The Viet Nam War by Ken Burns

DaSleeper

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May 27, 2007
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I hope you realize a meme is the response of someone with nothing intelligent to say but has to make some kind of attention-seeking noise.

I remember Viet Nam. It was on TV all the time. Life Magazine - with constant red-white-green - was a part of my youth. I also remember a friend's brother who'd grown up on tales of honours and glory in war - and signed up in Buffalo. Most, I remember the bitter person who mostly came home.

Rest in Peace, Wayde
Ya-but....I do my own memes so those are my own thoughts as much as your posts are yours.............

So what makes you better than anyone else... huh?
 

petros

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I hope you realize a meme is the response of someone with nothing intelligent to say but has to make some kind of attention-seeking noise.

I remember Viet Nam. It was on TV all the time. Life Magazine - with constant red-white-green - was a part of my youth. I also remember a friend's brother who'd grown up on tales of honours and glory in war - and signed up in Buffalo. Most, I remember the bitter person who mostly came home.

Rest in Peace, Wayde

In the 70's my folks owned a campground/beach resort in the Okanogan. We had serveral who dodged the draft or deserted and stationed themselves in Canada. Archie was one who my dad helped out with work and get into a house. The poor guy was injured by shrapnel on his second tour and they were going to send him back a third. He was pretty f-cked up with PTSD and had night terrors and would awake screaming which freaked out other guests in the tenting area. He was a great guy who remained a family friend until he passed away about 10 years ago.
 

Curious Cdn

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This will not be popular.

The original justification for military action in Indochina by men like JFK, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara was to stop the spread of Communism. However naive that sounds in retrospect, a case can be made that the war waged for that end was ultimately a success. When it was all over, Vietnam fell, Laos fell, Cambodia fell ... but that was all. The Communist insurgency in Malaya had been successfully defeated by the British and it did not return. Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, The Philippines were all vulnerable places but Communism spread no further.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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This will not be popular.

The original justification for military action in Indochina by men like JFK, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara was to stop the spread of Communism. However naive that sounds in retrospect, a case can be made that the war waged for that end was ultimately a success. When it was all over, Vietnam fell, Laos fell, Cambodia fell ... but that was all. The Communist insurgency in Malaya had been successfully defeated by the British and it did not return. Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, The Philippines were all vulnerable places but Communism spread no further.

We also discovered after the Soviet Union fell that the Sovs were astounded by our resolve and our willingness to spend blood and treasure to counter their machinations. It caused them to slow their roll on their expansion plans.

We might want to keep that in mind in dealing with Putin, except that the Trumpchumps like Putin.
 

MHz

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We also discovered after the Soviet Union fell that the Sovs were astounded by our resolve and our willingness to spend blood and treasure to counter their machinations. It caused them to slow their roll on their expansion plans.

We might want to keep that in mind in dealing with Putin, except that the Trumpchumps like Putin.
You lost the Vietnam war, you didn't save anybody. Considering how it went for the Iranian people between 1953-1979 they are lucky they didn't get saved by the US. Russia wasn't lying about Vietnam, the American Government was. Stupid is thick in this one.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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You lost the Vietnam war, you didn't save anybody. Considering how it went for the Iranian people between 1953-1979 they are lucky they didn't get saved by the US. Russia wasn't lying about Vietnam, the American Government was. Stupid is thick in this one.

Take your pills.
 

lone wolf

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This will not be popular.

The original justification for military action in Indochina by men like JFK, Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara was to stop the spread of Communism. However naive that sounds in retrospect, a case can be made that the war waged for that end was ultimately a success. When it was all over, Vietnam fell, Laos fell, Cambodia fell ... but that was all. The Communist insurgency in Malaya had been successfully defeated by the British and it did not return. Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, The Philippines were all vulnerable places but Communism spread no further.
The saddest part of 'Vietnam' started out as a nationalist movement to oust Vichy French colonial powers - with Japan's encouragement during WW2. When the war ended, south of the seventeenth parallel (not a part of ancestral Vietnam) was surrendered to Britain. Unlike war-exhausted Britain, who chose to bow to the people’s wishes in South Vietnam, Burma, and Malaya, France had every intention of re-establishing its colonial empire. Ironically, the movement to oust the French was supported by an anti-colonialist United States.

