![Flag_map_of_North_&_South_Vietnam[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/bLUhafI.png "Flag_map_of_North_&_South_Vietnam[1].png")
What went wrong? Was it inevitable that South Vietnam would fall or could it have eventually turned into a ROK-style democracy?
>>57548
Congress cutting off funding and not letting Ford send troops in is why the South fell. It was very much an avoidable event.
>>57548
Watergate happened and the US could no longer support them
they lacked the will to win
Literally WHO though Diem was a good idea?
>>57548
North Vietnam held the capital and most of the population of the country. It was bound to win.
>>57548
>Was it inevitable that South Vietnam would fall
Not at all, the war was easily winnable if only Johnson and Westmoreland weren't total boobs. I don't care if the North was supplied by China or whatever, the US had an overwhelming firepower advantage and the war should've been won before 1970.
>>57581
>>57582
Jesus Christ cut this shit out and go spam your beloved Prager videos back on /pol/.
Nepotism and corruption in the government
No one doing the (majority) peasants any favours
The Buddhist crisis
>>57635
Saigon was a larger and more important city than Hanoi.
>>57673
So how would you have won it, anon?
>>57673
Do you have an actual argument against the fact that the Americans were supposed to send aid but didn't?
>>57753
Drop the attrition search and destroy crap, concentrate the men in the big population sectors. This defensive posture would make the war seem less like a stalemate and make it more popular in both the US and South Vietnam. Really all you'd need is Nixon and Abrams, they just inherited a bad situation and didn't have enough time to win the war properly.
>>57754
You people spammed that garbage video in every thread on every board and each time you act like you're teaching us something we've never heard before. Try not to shit up this board with your ''history'' please. Read an actual book, the Paris Peace Accords gave everything North Vietnam needed to win the war, sending some supplies wouldn't have saved South Vietnam, they needed troops and the US government was incapable of doing that.
South Vietnamese government was extremely corrupt and couldn't handle the public for shit.
My dad came from a filthy rich Chinese merchant family there and even with the donations my grandpa gave to the government, they jailed him and asked for more bribes for his release. All of the males of my family were exempt from the draft thanks to bribery and such but dad enlisted and got a high ranking spot in the military (this is why he was the first to get adopted by the United States due to fears of execution). You literally could do anything if you had money. This led to a lot of power hungry higher ups wasting resources on fucking bullshit that took a toll on the economy.
Public control was also another thing. The vast majority of the people back then were farming peasants and fell for the communism meme. Protesters came by the swarm and destabilized the public. Soldiers attempted to do stuff, but wasn't subtle enough, causing even more buttmad.
The ideology seemed absolutely great for the lifestyle of the peasants. But the communist government in Vietnam is 2x worse than the capitalist one on the issue of corruption (which is scary). The liberated nation now had a very small group of government officials controlling everything. You could argue that communism is plutocracy at its absolute purest.
If South Vietnam copied South Korea in handling their protesters and communists, they would be one of the richest nations in Asia.
also, I'm not gonna cover this, but the American public and morale hugely affected the outcome too - leading to the drop in support
>>57962
Interesting, thanks for the insight. Do you have any more stories about daily life in South Vietnam? Were the cities filled with unemployed peasants fleeing from the countryside or was there any industry employing wage laborers? What were the politics like, did they have local elections?
>>57962
I remember my grandfather telling me a few stories about going to South Vietnam in 1968. He owned a bandage factory in the US and was approached by the government to build one in SV but after going over there and seeing how hopelessly corrupt the situation was he decided it wasn't worth it. He and my grandmother had been early members of the anti-war movement but even still he said he was shocked to see the kind of creeps we were propping up and said that trip 100% convinced him we had absolutely no hope of winning the war.
>>58198
People were poor as shit back then. Basically the same as now, but no bribes from the government on a nationwide scale. My dad knows way more, but I'm not gonna bother him for this.
