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The US didn't "intervene" what? Vietnam was colonized by France. Northern Vietnam was fighting for unification and liberation from French colonial power. The US
by ahelwer 6y ago
The US didn't "intervene" what? Vietnam was colonized by France. Northern Vietnam was fighting for unification and liberation from French colonial power. The US lent their support to France in Vietnam because France was flirting with the Soviet Union in post-WW2 as the cold war took shape. France slowly withdrew as the US took on more and more of a role in the conflict, first as advisors then in active combat roles and finally as a full military force.
The Vietnamese were largely supportive of Ho Chi Minh and there was supposed to have been a democratic reunification vote, which didn't happen. That's how the civil war started, and North Vietnam would have easily steamrolled the South (since they managed to steamroll both the South and the USA). Most civilian casualties came from horribly targeted anti-insurgency or massive American bombing raids. It's a pretty easy argument there would have been many, many fewer civilian casualties without US involvement.
- peteretep 6y agoYou appear to be conflating the two Indochina wars, and seem to be claiming I said America didn’t intervene when I used the expression “American intervention” so I’m not sure we’re even going to be able to find a common fact base to discuss this. > It's a pretty easy argument there would have been many, many fewer civilian casualties without US involvement. The history of Communism in Asia would like a word with you.
- ahelwer 6y agoI'm not conflating them, it's just impossible to talk about one without the other; it was pretty much just one long war with America steadily increasing its involvement. Given that communism actually won in Vietnam, we don't even have to work with hypotheticals. There were certainly deaths but nothing to the level of the death toll American military power exacted on the populace. Regarding the word intervene what I meant is that I believe it is not a good descriptor of what the US did. Makes it sound like some kind of spontaneous humanitarian mission rather than them undemocratically propping up a failing state.
- rumanator 6y ago> Given that communism actually won in Vietnam, we don't even have to work with hypotheticals. There were certainly deaths but nothing to the level of the death toll American military power exacted on the populace. Have you ever heard of the Khmer rouge in Cambodja, and how north Vietnam played a fundamental role establishing it?
- pinkfoot 6y agoYou also have to factor in how much the US bombing of Cambodia led to the conditions ripe for the Khmer Rouge. IIRC Cambodia is the most bombed country in history.
- rumanator 6y agoYou are jokig, right? I mean, the Vietnam and China-backed communist regime of neighboring Cambodja, who murdered millions implementing the same political reforms that killed millions in communist China, is only guilty of crimes against humanity because the US bombed them? Is that your argument?
- DiogenesKynikos 6y agoAnd yet it was Vietnam that overthrew the Khmer Rouge, which was supported by China and the US. The ideology of the Khmer Rouge was very different from that of the Viet Minh. It was an ideology that demonized industry, cities and workers - all very much the opposite of the ideology of the Viet Minh (and of most of the Communist Party of China). It's not for nothing that the Khmer Rouge ideology has been called "Stone-Age Communism."
- rumanator 6y ago> And yet it was Vietnam that overthrew the Khmer Rouge ...in response to the Khmer Rouge's attacks on Vietnam. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_War https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese... > which was supported by China and the US. Vietnam was concerned Cambodja's regime was too China-friendly, but the millions being killed under the banner of advancing socialism did not featured as a pressing concern by neither China nor Vietnam.