American aid ceased quite suddenly, following Mao Tse-Tung’s 1949 Communist victory in China. Shortly thereafter, in 1950, Red China and Soviet Russia both recognized Ho Chi Minh’s government. Ho failed to realize that as a friend to the US, he was not permitted to be on good terms with neighbours on unfriendly terms with Uncle Sam. In short order, the Independence Front (Vietminh) was hijacked by the Communist movement.
 

Tecumsehsbones

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The saddest part of 'Vietnam' started out as a nationalist movement to oust Vichy French colonial powers - with Japan's encouragement during WW2. When the war ended, south of the seventeenth parallel (not a part of ancestral Vietnam) was surrendered to Britain. Unlike war-exhausted Britain, who chose to bow to the people’s wishes in South Vietnam, Burma, and Malaya, France had every intention of re-establishing its colonial empire. Ironically, the movement to oust the French was supported by an anti-colonialist United States.

American aid ceased quite suddenly, following Mao Tse-Tung’s 1949 Communist victory in China. Shortly thereafter, in 1950, Red China and Soviet Russia both recognized Ho Chi Minh’s government. Ho failed to realize that as a friend to the US, he was not permitted to be on good terms with neighbours on unfriendly terms with Uncle Sam. In short order, the Independence Front (Vietminh) was hijacked by the Communist movement.

Even more ironically, a young Vietnamese independence leader requested a meeting with President Wilson at Versailles in 1919 to ask for support for his country's independence. President Wilson refused to meet with him.

His name was Ho Chi Minh.
 

Jinentonix

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It's a shame that people who served were treated so badly.


The other notable thing is the demonizing and dehumanizing of 'the enemy', which is an important part of EVERY war, even today.
Oh for sure. The anti-Japanese propaganda that the US was pumping out during WW2 was every bit as offensive and racist as the nazi's anti-Jewish propaganda. Minus that nasty genocide aspect of course.

Unlike war-exhausted Britain, who chose to bow to the people’s wishes in South Vietnam, Burma, and Malaya,
Not quite. Near the end of WW2 before Roosevelt died, he would occasionally "remind" Churchill that the war was also a war for freedom of self determination. He put a lot of pressure on Churchill to rethink Britain's policy of empire and give the colonies the right to self-determine if they want their sovereignty or if they're content as a colony. Some countries, like Canada, opted to remain a colony after WW2. Others chose full sovereignty.
 

MHz

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Minus that nasty genocide aspect of course.
What genocide?? Perhaps you and the collective should start telling the truth for once.
[youtube]acs10k4HLxI[/youtube]
The Jew-ish Holocaust Is A Hoax

It always is.
Not in this case, there is lots of documentation available. You just don't want answers that don't fit with your propaganda.

[youtube]-2AVCrbGwnE[/youtube]
The Lies that Led to the Vietnam War: Why the U.S. Got Involved and Why It Failed (1997)
 

Jinentonix

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What genocide?? Perhaps you and the collective should start telling the truth for once.
[youtube]acs10k4HLxI[/youtube]
The Jew-ish Holocaust Is A Hoax
Oh f*ck off dickhead. I suppose the Slavic holocaust was also a hoax? Good god man, if brains were electricity you couldn't short-circuit the light in a firelfy's ass. The documented evidence is overwhelming. The pictures, the films, the stories from Allied soldiers who stumbled upon the various camps. Albert Speer must have been a secret Jew or something because he certainly acknowledged what had been happening at that time.

Yep, you just keep getting your retarded anti-Jewish rhetoric from Stormfront or wherever. I'll take documented history over your idiocy any day.
 

MHz

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Oh f*ck off dickhead. I suppose the Slavic holocaust was also a hoax? Good god man, if brains were electricity you couldn't short-circuit the light in a firelfy's ass. The documented evidence is overwhelming. The pictures, the films, the stories from Allied soldiers who stumbled upon the various camps. Albert Speer must have been a secret Jew or something because he certainly acknowledged what had been happening at that time.
Really?? Post something from this century that backs your claims up. All the old witnesses have been shown to not have a clue what the fuk they are talking about. Now is your chance to open your big, big, big mouth.

Yep, you just keep getting your retarded anti-Jewish rhetoric from Stormfront or wherever. I'll take documented history over your idiocy any day.
David Cole did his research, that it doesn't fit with the bullshit you believe is why you are trying to discredit him. Very fuking lame on your part.
Try posting some.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/ny-rabbi-not-even-1-million-jews-killed-in-holocaust/
'At least five million of the six million were total goyim,' ultra-Orthodox rabbi declares NY rabbi: ‘Not even 1 million’ Jews killed in Holocaust
 

Curious Cdn

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We also discovered after the Soviet Union fell that the Sovs were astounded by our resolve and our willingness to spend blood and treasure to counter their machinations. It caused them to slow their roll on their expansion plans.

