7 ms·

I'm reminded of an article I read in one of Jerry Pournelle's anthologies. It was written by a Vietnamese man who had agitated against the Americans during the

by adekok 11y ago

I'm reminded of an article I read in one of Jerry Pournelle's anthologies. It was written by a Vietnamese man who had agitated against the Americans during the Vietnam war. At one point, he was in jail for resisting the Americans. His father visited him, and asked "What the heck are you doing?" He answered "Fighting against the oppressor Americans!" His father responded "It's true that they're oppressors, but the communists are worse." He didn't believe his father. When the Americans left, there was a victory parade through Hanoi. Which was composed only of communist regiments. He asked the other people involved in the resistance "Where are all the non-communist regiments, which were the majority of the fighters?" The answer was "On exercises in the country." It turned out that the communists had infiltrated all of the non-communist resistance groups (of which there were many), and taken them over from the inside. A few years later, with his life in danger from the communists, he fled Vietnam, became one of the boat people, and immigrated to America.

narutouzumaki 11y ago
Thanks for this bit, very interesting! This shows how even though difficult, it is very important to keep in mind that conflicts like these are most of the time very multidimensional. 'The communists' might be the ones that surfaced at the end of the war as leaders of the new country, yet the vast majority of the battle was fought on the shoulders of young men and women believing in fighting for their independence. They probably didn't give two cents about communism.
pessimizer 11y ago
If it weren't for the American retreat, Vietnam would be as beautiful and egalitarian as Afghanistan or Iraq.
- Paradigma11 11y ago
  Or even South Korea.
  - pessimizer 11y ago
    South Korea did manage to maintain the human rights standards of other US allies such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel until 1987; hopefully a little northern belligerence will get them back in line. What I'm trying to say is that I'm really inspired by this on-the-nose third-hand bit of propaganda, and believe that if we hadn't lost our nerve at just 1.3 million deaths, we may have been able to save Vietnam from the evils of communism.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
Tloewald 11y ago
Bear in mind that Jerry Pournelle is a very right wing guy and was right wing at the time of the Vietnam war, so he looks for confirmation of his own pro war views. The big problem we had in vietnam is that we backed the wrong side from the beginning, and we did it for blindly ideological reasons (Ho Chi Minh was an avowed "communist" therefore evil). If Ho Chi Minh had been a race supremacist (South Africa) cannibal (idi amin) drug dealer (too many to mention), we'd have been happy to back him. The Viet Minh, who fought the Japanese and largely defeated them with little outside help during WWII were disarmed by the French with US and British help after WWII. (Roosevelt appears to have wanted to let Vietnam be independent after the war, but he was dead.) So Vietnam went back to the French who created a hot mess, got their asses handed to them (despite a lot of US help) and then we stepped in and picked as our clients the bizarre collection of mobsters and thugs the French had been backing. And while your correspondent appears incensed that some people didn't get a parade (you know that they had reeducation camps in the South after the war? I would have led with that), from what I've heard and seen, Vietnam didn't end up too terrible, and certainly in no worse shape than places the US "won' in like Columbia, Chile, Honduras, etc. No Buddhist monks burned themselves alive to protest the _north_ Vietnamese government.
- cageface 11y ago
  The Vietnamese certainly deserved independence from colonialism but it's hard to argue that the "right" side won when you consider how badly the current ruling regime mismanages and exploits the country. Without an independent press corruption runs rampant and people are still routinely jailed for exposing the kleptocracy at the top. Ordinary Vietnamese aren't starving but it's still the case that most people with the means to emigrate will do so at the drop of a pin.
  - Riod 11y ago
    Have you been to/lived in Vietnam? Their economy is booming compared to their neighbours. They are communists in name only; much like China. You're conveniently missing out the part where the South reneged on promises for a vote on reunification which led to conflict. From the Vietnamese POV, the Americans were in cahoots with the French; they didn't want to go back to being a subjugated people. Mind you this was not America of 2016 but the America that toppled a democratic government in Iran to secure access to oil.
Symmetry 11y ago
I think all of that pales in comparison to having a mole[1] be put in charge of village defense. It's much easier to turn the people against the government when you can choose parts of what the government does. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Th%E1%BA%A3o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Th%E...

by adekok 11y ago

narutouzumaki 11y ago

Thanks for this bit, very interesting! This shows how even though difficult, it is very important to keep in mind that conflicts like these are most of the time very multidimensional. 'The communists' might be the ones that surfaced at the end of the war as leaders of the new country, yet the vast majority of the battle was fought on the shoulders of young men and women believing in fighting for their independence. They probably didn't give two cents about communism.

pessimizer 11y ago

If it weren't for the American retreat, Vietnam would be as beautiful and egalitarian as Afghanistan or Iraq.

Paradigma11 11y ago
Or even South Korea.
- pessimizer 11y ago
  South Korea did manage to maintain the human rights standards of other US allies such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel until 1987; hopefully a little northern belligerence will get them back in line. What I'm trying to say is that I'm really inspired by this on-the-nose third-hand bit of propaganda, and believe that if we hadn't lost our nerve at just 1.3 million deaths, we may have been able to save Vietnam from the evils of communism.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

Tloewald 11y ago

Bear in mind that Jerry Pournelle is a very right wing guy and was right wing at the time of the Vietnam war, so he looks for confirmation of his own pro war views. The big problem we had in vietnam is that we backed the wrong side from the beginning, and we did it for blindly ideological reasons (Ho Chi Minh was an avowed "communist" therefore evil). If Ho Chi Minh had been a race supremacist (South Africa) cannibal (idi amin) drug dealer (too many to mention), we'd have been happy to back him. The Viet Minh, who fought the Japanese and largely defeated them with little outside help during WWII were disarmed by the French with US and British help after WWII. (Roosevelt appears to have wanted to let Vietnam be independent after the war, but he was dead.) So Vietnam went back to the French who created a hot mess, got their asses handed to them (despite a lot of US help) and then we stepped in and picked as our clients the bizarre collection of mobsters and thugs the French had been backing. And while your correspondent appears incensed that some people didn't get a parade (you know that they had reeducation camps in the South after the war? I would have led with that), from what I've heard and seen, Vietnam didn't end up too terrible, and certainly in no worse shape than places the US "won' in like Columbia, Chile, Honduras, etc. No Buddhist monks burned themselves alive to protest the _north_ Vietnamese government.

cageface 11y ago
The Vietnamese certainly deserved independence from colonialism but it's hard to argue that the "right" side won when you consider how badly the current ruling regime mismanages and exploits the country. Without an independent press corruption runs rampant and people are still routinely jailed for exposing the kleptocracy at the top. Ordinary Vietnamese aren't starving but it's still the case that most people with the means to emigrate will do so at the drop of a pin.
- Riod 11y ago
  Have you been to/lived in Vietnam? Their economy is booming compared to their neighbours. They are communists in name only; much like China. You're conveniently missing out the part where the South reneged on promises for a vote on reunification which led to conflict. From the Vietnamese POV, the Americans were in cahoots with the French; they didn't want to go back to being a subjugated people. Mind you this was not America of 2016 but the America that toppled a democratic government in Iran to secure access to oil.

Symmetry 11y ago

I think all of that pales in comparison to having a mole[1] be put in charge of village defense. It's much easier to turn the people against the government when you can choose parts of what the government does. [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Th%E1%BA%A3o https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ph%E1%BA%A1m_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Th%E...