Politics during war is pretty obvious. It's a free-for-all and all sorts of dirty tricks happen. I barely know anything about the actual local politics, but both sides had WW2 Japan-tier military control over the government. The North tried to be Liu Bei and "fight for the people" while the South basically said "fuck commies, western ideals are the future".
A lot of peasants were kind of unemployed, but honestly, both the North and South militaries terrorized the shit out of them if things weren't "correct". Look at My Lai, and imagine that happening all over the nation on a smaller scale.
>>58289
Your grandparents were smart. South Vietnam had way too many cracks and loopholes to make a bottle of water.
So what happened to the SV officials and capitalists who didn't make it out of the country before it fell? Were a lot of them actually killed or were a lot issued pardons?
>>57548
The VWP had a post '68 plan to regularly trigger general offensives. Giap was largely responsible for this strategy. Prior to 1968 the VWP in the north and the VWP in the south and the revolution in the south were contesting what the line would be. Northern VWP anti-reformists won, leading to the ouster of Giap, the plan for '68 in three phases, and the clusterfuck which was the "General Offensive/General Uprising."
Long story short, nothing went wrong for the VWP. They were prepared for millions of casualities.
>>57599
The Catholics
>>57548
Pretty much inevitable. The Southern leadership was corrupt and incompetent and the US couldn't figure out how to destroy the North's ability and will to continue the war, in a way politically acceptable to other countries, although bombing and mining the North in 1972 was a step in the right direction.
>>60049
Not really, although the ARVN sometimes got it together and fought well.
>>60049
>Also, Diem's early regime in the 1950s wasn't all that bad
Because it was corruption and cronyism - the war, like most of SE Asia is today. Add the war and it all goes to hell in a hand basket
Do any Catholics still live in Vietnam?
>>57548
More importantly - would it join the Asian tigers and became as rich and economically powerful as South Korea?
>>61056
Yes it is alive and well especially in the South. Govt sometimes try to fuck around and there are occasionally land dispute issue but no major problem as far as I know.
Apologize for my English but from what I understand and read from a perspective of a local there were a lot of problems primarily stemming from the over reliance on the US military. There was also corruption within the government and military themselves as well as the fact that peasants were easily swayed by the communist mind control.
I think this video sums up very well the situation back then::
https://youtu.be/Rzg28lh-eA0
The author is one of the few who wrote extensively about the ARVN. There are some fresh persepective as oppose to the mainstream view in the world that the VIetnam war was a USA vs Vietnam situation while in fact, it was a civil war.
Saigon back then was much better. If you talk to anyone old enough to remember, they always begin their sentences with "before 1975..." associating with anything good about the country in general.
Will someone provide me the perspective of an average US student on the Vietnam War and how they are taught in school?
>>57548
>What went wrong
I'm not exactly an expert of Indochina, but Vietnam isn't exactly the apocalypse people were making it out to be. It's not that bad of place nowadays is it? I mean, I've had tons of friends and family visit the place and said it's lovely.
>>61801
In America, (at least at the undergraduate level) there are two main things we learn about in relation to the Vietnam War: the idea of containment and the Cold War context of the war, and the anti-War movement. There's usually some context provided in relation to the French Indochina war and the creation of North and South Vietnam in 1954. Not much is covered in relation to South Vietnam's government except that Diem and his family were Catholics while the majority of the population were Buddhist, and this caused a lot of tension between the government and its people. We learn about his assassination and the escalation of force following the Gulf of Tonkin Incident (which is usually portrayed as a fabrication), and also the Tet Offensive. Aside from Dien Bien Phu and the Tet Offensive, not much is discussed in relation to actual combat operations, except that "Vietnamization" (replacing US soldiers with ARVN units) becomes popular after 1968. The SV government is portrayed as ineffective and corrupt and its failure as a nation is portrayed as a result of a lack of support from its population.
