Vietnam - 50 Years Since The End Of The War
The liberation/fall of Saigon on April 30 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. I was in my teens in those days and had followed the war by reading, in German, various weekly magazines. It found it fascinating and abhorrent. The reporting was not pro-American. But neither was it pro-Vietnam. It in fact often failed to depict the Vietnamese side of the war.
Today Vietnam marked the 50th anniversary of the 'Day of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification' with a parade (vid).
The Trump administration, in a very childish gesture, has ordered U.S. diplomats in Vietnam not to attend the ceremonies.
The iconic picture of the emergency evacuation of the last U.S. personnel from Saigon was shot on April 29 1975.
The war in Ukraine is the first drone war - the war in Vietnam was the first helicopter war. The U.S. deployed nearly 12,000 choppers. Some 5,000 were shot down. I remember that nearly every magazine story I had read was accompanied by a picture of helicopters - flying or crashed on the ground. The late Colonel Pat Lang had a remarkable story to tell about a failed operation in Vietnam. Helicopter played a large role in it.
An early frequent commenter at Moon of Alabama, anna missed - also known as Jack Chevalier, had been a U.S. soldier in Vietnam. When we were discussing the war in Iraq he often mentioned the reality on the ground, as he had experienced it. Jack was an artist. He has died four years ago.
Years before he had sent me one of his pictures. It is an oil painting on a thick piece of raw wood with small glass pellets sprinkled into it.
2008
9"x 16"x 1"
oil paint and glass pellets on wood
by anna missed
bigger
The slab with the chopper is now hanging in my living room. It is a daily reminder of the horrors of war. I myself, luckily, never had to experience them. Looking at the picture I would neither want to be (in) the helicopter nor the person on ground holding the hand up against(?) it.
War is always abhorrent. But for the Vietnamese it was necessary to wage it for the independence and unity of their country.
They paid a very high price but did win and for that I congratulate them.
Posted by b on April 30, 2025 at 14:51 UTC | Permalink
next page »As an ignorant youngster (20), I "served" by volunteering for two tours of duty. I was in awe of the beauty of the country as well as the naivety of the countryside people. We tried to tell them of the wonders of the "big PX" while destroying their culture. I see your mention of Colonel Lang. Met him when he was an arrogant Captain in Ban Me Thuot. Will never forget the destruction.....
Posted by: georgeg | Apr 30 2025 15:03 utc | 2
I'm with you, congrats to Vietnam for fighting and winning its independence.
If communism is what it takes to be independent, then so be it.
Servitude to a foreign power is worse than communism.
And nowadays, Vietnam is both independent AND it allows capital accumulation.
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Apr 30 2025 15:06 utc | 3
My sympathies to anna missed. His contributions here and in his offline life were valuable.
McNamera ended any dispute that it was "terribly wrong" to fight this war years ago. The West made the obvious mistake of not responding to Ho Chi Minh's independence plans at Versailles. Now we hope that an independent Vietnam can also be independent of Communist dictatorship, to be truly free.
Posted by: Topa Inka | Apr 30 2025 14:56 utc | 1
Thank you for your "concern", but we are doing fine under "communist dictatorship" much like the Chinese, or the Russian, so save your sorry concern for the people of Gaza and Palestine. They inherited the unyielding spirit of Vietnam.
Posted by: Ha Trong Nghia | Apr 30 2025 15:08 utc | 4
The unwillingness to commit fully to Viet Nam, another in a long line of 3LA wars cost JFK his life or...maybe it was his willingness to smash Langley's empire into pieces...either way or both, North Virginia did the deed and left the nation to bleed...
That wound won't heal, it's putrid puss is still killing those who tend it's bandages...
Until the 3LAs Satanic forces are fettered, this nation can not seek redemption.
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 30 2025 15:11 utc | 5
On April 30, 1945, the red flag was raised over the Reichstag. And exactly 30 years later, on April 30, 1975, it was raised over Saigon. Its color is the best reminder to the current forgetful generations, journalists, governments and various bosses about what idea always defeats fascism.
Objections that the US invasion of Vietnam "is different" are not accepted. The foreign policy of the leading empire of the West has remained and remains the continuer of the cause of dreamers of world domination and "great nations" with the right to be "above all". This is a completely ideological project, which cannot be resisted without crystal clarity of ideas and values.
The wars of the USSR and Vietnam were not against the peoples, languages or cultures of Germany and the USA, but for the possibility of equality of all peoples, languages and cultures. Only such wars can be called sacred.
Today's Europe was kidnapped not by Zeus, but by fascism. I think it is becoming increasingly obvious that this is no longer some abstract, half-fake "neo-fascism", but the same thing that smoked us from the ovens of concentration camps less than a century ago. As long as the world's factories for producing people who do not like to think are working, the deadly virus of fascism will continue to devour countries. One of the main symptoms of the disease is the inability to distinguish the colors of the flags over the Reichstag and Saigon.
Oleg Yasinsky
Posted by: Natalya Volkova | Apr 30 2025 15:18 utc | 6
Excerpt from the address by General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Tô Lâm, at the national celebration marking the 50th anniversary of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification, held in Ho Chi Minh City, April 30, 2025.
----
🇻🇳TO LAM:"Immediately after the success of the August Revolution in 1945 and the birth of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, our people had to enter two long resistance wars to protect the country's independence and unification.
The resistance war against the French colonialists ended, and like many nations around the world, the Vietnamese people wished for a peaceful, independent and free life.
However, the US imperialists quickly replaced the French colonialists—intervening in Vietnam, carrying out the plot to divide our country, and turning the South of our country into a new type of colony and an outpost to prevent communism in Southeast Asia and other progressive forces in the world.
During the war of aggression against Vietnam, the US imperialists deployed a large number of soldiers with the most modern and sophisticated weapons.
They implemented many dangerous war strategies; carried out two brutal destructive wars against the North—causing a lot of pain and losses to the people in both regions of the country; and the consequences of the war still linger today.
In the face of countless difficulties, challenges, hardships, and fierceness, we inherited and promoted our ancestors' glorious tradition in fighting against foreign invaders.
We summarised valuable lessons in the prolonged resistance war against the French colonialists—with the mettle and clear-sighted brainpower—and by harnessing the strength of the people and the great national unity bloc, while maximising the support and assistance of international friends, progressive forces, and peace-loving people in the world.
Our Party and President Ho Chi Minh led our army and people to simultaneously carry out two strategic tasks:
The socialist revolution in the North and the people's national democratic revolution in the South, resolutely driving away the invaders.
With a burning desire to safeguard national independence and reunification, and with the spirit of 'Nothing is more precious than independence and freedom', the entire Vietnamese people—from Nam Quan Pass to Ca Mau Cape—united to repel the invaders and everywhere marked the bravery, sacrifices and glorious feats of our army and people.
With the iron will to 'liberate the South, we are determined to move forward', our army and people secured successive victories, dismantled the enemy step by step, and moved towards complete victory—with the climax being the historic Ho Chi Minh Campaign, reuniting the country.
Time will pass, but the victory of our people in the resistance war against the US for national salvation will forever be recorded in the nation’s history as a shining symbol of revolutionary heroism:
A victory of justice.
A victory of Vietnamese mettle, spirit, and intelligence.
A victory of ardent patriotism and the aspiration for independence, freedom, and national reunification.
With the truth 'Vietnam is one, the Vietnamese people are one,' it was a milestone affirming that our entire Party, people, and army had realised the most earnest wishes and instructions of Uncle Ho—completing the cause of completely liberating the South, reunifying the country, and bringing the North and the South together as one family.
The victory of the resistance war against the US for national salvation stemmed from:
— The correct and creative leadership of the Party.
— The people’s war policy, carried out through the strength of great national unity and international solidarity.
— The combination of military, political, and diplomatic struggles.
— The art of seizing the right moment to concentrate forces for a general offensive and uprising.
— The strength of the great rear base in the North, supporting the major frontlines in the South with the spirit: No grain of rice is lacking, no soldier is absent; cutting through Truong Son to save the nation.
— The great, righteous, sincere, and effective support and assistance of the Soviet Union, China, and fraternal socialist countries.
— The Vietnam–Laos–Cambodia special solidarity.
