Vietnam War: Top secret US papers published

[The Gadfly]

Jose, whether the Republic of Vietnam was a "legitimate" state in your eyes, it was so far as most of the world was concerned. The South Vietnamese government (a succession of them) may have been corrupt, but the RVN was widely recognized as a legitimate, sovereign nation.Whatever support Uncle Ho did or did not have in the South, is beside the point; he had his own country (the DRVN,), he used it, and its army, to invade a neighboring sovereign state (the RVN), and obviously there were a lot of people there who DID care very much whether he was a communist or not, because they resisted this invasion. If so many of the people of South Vietnam were pro-Uncle Ho, please explain to me why the VC had to intimidate them with torture and murder. Please explain also just how it was that the vast majority of NLF troops and cadre, were in fact members of the North Vietnamese Army, infiltrated into the South over a period of YEARS. Home grown freedom fighters, my arse; they were invading foreign troops. We know that, because many of them we captured in fact TOLD us, voluntarily, that they were in fact, members of the NVA, and were originally from the DRVN, NOT the RVN! Uncle Ho and Giap may have tried to peddle the fiction that the NLF (the "Viet Cong") were primarily South Vietnamese; as the foregoing shows, that was a bald-faced lie, and believed only by those credulous enough (and sympathetic to the communist cause enough) to believe it, in spite of a MOUNTAIN of evidence to the contrary!

Further, you might try explaining why Ho was seeking and receiving Soviet and Chinese support as early as 1959-60. Just how many U.S. troops were fighting in South Vietnam then? Ho Chi Minh WAS a Soviet puppet, and I remind you that Vietnam today remains a COMMUNIST state.

While, you are at it, what kind of "people's army" has to chain its truck drivers to the steering wheel of their trucks? (That's what the NVA did to their own truck drivers on the Ho Chi Trail, or didn't you know that?). Know why they did that, Jose? Because their morale was shot, and we were kicking NVA ass, that is why. We beat them on the battlefield; the lying reporters and dupes like you notwithstanding. One more "victory" like Tet, and the VC and the NVA would have ceased to be militarily effective (that is generally what happens, when your major operations have a 65% plus casualty rate!).

If the communist regime was so popular, you might try explaining why they threw so many Vietnamese into re-education camps, where they were tortured and butchered. Those are the Vietnamese I feel bad for; they trusted us, they believed in America, they believed America's promises...and we were forced to abandon them to the enemy. I am not ashamed of America, but I am ashamed of that callous, cowardly act of national betrayal of our friends and allies that America perpetrated on our behalf. As a man, as a soldier who did his best to defend those people, and as an American, that makes me sick.

The best analogy I can give you for the situation, is this.: let's say you are a ninety-eight pound weakling, and the neighborhood bully next door, who happens to be a little bigger and meaner than you, decides he is going to take your house, rape your wife and kill your kids, unless you become his slave. I'm the big guy on the block, and you yell for help. Now, Jose, what do you think I should do? The bully hasn't touched me (he's afraid to) but he is beating the crap out of you. He also has a couple of large friends egging him on. Should I intervene? Or should I wait until he kills you, and then file a police report? That's what the people of South Vietnam were up against. I have just a slight suspicion, that you would NOT want me so restrained, if it were YOUR door the wolf was growling at.

You know what the real irony is here? The Vietnam vets you hate so much are the very kind of people who would put themselves on the line to help you, when some goon backed you against the wall. We would be the ones standing up for you, if someone tried to haul you off to some gulag, for imaginary crimes. We're the ones who answered the call, when a lot of men said, "Not my problem." That is who and what we really are. And so Jose, I do not particularly care, whether you consider me a willing dupe, an idealistic fool, a mindless jingo, or even a hardened killer. I don't care, because I know who I am, and what I tried to do, I'm OK with that, and I'd do it again. I'm not much for polls, but the ones I've seen say the majority of Vietnam vets agree with me. WE ARE NOT ASHAMED, AND WE HAVE NO REASON TO BE. I don't care, whether you and your friends like that, or not.

 

[Sunni Man]

Start preparing Americans for the counterattack into Mexico!

Retard this is a thread about Vietnam.

If you want to talk about Mexico then start your own thread.

Otherwise, STFU

 

[Bfgrn]

What Admin lied? JFK's?
I can't imagine that. He was one cool dude.
We need someone like him today. Doubt if he lied to anyone.... He always looked out for what was BEST for America.

