4 ms·

The South never existed without US backing. It was a made up thing, without popular support, ruled by successive dictatorships (some even had to be toppled with

by the_af 5y ago

The South never existed without US backing. It was a made up thing, without popular support, ruled by successive dictatorships (some even had to be toppled with the ok of the US, so terrible they were). It's not your right to decide whether people have free will or not. It's their call. "Deciding" for them is called colonialism. Ho Chi Minh had huge popular support; precisely what the US feared. PS: before the US fucked things up, Ho Chi Minh even looked up to them and fully expected their support against the French. That's how bad the US fucked up.

refurb 5y ago
And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. I’m not sure what your point is? And your comment about “free will” is telling. How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today? The only difference is it’s Vietnamese elite that control the masses, not some foreign power.
- the_af 5y ago
  > And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. False. Did you know the Viet Minh initially counted with support from the US? When it was an anti Japanese struggle, of course. Initial US assessments even thought the French should get the fuck out; those sentiments were overruled by others in the US, sadly. The Vietnamese struggle was a struggle of national liberation. Aided from the outside like all resistance organizations, sure -- like the French resistance against the Nazis was. Didn't make France any less real. Imagine if the Allies had partitioned France in two after the war, claimed the last Nazi held parts were to be ruled by Germany's successors or whatever, and that the ensuing fight to reunify France was "a civil war" and that the free (non German) France was "just as artificial". > I’m not sure what your point is? That the US sided with colonial powers and against an independence movement. Not their finest hour. > How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today? More than they would have had had the US backed dictatorship won. Not that it matters: it's not for you to decide. There's no White Man's Burden to send civilization to other countries. Let them have their self determination and arrange their governments how they like. Above all, don't murder them by the thousands, destroy the countryside and poison their land when you don't like the government they choose.
  - refurb 5y ago
    So you’d agree Vietnam today is in better shape than say South Korea? Or Taiwan? Should the Us have not intervened there?
    - the_af 5y ago
      One last time: in the struggle against colonialism, the colonial power is always in the wrong and the locals struggling for freedom are always in the right (within the context of their struggle, of course -- they are free to fuck up afterwards as is any nation's right to self determination). The US sided with a colonial power and was therefore wrong. They also destroyed the country in their alleged attempt to "save" it. They were savage about it. Brutal. Please stop it with the sidetracking attempts. We're talking about Vietnam, whether the US was the aggressor, and whether calling it the liberation of Saigon makes sense.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. I’m not sure what your point is? The liberated themselves from Japanese and then French control, with limited ( some arms) outside help, so that's just false.
  - refurb 5y ago
    False. They never would have liberated themselves from the French unless the USSR won the war in 1949 and funnel support to them.
    - the_af 5y ago
      False. They would have rid themselves from the French sooner or later. They had the will, and the French were foreign invaders. The age of colonialism was over by then; it was a mistake of the French that it took them so long to notice. They ended up getting rid of the mightiest army in the world, after all.

by the_af 5y ago

refurb 5y ago

And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. I’m not sure what your point is? And your comment about “free will” is telling. How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today? The only difference is it’s Vietnamese elite that control the masses, not some foreign power.

the_af 5y ago
> And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. False. Did you know the Viet Minh initially counted with support from the US? When it was an anti Japanese struggle, of course. Initial US assessments even thought the French should get the fuck out; those sentiments were overruled by others in the US, sadly. The Vietnamese struggle was a struggle of national liberation. Aided from the outside like all resistance organizations, sure -- like the French resistance against the Nazis was. Didn't make France any less real. Imagine if the Allies had partitioned France in two after the war, claimed the last Nazi held parts were to be ruled by Germany's successors or whatever, and that the ensuing fight to reunify France was "a civil war" and that the free (non German) France was "just as artificial". > I’m not sure what your point is? That the US sided with colonial powers and against an independence movement. Not their finest hour. > How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today? More than they would have had had the US backed dictatorship won. Not that it matters: it's not for you to decide. There's no White Man's Burden to send civilization to other countries. Let them have their self determination and arrange their governments how they like. Above all, don't murder them by the thousands, destroy the countryside and poison their land when you don't like the government they choose.
- refurb 5y ago
  So you’d agree Vietnam today is in better shape than say South Korea? Or Taiwan? Should the Us have not intervened there?
  - the_af 5y ago
    One last time: in the struggle against colonialism, the colonial power is always in the wrong and the locals struggling for freedom are always in the right (within the context of their struggle, of course -- they are free to fuck up afterwards as is any nation's right to self determination). The US sided with a colonial power and was therefore wrong. They also destroyed the country in their alleged attempt to "save" it. They were savage about it. Brutal. Please stop it with the sidetracking attempts. We're talking about Vietnam, whether the US was the aggressor, and whether calling it the liberation of Saigon makes sense.
sofixa 5y ago
> And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. I’m not sure what your point is? The liberated themselves from Japanese and then French control, with limited ( some arms) outside help, so that's just false.
- refurb 5y ago
  False. They never would have liberated themselves from the French unless the USSR won the war in 1949 and funnel support to them.
  - the_af 5y ago
    False. They would have rid themselves from the French sooner or later. They had the will, and the French were foreign invaders. The age of colonialism was over by then; it was a mistake of the French that it took them so long to notice. They ended up getting rid of the mightiest army in the world, after all.