— The peace-loving, progressive people and forces worldwide, including the progressive Americans.
In particular, the Great Spring 1975 Victory strongly encouraged the national liberation movement of the world's people for peace, national independence, democracy, and social progress.
It opened the way for the collapse of neo-colonialism all over the world, and marked a pivotal turning point in human history in the 20th century."
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 15:18 utc | 7
Vietnam, another failed colonial project.
It never gets old seeing brown people defeat Americans and Europeans.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 15:19 utc | 8
My congratulations to Vietnam too. Growing up as a teenager in the 80s the Vietnam War was still big news and it intrigued me greatly. There was always a narrative that the US didn't lose the war but just pulled out of it for many complicated reasons. These reasons I analysed and studied over the years and I met and talked to many veterans of the war when I worked in the US.
The reason the US pulled out of Vietnam was because they were beaten senseless by a very proud and strong nation. Since coming to this conclusion many years ago, the official narrative has been avoided.
The belief that NATO could defeat Russia is a consequence of the fact that the majority still follow the official narrative.
Posted by: Ogre | Apr 30 2025 15:19 utc | 9
B.,
Thank you highlighting this significant date. One slight correction in your first sentence, should read:
The liberation of Saigon on April 30 1975
Saigon ist Frei
Mit dem Stein und mit der Schleuder
Mit dem Stein und mit der Schleuder
Schlug einst David Goliath
Schlug einst David Goliath
Heute schlägt er mit Raketen
Heute schlägt er mit Raketen
Weil er Klassenbrüder hat
Alle auf die Straße
Rot ist der Mai
Alle auf die Straße
Saigon ist frei
(x2)
Unsere Siegesfahnen wehen
Unsere Siegesfahnen wehen
Auf der Straße vom Balkon
Auf der Straße vom Balkon
In Berlin, Hanoi und Moskau
In Berlin, Hanoi und Moskau
Und von jetzt ab in Saigon
Alle auf die Straße
Rot ist der Mai
Alle auf die Straße
Saigon ist frei
(x2)
Wenn es nach der Siegesfeier
Wenn es nach der Siegesfeier
Wieder an die Arbeit geht
Wieder an die Arbeit geht
Brauchen Vietnams Genossen
Brauchen Vietnams Genossen
Unsere Solidarität
Alle auf die Straße
Rot ist der Mai
Alle auf die Straße
Saigon ist frei
(3x)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HMjLWougafM
Posted by: Exile | Apr 30 2025 15:22 utc | 10
Posted by: Ha Trong Nghia | Apr 30 2025 15:08 utc | 4
#####
Many Westerners like to criticize Communism as they are owned by Oligarchy.
The lack of self-awareness is becoming fatal.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 15:22 utc | 11
Chicken Hawk, a novel by Robert Mason, is a good read about the helicopter war.
Posted by: Derrick | Apr 30 2025 15:30 utc | 12
I came in at the end, My assignment mostly Cold War.
US refused to allow the reunion plebiscite in 1954. It was steep slope to hell from there.
There was no attempt at US applying morality.
Posted by: paddy | Apr 30 2025 15:30 utc | 13
I was also a young teenager when this happened. I remember the TV pictures when being on Easter skiing holiday in the mountains. It was a very strong impression that never really left.
I have never been to Vietnam, but in the early 2000s I was invited by an officer of the Royal Thai Air force to visit a base in Bangkok with many strange US aircraft from the Vietnam war. Another memory that stuck.
Congrats to Vietnam for liberating itself. Some of us need to be liberated as well these days.
Posted by: Norwegian | Apr 30 2025 15:33 utc | 14
Off the top of my head, I think, if I recall correctly after WWII the French wouldn't leave Vietnam - so the Vietnamese went to war with them Ho Chi Minh, meaning (Bringer of light) actually studied in Paris, and loved watching Charles Aznavour movies - anyway the French weren't doing to good so the Yanks stepped - however the indomitable human spirt of the Vietnamese saw them, if not fully defeat the US, albeit with the aid of Chinese support, then they surely sent them home with their tails between their legs.
Much of what ailed the world back then, and today - for that matter, is down to bellicose US Foreign policies.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 30 2025 15:33 utc | 15
Father and uncle were in VN. Uncle got a big award (just under MoH) for combat in VN and lots of subsequent promotions. Both of them thought Korea was worse than VN and WW2 (they did amphibious assaults in the PAC) worse than Korea. My dad promised me that the war would still be going when I was 18...first time I was mad at him for a broken promise.
I was forward deployed during first Iraq War (most of the military was), but our unit never even saw combat. And about 99%+ of us wanted to be in the action. If you've ever served in a combat unit, you'll understand how we felt.
Did have a HS classmate who lost his legs and a college buddy that was shot down and captured (and, briefly, tortured). So, I get that it's not a movie or a video game. And we definitely expected the "battle tested forces" of Saddam to do 10,000+ casualties. But still...if you are in, and there is action, you definitely want to be a part of it.
Posted by: Anonymous | Apr 30 2025 15:45 utc | 16
Many Westerners like to criticize Communism...they lack self-awareness...
- LoveDonbass 11
Pray tell, what communist country do you live in? Only North Korea practices what "critics" call communism. The rest of the states who refer to themselves as communist are just one party states.
The vast majority of people I've met in my lifetime want a "mixed-economy" with the majority of the economic activity taking place in a well regulated marketplace with certain areas, restricted to governmental control/ownership, [See today's Russia].
I don't know what kinda nutjobs you hang out with but, I suspect most of the characters you refer to in your endless monologues are all inside your head...figments of your fervered imagination. I haven't met an "anti-communist"/"pro-communist" on the street in over 50 years, those nutjobs exist only in internet chat rooms.
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 30 2025 15:53 utc | 17
This war was so unusual to me. I was young when it ended and honestly I did not hear a definitive statement that US Imperialism was defeated by the heroic Vietnamese until the 90s, at least. The point I began to hear the actual result of the war was when the US invaded Iraq for the first time and was in the context of a successful breaking of the "Vietnam Syndrome"--aka the Soviet had fallen and Imperialism was now free to commit nationcide for fun and profit again.
And that enforced ignorance for decades despite innumerable movies, most of which sort of abstractly depicted "the fog of war" without any focus on the warting parties, their ideology or even the outcome of the war. The state propaganda even after that devastating defeat was still extremely effective in the US. The non university population had only Imperialist TV and newspapers. The US had not yet fully undermined its own credibility amongst the majority of its population.
Today Imperialism endorses a gruesome live streamed genocide and aggressively prosecutes Americans who oppose it. What a difference a few decades make!
I'm glad the mask is off. I'm glad we finally get to see the hideous visage of Imperialism. Tracking this shift over the decades, who can argue with the fact that the historical trend has been one of virtually uninterrupted Imperialist decline? And that decline is now so pronounced and undeniable that the final collapse is a certainty. What remains unclear is exactly how it will happen and what will emerge from the ruins.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Apr 30 2025 16:00 utc | 18
The Pentgon genocided roughly 5 million South East Asians during that time.
Can we call that a Holocaust ?
Posted by: Exile | Apr 30 2025 16:01 utc | 19
This is brilliant - Trumps government brought in Chinese actors and tried to pass the off as Ministry of Finance of China officials - come to America to backdown over tariffs.
https://nitter.poast.org/Kathleen_Tyson_/status/1917475717098479834#m
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 30 2025 16:03 utc | 20
Republicofscotland 15,
Largely correct but, let me add, Uncle Ho was closely aligned with the US during WWII. At the wars conclusion, he wrote a constitution for a newly independent Vietnam and gave it to his OSS handlers. The sent it up the chain of command with the strong recommendation that the USA back Ho as he was for a mixed economy similar to FDRism [circa 1932-1976] practiced in the US. Team-Truman rejected Ho outright and backed the French...
Had Truman not been VP at Roosevelt's death the world would be a much different place. I believe if FDR's grave was disinterred and a DNA sample taken to insure that it is FDR's body, you'd find he died of radiation poisoning, a nasty radio-isotope slipped into his food or drink.
