil, but it doesn't mean that the people that live in a communist country are evil.
Where does evil reside then? In an "evil" doctrine that somebody put on us? I don’t think so. I think, it's in our hearts and in our brains, there is no other place.
Brother Joe wrote: There. Eugene said it better than I could have. That exactly reflects my opinion.
I think, I understand what you are saying, Joe. But I am afraid you are trying to make yourself feel more comfortable by separating "communism" as an abstract "evil" from people who had to live with it. It's very hard to overcome what you were taught from an early childhood; Eugene can do it, I cannot. What's worse, I don't see what was evil in what I was taught. That all people are created equal, that nobody should live in a castle and eat with a golden spoon when somebody else is hungry, that there are no "inferior" races or nationalities, that when your country needs you, you go and defend your country -- what exactly is evil?

[Joe Pluta]

But I am afraid you are trying to make yourself feel more comfortable by separating "communism" as an abstract "evil" from people who had to live with it.
I didn't say it, Map, Eugene did. Convince him!
Joe

[John Smith]

Map: What's worse, I don't see what was evil in what I was taught. That all people are created equal, that nobody should live in a castle and eat with a golden spoon when somebody else is hungry, that there are no "inferior" races or nationalities, that when your country needs you, you go and defend your country -- what exactly is evil?
Sis, I don't actually agree on some of the items in your above list of "good", but that aside, you now introduced a third dimension here. It is often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this allegory is perfectly applicable to communism. As an idea on a very high, abstract level, communism seemed like a good interface. But the implementation was terrible, not just in the technical detail, but conceptually. The whole design sucked, -- the interface said one thing, but the implementation did something different. For example, abstract "equality" sounds godly, but when it mapped into punishment of initiative and entrepreneurship, insistence on equal ideas and mindsets, intolerance for individuality, and equal clothes for men and women, the Devil was in charge of the project.
Can there a clean implementation of the communist interface? I doubt it, -- it seems that the architecture is flawed in the first place.

[Mapraputa Is]

Eugene: It is often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and this allegory is perfectly applicable to communism.
I agree with you 100%. It was "a generic communist desire to cause mischief" comment that kicked me out of my mind.
Joe: I didn't say it, Map, Eugene did. Convince him!
First, I need Eugene's help in another task.
Our brother Jason said:
Interesting article. Thanks.
Source.
I read this interesting article and I think it's an unbelievable piece of crap. But I need your opinion to put mine in perspective.

[John Smith]

Map: I read this interesting article and I think it's an unbelievable piece of crap. But I need your opinion to put mine in perspective.
There were a few things covered in that article, and I am not sure which one of them you associate with an excrement. I suspect that you took offense at the author of the article characterizing Kerry's passage as "Soviet rhetoric", and if that is the case, I am with you, -- it is undoubtedly the fecal matter coming out of Ion Mihai Pacepa's mouth. The propaganda and rhethoric are just as well and alive in American newspapers and TV channels on the left and on the right, as it was in "Pravda". But there is a very important difference, -- there was no left and right in Soviet Union. At least here in the US, you have an option to not just see the issue discussed from different angles, but to develop and adapt your own angle. The lack of uniformity is a great balancing factor that prevents either side from pulling the rope too far in a given direction. Divided we stand. United we fall into a black hole.
[ February 28, 2004: Message edited by: Eugene Kononov ]

[Mapraputa Is]

bro Eugene wrote: The propaganda and rhethoric are just as well and alive in American newspapers and TV channels on the left and on the right, as it was in "Pravda".
This is mainly what I mean, yes. Replace "the Kremlin" with "Pentagon" and you could read the same text in "Pravda" a-la 1970-s. If Senator Kerry lied to the U.S. Congress On April 12, 1971, then say so, but why to conjure KGB ghost now? Are you going to piss in your pants from fear, or play innocent? Come on, there were "the Voice of America", BBC, "Radio Freedom", all working hard to educate communist countries, so there is no need to freak out reading about Andropov's evil deeds.
"As far as I'm concerned, the KGB gave birth to the antiwar movement in America" -- this is pretty insulting a statement, so the author would better give something like proofs, you know.
I apologize to those who found something profound in this article, but I respect you enough to demand better quality of propaganda. To imply that the opposition in the USA and Europe was (is) so dumb that it couldn't come up with its own allegations and had to rely on Kremlin's production... Hey, Cold War is over, haven't you heard? Maybe it's time to move on?
At least here in the US, you have an option to not just see the issue discussed from different angles, but to develop and adapt your own angle. The lack of uniformity is a great balancing factor that prevents either side from pulling the rope too far in a given direction.
I failed to see how two kinds of propaganda are necessarily better than one. Except that together they are much more effective, but is this a good thing?
Divided we stand. United we fall into a black hole.
I still hope for something between... Like a "dialogue".
[ February 28, 2004: Message edited by: Mapraputa Is ]