We might want to keep that in mind in dealing with Putin, except that the Trumpchumps like Putin.

The Trumpchumps admire dictators, seemingly.
 

Mowich

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Episode 6: Things fall Apart

And boy did they ever. Beginning with the Tet Offensive the year would prove to be one of the most divisive and bloody both at home and abroad for American people. In Vietnam, it saw the shooting of a Viet Cong by an ARVN officer captured by an American photographer then shown across the nation and around the world on the nightly news. Martin Luther King and Bobbie Kennedy would be assassinated. Riots would erupt in the streets and cities across the nation and fires would come within blocks of the White House in Washington as blacks took to the streets over Kings death. 46 people died.

Students would occupy a university and force the resignation of the entire administration. And Lyndon Johnson would finally call it quits - a man broken by a war that he had never once had the guts to come clean about to the people of his country and the world. The US was not the only country to see rioting that year as the world appeared to be devolving into chaos when city after city erupted in violent protests.

The story of what happened to an American doctor by the name of Hal Kushner was a recurring one throughout this episode. The crash of his chopper into a mountain side, his wait for help while trying to keep another wounded soldier alive, then decision to finally make his way out after waiting for 3 days with no sign of help only to see two choppers landing where the crash happened once he had reached the lowlands. He was not seen by anyone in the choppers. He was captured by the Viet Cong and forced to walk in bare feet for a month with wounds to his upper body, to an internment camp where his wound was treated with a red hot poker through and through the wound followed by a dose of Mercurochrome and an aspirin. There he was told, after refusing to make an anti-war statement and would die before doing so, that he would find 'that dieing is very easy, living is the difficult thing...........living, is the difficult thing.' His story continues in further episodes.

The slaughter of over 2,800 S Vietnamese people following the Tet offensive and the re-taking of Saigon by the ARVN and American troops and the subsequent finding of their bodies was not, I think, something that the current government in Vietnam will be very happy to see aired but is just as important as the revelations about other atrocities committed during the war.

One of the quotes that really stuck with me came from Westmoreland after the Tet offensive when asked what had happened. "The enemy very deceitfully took advantage of the Tet truce in order to create maximum consternation" he told a reporter on film. Like what, Le Duan was supposed to call him up and say' hey Westie, guess what we are going to bomb the piss out of you on New Year's Eve? Really?

Another was Johnson telling a journalist after being assured several times that he would not be quoted, that what was being reported was 'all lies'.
 

gopher

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I was the same age as most of the young men who were being slaughtered in that conflict and was profoundly affected by the continuous and, what I saw at the time as, pointless deaths. I was also grateful that my government had wisely chosen to stay out of it. After watching the first four episodes of the 10-part series, I have to say that my thinking at the time has been validated, completely.

Listening to Kennedy and Johnson express their doubts about entering the conflict and their continued worries once they had embarked upon a campaign against the Viet Cong, leaves me wondering how so-called intelligent men could so baldly ignore the lessons of history. Had no one bothered to study what had happened to the French after their invasion of the country and their subsequent withdrawal after finally realizing they had zero chance of prevailing against the Vietnamese?

It is no wonder to me that the US is so divided today what with the lies and cover-up of the true involvement of US forces in the conflict. It was an ignominious period in the history of that nation and one that saw the pointless deaths of millions of people - both combatants and civilians alike. It almost makes me sick to my stomach to hear the various Presidents and their advisors lie to the American public time after time after time knowing that they themselves were questioning why Americans were dying on foreign soil.

I give full credit to Ken Burns and his exemplary crew for doing a very credible job of portraying both sides of the conflict.






All those who endorsed the treasonous Johnson/Nixon war should have read The Ugly American in order to realize the phoniness and unwinnable nature of the war. Only after the Pentagon Papers were disclosed did the vast majority of politicians and media finally speak out against that war. Too bad they had such short memories or they would have condemned Bush's war of imperialistic terrorism on Iraq because the excuses used to "justify" it were almost exactly the same as those used by the Vietnam war's apologists.

Both wars were clearly intended to enrich the wealthy. But none dare call it treason.