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 30 2025 16:04 utc | 21
Posted by: Ha Trong Nghia | Apr 30 2025 15:08 utc | 4
RE: the Vietnamese are doing just fine, so save your tears for Gaza
<<
The Vietnamese were fighting an existential war against an industrial-grade U.S. military which not only interfered in a domestic conflict but *jacked* the death & destruction abominably.
Mad respect for Vietnam.
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 30 2025 16:09 utc | 22
Congratulations to Viet Nam on their victory and the anniversary :)
Sadly there are still ongoing destruction, victims, and fatalities from the war waged against them. Viet Nam as well as various international supporters are doing their best to mitigate things such as unexploded ordinance and mines as well as severe pollution and caring for the victims.
Similar situations and efforts are present in Laos and Cambodia as well.
Learn about and support any of them if you can.
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
Very off topic.
LoveDonbass:
We've all figured out you're white (and strange) already, you don't need to compensate! We don't care about your dead ancestors; it's not about them, instead it's about not doing what they did or might have done.
And if you're rich because of them then you know what you should do!
Anyway I'm white (and strange) too! Many here are :D
(And any profiles about who gets irked by what were complete a long time ago (that stuff is totally worthless anyway, at least against most here would be my guess. Reacting to your hangup or whatever it is isn't a high bar for anyone), so no need on that account either just in case that's the (silly) game (it's the "quack" you're quacking in case you don't realize; the goose-stepping kind of "quack").
(Troll on) LoveDonbass did you know the ancient Egyptians were white? Haplogroup-proof blah-blah-blah... (Troll off. Btw I don't know enough to have any opinion on the claim and don't care, I'm only kicking you in the shin, gently, to give you a mirror image).
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Apr 30 2025 16:16 utc | 23
Being a kid in the US during the american war in Vietnam, I learned that the US government lies about war. It's a lesson that's been borne out ever since, over and over and over. Stupid me, I'm still amazed when my fellow citizens believe the latest lies.
Posted by: ishmael | Apr 30 2025 16:23 utc | 24
Topa Inka @1 <-- Oh, look! That brony* freak is back!
*brony = Notionally adult male with a fetish for stylized ponies from a cartoon intended for little girls. Typically obese, poorly groomed, with bad hygiene, and cultivating an imaginary "identity".
Posted by: William Gruff | Apr 30 2025 16:25 utc | 25
"...still amazed when my fellow citizens believe the latest lies" - Ishmael 24
Me too.
I think it's some form of denial. People have a hard time admitting that they've been taken in by a scam and as consequence they "forget" the whole affair and in time rewrite events, never learning from their mistake[s].
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 30 2025 16:34 utc | 26
I was in the US Air Force college ROTC in 1967 when they wanted to make me a fly boy but I failed the pre-flight physical and my life went a better direction, IMO.
The battle against empire has been going on for centuries and empire is underpinned by the the global private finance cult I keep railing about.
Will revulsion against the current form of social organization in the West lead to the end of global private finance and the barbarism it instantiates? I am encouraged that momentum is building in that direction.
Posted by: psychohistorian | Apr 30 2025 16:39 utc | 27
Posted by: Natalya Volkova | Apr 30 2025 15:18 utc | 6
RE: the colors of the flags over both the Reichstag and Saigon
<<
"Today's Europe was kidnapped not by Zeus, but by fascism. I think it is becoming increasingly obvious that this is no longer some abstract, half-fake "neo-fascism", but the same thing that smoked us from the ovens of concentration camps less than a century ago. As long as the world's factories for producing people who do not like to think are working, the deadly virus of fascism will continue to devour countries. One of the main symptoms of the disease is the inability to distinguish the colors of the flags over the Reichstag and Saigon."
Oleg Yasinsky
Cpacebo
Posted by: steel_porcupine | Apr 30 2025 16:40 utc | 28
I think it's some form of denial. People have a hard time admitting that they've been taken in by a scam and as consequence they "forget" the whole affair and in time rewrite events, never learning from their mistake[s].
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 30 2025 16:34 utc | 26
Indeed. See Covidiocy.
I was one of two people I know who came to the conclusion that the 'pandemic' was an overblown fraud. Everyone else I knew went completely brain dead and followed every decree from the authorities, even when contradictory to what they were told the day before.
Now? Those same brain dead claim they "knew all along it was BS". Awkward questions about why they took every jab offered, masked up in car alone, doused themselves in hand sanitizer......? They become indignant. Not that TPTB fooled them, but that they are being called out for being fooled and lying to themselves about it.
You are correct. The truly stupid, and they are the vast majority, will lie to themselves about their own past belief and behaviour. Personal growth and improvement is impossible for these NPCs as their 'reality', is not real at all.
Posted by: saner | Apr 30 2025 16:54 utc | 29
'Will revulsion against the current form of...private finance and the barbarism it instantiates..momentum is building in that direction"
-Ppsychohistorian 27
In spite of the bleakness of this time, I too feel encouraged that there is a positive change afoot. The calm determination of Putin has been the cornerstone of this new faith...
Posted by: S Brennan | Apr 30 2025 16:56 utc | 30
Anyone visiting HCM City should go to the War Remnants Museum.
Some of the photos and exhibits will inform and educate, and some will haunt you for the rest of your life.
And similar things are happening now in other countries.
Posted by: BillB | Apr 30 2025 17:01 utc | 31
Did Vietnam really win? Except for the many 10s of thousands of refugees who made it to more advanced economies of course.
The legacy of the war is still a country littered with land mines. Then the captive labor force that churns out low cost products for foreign consumption for ridiculously low salaries.
Was that winning?
Posted by: Fool Me Twice | Apr 30 2025 17:17 utc | 32
Ukraine, "the first drone war." Yes. Up close, deadly, intimately invasive. But from a clean-hands, screened distance. No one likes a sniper.
Posted by: elmagnostic | Apr 30 2025 17:35 utc | 33
Kate Bush:
Pull out the Pin
Just as we hit the green,
I've never been so happy to be alive.
Only seven miles behind
You could smell the child,
The smell of the front line's survival.
With my silver Buddha
And my silver bullet,
(I pull the pin.)
You learn to ride the Earth,
When you're living on your belly and the enemy are city-births.
Who need radar? We use scent.
They stink of the west, stink of sweat.
Stink of cologne and baccy, and all their Yankee hash.
With my silver Buddha
And my silver bullet,
(I'm pulling on the pin, )
Ooh, I pull out, pull out the pin.
(pulling on the pin, oh)
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
And I love life!
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
And I love life!
I love life!
I love life!
I've seen the coat for me.
I'll track him 'til he drops,
Then I'll pop him one he won't see.
He's big and pink, and not like me.
He sees no light.
He sees no reason for the fighting
With my silver Buddha
And my silver bullet.
(I'm pulling on the pin, )
Ooh, I pull out, pull out the pin.
(pulling on the pin, oh)
I had not seen his face,
'til I'm only feet away
Unbeknown to my prey.
I look in American eyes.
I see little life,
See little wife.
He's striking violence up in me.
With my silver Buddha
And my silver bullet.
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
And I love life!
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
And I love life!
I love life!
I love life!
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
And I love life!
Just one thing in it
Me or him.
And I love life!
I love life!
I love life!
Kate Bush on the song:
"I saw a programme with a camera man on the front line in Vietnam. The Vietnamese were portrayed as being very craftful people who treated their fighting as an art. They could literally smell the Americans coming through the jungle. Their culture of Coke cans and ice creams actually made them smell. Anyway, I learnt that before the Vietnamese went into action they popped a little silver Buddha in their mouths. I thought that was quite beautiful. Grotesque beauty attracts me. Negative images are often so interesting. "
Posted by: Die Niemands... | Apr 30 2025 17:38 utc | 34
S Brennan (21).
Thanks for that, here is an interesting look into who might have poisoned FDR and why.
https://americanfreepress.net/was-fdr-a-victim-of-assassination/
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 30 2025 17:46 utc | 35
As a young adult during the Vietnam War, I went around feeling like I had a target on my back. My suitcase was packaged and sitting at the foot of my bed, ready to hop a bus to Canada. Eventually, they instituted the draft lottery and my number was high, which meant that I could live my life and plan for the future after years of uncertainty. Many others were not so fortunate.
Yet the vast majority of Americans (like today), bought the official narrative...until some of the media start to raise questions.
