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The Vietnam War - Ken Burns 2017 PBS Series

Started by Up All Night, September 17, 2017, 08:29:30 PM

Up All Night

I watched some of the first episode of this new PBS Series by Ken Burns.

The civil war in Vietnam was about ending colonialism. But, the US Elite was too butt hurt about losses in Korea and other "Cold War" issues to see that. They all worried about what would happen if Asia went Communist. I don't fucking care. That's Asia, and that's a world away. I'm not Asia's Daddy. If good 'ol Ike wanted to have dealt a real blow to Communism, then he could have launched a (Nuclear) first strike against Russia. But, somehow all of these Presidents were SUCKED into the "Global" thought of the bogus and failed workings of the "United Nations".

All those American lives lost in Nam because America wanted to "save face" for the "West".

Puppets !

Dr. MD MD

Quote from: Up All Night on September 17, 2017, 08:29:30 PM
I watched some of the first episode of this new PBS Series by Ken Burns.

The civil war in Vietnam was about ending colonialism. But, the US Elite was too butt hurt about losses in Korea and other "Cold War" issues to see that. They all worried about what would happen if Asia went Communist. I don't fucking care. That's Asia, and that's a world away. I'm not Asia's Daddy. If good 'ol Ike wanted to have dealt a real blow to Communism, then he could have launched a (Nuclear) first strike against Russia. But, somehow all of these Presidents were SUCKED into the "Global" thought of the bogus and failed workings of the "United Nations".

All those American lives lost in Nam because America wanted to "save face" for the "West".

Puppets !

From what I can tell they let China fall into communist hands post WW2. There was a pro West/US dictator there who, of course, we stabbed in the back. Then the same thing happened again in Nam and Cambodia. Almost like it was a plan or something. It really doesn't get much more disgraceful.  ::)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8zclvucYYg

Kidnostad3

Quote from: Up All Night on September 17, 2017, 08:29:30 PM
I watched some of the first episode of this new PBS Series by Ken Burns.

The civil war in Vietnam was about ending colonialism. But, the US Elite was too butt hurt about losses in Korea and other "Cold War" issues to see that. They all worried about what would happen if Asia went Communist. I don't fucking care. That's Asia, and that's a world away. I'm not Asia's Daddy. If good 'ol Ike wanted to have dealt a real blow to Communism, then he could have launched a (Nuclear) first strike against Russia. But, somehow all of these Presidents were SUCKED into the "Global" thought of the bogus and failed workings of the "United Nations".

All those American lives lost in Nam because America wanted to "save face" for the "West".

Puppets !

I watched the first episode of Ken Burns series and it comports fairly well with my memory of the prelude to our involvement  in Vietnam.  How anyone who watched it and understood what was being said could so grossly oversimplify what were very complex geopolitical considerations and attribute the whole thing to the U. S. being butt hurt over losses in Korea is beyond me.  I've got to wonder how old you are and if you and I watched the same program. 

What really astounds me is your cavalier suggestion that if our leaders back then were serious about defeating communism they should have launched a nuclear first strike against Russia.  Please tell us how you think that would have turned out in terms of American casualties?

Quote from: Kidnostad3 on September 17, 2017, 09:18:26 PM
I watched the first episode of Ken Burns series and it comports fairly well with my memory of the prelude to our involvement  in Vietnam.  How anyone who watched it and understood what was being said could so grossly oversimplify what were very complex geopolitical considerations and attribute the whole thing to the U. S. being butt hurt over losses in Korea is beyond me.  I've got to wonder how old you are and if you and I watched the same program. 

What really astounds me is your cavalier suggestion that if our leaders back then were serious about defeating communism they should have launched a nuclear first strike against Russia.  Please tell us how you think that would have turned out in terms of American casualties?

Would have depended on the breaks[/ur]

Up All Night

Quote from: Kidnostad3 on September 17, 2017, 09:18:26 PM
What really astounds me is your cavalier suggestion that if our leaders back then were serious about defeating communism they should have launched a nuclear first strike against Russia.  Please tell us how you think that would have turned out in terms of American casualties?