Americans are much more interested in the domestic effects of the Vietnam War rather than what was happening in Vietnam itself (except in relation to the Tet Offensive and the My Lai Massacre, which are connected to domestic reactions and the anti-war movement).
Are you Vietnamese? Please share more anecdotes about SV before the fall.
>>62011
It's a dirtpoor shithole.
>>57598
>they lacked the will to win
The VWP certainly seemed to have the will to win, so did the NFL and PRG and southern revolution.
>>57599
>Literally WHO though Diem was a good idea?
Ike.
>>57712
You forget about the PLAF rolling mech and heli companies in the field in 63 and 64.
>>57753
>So how would you have won it, anon?
Do exactly what Giap did.
>>58895
>So what happened to the SV officials and capitalists who didn't make it out of the country before it fell? Were a lot of them actually killed or were a lot issued pardons?
Reeducation camps along with the whores and orphans, slightly higher than acceptable mortality. Rehabilitated by 1980. Doing the RVN thing after Doi Moi.
>>60049
>Were any of South Vietnam's leadership ever competent and honest leaders?
Ðiem's graft network was superior to any of his followers.
>>60049
>Diem's early regime in the 1950s wasn't all that bad.
Unless you were communist, or a nationalist, or a buddhist, or a cultist, or a rural worker.
>>60128
>although the ARVN sometimes got it together and fought well.
The ARVN fought most of the fucking war.
>>61056
>Do any Catholics still live in Vietnam?
The ones who weren't rich in 1975.
>>62024
Try Wilfred Burchett's account of the PLAF from c1963, International Publishers. Then try to get RAND village sociologies.
>>62024
The Southern govt., from Diem to Thieu heavily favored Catholics and as such tried to oppress Buddhists with policies and rules that targeted mostly the monks. Obviously the monks were pissed and protested frequently and that also led to others, like students joining in against corruption. I think one of their main fault was oppressing Buddhists. That said, people were free to do whatever they want. You could protest, hold rally, criticizes the government and opportunities were plentiful. Voting was encouraged and the government made sure that everyone was aware of their rights. You don't any of that anymore under the current Communist rule.
My grandfather was a successful businessman back then in central Vietnam. There was so many opportunities to make a lot of money and you didn't have anyone knocking on your doors when you got rich. Close to the end of the war, the communists were advancing toward the South and honest, well-off businessmen like my grandfather would be forced out of their home and business and had everything taken away from them simply because they were considered "capitalist". So they ran to Saigon along the main national road and there were bombs, corpses, people running away. It was total chaos.
By the way, if you meet any Vietnamese oversea, especially in the US, never use the current red flag of Vietnam and never ever refer to Saigon as "Ho chi minh city". They will find that very offensive. I guess the youths won't care much though but it's good that they should know how they got here.
>>62268
>You could protest, hold rally, criticizes the government and opportunities were plentiful.
If you wanted to get shot under the 56 laws.
>>57926
Your major assumption there is that the south Vietnamese wanted a US military government to lord over them.
You can't win a war, if the entire population is the enemy. The Middle East should be more than enough proof of that.
>>58895
The higher ones made it out to the US right after Saigon fell. there were many waves of mass emigration to the free world countries following that year and it's still going on today. Anyway, most didn't make it out and were sent to "re-education" camps. Some were killed in there but eventually some deals were arranged with the US and a lot of them could legally emigrate.
If you go to Saigon today and see old, crippled men who sell lottery tickets or beg for money on the streets, they are most definitely going to be ARVN veterans who couldn't get out.
There was never any pardon. If you were anything related to the former regime, you could not get jobs, could not go to study higher than 12th grade. The lists go on and on. All of that also apply to your children.
>>62274
See pic. You could and it was certainly easier than now. Today you'll get beat up and thrown into jail with no trial by "secret police".