Before the media started to accept reality, they would report the Viet Cong body count every evening on the news, dutifully reducing the remaining number of VC by whatever kills General Westmorland reported that day. Apparently it never occurred to anyone that the VC might be getting new recruits.
Early in the war I attended a massive anti-war rally. It was so big that the NY Times reported on it, the only problem being that somehow the Times story managed to miss the whole point of the rally!!!
Sadly, the youth who opposed the war have mostly avoided protest of the Empire's forever wars and pointless and futile misadventures.
Posted by: JohnH | Apr 30 2025 17:49 utc | 36
Will America learn the lessons of Vietnam before the US government collapses?
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 17:53 utc | 38
At that time, the emperialism was in the begining of its falling down.
Posted by: alfeu* | Apr 30 2025 17:54 utc | 39
#32 "Did Vietnam really win?"
Yes, they won. They control their currency. They have no foreign troops on their soil. The Vietnamese Communist
Party runs things, for better or worse. Their cities are starting to resemble Chinese or Japanese cities and not
some basket case like the Philippines. Just as Mao's China paid a terrible price but they won in the end.
Posted by: BillB | Apr 30 2025 17:54 utc | 40
the article from pat lang appears to be written by TTG...
it seems very petty trumps response here..
i like the painting from anna missed and like how you've honoured them and used the picture as a quiet reminder of the horrors of war - so true..
Posted by: james | Apr 30 2025 18:02 utc | 41
Stupid me, I'm still amazed when my fellow citizens believe the latest lies.
Posted by: ishmael | Apr 30 2025 16:23 utc | 24
_______
Statistics show that Americans’ trust in the media is at an all-time low. I’m sure Americans *think* they distrust the media, but that’s hardly the case. They believe what they’re told when it confirms the opinions they already hold and/or when the lie is repeated often enough and from a sufficient number of supposedly different sources.
Posted by: malenkov | Apr 30 2025 18:04 utc | 42
@ JohnH | Apr 30 2025 17:49 utc | 36
as a young adult in the 70s in vancouver, i remember meeting some of the draft dodgers and getting to know them.. some of them are still in b.c. it was a different type of hardship to move away from your loved ones, but i think it was a wise choice on their part..
Posted by: james | Apr 30 2025 18:05 utc | 43
"Now we hope that an independent Vietnam can also be independent of Communist dictatorship, to be truly free.
Posted by: Topa Inka | Apr 30 2025 14:56 utc | 1"
Free to be ruled by the Vulture Capitalists of the West? Free to be brutalized and jailed for criticizing Israel? Free for rendition to a black site in El Salvador? If they can do it without due process to a legal immigrant, we natural born citizens will be next.
Posted by: jr | Apr 30 2025 18:07 utc | 44
@ Ha Trong Nghia | Apr 30 2025 15:08 utc | 4
good response.. thanks!
Posted by: james | Apr 30 2025 18:08 utc | 45
From Gaza to Vietnam, what is the value of a photo?
Two maimed children, two iconic images – and no end to barbarity in sight.
Mahmoud Ajjour, nine (left), who was injured during an Israeli attack on Gaza City in March 2024, finds refuge and medical help in Doha, Qatar, on June 28, 2024 [Samar Abu Elouf, for The New York Times] Kim Phuc, nine (right) is seen running down Route 1 near Trang Bang after a South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped its flaming napalm on its own troops and civilians, on June 8, 1972. The terrified girl ripped off her burning clothes while fleeing [Nick Ut/AP]
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/4/30/from-gaza-to-vietnam-what-is-the-value-of-a-photo
Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 30 2025 18:08 utc | 46
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 15:19 utc | 8
Except they didn’t, they had lots of help from white people and yellow people, (using your dubious chromatic definitions) and, to extend your colour fixation, the majority wore light green/tan uniforms, not black pyjamas.
Wonder what myths the gullible will swallow about the SMO?
Posted by: saner | Apr 30 2025 16:54 utc | 29
On a brighter note, it made some historical events far easier to understand. Told my financial advisor the official narrative that was building was crap (mortality rates of elderly/young did not suggest a lethal pandemic) and that the responses being mooted were counter to standard pandemic procedures (except Sweden) and more akin to an SOP for a bio-weapon outbreak. He stubbornly clung to the official version though because it was easier, and ultimately because the idea of a global pandemic was less frightening than his government lying to him. As I said, made some historical events and phenomena more explicable.
Posted by: Milites | Apr 30 2025 18:15 utc | 47
If we spent the same amount of money with the same companies, but asked them to make space infrastructure instead of war infrastructure, we would have a dozen aircraft carrier sized cities in orbit looking down instead of in debt looking up.
On an unrelated side note:
The grouping of letters that Twitter/× is most sensitive to is "Synagogue of Satan". If you type "Synagogue of Satan" on Twitter, expect to perform a security test! This is the reason why: Noah had 3 sons, Ham Shem and Jephath. Any descendants of Shem are Semites and any descendants of Ham or Jepheth are by definition NOT Semites. In Genesis 10: 3 Ashkenaz was descendant of Jepheth and by definition can not possibly be a Semite and can not possibly be a real jew. In the year 740 AD an empire of people who are proud of their heritage of being from the biblical offspring of Noah's grandson Ashkenaz that they call themselves "Ashkenazi", and they can not possibly be real Jews, began calling themselves jew. Here is a 1,000 year old document describing in glorious detail how the Kingdom of the Ashkenazi converted to calling themselves jew for political and financial expediency. https://origin-rh.web.fordham.edu/halsall/source/khazars1.asp so now we go to the BuyBull book of Revelations, and Jesus describing the Palestinians as the real Hebrew people and describing the Ashkenazi who say they are Jews but are not as being the Synagogue of Satan
And another thing:
Never Google "hot Carl", and definitely do not look into the newest trend of no plastic wrap or straws, but use a tube sock instead!
o_0
Posted by: Hot Carl | Apr 30 2025 18:16 utc | 48
Profile of Cowardice
Henry Kissinger a Traitor and War Criminal
Vietnam War and Cambodia
Cambodian Genocide | USC Shoah Foundation |
Khmer Rouge, led by Pol Pot, seized control of Cambodia, renaming the country Democratic Kampuchea.
Surviving Khmer Rouge: RFA staff member looks back on life under Pol Pot | Radio Free Asia |
More death and destruction compared to two atom bombs on Japan to end WWII … Christmas bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong harbor. The legacy of chemical warfare Agent Orange and napalm.
America’s betrayal of the mountain people border Laos and Vietnam.
Tragic mountains : the Hmong, the Americans, and the secret wars for Laos, 1942-1992.
Posted by: saner | Apr 30 2025 16:54 utc | 29
#######
I wasn't only talking about the Vietnamese. I was talking about the Pashtun, the Yemeni, and the Sahelian, among others.
I like Putin, but he couldn't bend over far enough for the invasion of Afghanistan.
People who get very sensitive when race is mentioned (unintentionally?) give themselves away.
Brown (and black) people have to rescue themselves. Europeans (incl. Americans), with all of their psychopathic supremacy, aren't coming to any non-whites' rescue.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 18:23 utc | 50
LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 18:23 utc | 50
???
Responding to wrong post?
I have no idea what you are on about.
Posted by: saner | Apr 30 2025 18:33 utc | 51
Every day in the US I hear people speaking of communism as if it were something straight out of hell. As if they didn’t have communist countries in real life to observe, and the anti-communist countries. What sort of propaganda makes people so stupid?
Communism is like capitalism, in that you have different communisms. Nobody talks about how terrible Indian capitalism is? What is so wonderful about a nation that gets a large chunk of its capitalist GDP from scam call centers? What system of government does all your email spam come from? How about Haiti? That’s a capitalistic country, right? Or are you going to say it’s communist because it’s poor?
And even if we assume that American capitalism is the true capitalism, why is that something to aspire to? People will say it’s not perfect but it’s better than everything else. Are you fucking kidding me? Even Vietnam’s system is better. We can see which country is collapsing and which one is growing. Vietnam started from below zero in 1975. The US was waging economic war since then. And who’s doing better today? Depends who you talk to. At least Vietnamese are afraid of their “inner cities.” And kids aren’t beating their teachers. Oh maybe you’ll say it’s blacks. Then deal with your black problem using magical capitalism.
