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Try asking most people about the Vietnam War, then visit Vietnam, especially the war museum in Saigon. Then pay a visit to the Landmine museum outside of Siam R
by camillomiller 5y ago
Try asking most people about the Vietnam War, then visit Vietnam, especially the war museum in Saigon. Then pay a visit to the Landmine museum outside of Siam Reap, in Cambodia, to learn about Nixon's secret war that carpeted the border between Cambodia and Vietnam with bombs and landmines without anyone knowing.
That's a trip that would make you rethink America big time. It absolutely did for me. As an Italian, I was raised with the American Dream firmly in mind. When I turned eighteen I even started applying for the Green Card lottery every year for like six times. In the last 10 years I've grown so deeply disenchanted it's disturbing. The feeling of being force-fed a fake story by media for all these years is so bitter. But it's not just me. I would say that an entire generation of Europeans has been growing up to become deeply skeptical about anything Americans do.
- nsonha 5y agoI heard the Peace Museum in Hiroshima is quite a trip too.
- sjtindell 5y agoI can say the same about Americans. In the California Bay Area I have very few friends who think positively of the United States, it’s flag, or it’s history. The facts of the trail of tears, slavery, endless meaningless wars, corporate sabotage of governments and people, selfish oligarchs…that’s what they think when they think “America”. Do I think it’s all bad? Of course not. In fact I personally think any good history is completely forgotten to our extreme detriment. But I see where they’re coming from.
- anovikov 5y agoWhat was bad about it? The idea was to make overland transport through Cambodian territory (which U.S. did not want to outright invade) to supply Vietcong as difficult as possible. Vietnam war may have been brutal, and eventually lost, but it disincentivised everyone else in the Southeast Asia from turning to Communism, so in the end it was a net benefit for the free world.
- throwaway4good 5y agoYou are getting downvoted but if you wrote something similar about the Korean war, you would probably be supported. There is a strange perspective around all the US-led wars; all of them were/are good and justified except some how the Vietnam war ...
- stefantalpalaru 5y ago[dead]
- pietrovismara 5y agoWhy can't I flag this disgusting comment?
- camillomiller 5y agoThis answer here is exactly why you should visit the landmine museum near Seam Reap. Because if you don't grasp how carpet bombing civilians in a country you're not at war with doesn't strike you as bad, you just really NEED to stick your damn nose in it. You need to see what it means to carpet bomb a country. To plant landmines and forget them there. Vietnam's socialism has never been Russian or Chinese socialism, by the way. Ho Chi Minh was a peaceful intellectual, who studied in France under illuminist and progressive mentors. I disagree with the basics of communists society, but the neoliberal spirit that opposes that has been way more detrimental to the world than what they were trying to fight.
- justsomehnguy 5y agoThe best thing is what this person would cry about "russians bombing/blowing up Afghanistan kids with mines" [0] completely ignoring what BLU-43 is almost exactly the same. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-43_Dragontooth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-43_Dragontooth
- shatnersbassoon 5y agoOh yes, the Cambodia that didn't turn communist in the 70s and execute millions of people for wearing glasses? Totally disincentivized.
- mhh__ 5y ago"Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević" Anthony Bourdain, in "A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines"
- throwaway4good 5y agoWhy just Henry Kissenger? Do you really think this boils down to a single person?
- nsonha 5y agoThe single person that could have said no but said yes? The whole concept of responsibility breaks down when you make it impersonal.
- throwaway4good 5y agoMaybe Kissenger had the position he had because he said and did what he did. Had he not, someone else would be in the position he was in.
- cycomanic 5y agoIt's not about absolving the others, but pointing out main perpetrators. Should we not point out the central roles of Hitler or Himmler in the holocaust? At some point there is personal responsibility.
- imwillofficial 5y agoDon’t needlessly limit your scope.
- 5y ago
- Cthulhu_ 5y agoI'm glad that thanks to the internet and proper journalism, we have a better view on things. I grew up mainly in the 90's, with action movies from the time - think Rambo and co. I don't remember watching anything that glorified the Vietnam war though. Full Metal Jacket showed how it was a shitshow. On a weird kind of lighter note, Forrest Gump showed how people died or were gruesomely injured. Rambo may have been the only one that tried to portray it somewhat positively? I don't quite remember.
- camillomiller 5y agoThe movies you mention always only show the atrocities from the American side, ending up justifying, pitying and damning or saving the American protagonist. America is just always front and center. Americans just can't help being up their own ass so deep that even when they express criticism they can't not make it all about themselves. I'm really sorry about the generalization, but as someone living in a city where US expats come to escape and complain about their own bubble by forming another, I'm reminded on a daily basis how that generalization never fails to hold true.
- imwillofficial 5y agoWait, you mean American movies staring Americans, for American audiences WERE ABOUT AMERICANS?! Inconceivable! I’m currently visiting DC, and I hate to break it to you. Every nationality, in any country, forms their own bubbles if they can. People gravitate to what they know.
- camillomiller 5y agoAmerican movies are the only ones I can think of that tell GLOBAL stories from a purely American-only perspective. Local American stories are of course great! I love movies made by Americans who tell me American stories. Apart from that they all suffer from some degree of America as the savior syndrome, or as I like to call it “World Series” syndrome. Only a country like America could call “World” something that is purely American. So no, sorry, it’s not just a matter of perspective.
- throwaway4good 5y agoThe reason you can find a description of the atrocities committed by the US in Vietnam is that the US lost that war, and Vietnam today is functioning society. If you take the largely comparable Korean war, the non-US perspective is completely absent from the western public conscience. Though with a raising China, that may one day change.