![vcMap_ID-1299_No-1[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/L5mSiE6.jpg "vcMap_ID-1299_No-1[1].jpg")
>>62268
>By the way, if you meet any Vietnamese oversea, especially in the US, never use the current red flag of Vietnam and never ever refer to Saigon as "Ho chi minh city". They will find that very offensive. I guess the youths won't care much though but it's good that they should know how they got here.
Aren't there now a lot of Vietnamese in America that were raised under the communists though? I've heard that there are tensions in the American Vietnamese community between pro-SV and pro-communist immigrants.
>>62388
>There was never any pardon. If you were anything related to the former regime, you could not get jobs, could not go to study higher than 12th grade. The lists go on and on. All of that also apply to your children.
Still? Seems pretty harsh tbqh. Also did communists migrate to Saigon from the North after the war and settle down there, or has the population stayed pretty consistent in terms of where people were born and live? Also does Hanoi dominate the country's culture and economy now or is Saigon still a bigger, more important city?
>>62268
>Voting was encouraged
Wasn't the result corrupted in the end though? I seem to recall South Vietnam was less than democratic, even if voting in itself was encouraged.
>>62395
Aren't there now a lot of Vietnamese in America that were raised under the communists though? I've heard that there are tensions in the American Vietnamese community between pro-SV and pro-communist immigrants.
Vietnamese overseas are most likely going to be against the current communist regime. That is the very reason why they're residing here now. There is no communist viet community in the US and Australia but in many European countries like France, Germany, Czech (former Eastern Bloc) the community are going to be divided half and half. That's because many of the former communist workers went there to study as part of the Soviet international programs but after the fall of USSR, the programs were cancelled and so many decided to stay.
>>57635
North Korea was actually in the same position in the '50s, Japan had built most of the industry in Korea there.
South Vietnam's government was just too weak, corrupt , and unpopular to survive without support.
>>62469
Yes, and we Southerners refer to them as "Bac Ky" a derogatory term referring to Northerners. Sort of like how Texans would refer to people from NY as "Yanks" I guess. In my opinion (and many Southerners I know) people from both sides don't get along well. It's because of past war time hatred and also the huge difference in culture. Foreigners might not see this but the Northerners are very different from us. They speak differently, behave differently, eat different food, etc. Most of all, most Southerners hate Northern dialects.
Saigon is the most important city in the country economically. Hanoi is just a capital in name. There's a lot of shitty thing up there and people are very rude. If you ever go vacationing in Vietname, either go to Hue or Saigon and the stuff in between but I don't recommend going to the North.
Yeah someone is gonna bass me for being "racist" to my own countrymen but I will never be able to see the Northerners as the same. They're more like the greedy and rude Chinese.
>>62563
Yes there was corruption as it was a troubled time but you still had multiples parties and candidates. The results could have go anywhere.
Today, you only have one party and a bunch of clowns who basically serve life terms. I don't know a single person who have vote or know anything about it despite government propaganda saying otherwise. So much for the "republic" and "democratic" in the official name.
I always laugh at Americans who think socialism or communism is ever a good idea. Try living a year in this country as a citizen and I bet they'll be running back crying for their comfortable iphones and macbooks.
>>62841
Who do SV nationalists consider the best political leader during the country's brief existence? What is the opinion of Khanh?
>>62912
Two major ones are going to be Diem and Thieu of course. From what I know, nationalists overseas are still divided on this. Some think Diem was the righteous one and others think he deserved to be thrown out because of corruption. Some heavily criticized Thieu for the assassination and called it a barbaric act. It's a touchy topic really. The other interesting man is Nguyen Cao Ky (picture) who served as vice-president to Thieu. Opinion on him is also divided as he later came out to speak against the former regime to the current government. He was trying to reconcile both sides but the criticism were too harsh at times. I think it's because he had some past feud with Thieu. I don't care much about the other ones.
>>62841
>Yes there was corruption as it was a troubled time but you still had multiples parties and candidates. The results could have go anywhere.