[Joe Pluta]

Wow.
No wonder Map doesn't like this guy.
http://www.geocities.com/munichseptember1972/the_kgb_man.htm
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030820-081256-6822r.htm
http://iloveamerica.splinder.it/1070233200
http://strangewomenlyinginponds.typepad.com/strange_women_lying_in_po/2003/12/keep_an_eye_on_.html
If any of this is even close to true, it would certainly put a slightly different spin on all things anti-American.
Joe

[Mapraputa Is]

Our brother Axel wrote: maybe the current situation in Russia has its roots in 80 year of communism.
I am also thinking about it. And this is the worst accusation I have to show to the communist system. Yet what we got after, this is so much worse than communism, that I cannot stop wondering where it came from.
One of our heavily state sponsored cultural chanels transmited russian film "brod" ("Brother").
This is why one can start wondering whether communist censorship wasn't such a bad thing. Maybe it will take 40 years to let all the crap communists "suppressed" out of us, I don't know. And you probably watched "Brother, part I"; the movie was so "successful", they made part II. Hope you will never watch it, but if you will have an opportunity, save your time! It's much worse (unless you are curious what can be worse).
Think that democracy is more flexible than communism
It's much more human also.
Communism appear to me just like "one big idea". And people are getting tired of it.
You bet! Repeating all the same standard phrases for 70 years! Why do you think perestroika happened, because communists themselves got sick of repeating in 1971 what was written in 1917.

[Joe Pluta]

And then there's the people with some very reasoned explanations as to the problems in Russia, and particularly why democracy has not yet taken hold:
http://www.future-of-russia.org/
http://www.rferl.org/newsline/1-rus.asp
http://www.ircpolitics.org/news/articles/2003/DemocracyIn.html
As has been said in the past: democracy is advanced citizenship. It doesn't happen overnight, and it certainly doesn't happen without some serious internal struggle. 80 years of Communist rule doesn't change into a free pluralistic democracy overnight, or even in ten years. It hasn't happened yet.
Hopefully someday it will.
Joe

[Mapraputa Is]

Joe:
Wow.
No wonder Map doesn't like this guy.
"Wow" what?
I've never heard about this guy before, but I don't like him, that's true.
How much respect do *you* have for a traitor, Joe?
Before I defected to America from Romania, leaving my post as chief of Romanian intelligence, I was responsible for giving Arafat about $200,000 in laundered cash every month throughout the 1970s.
And, like, what happened later? New owners paid you more?
Maybe you need to live in a communist country, to smell a political prostitute from the first phrases, but Joe, there is really nothing to see here.
P.S. I am ready to apologize to this brave man, though, if you point me to some documents, rather than his "memories".

[Mapraputa Is]

Joe: And then there's the people with some very reasoned explanations as to the problems in Russia, and particularly why democracy has not yet taken hold
Did you google out these great people this evening, Joe? I would accept your results if we spoke about Namibia, but this is only because I wasn't born in Namibia. If we are speaking about my country, you better cite somebody with a good reputation. We had a lot of very intelligent people, Egor Gaidar to name only one. Have you read his books? Have you heard about his grandfather?
Don't misunderstand me, please. You can bring up as many anti-Soviet or anti-Communist or anti-whatever facts as you want, but they should be good, solid facts, that's all.

[Joe Pluta]

If we are speaking about my country, you better cite somebody with a good reputation.
I'm only doing what I learned from you, Map: posting links I find and letting people draw their own conclusions. You post things about my country all the time and your sources are no better than mine. You quote weblogs, where we don't even know the real identity of the person, or Russian language newspapers.
I quoted a wide variety of source, from IRCPolitics.Org to the National Center for Public Policy Research. Interestingly enough, the IRCPolitics home page has another great column on who is funding anti-Americanism.
http://www.ircpolitics.org/
Joe

[Ernest Friedman-Hill]

I see another meta-argument in progress -- you're now starting to argue about how to argue. Please let's not degenerate into name-calling this time. Get back on topic, or perhaps it's time to close this thread.