Fellow E. Europeans - let's show our gratitude to the west by posting "thanks" here!

[TCO]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fellow Viet Namese-let's show our gratitude to the west by posting "F**

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

a) It was a war zone

KH, the boat people exodus occurred after the war.

[KrazyHorse]

I'm not up on all the details here. Why do you claim hundreds of thousands? Also, don't you think that the Ho Chi Minh trail (people on the ground) was more destabilizing?

Nope. the Viet Cong/NVA were using a trail to transport war materiel. There were certainly disruptions in life along border villages, but compared to carpet bombing an entire strip of the country, this was a minor inconvenience.

I'm not familiar with all the details of our "support". I love the vagueness of that term

Support means actually sending loads and loads of small arms, land mines and hand-held AA rockets in this case. This isn't moral support I'm talking about.

Let's not get into the semantic arguement of what is communism. They called themselves communists as did Mao and they identified themselves with the communist movement/ideology. Consider them Communists with a capital C if you want

So? I already called the "self-styled Communists". What you originally quoted me on was a response to a post by somebody (Saras?) which claimed that even if the US made mistakes, they were only in execution, not intent. I pointed out the Khmer as an example of an organization which was ideologically repellant to the Reagan admin (and to me, BTW), but which was nevertheless supported by them in order to play power games with the 2nd world.

Heck, you could be right. Or you could be wrong. We made common cause with USSR during WWII after all

Despite the label of a "Cold War", Russian tanks weren't advancing on Tokyo at the time, so the analogy with the USSR/US alliance of WWII is strained.

[Bereta_Eder]

Roman is studying at a german university; he propably has liberal profesors who are interesting; he is discovering all that is good in the west all in once...

it's easy to be amazed if you are not used to it..

he'll come around eventually

Hell, I had become a liberal for a few months

untill a nice professor (and also a EU cadre) said : «The west helping the free people of Greece in 1945» I mean hey little fooker, do you have any idea what you are talking about?

The «free people» were remorseless murderers just like the communists were. There was nothing «noble» in the civil war as far as I am concerned. Britain did everything it could to make it happen.

And America helped «the free people» because it would be a serious blow to even risk not having Greece be a nice little doggie to the west much more risking losing it to the east block.

G E O P O L I T I C S

all else is mambo jambo nonsense my friends

the west wanted the communists dead and burried. The west didn't want the reds to influence greek politics not even in the slightest degree so it actively promoted a civil war to get rid of them. There was room for compromise between the reds and the state but they weren't given a chance.

And of course the reds didn't see through this... much to blame to both sides and the west.

And the real tragedy was that this was just after the WW2 where the greeks had performed superhuman acts against the Italians and the Germans. And the majority of the greeks just wanted to F*CKING RELAX!


Disclaimer:
this is my interpratation of the facts as well as many others. It's not the only one.

[KrazyHorse]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fellow Viet Namese-let's show our gratitude to the west by posting &quot

Originally posted by GP


KH, the boat people exodus occurred after the war.

Sorry. Should have said it was a zone of war devastation. The North was bombed into rubble by the end, and there would be incredible hardships to undergo before things got back to pre-war (inasmuch as such a thing existed in Indochina) status. A lot of those folks pulled a "the grass is greener" outine and pulled up stakes.

[TCO]

Originally posted by KrazyHorse

1. Nope. the Viet Cong/NVA were using a trail to transport war materiel. There were certainly disruptions in life along border villages, but compared to carpet bombing an entire strip of the country, this was a minor inconvenience.

2. Despite the label of a "Cold War", Russian tanks weren't advancing on Tokyo at the time, so the analogy with the USSR/US alliance of WWII is strained.

1. Maybe so. I could see how troops on the ground occupying part of a country might be more of an invasion than bombing. My understanding is that the bombing was directed against NVA targets inside Cambodia. What's this strip of which you talk?

2. I honestly don't understand what you mean here. Surely you can find many examples of regimes that we've supported at one time and not at another.

[TCO]

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Fellow Viet Namese-let's show our gratitude to the west by posting &

Originally posted by KrazyHorse


Sorry. Should have said it was a zone of war devastation. The North was bombed into rubble by the end, and there would be incredible hardships to undergo before things got back to pre-war (inasmuch as such a thing existed in Indochina) status. A lot of those folks pulled a "the grass is greener" outine and pulled up stakes.