You'll get to have those nuclear casualty counts in your lifetime, as more parts of the world become ready to use the nuclear option as a first option. I suppose you are one that actually like to "kick the can" down the road for your children and grandchildren to deal with. I think we could have starved out Japan with a blockade, and, defeated Germany, without Russia. We should have saved those A-Bombs to decapitate the Russian Leadership, Stalin, and the rest. But my real solution to world issues probably is distasteful to you. You'd have probably send a "Capt. Willard" to terminate me for my plan of operations to defeat the enemy, when it could actually have been effective.

You live in your world, and I'll happily live in mine.

Vietnam was a clusterfuck of trying to save face for the West in the Cold War. It was wrong and immoral that we sacrificed the people of Vietnam for our Good, and certainly not for theirs.

Fuckups are recant as well... The Bush Administration not foreseeing the Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq is poignant. The only long term viable and stable solution would have been to divide Iraq into three sectors, Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish. Or is too "complex" for you to figure out? It's plain to me, and I was 18 in 1973 K3.

Dr. MD MD

Quote from: Up All Night on September 18, 2017, 02:20:55 PM
But my real solution to world issues probably is distasteful to you. You'd have probably send a "Capt. Willard" to terminate me for my plan of operations to defeat the enemy, when it could actually have been effective.



Terminate...the colonel, sir?!

Quote from: Up All Night on September 18, 2017, 02:20:55 PM
You'll get to have those nuclear casualty counts in your lifetime, as more parts of the world become ready to use the nuclear option as a first option. I suppose you are one that actually like to "kick the can" down the road for your children and grandchildren to deal with. I think we could have starved out Japan with a blockade, and, defeated Germany, without Russia. We should have saved those A-Bombs to decapitate the Russian Leadership, Stalin, and the rest. But my real solution to world issues probably is distasteful to you. You'd have probably send a "Capt. Willard" to terminate me for my plan of operations to defeat the enemy, when it could actually have been effective.

You live in your world, and I'll happily live in mine.

Vietnam was a clusterfuck of trying to save face for the West in the Cold War. It was wrong and immoral that we sacrificed the people of Vietnam for our Good, and certainly not for theirs.

Fuckups are recant as well... The Bush Administration not foreseeing the Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq is poignant. The only long term viable and stable solution would have been to divide Iraq into three sectors, Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish. Or is too "complex" for you to figure out? It's plain to me, and I was 18 in 1973 K3.

Historically Vietnam was not a single country.  For most of it's history it's been divided among multiple kingdoms and dynasties, most recently (the past couple hundred years) Tonkin in the north, Annam in the middle section, and Cochin China in the south around the mouth of the Mekong.  With dozens of ethnic hill tribes in the interior mountains.  The customs and cultures of each are different.

To pretend that the people living in what became South Vietnam after the French left wanted to be ruled by the communists in Hanoi is absurd.  Why was there general panic, boat people, mass murder, and ''re-education camps'' when the North won, if that were the case?

US containment policy was as much for our security as it was for the various places we contained or tried to contain the Cubans, the Soviets, and the Chinese, among others during the cold war.  The only issue with Vietman was the incompetent leadership in Washington DC (read: LBJ) in carrying out the war. 

Kidnostad3

Quote from: Up All Night on September 18, 2017, 02:20:55 PM
You'll get to have those nuclear casualty counts in your lifetime, as more parts of the world become ready to use the nuclear option as a first option. I suppose you are one that actually like to "kick the can" down the road for your children and grandchildren to deal with. I think we could have starved out Japan with a blockade, and, defeated Germany, without Russia. We should have saved those A-Bombs to decapitate the Russian Leadership, Stalin, and the rest. But my real solution to world issues probably is distasteful to you. You'd have probably send a "Capt. Willard" to terminate me for my plan of operations to defeat the enemy, when it could actually have been effective.

