Fifty Years After Saigon: Remembering the Nobility of a Betrayed Cause

[Deadstick]

Wrong

The two kingdoms existed for centuries

NOT one unified vietnam

I have won this one

You consistently lie like a coward and spread falsehoods. The election was cancelled by minh who then started the war of agrrssion against rhe south

You have won nothing because you are deluded.

 

[Soupnazi630]

You have won nothing because you are deluded.

I have made you look like the fool and liar you truly are

So yes I have by using facts

 

[Deadstick]

I have made you look like the fool and liar you truly are

So yes I have by using facts

You wouldn't know a fact if you fell over it you lying asshole.

 

[EdwinAMartin]

No I am stating facts. Diem had no control over elections in the north, It was Minh who cancelled them.

Minh was NEVER elected and blamed the south after he cancelled elections and siezed power. After which he massacred tens of thousands of North vietnamese and launched a war.

Almost a million people fled the north for the south. Kind of dumb to claim he won an election when so many knew in advance what the commies always do, massacre and arrest people, and those that could fled with whatever they can carry as fast as they can. After the South fell, thanks to the vermin in Congress, people were fleeing for years, risking drowning and murder by pirates and slavers to get away.

 

[Soupnazi630]

You wouldn't know a fact if you fell over it you lying asshole.

I would

I stated them

I proved that YOU are lying like coward you are and i did so with facts

All you can do is screech in denial of those facts but THEY ARE IN YOUR FACE

 

[mikegriffith1]

I haven't because it was nearly seventy years ago. Who cares?

Then why are you even posting in this thread?

And the Vietnam War ended in April 1975, which was 51 years ago, not "nearly seventy years ago."

We're not talking about ancient history. Hundreds of thousands of Vietnam vets are still alive.

 

[mikegriffith1]

So in post number 229 you [deadstick] claimed that south the vietnamese government cancelled elections at the same time that they were created and therefore north vietnam lost out

You keep ignoring how north vietnam came to be in the first place BEFORE south vietnam. They existed first because Ho Chi Minh cancelled elections and seized power.

You are contradicting yourself all over the place because you are desperate to lie and twist the facts of history to suit your agenda

Link to the elections which Ho Chi Minh won and made him the ruler of North Vietnam or it proves beyond question that the only dishonest liar here is YOU

Deadstick is probably thinking of the severely rigged 1946 elections, which I've already discussed. By a mix of intimidation, deception, and corruption, the Communists won those elections. In 1954, they rejected the idea of holding elections supervised by UN observers. They knew they would likely lose in a fair election.

I should add that when the Saigon government later repeatedly called for UN-supervised elections in North Vietnam and South Vietnam in 1971, 1972, and 1973, the Communists refused each time.

On another Vietnam War issue, in historian Thurston Clarke's book Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War, we learn that some of the same American journalists who had written articles that insisted the South Vietnamese would have nothing to fear if the Communists took over--some of these same journalists sought permission from Ambassador Graham Martin to evacuate their South Vietnamese staffers and/or personal housekeephers and/or friends.

In one notable case, when one of those journalists insisted on meeting with Ambassador Martin to make the request, Martin skewered him with a devastating question. Martin asked him why he was so concerned about his South Vietnamese staffers/housekeepers/friends when he had been claiming for months in his "news" articles that there would be no bloodbath and no widespread retribution if the North Vietnamese conquered South Vietnam. Touche!

 

[mikegriffith1]

Deadstick is probably thinking of the severely rigged 1946 elections, which I've already discussed. By a mix of intimidation, deception, and corruption, the Communists won those elections. In 1954, they rejected the idea of holding elections supervised by UN observers. They knew they would likely lose in a fair election.

I should add that when the Saigon government later repeatedly called for UN-supervised elections in North Vietnam and South Vietnam in 1971, 1972, and 1973, the Communists refused each time.

On another Vietnam War issue, in historian Thurston Clarke's book Honorable Exit: How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War, we learn that some of the same American journalists who had written articles that insisted the South Vietnamese would have nothing to fear if the Communists took over--some of these same journalists sought permission from Ambassador Graham Martin to evacuate their South Vietnamese staffers and/or personal housekeephers and/or friends.