Which is strange because Ðiem received a return over 98% IIRC, so much so that the local CIA bitched him out.
Well, I'll be away for now so keep bring in questions if you have them. Have this picture of two Vietnamese qts.
bump for interest
>>57599
President Eisenhower and Senator John F. Kennedy.
The south was too corrupt to function.
Diem was South Vietnam's only chance. Like it or not, he was the Miracle Man. If anyone wants to discuss this further, I'd love to.
>>65103
Okay, go ahead. How was persecuting Buddhists anything but a bad idea?
>>57548
France lost and basically sounded a surrender like always.
we left them to fend for themselves after pulling out. we achieved our objective of a south Vietnam and it having its own army so we won and pulled out premature. north grew balls to invade after they new we wouldnt back em up
>>65393
He was an ardent Catholic, yes, but he didn't mean to persecute the Buddhist. The man was notorious at being poor at public relations. At a festival with his brother, his brother decided to put up the Catholic flag. He wanted those flags down as he knew it would cause an uproar, but his brother the bishop didn't listen. Also, he did have fair hiring practices. It's simply people always tried to suck up to him by converting to Catholicism. The reason there were so many Catholic hires were because they were more likely to be well-educated. French colonisation meant the Catholics got a chance to get ahead by going to French schools.
>>57548
South Vietnam, unlike South Korea, was a repressive and vaguely autocratic state that tried to impose Catholicism on its very Buddhist population.
Government repressions turned the SoVe people toward Communism, which led the SoVe government to rig elections and restrict free expression.
In addition, the South Vietnamese army was fucking evil. SoVe troops tended to commit more war crimes than the North or the US, and did a horrible job at bringing the people back into the fold.
From what I can gather, Vietnamese people outside of Hanoi hated the government. Many actually welcomed the Viet Minh and joined the Viet Cong.
>>65508
They fell for the Communist meme.
>>65508
Vietnam did not have a very Buddhist population. The overwhelming majority of the population was not and is not religious i.e. atheist or ancestor worship only.
South Vietnam was the most blatant puppet state the US ever created. On par with Japan's Manchukuo.
>>65508
>In addition, the South Vietnamese army was fucking evil. SoVe troops tended to commit more war crimes than the North or the US
You're full of shit. ARVN wouldn't hurt a fly. It was the NVA and especially the Viet Cong that terrorized people by threatening to kill if they didn't join. They killed thousands civilians in the battle of Hue. No source anywhere stated that ARVN commit any war crime. However, you have this for the commies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_war_crimes
Did they brainwash you?
>>66439
>trust me, america told me
>>57548
First there was cutting off funding.
Big problem as South Vietnam was heavily reliant on the US.
The problem was that the ARVN exarcebated this with an ill thought out attack followed by an even more disorganised retreat which led the complete destruction of 1st Corps.
>>62688
I have a South Vietnamese friend who says the same about the North.
>>66357
Diem wouldn't have the puppetry so they killed him.
>>68056
South Vietnamese here. I can explain further.
>>66493
No, trust me. I am actually Vietnamese. The Vietnam War was a dirty war, and I'm sure there were atrocities by both sides but the South doesn't send people to slit your family's throat if you're the village headman and don't agree to aid and abet them (the VC).
>>57548
The South Vietnamese governments were all inherently corrupt to the core. Thieu, Ky, all those guys. There is an excellent book on the subject that would answer almost any question you have regarding that period in time from the political side.
Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow
>>69357
That is a point of no dispute. However, since the reunification of Vietnam the victorious Communists have shown how the former South's corruption pales compared to theirs.
Ho Chi Minh literally did nothing wrong
>>69406
He was a brilliant, cunning man, but if you believe ruthlessness and deception are wrong then he did plenty of wrong.
>>69396
I am not denying that. The thing that kept the North going during the war was Chinese and Russian aid, and nearly unwavering resolve and morale, tempered with patience to their cause. If we had stuck it out, in my personal opinion, we still may not have won, due to the inefficiency of the SV government.