God help us when we ever let a president hire his own brother to be Attorney General. Bobby thought he was secretary of state and his crazy fixation on Cuba might have caused the death of JFK. At any rate the brothers were out of control. They authorized the CIA to raise, feed, train and equip a little army of Cuban exiles and abandoned them at the Bay of Pigs. It was LBJ who lied about the Tonkin Gulf crisis and he set the rules in VietNam so that America couldn't possibly win the war even though they won every battle. Just when the US was poised to finally wear out the V.C. after TET Walter Cronkite decided to enter the war and tell Americans that the hard won victory of TET wasn't a victory at all but a stalemate. LBJ quit in front of the whole world and the VC had a new lease on life.

You really are a brainwashed moron.

 

[Trajan]

Originally posted by Trajan
the north was fighting in the south for their homes?

Trajan, you can find a more detailed answer to your question below but to make a long story short, South Vietnam was an artificial country created by colonial France. As a totally illegitimate country its defence could not be invoked as a pretext to interfere in Vietnam's internal matters.

I suggest you get a decent and fairly involved history of Vietnam and read it. Vietnam has a history of fractiousness and foreign involvement in its affairs , in that each faction bought, invited etc. others to help one or anther overcome whatever particular ruling faction was in power or not.


That being said it appears you have decided to ignore the fact there would no no colonialism prevalent in south Vietnam there after 1960...no matter who won.

Originally posted by Trajan
Q- was there a ' Domino effect' to worry about?

I'm willing to bet you wouldn't approve of a coalition of countries invading America in the early 1800's to end slavery, ravaging the country and killing american citizens by the thousands, would you Trajan?

But as a good american super patriot you have no problem with America doing the same in Vietnam to fight communism.

you didn't answer my question.....

in any event; your moral relativistic construct is a huge fail.

 

[José]

Originally posted by tonystewart1
This thread scares me to death. Have we as a people lost our will to live that if we where attacked today we would roll over and take it. People like Jose have never had to defend anything or anybody. I never served, my dad was in Vietnam. Thats all I know about it. He doesnt talk about it and we dont ask. One thing he taught us was that this was a great country and worth defending at any cost.

I am afraid that if WWII happened today we would lose. Genreations of Americans grow up being told that they have the right to free speach without knowing how we got and keep it.

No vetern of any war has any responsiblity to appologize for anything they done. Being in service to your country is a hard sacrifice judging by the haunted look in my fathers eyes whenever the subject of war is brought up. I thank each and everyone that had the love for country to do it.

If you think US service men owe anyone an appology then by all means pack your bags and go over there and appologize and dont bother coming back.

Just a small correction, tony.

You’re free to disagree with everything I say but I have never said and I will never say that America and the veterans of the Vietnam War should appologize to the people of Vietnam.

You appologize when you miss an appointment or step on someone else’s toe.

When you ravage a country in an absurd, unjustified war of aggression you get down on your knees and beg the victims of your violence to forgive you.

 

[José]

Originally posted by The Gadfly
Those are the Vietnamese I feel bad for; they trusted us, they believed in America, they believed America's promises...and we were forced to abandon them to the enemy. I am not ashamed of America, but I am ashamed of that callous, cowardly act of national betrayal of our friends and allies that America perpetrated on our behalf.

I’d have to be blind or illiterate not to see the obvious emotional link you developed with the puppet state of South Vietnam, Gadfly (to say nothing about your mission, your sense of duty). And, believe me, I fully understand your perspective. South Vietnam may be a demoralised, artificial state created and maintained by the West under the cold, rational light of Political Science but to you it’s part of your life experience, part of what you are.

I typed an extensive reply to your attempts to delegitimise the NLF but I just don’t see the point in posting it anymore. I was hoping to convince you of South Vietnam’s illegitimacy through rational, historically sound arguments but I cannot debate an emotional attachment.

 

[José]

Originally posted by The Gadfly
You know what the real irony is here? The Vietnam vets you hate so much are the very kind of people who would put themselves on the line to help you, when some goon backed you against the wall. We would be the ones standing up for you, if someone tried to haul you off to some gulag, for imaginary crimes.

I don’t hate Vietnam veterans at all I just don’t have much respect for those who don’t show any kind of remorse for the brutalisation of an impoverished asian nation that never did anything to America.

Listen, Gadfly, the Board is teeming with super patriotic american clowns like whitehall mocking the suffering of the vietnamese people by basically saying (and unfortunately, you’re one of them):

“If only America had killed a couple thousand more vietnamese we’d have won that war!!”

When I read these cruel, callous remarks my blood boils and I reply with things like “take a piss in his mouth”, “stuff a giant, spiky dildo ** ***** *****”, etc, etc... But I know I shouldn’t stoop to the level of those lowlives, the patriotic scum that makes a mockery of the suffering imposed on Vietnam.