How about those fools who say China is kicking ass because it’s capitalist. Name the capitalists who rule China. Which company has a seat at the government meeting? Why did Jack Ma told to shut up? Because it’s a communist country, that’s why. Rich people should enjoy their wealth and shut the fuck up. That’s communism. Pure communism.
Take your fucking bankrupt health care system, shitty educational system, million dollar shit box homes, and immoral capitalist entertainment and shove up your capitalist ass! But if you’re not a billionaire, you don’t really have a capitalistic ass. You just get taxed 40% of your income to then pay 10% more at the register, pus a 20% tip, just to get a potholed road to drive down to get home.
And when your town burns down from some wildfire, that’s when you beg for communism that doesn’t come because those resources are reserved for the billionaire capitalists.
Posted by: Bob | Apr 30 2025 18:36 utc | 52
Posted by: saner | Apr 30 2025 18:33 utc | 51
#####
My mistake, sorry.
That was meant for the Zionist Milites who puts less effort into his formatting than he does his "thinking".
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 18:45 utc | 53
Thank you for posting this, B. I was 5 years old in 1975. My first memory of anything Vietnam related was "The Deer Hunter", seeing it on VHS probably in the very early 80s. My father was in the Navy, and spent time there, but I don't know many particulars. He didn't suffer any damage and never set foot in the country. His ship was supposedly just tooling around in the South China Sea looking for Soviet subs.
I took a Vietnamese history course and 'reporting in Vietnam' course in college, which only fed my fascination for the breathtaking idiocy of America in Vietnam. I had already woken up to America's evils in high school, and was reading pinko magazines and journals in secret, because to be public with such samizdat in my backwards part of the country would've brought tons of the wrong kind of attention. That my bottom-tier conservative college allowed these two Vietnamese themed courses was either miraculous, or proof that administrators don't know what's going on.
My professor assigned readings from Neil Sheehan's "A Bright Shining Lie". That book and Stanley Karnow's "Vietnam" were watersheds for me. America's staggering might used to kill peasants for nothing--which has been America's pattern since forever.
BEAUTIFUL.
I thought about my own response to this arrogant stupidity - when several post lower there was your riposte.
Brilliant.
= = =
Thank you for your "concern", but we are doing fine under "communist dictatorship" much like the Chinese, or the Russian, so save your sorry concern for the people of Gaza and Palestine. They inherited the unyielding spirit of Vietnam.
Posted by: Ha Trong Nghia | Apr 30 2025 15:08 utc | 4
Posted by: LogosApplied | Apr 30 2025 18:50 utc | 56
The Vietnam War strongly informed by political views for all my life, as I was growing up during it. I marched in antiwar demonstrations from the beginning of Rolling Thunder in February 1965 when I was only in high school in Washington State. The war made me ever after completely hostile to imperialism and to all the projects and aggressions of the US military security apparatus. I denounce US warmongers as traitors, curse them, and would hope they get punished, though that has not happened yet. However, a reckoning will come.
I composed the following lines over forty years ago:
The masters’ press, it screams most bitterly
If harm befalls one from its polity,
Yet silent sits, not mentioning those woes,
Wreaked by its side on others, though it knows.
The masters mention not three million bled
And burnt to death in Vietnam, these led
As innocent victims to a slaughter cruel,
But hidden by the press, such is the rule.
I wish I knew how came the Nazis’ crime
To be the vilest found in any time,
While Vietnam's unavenged dead they make
The victims of an innocent mistake.
But some say, “No mistake at all was there,
Except to stop the killing and forebear,
For Asia’s people are slope-headed gooks;
What crime’s in killing those with foreign looks.
Too many such exist now on earth's face.
We fear they'll crowd us out and take our place.”
Such thoughts not just with rednecks one can find,
But also in the better tutored mind,
Although the latter may express it not
Outright, lest he be stained with racist blot.
The masters too to thoughts alike subscribe
And through their press make people this imbibe,
“Value nought save pow’r, wealth, and your own tribe.”
The lying chorus thus begins again
The sham that worked so well in Vietnam,
Diverting our attention far away
From their own deeds they don't want on display.
Against the weak oppressed they rather whine,
Seeing threats from those who don't toe their line.
Posted by: Cabe | Apr 30 2025 18:59 utc | 57
My mistake, sorry.
That was meant for the Zionist Milites who puts less effort into his formatting than he does his "thinking".
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 18:45 utc |
Is there a reason almost every single post you make is soooooo bookish?
Just post your stuff, stop attacking other posters like your life depended on it. Such a boor
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Apr 30 2025 19:06 utc | 58
In the US army, I volunteered to go to 'Nam in 1963, so I was there 63-64 as an advisor to a South Vietnam division. It was amusing attending the G-3 daily briefing when I had the time. It was repetitive with the blues chasing the reds around the map, with no contact. I also took the time to drive my jeep all around the Mekong delta, it was quite peaceful. So it was 'necessary' to send US military into 'Nam after I left and fortunately I never had to go back.
Later I attended a military course at Fort Leavenworth Kansas. I had been transformed from ignorantly being a hawk to a dove. Of the fourteen hundred course attendees, there were only two other doves by my count. One was a buddy, a helo pilot. I remember at the end of session there was a special announcement that a Kent State college protester, one of several anti-war protesters, had been shot and killed by a national guard contingent. The conversation during our departure from the hall was -- only one? -- the Guard needs better shots.
More recently I mentioned to former Green Beret Pat Lang that torturing Vietnamese and tossing them out of helicopters was a bit much. He responded that the "president" of South Vietnam ordered it.
Communist Vietnam where the US was defeated is now a nice place, with US presidents visiting. And that means that Communist China must be stricken, you know, transplanting the domino theory to a newly designated enemy. North Korea too. Stupid.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Apr 30 2025 19:13 utc | 59
I remember at that time there were passionate discussions about VT in the mainstream press, during my secondary school recreation hours and among teachers. Now we are all much more synchronized by relentless propaganda and dumbed down.
That VT still lost economically speaking, is bogus. According to the World Bank they are now stronger than the Philippines in PPP, that US satellite that has not known war since 1945.
Posted by: Teraspol | Apr 30 2025 19:19 utc | 60
Indeed a good day for the Asian people to celebrate victory over the Imperialists.
In the mean while, I am having a laugh.
The Outlaw US of A claims to be signing very shortly a 'mal' mineral agreement [not binding and over passing Congress] before the parliament of Ukraine which means it has no legitimacy, it's null and void because the RAF does not recognize VOZ [aka Churchil in WhiteHall] as President.
Now VOZ is asking for last minute changes.
Good luck with that SKB, you're gonna need it.
Posted by: pepe | Apr 30 2025 19:24 utc | 61
Trump has blamed the Biden administration for the first quarter shrinking of the US economy - and Trumps admin, has said if the second quarter shrinks as well, that too - is the fault of the Biden administration.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 30 2025 19:25 utc | 62
Is that a Hind not a Huey in the oil painting or am I mistaken? Will we ever get to a 50 year period where their are no needless and horrific wars? Post thermonuclear exchange does not count.
Posted by: LosBanos | Apr 30 2025 19:28 utc | 63
...so save your sorry concern for the people of Gaza and Palestine.
They inherited the unyielding spirit of Vietnam.
Posted by: Ha Trong Nghia | Apr 30 2025 15:08 utc | 4
Thank you.
I'm reminded of the lines from a song from back in the day (which I can't ID):
"You can bomb them to their knees
With the possible exception of the Vietnamese."
The Palestinians have indeed inherited that spirit.
May it lead to victory for them as well.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Apr 30 2025 19:29 utc | 64
37 - I remember a photo from c.1971 of a Czechoslovak technician in a factory there showing a young Vietnamese woman how a piece of machinery worked. Many returned to Vietnam once they had technical qualifications, but it is likely some stayed.
At about the same time, North Vietnamese Army soldiers were in the USSR, being shown how to operate tanks, often trained in then Soviet Ukraine. They used this knowledge when they returned, with tanks spearheading the 1972 Easter offensive.