You live in your world, and I'll happily live in mine.

Vietnam was a clusterfuck of trying to save face for the West in the Cold War. It was wrong and immoral that we sacrificed the people of Vietnam for our Good, and certainly not for theirs.

Fuckups are recant as well... The Bush Administration not foreseeing the Sunni-Shia civil war in Iraq is poignant. The only long term viable and stable solution would have been to divide Iraq into three sectors, Sunni, Shia, and Kurdish. Or is too "complex" for you to figure out? It's plain to me, and I was 18 in 1973 K3.

When you post on BellGab you are stepping out of your world and into ours.  You have every right to post your beliefs and I have the same right to offer a contrary view.  That's the deal here, Skippy, and you should know that by now. 

The Vietnam War was a cluster fuck for many reasons including the way it was fought.  Your boiling it down to the U.S having to save face shows that you are as ignorant as you are opinionated as does your comments about the Soviet Union's role in WWII. 

You lament past fuckups and the killing of Vietnamese and then tell us we should have decapitated the Russian military using nuclear weapons.   Of course that could be done surgically so that only the top tier party members would be taken out and average citizens wouldn't be harmed.  A first strike would no doubt prevent the Soviets from launching a retaliatory strike that would kill tens of millions of Europeans and Americans.

The major Allies (U.S., UK and France) had a combined total of 1,470,300 military and civilians killed in WWII while the Soviets lost over 26,000,000.  A total of 2,742,909 German troops were killed by the Reds as opposed to 534,683 killed by all other allies.  If you were capable of doing the math that would tell you that the Reds killed 4 out of 5 of all German KIA.

What do you suppose the Germans would have been doing if Hitler had not made the colossal blunder of invading Russia and had 2/3 of his total military strength bogged down for three years killing and being killed by Soviets.  If Russia had been knocked out of the war early instead of turning it around and driving the Germans back across their border they could have left a relatively small occupying force in the Soviet Union and brought the bulk of their forces to bear on the remaining Allies.   The Soviets had the Germans in retreat before D-Day.  Them's the facts Skippy.

How would you go about breaking Iraq into three separate Nations.  If you recall that has been considered.  Who gets the part of the Country with all the oil and who gets the arable land, mineral deposits and water.  Do you do all that by fiat or do you give the Iraqis
a say in the matter?  Who has the authority to break up a country anyway.  Tell us all about it. 

I wish I could derive the comfort you get from simple minded nonsensical solutions. 

Jackstar

Quote from: Up All Night on September 18, 2017, 02:20:55 PM
You'll get to have those nuclear casualty counts in your lifetime

Quote from: Kidnostad3 on September 18, 2017, 08:11:11 PM
When you post on BellGab you are stepping out of your world and into ours [...] I wish I could derive the comfort you get from simple minded nonsensical solutions.


I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that both of you think that the nuclear weapons still work. It's flummoxing.

Are you two frontin'? Tell me you two are frontin'.

Taaroa

Quote from: Dr. MD MD on September 17, 2017, 08:55:12 PM
From what I can tell they let China fall into communist hands post WW2. There was a pro West/US dictator there who, of course, we stabbed in the back.
Not that simple - bear with me while I explain the clusterfuck that is the Chinese Civil War (or skip to the bottom):

The Chinese Civil War began (~1920s) with the collapse of the Qing dynasty, the formation of the Republic of China (ROC), and the rise of warlords, but early on both the communists (CPC) and Kuomintang (KMT) were supported by the Soviet Union and were in government together (which was dominated by the KMT). Eventually the KMT split into factions and purged itself of communists (because it was concerned by soviet influence) and went back to fighting warlords. The communists started open warfare with the KMT, the KMT fought back but struggled with the terrain and internal issues, and eventually caused the Long March (massive retreat by the communists deeper into the country over difficult terrain away from the east which was controlled by the KMT) by the remaining communists.