>>69527
The turning point was killing Diem. Diem only wanted money and support in the form of advisors like Lansdale. Without Diem, the network he built up (some say by graft) melted away. He was bad at delegating but his level of command and control with the telephone was unmatched in South Vietnamese governance. Strategic hamlets ultimately turned into a fiasco after the brothers' deaths, but it had the potential to be a good buffer. I still maintain America could have won and with much less pain had it made the right call. Sometimes the ends do justify the means.
>>62688
Chinesefag here, aren't Northern Vietnamese and Cantonese pretty similar? Most Chinese people don't like Cantonese people.
>>69730
AFAIK, the languages are not varieties of the same language i.e. neither side can undertand the other. I'm sure with the thousand years of domination there is more blood-mixing in the North versus the South. And it's okay, Vietnamese don't like Chinese or Cantonese either.
Their main problem seemed to be how long and porous the Lao and Cambodian borders were. They couldn't have the security South Korea had, at least without strong governments in Laos and Cambodia that can control their own territory effectively.
>>69823
That's Harriman's fault.
>>62011
I traveled around Vietnam for four months the beginning of this year. It's fine. The really overpopulated areas around the Mekong delta and around Hanoi have pretty much totally ruined environments (air in the North is especially bad), but the whole middle part of the country is quite nice. I'm gonna try to get a job there in the future. Infrastructure is really quite good: good roads everywhere unless you get really far out in the sticks, no problem with electricity, smelled less like piss and shit than it does here in Seoul. And crime doesn't seem to be a problem at. Probably a lot like China 10-20 years ago, or South Korea ~40 years ago.
>>70134
For a very, very brief moment in time Vietnam was the pearl of the Orient. It's sad how keked the country is now compared to what could have been.
South Vietnam would need a Lee Kuan Yeu.
Failing that, it needed a Park Chung hee, or at least a Singman Ree.
>>70222
The closest it had was Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother. One faction of the US administration at the time thought America would win the war easier if he was removed. Boy were they wrong!
>>57599
Carpe
>>62688
Food and culture were very noticeably different when you crossed the DMZ. Food in the South was uniformly amazing, in the North it was just as uniformly revolting (I'm not at all squeamish about food, but it was hard to choke down anything up there). This was sorta made up for by the fact that in the North dirt cheap beer was everywhere, and people LOVE to drink, while Southern Vietnam is practically dry (despite beer still being pretty cheap, nobody seems to drink anything but coffee, although that's amazing in Vietnam).
I was hanging out with a Northern guy in the far South (Ha Tien) and he said he could barely understand the people there, and he was basically a foreigner.
>>70287
There's a clear split on mentality that I can sort of try to explain if you want.
>>69783
>And it's okay, Vietnamese don't like Chinese or Cantonese either
Chinese people either don't have a problem with Vietnam or they don't know it exists, even after the conclusion of the Sino-Vietnamese war in 1979. Even in ancient times, Vietnamese would tell tales of glorious uprisings while in the Chinese records there would be a single line about "some barbarian peasants tried to revolt and we killed them, in other news crop shipments were OK for this year." It's one of the most one-sided examples of hatred in history
A bit off-topic, though, but fear of Chinese domination is one of the big themes of Vietnamese nationalism.
>>70337
And rightly so, for part of your national narrative is taking over what supposedly belongs to you. Vietnam fights for survivor; Chinese seeks to conquer. There is nothing to blame but fame and geography for them to be enemies.
>>70329
Go ahead, but the impression I got is that the North was fucked by communism the same it way fucked everywhere else it took deep root. People in the North seemed markedly less entrepreneurial than in the South.