So let me come clean about Vietnam veterans:

Regardless of their position on the war, I don’t think they should be subjected to any humiliation, mistreatment. No cut in benefits etc, etc...

If I could decide, you, Sunni and uscitizen would live 110 years.

I don’t fully respect those veterans who did not repent for what they did in Southeast Asia, but believe me, one of them could share an apartment with me for 20 years without knowing what I thought about him if he didn’t ask me. I don’t go around telling people what I know they don’t want to hear... I do it here because it’s a Message Board, we’re supposed to express our opinions. But whether or not I respect an unrepentant Vietnam vet doesn’t change absolutely anything in his/her life.

The only “objective” thing I’d change in the way Vietnam veterans are treated are the honors that are bestowed on them:

I think the US government on behalf of the american people should seek the forgiveness of Vietnam and stop honoring people who participated in that war. And I also believe the american people should stop thanking them for their service because their “service” was to wage a criminal war that destroyed a third world nation that was already dirt poor. You cannot extricate their service from the murder of the vietnamese people. They are one and the same.

No mistreatment, no punishment, no nothing... just an end to official honors and “thank you for your service”. No veteran would die just because the US government and a handful of people didn’t say “thank you”.

All in all, I think I have much more respect for Vietnam veterans than a lot of super patriotic american clowns have for the people of Vietnam.

 

[Mr. Jones]

That is a bit much José.

Most Vietnam vet like me were drafted.

In those days it was prison for three years or two years in the army.

I did not want to go but I sure did want to spend three years in prison.

Believe me it wasn't about patriotism or defending America.

It was about surviving and having your brother's back.

Many vets like me are neutral about it.

We were 19 years old and not politically sophisticated.

So to blame us is pure nonsense.

The US government is who should bear the responsibility not the individual soldier

I agree with you on most parts but there are individual soldiers that are sick minded murderers who have committed atrocities knowing they can get away with it. Like the ones who kill for sport in Vietnam, Iraq and else where. These kids in Iraq act like they are in a video game, they have been conditioned to not respect life. It is scary to think when these sick fucks come home, and can only get a job in law enforcement what will happen. I bet they would have no problem rounding up their own fellow citizens, torture and kill them. Pure souless killing machines. Those I do not respect and could not care any less if they get blown to bits.
The ones who serve honorably, and have been put in situations of war by the lies of our government and the gutless acquiescence of congress, are who I support and feel bad for.

 

[The Gadfly]

That is a bit much José.

Most Vietnam vet like me were drafted.

In those days it was prison for three years or two years in the army.

I did not want to go but I sure did want to spend three years in prison.

Believe me it wasn't about patriotism or defending America.

It was about surviving and having your brother's back.

Many vets like me are neutral about it.

We were 19 years old and not politically sophisticated.

So to blame us is pure nonsense.

The US government is who should bear the responsibility not the individual soldier

I agree with you on most parts but there are individual soldiers that are sick minded murderers who have committed atrocities knowing they can get away with it. Like the ones who kill for sport in Vietnam, Iraq and else where. These kids in Iraq act like they are in a video game, they have been conditioned to not respect life. It is scary to think when these sick fucks come home, and can only get a job in law enforcement what will happen. I bet they would have no problem rounding up their own fellow citizens, torture and kill them. Pure souless killing machines. Those I do not respect and could not care any less if they get blown to bits.
The ones who serve honorably, and have been put in situations of war by the lies of our government and the gutless acquiescence of congress, are who I support and feel bad for.

So far as I know, the few (and they were very few) soldiers in Vietnam who "killed innocent Vietnamese for sport" or otherwise committed atrocities were tried for it, by the military, and those convicted were sent to prison. The United States Armed Forces do not encourage or even tolerate wanton murder of non-combatants. Anything you have heard to the contrary is a flat-out lie! Don't you sit there and confuse the vast majority of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who are doing their duty professionally, and in accord with the laws of war, applicable regulations and rules of engagement, with the filthy few who do otherwise. Those few individuals are a disgrace, to themselves, their unit, the uniform, and this nation.

I killed quite a few people in Vietnam. Every single one of them was engaged in active combat against us. I am not the least bit sorry about that, I make no apologies for that, nor have I lost one moment's sleep over that aspect of my tour. I did NOT, I damn well did NOT, EVER, murder any non-combatant, for sport or otherwise. If any soldier under my command had ever done anything like that, I would have drawn up charges on him in a heartbeat! You can call me a cold blooded killer (that's accurate), but don't you insinuate that I or any other soldier who fights honorably has no regard for innocent human life, or "kills for sport". We didn't do it then, and the vast majority of these troops today aren't doing that now, either!