Thắng was released on 7 March 1974 under the Paris Peace Accords, having served less than six years of her sentence.
Why in the good lord fuck, is this not in the meme?
Bless you, sir. You are doing the OPs work…
Bad ass.
I just said the same thing about Musk getting a 10 year, trillion dollar contract. As if Tesla will make it another 10 years.
I hate to say it but I said the same thing over a decade ago. Never doubt capital’s ability to self-perpetuate, logic or sense be damned.
What was it that in 2015 had you doubting them already? The master plan was public at that point. That was the year they released the Model X - a pretty good year for them after some development hell. I definitely thought there was a lot to be excited about back then. Not invested, just excited about their cars and hoping for a model 3 in my near future. I’m fully off the wagon now of course, but they had a LOT of success 2015-2018, when that continued hard with the model 3.
I mean off the rip Tesla’s entire existence is a middle finger to public transport, but tbh I hated them the second they let Elon run around calling himself the founder. It was like a slap to wake me up, and when I got to looking into Elon that was enough for me to doubt it all. Once you realize how much of a dumbass he is, all the “inspirational” quotes come across as the ideas of a 12 year old whose dad doesn’t listen to them.
She was sentenced in 1968 for failing an assassination and released less than 6 years later under the terms of the other other Paris Accord in 1974 and the South Vietnamese Government was replaced in 1975.
I was wondering this too. Seems the country as its own thing lasted 20 years from 1955 to 1975 though it existed for longer as separate thing from the North
Failing? Or attempting?
Porque no los dos?
So why is South Vietnam so villified but South Korea isn’t? I’m so confused.
Why is western involvement in Korean war seemingly “good”, but western involvement in Vietnam War = “bad”? At least that’s what I hear from the American Liberals.
Are these both “good”? Both “bad”?
I never really understood it.
Short answer: South Korea was invaded by North Korea, and then defended by the UN (including the USA).
South Vietnam was formed in defiance of the international agreement to hold national elections for the future of Vietnam, and then supported primarily by the USA in the continuation of a civil war.
Sometimes the USA is on the right side. Sometimes the USA is on the wrong side. That’s how history - and the national interests of powerful states - goes.
you could really make a good meme about the Soviet Union boycotting UN security council meeting and the rest of the members just voted in favor of defending South Korea without them.
Also, Usa is not western world, they’re the largest third world dictatorship
At the time they were, and also, if we use the term third world as it was initially, its still first world, by inherent fact of what the term used to stand for.
Edgy
If I were you I would start by reading the Wikipedia articles for both wars. That would be a good baseline knowledge to have before asking such questions.
There’s nothing wrong with asking questions, even if the answers aren’t hard to find using other ways. Like I appreciate the question because it was something that had never even occurred to me, as obvious as it was in hindsight.
And even when the question is being asked in bad faith, discouraging people from asking questions can give them more credibility rather than less, because it looks like (soft) censorship, especially to anyone else who thinks it’s a good question.
Maybe difference is majority of Vietnam actually hated US, even south Vietnam side because of atrocities (Zippo raids, Agent Orange, etc).
On the southern side of Korea, normal people hate communists (asians also just hate each other a lot and rhe North was backed by China) and actively sought US help + didn’t commit as much atrocities so good support and outcome for everyone.
I think every group in close proximity hates each other to some extent, so not entirely surprising there
Without getting into your definition of good or bad, the reason people have different opinions on those wars is because they are very different.
Outside of “south” vs. “north”, being on the same continent, and involving communists they don’t have much in common.
People feel different about things that are different.
I only have the US imperialist perspective here, but how is vietnam these days? This meme seems to support her, but from my understanding the South Vietnam govt were the good guys. Obv thats american teaching so OF COURSE the communist north is evil, but I want to know more than that propaganda. Beyond the fact that they have a different (and given the current state of capitalism, likely more succesful) form of government(thats not the right word. Economics?), was there actually a decent argument to be made that either side was “the good guys”?
It’s a great place to visit, capitalist like everywhere else but;
The US had the largest presence there of all involved. North Vietnam invaded Laos to provide better support to rebels in South Vietnam.
South Vietnam likely shouldn’t have existed because it only existed for the US. Though, the treaty did say it existed.