Then Japan invaded. The KMT refused to ally with the CPC because they viewed them as the greater threat, and throughout WW2 they still fought each other (despite attempts by the US and USSR to get them to stop).  The communists' guerrilla attacks on the Japanese won them support compared to the KMT's biding time to build up forces to fight Japan. So following Japan's surrender the Soviets basically occupied a large chunk of the territory held by Japan, and took weapons and materiel from them and handed it to the communists. While the Soviets were meant to give the territory to the KMT, they instead secretly let the CPC get into position where they could occupy it themselves before the KMT could. The US at this point helped the KMT by airlifting their forces to try and stop the communists from taking over everything the Japanese left, provided their own forces to guard strategic locations, and provided training/finance/weapons to the KMT.



All out war resumed between the KMT and CPC, with the communists having built up significant strength during WW2. They beat the crap out of the KMT, eventually forcing them to retreat and lose territory. Stalin wanted the CPC to stop following the KMT and to form a coalition government but Mao ignored that, formed the People's Republic of China, and chased the KMT out of their remaining territory. The KMT retreated to a variety of places (eg Burma), with the only area to remain in KMT control being Taiwan.



When the Korean War broke out, the US stepped in with their own forces to protect Taiwan's independence and stop the spread of communism. That 'dictator' you referred to was Chiang Kai-shek and was involved in all this from the start, and continued to rule the Republic of China (now severely reduced in territory) until 1975 when it was taken over by his son. The KMT still exists as a major political party in Taiwan, and America sells weapons to the country and provides other informal support (and might possibly intervene in a war between the countries)

tl;dr the Japanese invasion screwed everything up and made it a losing battle for the KMT despite help from the US, but the ROC still receives American support to this day.

paladin1991

Quote from: Up All Night on September 17, 2017, 08:29:30 PM
I watched some of the first episode of this new PBS Series by Ken Burns.

The civil war in Vietnam was about ending colonialism. But, the US Elite was too butt hurt about losses in Korea and other "Cold War" issues to see that. They all worried about what would happen if Asia went Communist. I don't fucking care. That's Asia, and that's a world away. I'm not Asia's Daddy. If good 'ol Ike wanted to have dealt a real blow to Communism, then he could have launched a (Nuclear) first strike against Russia. But, somehow all of these Presidents were SUCKED into the "Global" thought of the bogus and failed workings of the "United Nations".

All those American lives lost in Nam because America wanted to "save face" for the "West".

Puppets !

Aaaaaaaand, we're off!

Up All Night

Quote from: Kidnostad3 on September 18, 2017, 08:11:11 PMHow would you go about breaking Iraq into three separate Nations.  If you recall that has been considered.  Who gets the part of the Country with all the oil and who gets the arable land, mineral deposits and water.

Do you do all that by fiat or do you give the Iraqis a say in the matter?

Who has the authority to break up a country anyway. 

Ask the UK, they are the one's who drew up Iraq out of thin air after WWI. Those were the days, when you could just decide where borders would be, and install puppet dictators to run them.

In the case of Iraq, WE get the OIL, and the rest of the country is divided amongst the 3, with forced deportations to achieve it. WE won the war, they lost. The spoils of war.

But that didn't happen, did it?

Jackstar

Quote from: Taaroa on September 19, 2017, 12:55:59 AM
Not that simple - bear with me while I explain the clusterfuck that is the


While I don't mean to shit all over your research here--this is good work--your narrative's failure to recognize the role that corporate oligarchies have played in the history you're relating makes your description somewhat tame.

Where do the Hashishim fit into your diorama? Asking for a friend who is an obsessive sculptor of pewter miniatures.


Taaroa

Quote from: Jackstar on September 19, 2017, 02:12:40 AM
your narrative's failure to recognize the role that corporate oligarchies have played in the history you're relating makes your description somewhat tame.