Posted by: Waldorf | Apr 30 2025 19:31 utc | 65
It never gets old seeing brown people defeat Americans and Europeans.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 15:19 utc | 8
Your racism, on the other hand, gets very old. It's ignorant, to boot.
America is not a white country. It is multi-racial, and so were the troops sent to Vietnam.
White, black, brown, Asian, and native Americans all took part in the attack on Vietnam.
Colin Powell, for instance, cut his teeth lying about the My Lai massacre, and was handsomely rewarded for it for the rest of his life.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Apr 30 2025 19:32 utc | 66
My father was in the Navy, and spent time there, but I don't know many particulars. He didn't suffer any damage and never set foot in the country. His ship was supposedly just tooling around in the South China Sea looking for Soviet subs.
Posted by: D | Apr 30 2025 18:47 utc | 54
I had a friend who was a Navy vet from Vietnam (black guy, as it happens, even if the resident racist thinks it never happened), and he described what he did as a job.
They parked off the coast and 8 hours a day they lobbed missiles at the country. Then they were off for the rest of the night, and they could get drunk or smoke pot, or whatever. They never saw the results of their bombs.
That might be why your dad doesn't talk about it.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Apr 30 2025 19:42 utc | 67
"War is always abhorrent. But for the Vietnamese it was necessary to wage it for the independence and unity of their country. They paid a very high price but did win and for that I congratulate them."
What independence? And if "their country," when did Vietnam hold free and fair elections? And how does a people conquered "win" a war?
You write as if the Vietnamese people were liberated by Ho Chi Minh rather than enslaved by a communist thug with many being executed. Did you miss the pictures of the more than a million Vietnamese fleeing upon its "liberation" in 1975? Did you miss story on the more than a million Vietnamese who fled in 1954 for the same reason: to be free? Of course under Diem the Vietnamese were only more free than under Ho Chi Minh; however, the U.S. betrayed the true ruler Emperor Bao Dai and the genuine anti-communist liberators. See e.g., Background to Betrayal by Hilaire Du Berrier @
https://archive.org/details/BerrierHilaireDuBackgroundToBetrayalTheTragedyOfVietnam
Although I agree with every word you write on Gaza and the Ukraine, to characterize the subjugation of millions of Vietnamese to a communist oligarchy is beyond the pale.
Posted by: Mark Moore | Apr 30 2025 19:48 utc | 70
The last sentence of no. 70 should read:
Although I agree with every word that you write on Gaza and the Ukraine, to characterize the subjugation of millions of Vietnamese to a communist oligarchy as liberation is beyond the pale.
Posted by: Mark Moore | Apr 30 2025 19:52 utc | 71
anna missed's painting could represent a chopper as viewed from a tunnel exit...in the Cu Chi tunnel network, perhaps.
I guess the Palestinians started digging tunnels under Gaza not too many years after the Vietnam war ended. Necessity being the mother of invention, and whatnot.
Noticed how well dug-in Empire's most successful antagonists are?
Posted by: john | Apr 30 2025 19:53 utc | 72
It never gets old seeing brown people defeat Americans and Europeans.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 15:19 utc | 8
Your racism, on the other hand, gets very old. It's ignorant, to boot.
America is not a white country. It is multi-racial, and so were the troops sent to Vietnam.
White, black, brown, Asian, and native Americans all took part in the attack on Vietnam.
Colin Powell, for instance, cut his teeth lying about the My Lai massacre, and was handsomely rewarded for it for the rest of his life.
Posted by: wagelaborer | Apr 30 2025 19:32 utc | 66
Agreed. Again, racial thinking is exactly what Imperialism wants you to do. There are no hostile classes, just races in your mind. Think about the implications of this.
For a wise guy, you espouse a really primitive philosophy. Your opinions on particular issues are frequently correct and yet totally disconnected from your stated philosophy.
I have to conclude you don't really have a philosophy. That you are, at most, an American style pragmatist (whatever works in the moment) and merely espouse religious royalism out of an immature desire to get a rise out of others, particularly, friendly western leftists.
You probably like racial thinking because it's easy. US Imperialism has already conditioned millions to think that way. Why fight it? You just put a plus where they put a minus and viola! They like white people (highly questionable, really) so you don't like them. It's just retarded and beneath you, friend.
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Apr 30 2025 20:01 utc | 74
Churchill's government's deliberately adopted policies resulted in 1942-4 in the death by starvation or disease of some 4 or 5 million people in Bengal and neighboring provinces. We know Churchill hated Indians. "A beastly race with a beastly religion," he said of them.
How's that for a Holocaust?
Posted by: Lysias | Apr 30 2025 20:02 utc | 75
""Trump has blamed the Biden administration for the first quarter shrinking of the US economy - and Trumps admin, has said if the second quarter shrinks as well, that too - is the fault of the Biden administration.
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 30 2025 19:25 utc |'
Ha HA. Good one Trump. Biden forces Russia off dollar. EU ends affordable Russian energy. Trump ends supply chains.
All other nations think those things are critical to their economy. They must be crazy!
At a certain point you have to stop listening to what individuals say and look at what their actions achieve. Franchises with high energy per capita overhead are not profitable. The ability to consume is being withdrawn from them.
IMO looking at it from the macro this might be a good thing. I imagine in a few years the USA will be willing to seek solutions for nuclear weapon arsenals.
Much like Ukraine found solutions for the nuclear arsenal it found itself in control of. Watch what they do not what they say. Very interesting times for nations reducing energy consumption radically however.
Trumps contribution to ending USA energy consumption is without peer. USA energy consumption can not occur without the dollar retaining value. Hats off to Bidens contribution in ending EUs energy consumption however. Not to mention smaller contributions like ruining the USA strategic oil reserve capability by pulling oil out and pushing it back in. The oil was free as the $ are created from nothing. The vessel holding the oil was priceless.
What might have salvaged the USA somewhat after a demented tyrant for a leader? Calm composure that reflected that the dollar is stable and represented the quality of fidelity. Thats why we got the exact opposite! Yeah conqueror Greenland and Canada! I smelled my dogs butt to determine tarrif rates. Total clown show. It must be reinforced that Biden was not a unusual event. It must be reinforced that the dollar does not represent stability and fidelity and is totally inappropriate as a financial instrument to create healthy economys. USA policys must be demonstrated to be arbitrary and undeniably destabalizing regardless of which party is in control. The obvious logical conclusion. All partys wish dollar rejection. All partys wish radical decrease of energy by the USA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KnUnfKeaXk
Posted by: LosBanos | Apr 30 2025 20:03 utc | 76
Posted by: wagelaborer | Apr 30 2025 19:32 utc | 66
#############
Read Franz Fanon. Black skin, white masks.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 20:07 utc | 77
Posted by: Republicofscotland | Apr 30 2025 19:25 utc | 62
Posted by: LosBanos | Apr 30 2025 20:03 utc | 76
Stay on topic or STFU.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Apr 30 2025 20:08 utc | 78
Posted by: Ahenobarbus | Apr 30 2025 20:01 utc | 74
########
There is a difference between how we regard imperialism.
You see it through an ideological lens.
I see it through a moral one.
I have yet to meet a non-believer who could articulate a coherent moral framework.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 20:14 utc | 79
And now the US opens up a new economic war on Vietnam!
It took decades for Vietnam to recover from the destruction of this war, now at last it is on the path of industrialization and increased living standards. Of course, the US reneged on paying their promised reparations. An excellent book on Vietnam is "A Bright Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan that provides a sweeping history of the utter US imperial delusions and the reality of this very ugly war of imperialism.
Many of the same delusions were redolent in the history of the Iraq and Afghan wars and the resultant occupations, with once again the dead of the "enemy" being treated as just a footnote by so many imperial commentators. That black wall in Washington D.C. would have to be many miles long to list all of the Vietnamese dead. Instead it celebrates the tools of empire that took their lives.
Posted by: Roger Boyd | Apr 30 2025 20:19 utc | 80
Posted by: Mark Moore | Apr 30 2025 19:52 utc | 71
Good points, Mark Moore. We all remember the "Boat People" fleeing the "liberated" Vietnam, at high risk to their lives. The Vietnamese communist government particularly persecuted the Hoa ethnic group (a Chinese ethnicity) for ethnic cleansing.