Vietnam was a proxy war between the US and the Soviet Union, and the North/South Vietnamese were just the toy soldiers they moved around on the playing board. Neither the North or the South were “good guys” or “bad guys,” they were a poor country being exploited by Imperialists from thousands of miles away.
Vietnam wasn’t good or bad, they were the victim. America, The Soviet Union, and France were the Bad Guys.
Vietnam’s doing pretty well, and has popular support. They’re still pretty capitalist, but with some socialist policies. They recently removed the state level of administration, empowering the more local level.
The South government was the evolution of the colonial French government and the Viet monarchy, who went through cycles of brutal military rule and subversion of democracy (winning 133% of votes etc), outside of the rich they were extremely disliked and “the bad guys”.
Yeah, the “20 years hard labor” kinda clued me in that south vietnam mightve been evil. Seriously, no agenda here other than that forced labor is barbaric, but I dont know what it was like to live in north vietnam. Would you say that they were justified in their use of things such as Punji sticks? Ive always thought those were barbaric too, but not quite as barbaric as Agent Orange. Certainly more effective though when factoring in that youre not doing massive damage to your own troops and the environment.
To rephrase, I understand that an occupying/invading force is expected to be met with lethal resistance, but was the situation so bad/ cruel that hypothetical war crimes(i have no idea if the north did war crimes, i would imagine yes, but i know the US did) were justified in self defense?
Also, theyre capitalist now? Were they even communist to begin with, or was that just another example of the US not having any clue what communism is? Or have they just shifted more towards capitalism?
Thanks for taking the time to respond and not attacking me for asking what I can only assume to be a fairly controversial question.
Yeah, the “20 years hard labor” kinda clued me in that south vietnam mightve been evil. Seriously, no agenda here other than that forced labor is barbaric, but I dont know what it was like to live in north vietnam. Would you say that they were justified in their use of things such as Punji sticks? Ive always thought those were barbaric too, but not quite as barbaric as Agent Orange. Certainly more effective though when factoring in that youre not doing massive damage to your own troops and the environment.
I’d say, personally, that the means of resistance used by North Vietnam were largely valid. Having someone stabbed by a stick is not really fundamentally crueler than shooting them, even if infection is what finishes them off. The poor prison conditions are arguable; but the use of torture on PoWs is indefensible. That being said, South Vietnam tortured North Vietnamese PoWs, so it’s not like it was some exceptional sin of NV; we just remember North Vietnam’s because it was inflicted on American PoWs.
Interesting enough, the US government actually stopped using Agent Orange considerably before the end of the war when it came to light that it had deleterious long-term effects on people. The US had enough bad press during the war, it didn’t need ‘knowingly sanctioning chemical warfare’ in addition. Agent Orange was supposed to be just a defoliant - which has its own set of problems, mind you, but is not a war crime, unlike use of chemical weapons.
To rephrase, I understand that an occupying/invading force is expected to be met with lethal resistance, but was the situation so bad/ cruel that hypothetical war crimes(i have no idea if the north did war crimes, i would imagine yes, but i know the US did) were justified in self defense?
The North and the South both performed numerous war crimes, and in both cases, it was… pretty militarily irrelevant to the outcome. I’d say the war crimes weren’t justified in self-defense, but also that that judgement is pretty married to the fact that war crimes generally don’t actually help the cause of self-defense. They’re just the product of soldiers’ and politicians’ anger, without a deeper rational basis.
Also, theyre capitalist now? Were they even communist to begin with, or was that just another example of the US not having any clue what communism is? Or have they just shifted more towards capitalism?
North Vietnam was definitely Communist at the time, but they’ve shifted towards capitalism in the late 80s/90s.
Funny enough, there’s a great documentary called The Fog of War, wherein the American Secretary of Defense during the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara, is interviewed about the whole situation in retrospect. He muses, fairly early on, that one of the core conflicts between the American foreign policy establishment and North Vietnam was that the USA had no fucking clue about the background situation in Vietnam.
the US government actually stopped using Agent Orange considerably before the end of the war when it came to light that it had deleterious long-term effects on people.
It took many veterans developing chloracne and cancer and many civilians giving birth to defective children for the population to start protesting the chemical weapon and the government finally phasing out its use.
