5 ms·

Without USA & France we wouldn't suffer from that war

throw0101a 5y ago
No doubt. And without the US and the UN the people in South Korea would be living in the same conditions as North Korea IMHO. I'm honestly curious how a non-socialist/communist South Vietnam would look like. (I speak as someone whose family is from Central/Eastern Europe: so while I was not born in a totalitarian system, I visited family a few times while it was still around.)
- platinumrad 5y ago
  You are aware that Vietnam was eventually reunified under the North right? And that it's nothing like North Korea today?
  - benjohnson 5y ago
    Yes, Vietnam is awesome - and there's a lot of capitalism going on even if it's not official. But it's also no South Korea or Taiwan as far as development. The Vietnamese people are smart, clever, hard-working, and I really do appreciate them and I hope their government gets out of their way so they can shine.
    - larzang 5y ago
      I must have missed the parts where South Korea and Taiwan were bombed into the stone age for years and then forced to repeatedly fight their neighbors for continued survival. From the virtually complete annihilation of civilian infrastructure in the north to the widespread deforestation, poisoning, and unexploded ordinance in the south, the US barely left a country behind. Such comparisons are incredibly disingenuous without a view of how long Vietnam had to spend just rebuilding functioning infrastructure, education, etc and all without wealthy foreign investment. The Vietnamese people and government should be applauded for everything they have achieved.
    - freddie_mercury 5y ago
      It is hard to make a comparison between South Korea or Taiwan and Vietnam. South Korea was the recipient of one of the largest and most consistent foreign aid packages for decades. From 1946-1978 South Korea received as much foreign aid from the US as all of Africa combined over the same period. (South Korea has a population of 50 million; Africa has a population of 1.3 billion.) And then on top of that was the military aid from the US, which made up 20-40% of all aid. Half a billion dollars just under the CRIK program from 1950-1956. Even today, the US spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on its military presence in South Korea. And that's just from the US. Japan also contributed billions of aid and development money. Meanwhile Vietnam received no foreign aid and was instead under a 30-year trade embargo until 1995. Unsurprisingly, as soon as the embargo was removed, the Vietnamese economy began growing strongly (9.5% growth in 1995). A similar story can be told about Taiwan and the massive economic and military aid it received from the US. Plus South Korea and Taiwan were both single-party dictatorships with state-directed economies for decades, so it isn't really clear what was so great about them being "state capitalistic but not democratic". See the 228 Massacre in Taiwan, for instance.
  - Aloha 5y ago
    Different leaders, different flavors of communism, different time.
ncfausti 5y ago
I lived in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for a couple of months (before the pandemic). Vietnam is probably my favorite country I have ever visited. I hope to come back soon. When I was in HCMC, I visited the The War Remnants Museum. It is on the same level as Auschwitz in my mind. It made me physically ill. I was so unbelievably ashamed for my country and it's awful leaders during that time. The more I've learned about the war in the time since, the more I've started to understand that we are heavily indoctrinated in the US to believe a ton of bullshit growing up, particularly in relation to our foreign policy blunders. I'm sorry for the suffering inflicted upon your country and people.
- chrisco255 5y ago
  Weird, because I grew up in the 80s and 90s and there was nothing but negative press about the Vietnam War. Consensus has been that it was a giant mistake for most of the past couple decades.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dundarious 5y ago
    I think you're right it was quickly viewed as a "blunder", even just before the war's end, but I think GP might feel that "mistake" is underselling it to a shocking extent. The Strategic Hamlet Program amounted to herding people in South Vietnam into concentration camps -- no, not as awful as those of the Nazis, but concentration camps nonetheless. There were many other brutal policies inflicted on non-combatants (not just spontaneous outbursts, policies).
    - chrisco255 5y ago
      Have you watched any movies about the Vietnam War? Like Casualties of War (1989) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097027/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097027/, Apocalypse Now (1979), etc : https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000091595/ https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000091595/ To argue that Americans have been 'heavily indoctrinated in the US to believe a ton of bullshit' doesn't square up with the coverage and popular media about Vietnam that I've seen since I've been alive. Virtually all of the movies and press are about disillusioned soldiers, brutality, violence, lost causes, etc. The North had Hanoi Hilton and Desert Inn and plenty of places it kept and tortured political dissidents and American POWs in violation of the Geneva convention. The Vietnam War was a giant mistake, a huge blunder, however, as others have mentioned the Korean war was fought under similar pretexts and no one regrets the U.S. stepping in to save South Korea. I don't know whether or not the U.S. made all the right choices in the Cold War against the U.S.S.R. Would you prefer a world in which the U.S. hadn't engaged at all against Russia or stayed completely out of Asia (as well as European conflicts)? I don't know if the world that exists today would be better or worse off, really hard to say.