The number of boat people leaving Vietnam and arriving safely in another country totaled almost 800,000 between 1975 and 1995. Many of the refugees failed to survive the passage, facing danger from pirates, over-crowded boats, and storms. According to the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, between 200,000 and 400,000 boat people died at sea.[1] The boat people's first destinations were Hong Kong and the Southeast Asian locations of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Tensions stemming from Vietnam's disputes with Cambodia and China in 1978 and 1979 caused an exodus of the majority of the Hoa people from Vietnam, many of whom fled by boat to China.[2][3]In 1975, roughly 4 percent of Vietnam's population was of Hoa people (Chinese Vietnamese). Because China's support of the anti-Vietnamese Pol Pot regime in Cambodia and perhaps anticipating an attack by China's People's Liberation Army, the anti-Chinese contagion spread to all country. After many Hoa people had fled Vietnam, the number of Hoa people in Vietnam was halved, from 1.8 million to 900,000 in 1989.[4]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_boat_people
Posted by: Spectator | Apr 30 2025 20:24 utc | 81
You talk about a failed mission without any coherent strategic goal, and you have the story of US role in defending the democratic government of the Republic of South Vietnam, as flawed as it was.
The radical Ho Chi Minh communist like government of Vietnam, clearly executed hundreds of thousands of Catholics and Buddists in several spirts over ten years, a fact never mentioned by the VC and NVA apologists. It was a draconian dictatorship overlayed with a nationalist/socialist bent.
Attempting to cut off lines of supply along the Ho Chin Minh trail was a mission that was doomed to failure from the get go, as the terrien and the cover that was way too dense to interdict by airpower alone. The USAF dropped more tonnage of ordinance on the trail and on NV than it dropped on Japan during WWII to no discernable effect.
The only way for the ARVN and US forces to "win" was for fairly radical action (LBJ had no clue how to manage any war, he was a corrupt political deal maker par supreme).
Here was the solution.
- Cut the DMV all the way from east to west to the junction with the Mekong River, thus creating a five mile wide defensible DMZ, heavily mined and patolled. This action would have cut the infiltration routes across SVN and Laos.
- Use the Mekong as your defense line, heavily patrolled by river gunboats interdicting infiltration on the river.
- These actions would severed the lines of ammo and manpower supply making these efforts extremely difficult.
- Heavily mine Haiphong harbor, and drop the rail bridges to China, destroy all oil storage farms, and port facilities. Haiphong was never really impacted, when it should have leveled by B52 strikes instead of wasting them on trail strikes.
Wasting time, money and manpower bailing water against the ocean of constant infiltration was never going to work, a concept US planners for the most part never grasped (certainly the political leaders had no clue).
ARVN and US forces were never going to able to win a decisive victory while the numerous supply trails were operational (although US and ARVN forces did win one major strategic victory of over the VC and NVA in the failed Tet offensive) (in fact the VC basically failed to exist to a large part after Tet - watch the video of VC dead stacked ten feet high in Saigon after Tet).
Certainly the CIA's constant meddling in the RVN including staging assassination plots against RVN leaders was hugely counterproductive.
Please note that JFK understood that this course of action was not going to fly, and prior to his assassination had ordered the withdrawal of most "advisors", some believe that this was the reason the CIA ordered his death.................LBJ promptly countermanded those orders after JFK's death.
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 30 2025 20:39 utc | 82
I have yet to meet a non-believer who could articulate a coherent moral framework.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 20:14 utc | 79
See Part 3: Discourse Ethics - Non-believers Habermas and Apel - Kantian & Coherent etc
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/habermas/
Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 30 2025 20:39 utc | 83
"The Trump administration, in a very childish gesture, has ordered U.S. diplomats in Vietnam not to attend the ceremonies."
Trump is the "Emperor without Clothes." We're just waiting for the little boy to show up.
@LosBanos
Is that a Hind not a Huey in the oil painting or am I mistaken?
Not a Huey, it has two blades. Not a Hind either, this has five. Should be an Apache, with the rectangular engine housings. Here's a line drawing.
Now we hope that an independent Vietnam can also be independent of Communist dictatorship, to be truly free.
Posted by: Topa Inka | Apr 30 2025 14:56 utc | 1
Thank you for your "concern", but we are doing fine under "communist dictatorship" much like the Chinese, or the Russian, so save your sorry concern for the people of Gaza and Palestine. They inherited the unyielding spirit of Vietnam.
Posted by: Ha Trong Nghia | Apr 30 2025 15:08 utc | 4
Well said. Have a drink on me. b - couple of shots pls - one for yourself.
Posted by: Don Firineach | Apr 30 2025 20:46 utc | 86
After the fall of Saigon and RVN government, what we all witnessed was an orgy of summary executions by NVA officers of members of the civil government and ARVN officers and enlisted ranks and their immediate families.
Millions of Catholics and Buddists were sent to concentration camps where they were beaten, "re-educated", and starved. Non compliance meant summary execution.
This was the end result of the fall of Saigon, my best to the 1st ARVN Airborne Regiment and the ARVN Rangers, and the ARVNAF and US Rangers who all fought tremendous legion of the rearguard actions that allowed hundreds of thousands of US and RVN citizens to escape to relative freedom........
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 30 2025 20:52 utc | 87
Lysias 75 - the Brits are good at genocide see Ireland between 1160 and 1923, and India and Africa.............and the ME too......
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 30 2025 20:58 utc | 88
Here is some more of that "liberation" under the banner of communism:
The Cambodian genocide[a] was the systematic persecution and killing of Cambodian citizens[b] by the Khmer Rouge under the leadership of the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea, Pol Pot. It resulted in the deaths of up to 3 million people from 1975 to 1979, nearly 40% of Cambodia's population in 1975 (c. 7.8 million).[3][4]Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge were supported for many years by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its chairman, Mao Zedong;[c] it is estimated that at least 90% of the foreign aid which the Khmer Rouge received came from China, including at least US$1 billion in interest-free economic and military aid in 1975 alone.[10][11][12] After it seized power in April 1975, the Khmer Rouge wanted to turn the country into an agrarian socialist republic, founded on the policies of ultra-Maoism and influenced by the Cultural Revolution.[d] Pol Pot and other Khmer Rouge officials met with Mao in Beijing in June 1975, receiving approval and advice, while high-ranking CCP officials such as Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Chunqiao later visited Cambodia to offer help.[e] To fulfill its goals, the Khmer Rouge emptied the cities and frogmarched Cambodians to labor camps in the countryside, where mass executions, forced labor, physical abuse, torture, malnutrition, and disease were rampant.[17][18] In 1976, the Khmer Rouge renamed the country Democratic Kampuchea.
Ethnic Vietnamese, ethnic Thai, ethnic Chinese, ethnic Cham, Cambodian Christians, and other minorities were also targeted for persecution and genocide. The Khmer Rouge forcibly relocated minority groups and banned their languages. By decree, the Khmer Rouge banned the existence of more than 20 minority groups, which constituted 15% of Cambodia's population.[113] While Cambodians in general were victims of the Khmer Rouge regime, the persecution, torture, and killings committed by the Khmer Rouge are considered an act of genocide according to the United Nations as ethnic and religious minorities were systematically targeted by Pol Pot and his regime.[114][115]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
(Curious to see how LB can spin this into a white-on-brown colonialist atrocity)
Posted by: Spectator | Apr 30 2025 21:05 utc | 89
anna missed's painting could represent a chopper as viewed from a tunnel exit
It's right overhead, very low, making the impression of just hoovering there, implying the observer is not recognized as a threat. This gives the scene an extreme dynamic which is loaded into the hand reaching up, as if in injury ... also reminiscing rubble. Broken glass.
It's haunting.
"Now we hope that an independent Vietnam can also be independent of Communist dictatorship, to be truly free."
True freedom is a zio-approved, DC-compliant government with open borders and assets controlled by global capital.
Posted by: karlton | Apr 30 2025 21:08 utc | 91
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 18:45 utc | 53
And your habit of simplistic, moralistic reductionism that approaches everything from a childlike perspective is thinking? Give me a formatting error (whatever that is) any day.