It took many veterans developing chloracne and cancer and many civilians giving birth to defective children for the population to start protesting the chemical weapon and the government finally phasing out its use.
… except Agent Orange doesn’t cause cancer that quickly, and the government phased out its use in response to stateside scientific studies with animal experiments, not veteran outcry, which largely didn’t begin until after the Vietnam War as a whole was over and the long-term effects of exposure to Agent Orange began to manifest in veterans.
Operation Ranch Hand lasted almost 10 years. Chloracne and pregnancies don’t take that long. I don’t have sources about the cancers*, but seems entirely possible.
*edit: about how long their onset takes. The one journalistic source I had listed cancers among the reasons for protests.
US troop presence was minimal until '65, and even then, most the US troops exposed would not have immediately gone on to impregnate someone in the States (who, thus, the US government might bother paying attention to), considering multi-year tours were and are the norm for military deployment. Use of Agent Orange was ended in '71.
I appreciate it! I dont really have any more to ask but your knowledge is invaluable. This thread has definitely helped me gain a greater understanding of the sides and backers of the vietnam war better.
Look up a novel from the time, “The Ugly American”
The title character is an American engineer who goes to the mythical country and shows the locals how to build cheap water pumps that make farming hillsides much easier.
Every American who shows up to the place and does good is eventually replaced by a dolt who can’t speak the language.
Vietnam is formally known as the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam. It’s officially communist today. But like most officially-communist countries, they operate with a significant amount of capitalism. In some ways more so than officially capitalist countries, with a lot of businesses being under-regulated and prone to exploitation. If you have a bad experience with a business, you’re much less likely to be able to use the law to make you whole again than you would somewhere with strong consumer protection laws like the EU or Australia. It’s much closer, in some ways, to that libertarian caveat emptor ideal. But it’s also got a strong welfare state that looks a lot more genuinely socialist.
It’s also an authoritarian single-party state, which those of us in the west usually associate with communist countries, but realistically is kind of a separate spectrum. Sometimes the government can step in and use that power for good, such as somewhat regular attempted (though usually ultimately ineffective) crackdowns on corruption, which runs rampant. Sometimes it’s less good, such as also somewhat regular attempted (and likewise ultimately ineffective) crackdowns on online free speech. On this latter point, I recall when I lived there 15+ years ago they at one point tried to block Facebook. Word quickly spread around my school that changing your DNS settings to a particular number would bypass the restriction. (This is before quad9, quad1, or Google’s quad8, so the number was a bit harder to remember.) It’s not a country where you want to be on the government’s bad side, but it’s generally speaking much softer in that regard than the PRC or DPRK.
Thanks, definitely sounds like a mixed bag. If im understanding correctly, the citizens, as a basis, have it pretty good under socialst capitalism in Vietnam. The issues arrise in speaking out against the government and having no protections as a consumer, as well as government censorship.
Assuming i got the gist of that correct(lmk if i did not) then it sounds good overall. What sortve socialist programs do they have? More specifically, do they have any form of ubi? Because if so, buisnesses screwing you over seems like a much smaller issue since you have financial security anyways.
Ngl this definitely crossed my mind reading your comment
Punji sticks are just another weapon of asymmetric/guerrilla warfare. No more barbaric than mines, or claymores. And way less so than agent orange, or invading a soverein country because their government isn’t buying your stuff.
That is super fair, did not think about that. I suppose my issue with punji sticks is that theyre not neccassarily designed to kill, thats why they were often coated in feces. The intent was infection afaik because that disabled the soldier and those who had to help him. But yes, I view bouncing betties in the exact same light. Maybe not illegal, but i cannot understand why, since other weapons thats sole goal is to cause nonlethal permanent damage are banned, such as laser weapons. And yeah, I agree, even starting off this thread i dont think anyone has even attempted to claim the US were the good guys.
And another common tactic was lining the path enemy soldiers would take with the sticks and drop a grenade amongst them. Some would jump away towards them, amplifying the result of a single grenade with cheap materials.
They wouldn’t need to cover them in feces though. The jungle environment and lead time to medical treatment all but guaranteed some infection.
The intent was infection afaik because that disabled the soldier and those who had to help him.