In one notable case, when one of those journalists insisted on meeting with Ambassador Martin to make the request, Martin skewered him with a devastating question. Martin asked him why he was so concerned about his South Vietnamese staffers/housekeepers/friends when he had been claiming for months in his "news" articles that there would be no bloodbath and no widespread retribution if the North Vietnamese conquered South Vietnam. Touche!

Notice the ongoing silence of liberals/"libertarians" in this thread regarding the fact that the Hanoi regime came to power through violence, intimidation, and deception, that it rigged its 1946 elections, that it repeatedly refused the Saigon government's calls for UN-supervised elections in 1971, 1972, and 1973, and that the Saigon government held two legislative elections that were extensively supervised by foreign and American observers and that were judged to be valid and largely free of manipulation.

Yet, you watch: At some point in the future, in some other thread, the "anti-war" liberals/"libertarians" will repeat the distortion that South Vietnam was the one who cancelled the 1956 elections called for in the 1954 Geneva Accords. They will continue to ignore the fact that it was North Vietnam, not South Vietnam, who refused to hold UN-supervised elections in 1956, that South Vietnam held legislative elections in 1956 whereas North Vietnam did not, and that South Vietnam repeatedly offered to take part in UN-supervised Vietnam-wide elections but that Hanoi refused each offer.

It is odd that people who call themselves "liberals" and "libertarians" are attacking our noble effort to protect the flawed-but-progressing democracy of South Vietnam and to keep 19 million South Vietnamese from falling under brutal communist repression. At least most libertarian anti-war types don't try to whitewash the Hanoi regime, whereas most liberals do.

 

[mikegriffith1]

To get some idea of the depraved brutality of the North Vietnamese army (NVA), consider the fact that on many occasions NVA soldiers were killed, wounded, or captured because they were chained or tied to their fighting position, machine gun, or artillery piece. Their officers had chained or tied them to their position/weapon to ensure they would not flee when the fighting got intense.

Also, one of the reasons that the NVA suffered such enormous numbers of casualties (killed or wounded) was that they used their soldiers as cannon fodder in human-wave attacks similar to the Chinese human-wave attacks in the Korean War (which is why the Chinese suffered nearly 1 million casualties in the Korean War, with roughly 400,000 of them being deaths).

 

[Zincwarrior]

Notice the ongoing silence of liberals/"libertarians" in this thread

er...this is a political board, and you're talking about ancient history for anyone being younger than a Boomer?

 

[Soupnazi630]

er...this is a political board, and you're talking about ancient history for anyone being younger than a Boomer?

Uh no DUMBASS

This is a HISTORY borad it says do very clearly at the top.

History IS political and politics is deeply intertwined with history

Lean to read BOY

 

[Zincwarrior]

Uh no DUMBASS

This is a HISTORY borad it says do very clearly at the top.

History IS political and politics is deeply intertwined with history

Lean to read BOY

History is a minor subforum on this. History forums are defined and specific.
The average age on this board is Boomer+.

Unless you are incredibly old, this is ancient history, and as relevant. Sorry.

 

[AZrailwhale]

History is a minor subforum on this. History forums are defined and specific.
The average age on this board is Boomer+.

Unless you are incredibly old, this is ancient history, and as relevant. Sorry.

1965 to 1973 isn't ancient history. If people like you would learn about RECENT history you wouldn't make so many dumb posts.

 

[Zincwarrior]

1965 to 1973 isn't ancient history.

Yes, it is. Thats literally 53 years ago.

If people like you would learn about RECENT history you wouldn't make so many dumb posts.

You're arguing on a thread about who betrayed Vietnam. What a joke. This is not history.

 

[Soupnazi630]

History is a minor subforum on this. History forums are defined and specific.
The average age on this board is Boomer+.

Unless you are incredibly old, this is ancient history, and as relevant. Sorry.

Wrong dumbass this engtire board has many sub forums

This is recent history and important which is why you HAVE to weigh in with stupidity

 

[mikegriffith1]

er...this is a political board, and you're talking about ancient history for anyone being younger than a Boomer?

What an odd reply. This is the History forum of the USMB.

An event is not "ancient history" when hundreds of thousands of the people who were involved in it are still alive. FYI, the word "ancient" is usually used to refer to the period of time before the Middle Ages.