One thing I found really telling (having been to just about every corner of the country): in the South pretty much every hole-in-the-wall little restaurant can produce a menu (in Vietnamese, sometimes even with an English translation in the most unlikely places), while in the North *NOT ONCE* did any place that wasn't clearly marketed to tourists have a menu. They simply don't exist in the North; the concept it totally foreign to them.
>>70507
Hanoi is traditionally the cultural centre of Vietnam. Nowadays it's relegated tot the role of cultural and political capital. Northerners have long been more uptight and hard-working in a sense than Southerners. The people who work the hardest are those in Central Vietnam. Southerners are seen are more relaxed and open. Communism really screwed up the North because many if not most eduated Northerners left for South Vietnam. So a lot of the better original Northerners aren't even there anymore. The Northern behavior has reflected this and become a lot more low, peasantish, and rude as a result. I'm not sure about entrepreneurship personally, but I do know beer is drunken everywhere in Vietnam, haha.
t. South Vietnamese who traces his bloodline to the North
>>65103
Sure, I will. Ðiem was South Vietnam's only chance, but the extent of his corruption, and the deep resentment after the 56 catholic migrations from the North meant that he could only succeed with an even LARGER graft network, one that involved and incorporated major southern figures and the Buddhist religious elite.
>>65393
>How was persecuting Buddhists anything but a bad idea?
For Ðiem, persecuting Buddhists cemented his northern catholic supporters.
>>65500
>The reason there were so many Catholic hires were because they were more likely to be well-educated. French colonisation meant the Catholics got a chance to get ahead by going to French schools.
Well, there's ANOTHER reason why he couldn't get non-Catholic literate Vietnamese to administer his spoils system: the superior credentials of the VWP controlled movements to the "national imaginary."
>>65508
>South Vietnam, unlike South Korea, was a repressive and vaguely autocratic state
Your opinion is discarded as it contains a factual error in the second clause. You might want to read up on the South Korean's warcrimes in the RVN. You also mean "ARVN" troops.
>>66357
>South Vietnam was the most blatant puppet state the US ever created.
West Germany.
>>66439
>No source anywhere stated that ARVN commit any war crime.
Did you read about the war to 1965? If you believe that the PLAF's use of executive force amounts to a "war crime" then the executions by the ARVN before US intervention, and after US intervention which were extra-judicial have exactly the same status.
>>69280
>The Vietnam War was a dirty war, and I'm sure there were atrocities by both sides but the South doesn't send people to slit your family's throat if you're the village headman and don't agree to aid and abet them (the VC).
No. They rounded people up in the night to 1962 and tortured them to death in the back of US trucks. For some reason most of the ARVN had no interest in supporting the underground VWP or NFL.
>>70639
Beer consumption is night vs. day North vs. South. The South is all about cafes, while in the North dirty cheap bia hoi is everywhere.
>>70747
>You might want to read up on the South Korean's warcrimes in the RVN. You also mean "ARVN" troops
SK Marines were equal parts brave and fucking brutal. Knowing what they did makes me laugh when Vietnamese seems so receptive to K-Pop alongside the rest of the ASEAN countries.
>>70747
I am personally of the persuasion that the man himself as an aescetic wasn't corrupt, but the whole structure under him was. I suspect Nhu did most of the dirty work for him.
I am not quite sure what you mean by your last statement. Could you reword it for me?
>>69396
>However, since the reunification of Vietnam the victorious Communists have shown how the former South's corruption pales compared to theirs.
I think you really need to differentiate "corruption" from "appalling administrative choices."
>>69406
Fuck off, just fuck off. "Wrong" isn't a category used in history.
>>69632
I do say graft, but you should hear me about 19th century US politics. Ðiem, at least, was competent.
Strategic hamlets were a political failure to begin with (RAND studies back this).
The chief problem with a US "win" is they didn't have a position for what a "win" was. Options like an invasion of the DRVN were viewed with suspicion, and the US doubted its capacity to even enforce itself on the VWP in the DRVN after the French "successes," and given the analysis of the campaign to 1965 in the south.