Maiming vs outright killing was the design intent behind the 5.56mm cartridge/M16, which were first deployed by the US on the Vietnam war. For the same reasons.
Look up the PBS series “Vietnam - A Television history.”
It’s mostly the US point of view, but it covers the War pretty well.
Yeah, the “20 years hard labor” kinda clued me in that south vietnam mightve been evil.
Squeaky Fromme got 34 years. Sara Jane Moore, 32 years. Hinkley, 33 years.
I don’t know, it’s 20 years of hard labour for attempted assasination
Outside of Vietnam, she is most well known for a photograph of her smiling at her sentencing for an attempted assassination during the Vietnam War. The photograph is popularly known as the “Smile of Victory” and has become a symbol of Vietnamese women who fought in the war.
Tbh not my concern. Hard labor is barbaric, no matter what. Hard labor is enforced by either the threat of violence or the witholding of easentials. It is my belief that it is a human right to eat, and with our current technology barely 1/1000 people actually need to work for our society to function. I think capitalism itself is barbaric, because again, you are forced to work under threat of violence or witholding of essentials.
The purpose of technology is to allow one person to do the work of many. If we invent a machine that lets one person do the job of seven, and you dont want an unfair system where one person literally does all the work, then the fair system is to make those seven people work one day each. Instead, seven people work seven days and the excess product is funneled into the hands of the wealthy. We have the ability with our current tech to almost fully automate most essential supply lines. Therefore, the idea that people should ever be FORCED to work is absurd. If you want excess, work for it. If you are fine with living on essentials only, you should be guaranteed that right as a human, regardless of your employment status.
I’m just saying if you compare to a lot of places 20 years hard labour might be lenient. That’s if you’re making the good/evil distinction in comparison to how world is or to something else
Yeah, someone else pointed that out to me. I really shouldntve used “the good guys”. As you probably noticed, im quite passionate about human rights and ubi. I hope I didnt come off as angry or rude. It just really frustrates me that people arent… just better towards each other.
Nah you’re good
They ended up reforming their economy to be more capitalist because after the war, America embargoed them till they reformed (plus some other stuff like war with China and Cambodia that fucked up their economy). So now its kinda just a mix of state capitalism and regular capitalism like China. They suffer from a lot of corruption and poor management, plus pretty much abandoning any real socialist policy, so not a great place.
During the Vietnam war its important to remember that the Viet Minh (communists) had initially risen up to free themselves from colonialism. The treaty that was passed though split Vietnam in half with the communist north and capitalist south. Furthermore that South Vietnam was a hell hole. An insanely corrupt, violent, and oppressive anti-communist dictatorship. The Viet Minh were by no means angels, but compared to South Vietnam they were certainly the good guys. I want to stress comparatively.
Pretty popular tourist destination of Americans. I know a few people who went, and they said they had a good time.
Yeah straight up everyone should go and see the museums there, they need to learn about what happened and feel the feelings cos damnnnn
There are actually many ways to learn, including books.
Sure, but how many tons of CO2 can I emit reading a book?
Depends on the book. And what you had for lunch.
I recently visited Vietnam. As far as I could tell, young people are educated, I saw no homeless people, nobody asked me for cash. I felt safe at all times. Buildings seemed up to code. The insane inequality that you will see in places like India, Thailand or even some places in Europe (London cough cough) were nowhere to be seen.
I understand that Vietnam is still a developing economy, and that it’s still a poor country. I understand that there might be issues with freedom of speech and political participation. But my conclusion is that they’re doing a ton of things absolutely right, in ensuring that their people get access to basic necessities and industrializing in a controlled way.
South Vietnam was a shitshow even by the low standards of Cold War shitshows. First it was ruled by a fundamentalist Catholic dictator in a Buddhist-majority country - you can guess how that turned out - and then after that dictator was couped and executed, a series of juntas whose leaders were not all that militarily competent, and who only held show elections crudely imitating multiparty democracy.
Effectively, the only popular support South Vietnam had sprung from suspicion that the Communist North might end up doing a little bit of purging should they win (a suspicion that was not wholly unfounded, unfortunately), but that fear only offered lukewarm support to the corrupt and authoritarian South Vietnam government, which did plenty of political repression of its own.