You seem to have no interest in the truth about the Vietnam War, and you seem to have done very little, if any, reading on the subject.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Two other big myths related to the Vietnam War involve the First Indochina War (1946-1954), i.e., the war that pitted the French and anti-communist Vietnamese against the Viet Minh. The orthodox story is that the French had no chance to win the war and that the French suffered a catastrophic defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu that forced them to leave the country.

In actuality, by early 1954 the French and the anti-Communist Vietnamese were on the verge of crushing the Viet Minh. As for the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the Viet Minh suffered devastating losses during the battle that left them severely weakened. However, the French anti-war faction in France spun Dien Bien Phu as a castrophic loss that proved the war effort was hopeless, when in fact, as senior French military commanders in Vietnam noted, the battle left French forces in a much stronger military position, even though the French garrison at Dien Bien Phu had been forced to surrender (only because they were nearly out of ammo and only after inflicting staggering, horrendous casualties on the Viet Minh).

Just as American liberals spun the 1968 Tet Offensives as proof that the American war effort was hopeless, French leftists spun Dien Bien Phu as proof that the French war effort was hopeless. The difference was that the French leftists succeeded in misrepresenting Dien Bien Phu to force the withdrawal of French forces from Vietnam and to bring about the Geneva Conference.

We now know that Viet Minh leaders confided to the Chinese and the Soviets that because of their enormous losses at Dien Bien Phu and their resulting general military weakness, they agreed to the Geneva Conference in order to provide a “breathing space” for rebuilding the army.

I need to do a separate thread on Dien Bien Phu and the First Indochina War.

 

[EdwinAMartin]

How many fled the North to the South again, before the commies fake elections'? How many fled again after the fall of the South? I guess Red joe thinks they don't matter.

 

[mikegriffith1]

How many fled the North to the South again, before the commies fake elections'? How many fled again after the fall of the South? I guess Red joe thinks they don't matter.

The Hanoi regime prevented hundreds of thousands of North Vietnamese from leaving the north during the 300-day open-migration period stipulated in the Geneva Accords. This was one of the Communists' early violations of the accords. Even then, nearly 1 million people migrated from the north to South Vietnam.

It is so absurd and pathetic to see liberals claiming that the U.S. and South Vietnam "cancelled" the 1956 election when it was obvious to everyone on the planet with a working brain that North Vietnam had no intention of holding a valid election. One of the reasons the U.S. and South Vietnam did not sign the Geneva Accords was that North Vietnam had refused to stipulate that the 1956 election would be done under full UN supervision.

It's worth mentioning that both of the legislative elections held in South Vietnam were done under extensive foreign and U.S. observation, a condition that North Vietnam always rejected.

 

[markef]

Fifty Years After Saigon: Remembering the Nobility of a Betrayed Cause​

We must remember not just South Vietnam's fall, but why it fell.​

Fifty Years After Saigon: Remembering the Nobility of a Betrayed Cause

We must remember not just South Vietnam's fall, but why it fell.