So why did the exodus occur only after the war? And primarily by South Vietnamese? And quite often by SV who'd been in concentration camps.

[axi]

And the majority of the greeks just wanted to F*CKING RELAX!

Are you suffering from a post-civil war syndrom, paiktis?

[Bereta_Eder]

Axi, not all greek people were communist rebels or state fascists.

The majority just wanted to relax and to live their lives.

[TCO]

slackers!!

[OneFootInTheGrave]

While that is certainly true (about having fun and relaxing), as well as the west only looking for their own interests (or better said the rich bastadrs in the west felt that the heat is on), you would not be relaxing and having fun for the next 50 years if some radical commies won. Hell maybe we would have been living in the same state :P (especially Markos lol)

not really, but fun only under some liberal commie that died at the end of last century - oops 19th century (I still live in 19xx ).

I think at the end you were on the better end of the table.

[Bereta_Eder]

GP, defeating a country 6 times bigger than you (Italy) and then doing relentless guerilla war against the Germans takes up a lot of energy

"From this point on, we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes, but that heroes fight like the Greeks"

Winston Churchill, 1941

Of course there was polarization after WW2 but the people wanted to heal their wounds. Instead they plunged into a civil war (that maybe was even more destructive than WW2 itself! it definitely was socially)

OneFoot

WHAT? The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Greece

Actually the Russians through Yugoslavia were LIMITELY supporting the reds also.

America was ACTIVELY supporting the ones fighting the reds (=the greek state).

ANd I agree with you. Greece being on the red block would be bad but the civil war was not so much for that as it was to eliminate red influence in Greece.

[OneFootInTheGrave]

Originally posted by paiktis22
OneFoot

WHAT? The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Greece

That'd be fun eh. We would beat US in basketball

But there was no chance for it even if Greece became red at the time. *sigh*

[joespaniel]

On the origional topic of E. Europe:

My grandfather was Polish, and joined the US Army September 1st, 1939. I assume we all know the significance of that move.

After fighting as an Infantryman in the 5th Infantry Division (Pattons 3rd Army) across North Africa, Sicily, France and Germany and being wounded twice, helping Hilter's Nazi empire to its grave, he was "rewarded" with the Soviet occupation of Poland. I know this was a additional slap in the face for him.

Fortunately he lived to see it free again. He passed away in 1993, right before I shipped out for Somolia.

I am very proud of him, to say the least. This is a good topic for "Thanksgiving". Thanks to everyone who did what they had to when the chips were down.

I have no illusions about the benevolence of everything the US and the West does, I have firsthand experience with US foriegn policy going bad. But the US is not as simplistic as Paiktis would believe, and is not made up of evil, self-centered people.

Americans have sacrificed alot and have worked very hard to get where we are today. I think many younger people got a wake-up call 2 1/2 months ago, and maybe things will change again. Hopefully for the better.

Paiktis - I personaly dont support US policy toward Turkey, especialy when it comes at the expense of Greece, but its a back-burner issue here so to speak. Most Americans dont even know anything about it. I wouldnt have a clue myself if I didnt work for some Greek guys who talked about stuff "at home" in Greece.

If it makes you feel any better, I think we backed the wrong horse. Too bad for you I am not important enough to do anything about it.

[Bereta_Eder]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave


That'd be fun eh. We would beat US in basketball

Eaaasily Can you imagine a Split '85 (might have the year wrong) with Galis

BTW the next 50 years weren't «fun». There were prosecutions just like there were prosecutions in Yugoslavia (the only difference being the ones (reds) were chasing the others and in the other country the others were chasing the ones )

A clarification: by living their lives I don't mean PARTYIIING! but living in P E A C E
The only way to have done that was to compromise. The west didn't want that.


joespaniel thanks But is is all realpolitiks

[Saras]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave


That'd be fun eh. We would beat US in basketball

The US??? BAH! Lithuania would have Greece for breakfast, Yugo for lunch and dine on the Yanks!

LIETUVA!!!