Effectively, there were no ‘good guys’ - arguably there never are, but nothing to the tune of ‘Allies vs. Axis’. Of the two polities, North Vietnam had much more popular support, and was about as repressive as the South, at least after Ho Chi Minh was sidelined by hardliners in the mid-60s.
Vietnam is doing alright now. They had market-oriented reforms in the late 80s or 90s, and now they’re one of the most pro-US and pro-free market countries in Asia. I’m given to understand they still struggle with corruption, but what developing country doesn’t? Unfortunately, they remain a single-party state and fairly politically repressive. Ironically, these free market pro-capitalist reforms have all taken place under the single-party domination of… the Communist Party of Vietnam, the same one which ruled North Vietnam and overthrew South Vietnam.
Wow, that was quite a deep dive, thanks. Absolutely wild that Japan and Vietnam both seem to be pro-US now.
Not so wild if you consider the balances of power in the region (total Chinese dominance). USA offers a win-win scheme with capitalism, but what does China offer? Their brand of communism is capitalistic asf, and with authoritarian govt on top. So the only thing they reliably do is to corrupt the government and make them sign some bad deals, ultimately people lose.
It’s very much like why Ukraine was so pro-USA the whole time, even before the war happened.
Mind you I’m talking about USA of the past. The current USA is unreliable asf and loses it’s soft power at rapid pace.
Thats extraordinarily sad. Seeing what we did to their countries, they would be fully justified in hating us. And yet we are now the lesser of two evils so they have to align? Im down for letting the past stay in the past in the name of peace, but if any country ever nuked the US I’m reasonably confident the US would not stop retaliation until that country no longer exists.
but from my understanding the South Vietnam govt were the good guys
That’s and understanding you need to amend. Especially the whole good guys/bad guys which is an incredibly American way to look at history, and basically makes it impossible for any nuance. However the South Vietnemese government was a murderous dictatorship propped up entirely by foreign powers.
Im intensely autistic and something else too, so my use of terminology can be… different. I am fully capable of deeming groups as “bad” or “good” and still see a large degree of nuance. In some cases objectively bad people and groups can in fact be the “good”(or at least better) option. If you want, id enjoy discussing my ideas on morality and meta-ethics, but thats way beyond the scope of what I was trying to discuss. To better clarify, my definition of good and bad here can basically be disregarded. I hope this didnt come off as snarky or self aggrandizing or anything, im just an oddball.
As for your last statement, yeah thats the way it seems. Im going to go do my own research as i never take an anonymous forum at face value, but it does match with what I was somewhat suspecting given US retrohistory.
The South were not above bad behaviour, some evidence of which is in the Museum of War Remnants in HCMC, but this is true of most wars ever.
I don’t think it’s useful to make a good/bad guys argument case for North vs South, but it is easy to make a case that the USA committed a lot of heinous atrocities in that whole region for little reason beyond the fact that the rich people in charge didn’t like the idea of communism becoming popular and their wealth being taken from them.
There are no shortage of stories of Viet Cong being sneaky or less than gracious hosts to captured POWs, but these often skim over the fact that they were the ones being invaded; it’s churlish to conduct a massively asymmetrical assault on a peasant village with helicopters, bombers and Agent Orange, and then complain that their prison facilities weren’t up to your standards…
…however, go to to the top of your question, modern Vietnam is doing ok compared to its immediate neighbours. There’s some amount of corruption at various levels of government but this seems to be improving slowly. The main utilities etc are govt owned so stuff like mobile phone plans are reasonably priced. Commerce is thriving, but I don’t think that was ever banned in the first place.
They relaxed visa requirements for visitors more recently, so the tourist spots are WAY more crowded than 15 years ago.
I was in da nang recently.
The streets were REALLY dangerous.
The cobblestones weren’t all even and I tripped a couple of times.
My impression as a Canadian was that, at least in da nang, a lot of people are throwing shit at the wall to see what sticks. There was a sense of curiosity in all the Vietnamese people I met, Who all seemed happy at least superficially, and I left with the sense that things are really on the upswing there.
This is just my own experience as a foreigner that doesn’t speak the language so take it with a grain of salt.
lmao. She got 'em there.
