coastie
Hallelujah Adonai Yeshua!
- Apr 6, 2002
- 5,395
- 48
- 43
- Faith
- Baptist
- Marital Status
- Married
- Politics
- US-Libertarian
The list of corruption of the south is tremendous, and much of it was done by the advice of the US.
The US advised against the corrupt election. This is why the US was more Popular in South Vietnam than their own government. Yes, many South Vietnamese fought against the US during Tet, but they were not South Vietnamese loyalists, they were people strategically placed and recruited by the North Vietnamese.
Despite a UN order to hold elections on unification, the US and South Veitnam refused to do so. At this point, Diem blatantly told the US to leave his nation (ie. South Vietnam). The US refused to pull out its advisors.
The US wanted the nation to be capable of protecting itself. Had the US pulled out then, the South wouldn't have stood a chance of an imminent overwhelming of North Vietnamese troops. 5 minutes after the US did finally pull out North Vietnamese tanks rolled into the city and took over.
The US helped put into place a brutal dictator named Ngo Dinh Diem, who proceeded to use American funds to destroy political opponents, Buddhists, and suspected communists.
So the US funded a person who could eliminate communism. Unfortunate that it had to be done this way, and it is also unfortunate that it didn't work. The US didn't do with the motive of ruiing the lives of the people, the ultimate goal was to eliminate communism. It was a blunder and a mistake but the motives were not to opress.
It was the US forcibly preventing the independence and unification of a 3rd world nation.
Apparently that wasn't evident to our troops.
The US dropped roughly twice as many bombs (in raw tonnage) on Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, than had been dropped by all sides in WW2. The American policy of attrition, where the goal of any platoon was to simply kill more of the enemy than they kill of you.
Yep, that pretty much sums up war there strathyboy.
The American policy of jugular diplomacy: Kissinger presented a treaty to the North Vietnamese, and when the North Vietnamese refused to sign immediately, Nixon launched a 1 month bombing campaign.
Interesting how that can be twisted around to make the US look like a bunch of warmongering jerks, eh?
While the treaty sat on his desk for almost a month, the dictator used the cease fire to send more troops, guns, and artillery. This was an act of war and the US acted appropriately.
Operation Rolling Thunder, designed to bomb the North into submission by totally destroying it's infrastructure and desire to make war.
Or subdue the spread of communism, depends on how you look at it.
More than 1 million Vietnamese died during the war, roughly three quarters of which were civilians. If you want, I can find the exact statistics on how many hospitals, schools, etc. were destroyed.
Oh yeah, a lot of people died, but there is a very thin line between civilian and soldier during that war. There were many "hospitals, schools, etc." destroyed in both countries by both parties. They make great places for the North Vietnamese Soldiers to congregate, and when the US bombs then it sure makes the US look bad.
There was one that held quite a bit of soldiers' family that was destroyed. It looked bad, but it was a deliberate attempt to turn the south Vietnamese against the US.
And lastly, Americans turned any potential vietcong or north Vietnamese soldier or spy over to the South Vietnamese, who tended to torture and then kill these people. Americans continued to do this, despite the fact that they knew what would happen.
The goal was to make South Vietnam capable. If they violate the Geneva Convention statutes, then they would be held accountable as would the US.
In Vietnam, a majority of the South wanted communism. In addition, China sent over a million troops into Korea. There was no such outside aid for the Vietnamese.
I've never heard anything about the majority of the South wanting communism. Three years of history courses and countless documentaries and I have never heard that. Can someone verify this for me?
As for aid, you must be kidding. Russia and China sent them so much artillery and intelligence. That's a large contributor as to why the US failed.
Lastly, just a simple question: is it right to force people who want a communist system to live under a dictatorship?
Hardly a simple question, considering the majority of Communist nations are not only ruled by harsh dictatorships, but are also destitute. Communism gives a leader too much authority which leads to corruptness, which leads to destitution.
Upvote
0