www.rodmartin.org

30 Apr 2025 ~~ By Rod D. Martin

Fifty years ago, April 30, 1975, the world watched in horror and disbelief as the last American helicopter lifted off from the rooftop of our embassy in Saigon. South Vietnam had fallen in the manner of Ernest Hemingway, “first gradually, then suddenly”: a decades-long war, a relative peace, and then a mad dash by the North Vietnamese Army that consumed the country in less than a month.
What followed was not peace, but darkness. The swift collapse of South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos (turns out the Domino Theory was true) brought the subjugation of millions, and the opening act of a Communist bloodbath across Southeast Asia. At least a million were sent to the “re-education camps” in Vietnam alone. Half a million were murdered. Another two million fled this brutal night by sea, on rafts wholly unsuited for the tumultuous ocean, in wild hope that an American aircraft carrier might happen upon them. Close to half a million died in the water.
The tragedy was simply breathtaking. And horribly, horribly unnecessary.
~Snip~
None of this had to happen. This was not the end of a war, but the culmination of betrayal — a betrayal of an ally, of a cause, and of the very principles America had defended with precious blood and treasure for eight long years.
The received wisdom is that Vietnam was a mistake, a misguided war fought in the wrong place at the wrong time. That narrative is false. The Vietnam War was part of a noble, epic struggle — the same struggle that won the Cold War and saved the whole world from a similar fate. It was a just effort to stop Communist totalitarianism and genocide from consuming yet another corner of the globe. South Vietnam was not a hopeless case. It was a fledgling republic, striving to build a free society in the shadow of Marxist tyranny and under constant assault from within and without. Its people fought with courage and resolve for more than two decades, first with our help.
~Snip~
But with Nixon forced from office, Congress fell into the hands of men more concerned with leftist politics than principle. Nixon won 49 states in 1972. In the aftermath of Watergate, in 1974, Democrats won overwhelming Congressional majorities: almost 300 House seats, and a filibuster-proof 61 in the Senate.
This radicalized majority, driven by post-Watergate bloodlust, slashed military aid to South Vietnam by over 75%, prohibited any American military response to a massive Soviet rearmament of the North, and watched coldly as North Vietnam violated every term of the accords. They wouldn’t even send our allies tires for their Jeeps or gas for their tanks.
Deprived of ammunition, fuel, and the will of its ally, South Vietnam collapsed — not because it lacked heart, but because it was abandoned, by the same Democrat Party that had sent America’s sons to die there just ten years before.
This is the reality the left refuses to confront even half a century later. The fall of Saigon was not inevitable. It was engineered in Washington more than Hanoi. It was not a military defeat — it was a political surrender, the first of many. Over the next five years, Democrats handed 26 countries to the Communists. That’s on top of Carter’s betrayal of the Shah of Iran.
Richard Nixon understood this. Years after, in No More Vietnams, he laid out the real lessons of that conflict, lessons we ignore at our peril. He did not argue that we should never fight again. Quite the contrary. He argued that when America fights, it must fight to win — and that when we make commitments, we must keep them.
~Snip~
Second, we must never send our soldiers to fight unless the cause directly serves vital American interests. In this, Nixon prefigured Trump. But once engaged, we must not allow domestic politics to undercut our efforts. Unity at home is essential. Leadership must resist the temptation to bow to the transient winds of public opinion or the distortions of a hostile press.
Third, America must support its allies fully or not at all. Partial support, tepid commitments, and shifting loyalties invite chaos and death. South Vietnam stood ready to defend itself — with our help. Once we withdrew that help, we ensured their destruction. Nixon rightly saw that as an even greater moral failure than a strategic one.
And fourth, peace is only possible through strength. The idea that we can withdraw from the world, that we can turn our backs on aggression and be left in peace, is a fantasy. Weakness invites conflict. Only credible deterrence, backed by the willingness to act, can maintain stability and peace.
These lessons, learned at tragic cost, should have guided us forward. But they were forgotten. In 2021, Joe Biden gave us a second Saigon, this time in Kabul.

Commentary:
The media was always gave the impression the American military was fleeing South Vietnam in a chaotic panic when it wasn’t even there since South Vietnam fell years after we left, or that Americans were burning that little girl with Napalm although the Americans weren’t involved in the incident, or that all our soldiers did was suffer wounds and defeatism and using Zippos on thatch huts, or that the VC were dominating us and our installations during Tet.
South Vietnam fell because the double-minded and weak Democrat Leftist leaders in America had no commitment or intention of doing what it would take to actually win the war.
Just as Nixon and Ford were minor players in LBJ’s tragic mistake, others have mentioned the part the Democrats as the majority in Congress played.
No brains in the politicians going in, no spines to support our friends in their need to survive. Joey Xi Baidung and his handlers did the same in Afghanistan and to the Ukraine egging it on, and what will happen next with poor leadership there.
Bush '43' should have destroyed every last Taliban resource in Afghanistan. Make the bricks bounce. This could have been done solely by air power and special forces strikes.
W’s great mistake was going the LBJ route: He tried to win the hearts and minds of the population - a population that was stuck in the 8th century, and brainwashed by death cult religion.
That was a fool’s errand, made even worse by his invasion of Iraq. That upset the whole applecart in the region.
I rank W among the three worst US presidents ever. Joey Xi Baidung continues to run first. The other is Woody Wilson.

I volunteered to fight in Vietnam and am still in favor of the US defending the innocent and helpless from tyrannical despots the world over.