When Bush hatred makes you a moron...

[Imran Siddiqui]

Re: Who says Apolyton isn't educational

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Yes. I found an interesting essay on the subject. What Would Strauss Do?

Very interesting. Thank you . I think I'd most identify myself with Fukayama among the neoconservatives. I'm not a die hard one by any means, and vasselate between it and realism.

Of course, my being a Nietszcheian sometimes conflicts with neoconservatism as well (I'm not into the whole absolute values crap that some expound... I just like liberalism and democracy in political life is all.. yes, yes, I'm aware that Nietszche wasn't as fond of those things ).

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Even China was linked to the Soviets and they were on the ropes until the Soviets gave Manchuria to them along with most of the Japanese occupation army's weapons.

According to Wikipedia, the exact opposite happened.

With the sudden end of WWII in East Asia, Soviet forces flooded into the Manchurian Provinces to seize Japanese positions and to take the surrender of the 700,000 Japanese troops still stationed in the region. Later in the year Chiang Kai-shek came to the painful realization that he lacked the resources to prevent a CPC takeover of Manchuria following the scheduled Soviet departure, he therefore made a deal with the Russians to delay their withdrawal until he had moved enough of his best-trained men and modern material into the region.

There goes another hoary old anti-communist myth.

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Out of a country of 56 million? It looks good on tv, but it was a rather small part of the population. In addition, you have to consider that a good number of those folks were either ethnic Chinese (and thus associated with the 1,000 year Chinese occupation) or were French speaking Catholic Vietnamese, and thus associated with the dictatorship in South Vietnam. These were people who'd been killing Budhist monks, slaughtering peasants in the countryside, etc. I'm not gonna argue that the Communists weren't brutal, but it ain't like the people who fled were all innocent victims.

Where does innocense enter into it?

A million who could afford to left. How many didn't have the money and were trapped?

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Uhm, to "remain free" one would have had to have been free in the first place. Korea only became mostly democratic in the 90s, and is still quite thuggish today. The same goes for Taiwan. The force applied by the West was to defend brutal dicatorships of the worst kind.

As opposed to imposing Communist dictatorships of the worst kind.

I'd say the American-British record for imposing/defending regimes reads a bit better than that of the Soviets-PRC.

[Agathon]

Yes. I found an interesting essay on the subject. What Would Strauss Do?

How could anyone tell? It's stock in trade for that bunch never to reveal their intentions.

A lack of respect for the public declaration of truth = Straussians. An Orwellian bunch of elitist twits if ever there was one.

[Agathon]

Defending US actions in Vietnam is about as respectable as defending the holocaust.

[Kuciwalker]

Yay! Godwin!

[Agathon]

It's about time.

Part of the idiocy of the whole Vietnam thing was that Americans are prone to believe that if various disparate groups call themselves "communists" or espouse some version of Marx, that they are all elements of a global conspiracy.

In fact, many "Marxist" revolutionaries simply had local or nationalist goals and like many before them, got hold of the latest revolutionary ideology as an intelllectual support for their revolution. Nixon was actually smart enough to realize this. A pity that no-one seems to have made the connection in the case of "Islamism" yet.

The July 26th movement was originally aimed at liberating Cuba from foreign dominated dictatorship. Guevara was the person who saw it as the first move in a global revolution, but he was in the minority.

Similarly, the Vietnamese really just wanted to have their own country, something which had been denied them for hundreds of years.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Agathon

Yes. I found an interesting essay on the subject. What Would Strauss Do?

How could anyone tell? It's stock in trade for that bunch never to reveal their intentions.

A lack of respect for the public declaration of truth = Straussians. An Orwellian bunch of elitist twits if ever there was one.

"public declaration of 'intention'"! Truth is an entirely different thread .

[notyoueither]

Originally posted by Agathon
Similarly, the Vietnamese really just wanted to have their own country, something which had been denied them for hundreds of years.

Too bad they didn't settle for the 'own' country they had and insisted on taking over someone elses.

[Agathon]

Too bad they didn't settle for the 'own' country they had and insisted on taking over someone elses.

Eh? The partition was forced by the US and local fascists contrary to the expected will of the Vietnamese. The Americans removed the possibility of elections (which was the point of the Geneva accord - as was "reunification") because they believed (correctly) that Ho Chi Minh would get 80% of the vote.