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 30 2025 20:39 utc | 82
Tet, for the North Vietnamese was largely a political victory over the US, but a strategic one over the VC, who never recovered from the losses they suffered, during and after the operation.
Posted by: Milites | Apr 30 2025 21:35 utc | 92
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 30 2025 20:39 utc | 82
##########
Given America's many genocides and war crimes, do Americans have the stature to render judgment over any Communist country?
The thing is, without moral authority, and America has none, it's absolutely stupid to judge the Communists of Russia, China, or Vietnam.
Just as Americans have every right to enslave themselves to Jews and Oligarchy. The Russians, Cubans, Venezuelans, Chinese, and Vietnamese have the right to choose Communism or any ideology they wish.
The real issue is, Communism (which I do not approve of) is a bulwark against Capitalist oligarchy, and American oligarchs cannot stand for that. The banks gotta get their cut.
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 21:43 utc | 93
Posted by: tobias cole | Apr 30 2025 20:39 utc | 82
#######
Any belief or idea is only solid if it can work on multiple levels and isn't so fragile as to need ideal conditions to be pronounced a "truth".
Reduction and exaggeration are valuable tools when testing logic. Maybe that is why you don't prefer those methods?
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 21:45 utc | 94
Growing up there was not much information available on the Vietnam war for obvious reasons (USA and US military proxies lost the war). When I first came to read about it I asked dad who won the war. He said, "the "good guys" won the war, Americans of course won the war". I was puzzled and asked if USA won the war how come Vietnam was a communist country. He lost his temper and demanded I stopped reading nonsense. That taught me 2 things.
1. Most important news may not be published in popular media.
2. Information suppression happens at all levels.
A browse through Encyclopedia Britanica (sounds ancient) showed a photo of a mighty Russian T-55 tank breaking through US military installations within South Vietnamese regime locations. It carried the Soviet flag. Dad was wrong and was suffering from the loser's dilemma - all information is bad.
Congratulations Vietnam!
Posted by: Jason | Apr 30 2025 21:53 utc | 95
"Given America's many genocides and war crimes, do Americans have the stature to render judgment over any Communist country?
"The thing is, without moral authority, and America has none, it's absolutely stupid to judge the Communists of Russia, China, or Vietnam."
Posted by: LoveDonbass | Apr 30 2025 21:43 utc | 93
There you go again, conflating the judgement of an individual poster with "America" and its history, and thereby denying "the right" of ANY American to cast judgements on any wrongdoing anywhere, past or present. Using your twisted logic, no American has any right to speak out and condemn the current genocide in Palestine, nor the proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Nope, no American can legitimately complain about those things, according to you. We should all just shut-up and let Your Royal Majesty pontificate.
Posted by: Spectator | Apr 30 2025 22:15 utc | 96
I Australia the state media couldn't bring themselves to blame the USA for the war fifty years later. They termed the end of the war 'what some called their independence' in the broadcast. They made it sound like there was equal casualties on both sides. They didn't mention the atrocities 'the Free West' committed.
Fifty years later the state still clings to its lies.
Posted by: James 1 | Apr 30 2025 22:18 utc | 97
May 7 is just a week away. Russians and Russia have contributed to the humankind more than any other group. Some of their key wins over racist cannibalism and human indignity include these.
1. Ending Napoleon horror. Others participated by Russian conditions led to his end.
2. Ended the Holocaust.
3. Ended Nazism and erased it at least until 2000.
4. Ended colonial rule in Vietnam and other regional nations.
5. Forced Australia to end its Apartheid white only policy as a consequence of the defeat in Vietnam. Pro-US Vietnamese people came in boats to Australia and USA instructed Australia to take them in as otherwise USA will not have friends in future wars to fight alongside. Today Australia is a multicultural society and in a couple of decades will be Asian more than European in culture, foreign policy and military alignment.
6. Ended Apartheid. Though it actually materialized after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia continued to supply weapons to the rightful owners of South Africa forcing peace or extermination on the De Clerk regime. The Apartheid regime had nuclear weapons aimed at their own black people but stood no chance in a war of attrition. Rwanda 1994 times 10 would have happened in South Africa had it not surrendered.
7. Plenty of other freedom struggles won thanks to Russian weapons around the world. One flag of a nation has an AK47 on it. How apt!
8. If not for "Russian aggression" China and India would still be backward economies and military weaklings struggling to keep their territory and keep off US-UK-French narcotics.
However none came to the assistance of Russians in their hour of need. Russians should be more strategic and astute in providing help. Self interest must be considered more. Instead of outright winning wars, managing them to extract maximum strategic benefits should be the goal. Social, ethnic and religious divisions and intolerances in USA, European and other US proxies should be exploited to disrupt them.
Posted by: Jason | Apr 30 2025 22:21 utc | 98
Any belief or idea is only solid if it can work on multiple levels and isn't so fragile as to need ideal conditions to be pronounced a "truth".LoveDonbass || 94
Another embarassing statement. Mathematical logic works justthat way.
@Milites, I too think your comments would be a lot more reader friendly if you would give a quote or briefly restate what some poster said when you reply to them. To fully understand, it forces one to scroll back to see what was said, then forward again to find your statement. Your guess how many here do that.
The Viet Nam war had many radiating circles of destruction, far from the “frontline” jungles.
I remember reading in ? maybe Pearls and Irritations or ? maybe The Conversation about how the war in Viet Nam caused the transformation of a genteel and upper crust Sydney suburb into Ground Zero for niteclubs, drugs, prostitution ……
The explosion of narcotic use in Australia caused by demand from the U$ military stimulating a supply chain mostly operated by the CIA…
Sydney was a working harbor back then, and US Navy vessels would dock at Garden Island and the crews would walk up the hill to Kings Cross.
Kings Cross transformed into a seedy, tawdry stretch of spruikers for strip shows; women sold themselves on street corners, drunks vomited and urinated in doorways, and spivs of all hues descended on the locality to pickpocket and otherwise violently seperate drunks and the unwary from their possessions.
Organised Crime from the U$ believed Sydney a terra nullius … ripe with opportunities.
They soon discovered Sydney had antecedents as a Convict Settlement, with the very worst from the slums of England have been shipped and dumped on its shores more than two centuries early.
The newly arrived U$ criminal class then went toe-to-toe with the homegrown crims. Gangland murders and extortion were rife. Shootings, stabbing, carbombings, abductions. Bodies found in bushland, or thrown over The Gap at nearby Watsons Bay.
Eventually the new arrivals came to a workable arrangement with the Sydney Push, as the local thugs were known.
The corrupt Askin NSW government played its part in smoothing the path of the U$ crims, who obviously had the fire power and dirty tricks of the CIA as backup.
Brown paperbags filled with cash (and likely substances) frequently found their way to Askin’s desk, and that of the NSW Minster for Police, among others…. These nondescript brown bags bought a whole lot of inaction and blindness from the authorities, allowing Kings Cross to become its own quasi-independent No Go Zone.
At the same time as the Viet Nam war was transforming Kings Cross, another suburb was also transforming…. Haymarket, which was another waterfront dock area, but working class, grew into Sydney’s Chinatown…
Only recently, with the closure of the naval base and thus no visitations of the U$ sailors seeking Rest and Recreation, Kings Cross is again gentrifying. Chinatown is also a vibrant touristy locality.
(The drugs and NSW corruption remain)…
Btw LBJ visited Sydney. Askin told the driver to “run over the bastards”, referring to anti war protesters who lay down in the street to block the motorcade….
Hmmmm.
Did LBJ visit Askin to facilitate the CIA drug incursion into Sydney????
Hmmm. Just occurred to me, as U$ presidents don’t visit these shore much…. Clinton was here during his term… and Obama came after he left office….
Posted by: Melaleuca | Apr 30 2025 22:27 utc | 100
The comments to this entry are closed.
My sympathies to anna missed. His contributions here and in his offline life were valuable.
McNamera ended any dispute that it was "terribly wrong" to fight this war years ago. The West made the obvious mistake of not responding to Ho Chi Minh's independence plans at Versailles. Now we hope that an independent Vietnam can also be independent of Communist dictatorship, to be truly free.
Posted by: Topa Inka | Apr 30 2025 14:56 utc | 1