Why does Hollywood now eulogise the Vietnam fiasco?

[Felch]

They weren't voted out of office. They made damn sure that they rigged those elections.

Diem got more votes than there were registered voters in a lot of districts. Cheating, but hardly an electoral defeat.

[OldWarrior_42]

This is not as simple as it sounds. Several questions instantly pop up:

You're right , to an extent. The bigger question IS a little vague. But bigger questions are what leads to the smaller more direct questions that you ask in return.

Fair enough, I think... and a good way to try to look at things.

I'll see if I can actually answer them , according to what I think.

1. How can we tell if the right to self-determination for a people is abused?

I think most people in most countries are intelligent enough to pick out the dictatorial regimes.... to find the proponents of genocide, murder, religious persecution,forced labor camps etc.

I think that if people are being persecuted and live in fear of their life, we can be pretty sure they don't have much to say about their right to self determination.

2. What does "better position" mean? What does it entail?

My views of a better position would entail the right to speak or express your views freely without persecution. To have the right to vote, to have the right that the voting is ensured of being done on an up and up basis.

A country that could handle the financial burden of helping lesser have not countries. Also , a country with the technology to improve one's way of life.

I realize most of these things are subjective... my views. I live here in the US, so I am obviously influenced by some of the freedoms I enjoy. But I also think that most civilized and humane countries can come to some sort of agreement as to what it would entail.

(Just don't use the US way of voting )

2a. "Better postion" in what?

In the way people are allowed to live their life as they see fit and to have some say in how their way of life is influenced by their Gov't.

Pretty much explained in the question before.... again, though, just my opinion.

3. What kind of help?

Financial, technological, advisory, and possibly militarily if no other choice. And by that I mean, if someone is killing people to stifle their voice being heard, or killing them for their views, beliefs etc... You get the picture, then I feel that if all other means to put an end to that situation fail, military would be the next option. Forcing someone, that is seen as bad by the majority of the world, to stop being bad.

Very Utopian of me , ain't it. Also unrealistic probably in my lifetime. Oh well.... Sh*t happens.

As you can see, I am very much in favor of one single Freedom believing World Gov't to some day be what this planet achieves. You know, Like The United Federation of Earth or some Star Trekkish crap like that. But we need the Vulcans... definitely the Vulcans.

[Alexander's Horse]

The principle that is most commonly applied in international relations is that countries should not interfere in the internal affiars of other countries - this does not mean that countries cannot have an opinion and it express it to their neighbour or impose measures in reaction to what is going on in a country, but generally speaking countries are loathe to intervene directly.

This means for example there are limits to what can be done to help montagnards in Vietnam.

[OldWarrior_42]

I know. As I have said on quite a few different forums.... I am a Utopian at heart but a realist in practice. What is and what should be are generally two different things... at least in my view.

[Alexander's Horse]

Well hopefully the international media coverage will help the Montagnards - most countries worry about their international image.

The U.S. can also raise it bilaterally with Vietnam - that can be more effective than people think.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

What often goes unmentioned is that with the exception of a ten mile strip of land south of the Chinese border, everything in North Vietnam was bombed. As in the recent war in Afganistan, the military was actually running out of sites to bomb, and kept expanding their list of targets which had to be destroyed in order to win the war. 2.2 million Vietnamese, North and South lost their lives, millions more in Laos and Camboida. Short of trying to repeat the disaster of the French, I don't see what else the US could possibly have done within reason to escalate the war.

The true strategic question for U.S. forces in Vietnam was the same question which was asked in the Gulf War. Are we willing to take this regime out of power directly? The answer in both instances was no, but in both cases actions were taken which gave us numerous tactical victories and a strategic impasse to show for it. The U.S. lost the Vietnam War the minute they decided to fight but not invade the North.

As for the collapse of the South, it has two important elements.

1) The complete withdrawl of all American assistance to the ARVN by the radical class of '74 congress. This included fuel, ammunition and spares necessary to keep ARVN forces combat effective (oxymoronic for most formations). These were promised to the South in order to get them to sign on to the 'Peace' treaty, as was assistance in the event of an attack from the NVA.

Such an attack occurred in 1972, when Giap's troops threw everything they had against the South. They miscalculated twice, first in underestimating the ARVN troops who had improved markedly since the days where Americans were doing most of the ground fighting, and secondly they miscalculated Nixon's will and ability to bring about withering (B-52) firepower against their mobile formations. The losses were enormous, almost a Tet offensive rate of loss, this time for the NVA.

2) The second element was psychological. The trauma of the U.S. abandonment freaked President Thieu out, and he began to distrust his U.S. advisors. He decided to pull out of the Central Highlands which were not economically productive but served as the front line of most of the heavy fighting, and use all of his troops to defend the productive southern 2 / 3 of SV and the coast.

This was a huge strategic error, as defending in the Central Highlands was made easier because of the rugged terrain canalized attacks, and created a strategic as well as many tactical bottlenecks. Just as he was hurrying to redeploy his troops the NVA was massing for their dry season offensive. They were still licking their wounds from '72, and the strategic goals were limited to improving their postion by siezing a couple of cities in the Central Highlands.

When the NVA heard of Thieu's plans (Commie spies are everywhere!) they quickly redrew their plans and launched some of their forces early in an attempt to hit the ARVN while they trying to move. Needless to say this worked well, and everyone played their part in destroying the ARVN on all sides. Congress' part was to prohibit the US military from crushing the NVA columns early on.

So it's not completely unreasonable to say the Congress abandoned South Vietnam to the disgust of very many diplomats, soldiers and ordinary citizens. It's important to remember that support for the war at it's lowest point in the 1960s was still around 50%. The hippies may have gotten the press coverage, but they were losing the political battle by dividing the left's vote (as in France recently). A lot of Americans were angry about the way we promised the South Vietnamese that we would protect them in 1973, and sold them down the river in 1975.

The fact that this wasn't particularly well-covered by the press shouldn't surprise anyone. The press was blinded by their own limited viewpoint, and neither the press nor the political establishment was ready for the sea change of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
I respectfully beg to differ - I know cause I've been there - the hill tribes are an exception and move relatively freely around the region between China, Burma, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. If they want to go, they can go across the mountains - there is noone to stop them

Oh boy, one workers paradise after another. Thailand's fine overall, but it's not good to be up in the North where all of those warriors, warlords, drug armies and gem and lumber bosses are. Burma doesn't look all that bad, at least the government's completely incompetent.

[Alexander's Horse]

Actually if the hilltribes had any sense they'd all make a beeline for Thailand - its the pick of the bunch.

[TCO]

I agree with Sikander's view that we abodonded SV. I thiikn we could have kept the NV out of SV with enough assistance.