You could say that businesses and foreign forces absolutely played a role in the fall of the Qing dynasty which directly led into the civil war. The businesses and merchants naturally sided with the group that didn't want to redistribute all their shit (which they did after the People's Republic of China was established). The Japanese imported their own businesses and citizens into their occupied territory and used some brutal production techniques (eg Benxihu Colliery). Following WW2 the Soviets dismantled the industrial output (factories, machinery, etc) of the areas they occupied and sent it back to themselves. The merchants/businesses fled to Taiwan and Hong Kong following the communist takeover, partly leading to the development of those countries.

The KMT government economically imploded following WW2 and their measures to help the economy were (eg outlawing private ownership of gold or foreign currency) unpopular and their failure led to increasing dissatisfaction in the populace. The government leaders and officials were also regarded as incompetent, corrupt, and thieves both by the populace and foreign powers.




albrecht


Kidnostad3

Quote from: Jackstar on September 19, 2017, 12:37:33 AM

I am having a hard time wrapping my head around the idea that both of you think that the nuclear weapons still work. It's flummoxing.

Are you two frontin'? Tell me you two are frontin'.

Oh, okay.  I feel better better now that you've told us that nuclear weapons don't work.

Jackstar

Don't get too comfy, there's plenty of non-nuclear shit to destroy the planet with.

You've got AEGIS to protect you, though. I'm sure things will be fine.

Kidnostad3

Quote from: Jackstar on September 20, 2017, 11:02:11 AM
Don't get too comfy, there's plenty of non-nuclear shit to destroy the planet with..


Yeah, I know.  The diabolical bastards have acquired the Sith death ray.  We're all gonna die!

Up All Night

Here's one version of What Happened:



And here's a rebuttal of that version:



And then there's this reassessment:



pate

Quote from: Up All Night on September 17, 2017, 08:29:30 PM
I watched some of the first episode of this new PBS Series by Ken Burns...

Eye shove say again:

'..the civil war in Vietnam was about ending colonialism. But, the US Elite was too butt hurt about losses in Korea and other "Cold War" issues to see that. They all worried about what would happen if Asia went Communist. I don't fucking care. That's Asia, and that's a world away. I'm not Asia's Daddy. If good 'ol Ike wanted to have dealt a real blow to Communism, then he could have launched a (Nuclear) first strike against Russia. But, somehow all of these Presidents were SUCKED into the "Global" thought of the bogus and failed workings of the "United Nations".

All those American lives lost in Nam because America wanted to "save face" for the "West".


... and which only answer was hippie commies.



{Puppets ...!}

mmm

there is the rub

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rk4E-lX3-N8


GravitySucks

Most people are not aware that we had treaty obligations to protect South Vietnam and much of SEA.

This was an extension of the Truman Doctrine.

The fact that Dulles had a hand in it only adds to the intrigue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia_Treaty_Organization

Norm

I went to Vietnam in 1971 in hopes of buying a new stereo at the base exchange, smoking hashish and getting a $5 blowjob. (boom boom)

I achieved all my goals and today still have the stereo, my buddy went to Germany instead of Vietnam, he sent back letters to his mother addressed to him at home in the USA. They contained flattened out hashish, all 67 of them. He came back but the following year died after a drunk hit his car in LA. RIP Ruben Alvarez.

I remember it was the best dope, laced with opium it was some good shit.

albrecht

Quote from: GravitySucks on September 20, 2017, 09:57:18 PM
Most people are not aware that we had treaty obligations to protect South Vietnam and much of SEA.

This was an extension of the Truman Doctrine.

The fact that Dulles had a hand in it only adds to the intrigue.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southeast_Asia_Treaty_Organization
Out of curiosity, who was the loan US Senator who voted against us joining it? The interwebs are finding it difficult to find.

ps: on a more C2C pathway- this likely was just a way for Dulles etc to protect all the gold seized from the Japs (who stole it from just about everyone they had invaded and controlled for some decades before/during WWII) and hidden in places like the Philippians.  ;)

chefist

After reading the thread, looking forward to watching the show. Thanks all.


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