No doubt. And without the US and the UN the people in South Korea would be living in the same conditions as North Korea IMHO. I'm honestly curious how a non-socialist/communist South Vietnam would look like. (I speak as someone whose family is from Central/Eastern Europe: so while I was not born in a totalitarian system, I visited family a few times while it was still around.)

platinumrad 5y ago
You are aware that Vietnam was eventually reunified under the North right? And that it's nothing like North Korea today?
- benjohnson 5y ago
  Yes, Vietnam is awesome - and there's a lot of capitalism going on even if it's not official. But it's also no South Korea or Taiwan as far as development. The Vietnamese people are smart, clever, hard-working, and I really do appreciate them and I hope their government gets out of their way so they can shine.
  - larzang 5y ago
    I must have missed the parts where South Korea and Taiwan were bombed into the stone age for years and then forced to repeatedly fight their neighbors for continued survival. From the virtually complete annihilation of civilian infrastructure in the north to the widespread deforestation, poisoning, and unexploded ordinance in the south, the US barely left a country behind. Such comparisons are incredibly disingenuous without a view of how long Vietnam had to spend just rebuilding functioning infrastructure, education, etc and all without wealthy foreign investment. The Vietnamese people and government should be applauded for everything they have achieved.
  - freddie_mercury 5y ago
    It is hard to make a comparison between South Korea or Taiwan and Vietnam. South Korea was the recipient of one of the largest and most consistent foreign aid packages for decades. From 1946-1978 South Korea received as much foreign aid from the US as all of Africa combined over the same period. (South Korea has a population of 50 million; Africa has a population of 1.3 billion.) And then on top of that was the military aid from the US, which made up 20-40% of all aid. Half a billion dollars just under the CRIK program from 1950-1956. Even today, the US spends hundreds of millions of dollars a year on its military presence in South Korea. And that's just from the US. Japan also contributed billions of aid and development money. Meanwhile Vietnam received no foreign aid and was instead under a 30-year trade embargo until 1995. Unsurprisingly, as soon as the embargo was removed, the Vietnamese economy began growing strongly (9.5% growth in 1995). A similar story can be told about Taiwan and the massive economic and military aid it received from the US. Plus South Korea and Taiwan were both single-party dictatorships with state-directed economies for decades, so it isn't really clear what was so great about them being "state capitalistic but not democratic". See the 228 Massacre in Taiwan, for instance.
- Aloha 5y ago
  Different leaders, different flavors of communism, different time.

ncfausti 5y ago

I lived in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City for a couple of months (before the pandemic). Vietnam is probably my favorite country I have ever visited. I hope to come back soon. When I was in HCMC, I visited the The War Remnants Museum. It is on the same level as Auschwitz in my mind. It made me physically ill. I was so unbelievably ashamed for my country and it's awful leaders during that time. The more I've learned about the war in the time since, the more I've started to understand that we are heavily indoctrinated in the US to believe a ton of bullshit growing up, particularly in relation to our foreign policy blunders. I'm sorry for the suffering inflicted upon your country and people.

chrisco255 5y ago
Weird, because I grew up in the 80s and 90s and there was nothing but negative press about the Vietnam War. Consensus has been that it was a giant mistake for most of the past couple decades.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dundarious 5y ago
  I think you're right it was quickly viewed as a "blunder", even just before the war's end, but I think GP might feel that "mistake" is underselling it to a shocking extent. The Strategic Hamlet Program amounted to herding people in South Vietnam into concentration camps -- no, not as awful as those of the Nazis, but concentration camps nonetheless. There were many other brutal policies inflicted on non-combatants (not just spontaneous outbursts, policies).
  - chrisco255 5y ago
    Have you watched any movies about the Vietnam War? Like Casualties of War (1989) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097027/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097027/, Apocalypse Now (1979), etc : https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000091595/ https://www.imdb.com/list/ls000091595/ To argue that Americans have been 'heavily indoctrinated in the US to believe a ton of bullshit' doesn't square up with the coverage and popular media about Vietnam that I've seen since I've been alive. Virtually all of the movies and press are about disillusioned soldiers, brutality, violence, lost causes, etc. The North had Hanoi Hilton and Desert Inn and plenty of places it kept and tortured political dissidents and American POWs in violation of the Geneva convention. The Vietnam War was a giant mistake, a huge blunder, however, as others have mentioned the Korean war was fought under similar pretexts and no one regrets the U.S. stepping in to save South Korea. I don't know whether or not the U.S. made all the right choices in the Cold War against the U.S.S.R. Would you prefer a world in which the U.S. hadn't engaged at all against Russia or stayed completely out of Asia (as well as European conflicts)? I don't know if the world that exists today would be better or worse off, really hard to say.