South Vietnam was a fictional state created solely in an attempt to deny the fact that the vast majority of Vietnamese supported Ho Chi Minh. The US basically attacked Vietnam in an attempt to "defend" a partition that the Vietnamese didn't want.

This is even admitted in the Pentagon papers IIRC. If the US brass can admit it at the time, why can't you 30 years later.

Jesus, the Americans didn't even like the "South" Vietnamese and colluded in the coup that removed Diem.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Even China was linked to the Soviets and they were on the ropes until the Soviets gave Manchuria to them along with most of the Japanese occupation army's weapons.

No. The CCP was mostly home grown. The Soviet tie was mostly limited to a faction inside the CCP. It is widely held that the Long March was caused by this faction's incompetence in handling military matters.

As I pointed out before, the CCP did not occupy Manchuria for long after the end of WWII. KMT, with the help of the US, forced them out from major cities. As a result they didn't get much of the heavy weapons either.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Agathon
In fact, many "Marxist" revolutionaries simply had local or nationalist goals and like many before them, got hold of the latest revolutionary ideology as an intelllectual support for their revolution.

Ho was first and foremost a nationalist. He approached the US for aid first, but was turned down.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Agathon

Too bad they didn't settle for the 'own' country they had and insisted on taking over someone elses.

Eh? The partition was forced by the US and local fascists contrary to the expected will of the Vietnamese. The Americans removed the possibility of elections (which was the point of the Geneva accord - as was "reunification") because they believed (correctly) that Ho Chi Minh would get 80% of the vote.

South Vietnam was a fictional state created solely in an attempt to deny the fact that the vast majority of Vietnamese supported Ho Chi Minh. The US basically attacked Vietnam in an attempt to "defend" a partition that the Vietnamese didn't want.

This is even admitted in the Pentagon papers IIRC. If the US brass can admit it at the time, why can't you 30 years later.

Jesus, the Americans didn't even like the "South" Vietnamese and colluded in the coup that removed Diem.

Agathon, there is an element of truth in what you say here. But there is a great deal of misinformation as well. There was no "government of South Vietnam" in 1954. There was only the government of Vietnam, which was purportedly governed the whole of Vietnam. This government was formed years before, I think in the late 1940s. In 1954, the peace accords agreed that the Viet Minh would administer the North and the French would administer the South. Then in a couple of years there would be national elections to determine the government of Vietnam. But what happened next was that the French pulled out and left the administration all of the South to the government of Vietnam and particularly to Diem, who was initially was only the prime minister, I believe, but then usurped total power in a phony referendum, essentially terminating the state of Vietnam and establishing the Republic of Vietnam with its capital in Saigon.

As to Vietnam being under foreign occupation for hundreds of years, this is not quite accurate. The French moved into Vietnam in a series of moves during the mid-to late 1800s in response to persecution of Catholics by the emperors of Vietnam. The French didn't take total control of Vietnam until the late 1800s, if I recall correctly, after a war with the Chinese when they intervened. The persecution of the Catholics was very vicious and very reminiscent of what happened to Catholics in the Roman Empire. Think of why we went into Bosnia and why we went into Kosovo. At the time, the French went into Vietnam for the very same reason.

[Ned]

What is very strange about the way US historians report the events in Vietnam is that they totally neglect to report the underlying dynamic of persecution of Catholicism by the Buddists and later the Communists. The very reason the French intervened in Vietnam in the first place in the 1800s was to prevent the total slaughter of of the Catholics by the Buddhists. Later the struggle against the Communists, while led by the French, included a lot of Catholic elements who were struggling for Vietnamese independence but under Catholic rule. After the division of Vietnam in 1954, Catholics from all over Vietnam streamed to the south and set up a new government in Saigon under Diem, who was a Catholic. The problem was that Diem then began to persecute the Buddists. This eventually cost him his life as Kennedy, himself a Catholic, authorized his assassination. Later, when Vietnam fell, the people who fled Vietnam were primarily the Vietnamese Catholics who again feared persecution by the Communists/Buddist who now were in control.

In a small sense, the struggle for Vietnam was a struggle between capitalism and communism. That is the way Washington preferred to see the issue. However, to the Vietnamese, it was a just as must a religious conflict, just like we saw in Bosnia and Kosovo.