>>69823
The US couldn't control the coastal supply routes either, or the internal supply routes. One major source of PLAF (as opposed to PAVN, they had different logistics structure prior to Tet-1) supply was the ARVN.
>>70222
"Great man" is not at all respected historiographically.
>>70287
One of the reason the South might be dry would be the brutal cultural campaigns after 1975.
* * *
Anyway I am quite happy to punch on with anyone who starts stuff if I'm wearing a red flag shirt in the street. Anyone who feels that much revanchevist resentment after this time is pretty much a dickhead. I relish the nationalist tears from migrant catholic elites.
>>70855
They were notoriously brutal, yes, butt the Japanese also starved 2 million Vietnamese to death during WWII, and yet there no grudge borne against them. Why? Because they haven't been Vietnam's traditional enemy for centuries. The US and Vietnam now are more like the US and Japan.
>>70923
South Vietnam's political laws were highly repressive and involved judicial and extra-judicial killings from 1956. In particular, the VWP's order to the southern comrades to disorganise was respected until the beatings and killings started. In many ways the ineffective repressions of the early Ðiem government created the spirit in the southern comrades that forced the VWP's hand.
In the North, after the failure of the (fucking ridiculous) collectivisation campaign which was also brutal but "effective" in the sense that it didn't produce an underground armed movement; the VWP debated a war and an anti-war line. The anti-war line was winning until southern VWP forced the VWP into war by defending themselves against the 56 laws and Ðiem's repression.
So the proto NFL forced the VWP into the war line. I'm not saying the Giap "Northern development" line would have won necessarily, but Ðiem certainly helped the war line by killing a lot of deactivated Viet Minh.
>>70976
>Because they haven't been Vietnam's traditional enemy for centuries.
I don't ever remember South Korean anti-Japanese elites ever having been Vietnam's traditional enemy for centuries.
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>>70935
The South was indeed corrupt. I hold the North is as well. Ask any Vietnamese alive today.
Strategic hamlets were an idea in the right directioin but again corruption got in way in form of infiltrators with bribes. Otherwise it was the fact that the very village people inside them were VC or their family was. Are you going to rat your VC relative and let him/her die? And you're correct about the US undecisiveness in policy.
Why do you relish nationalist tears?
>>71043
I think you misunderstood. Vietnam's only true enemy was and is China, her Northern neighbor.
>>71010
It's a myth that the Viet Minh were Communist. A lot of them were nationalists. In fact, thousands of non-Communist Viet Minh were purged in order to pave the way for Ho Chi Minh's leadership.
>>71221
No. The Anonymous poster was replying to my post about the South Korean marines. If they want to talk about a new group, such as the Chinese, they would have had to name them.
Also, what became "Vietnam" did, in the feudal era, quite enjoy displacing people from what became "Cambodia" during the migration south.
>>71274
It is a myth that the NFL were communist, a lot of the NFL were cultists, buddhists, or nationalist liberals. In fact, thousands of non-communist NFL and PRG were purged in order to pave the way for the post 75 unified state leadership.
>>71420
No country is saintly. I am not saying Vietnam is good - I am merely tryin to set the record straight.
To me then, it sounds as if the NFL were simply dissidents. Dissidents are harmful to a war effort. Communists will purge to their convenience.
I am much more familiar with the corresponding Vietnamese terminology for the Vietnam War as I am South Vietnamese (I admit I may be biased). And your interest or stake in the War comes from being... (if I may ask)?
>>71599
The history of the non Vietnamese Workers' Party sections of the National Front for Liberation is actually quite interesting. They were all thoroughly infiltrated by the VWP, but allowed to have separate political positions to the VWP position. Until 1968 when the NFL was folded wholesale as an organisation into the Provisional Revolutionary Government, and the only remains of the National Front for Liberation as an "independent" position were the women running villages in liberated areas.
>it sounds as if the NFL were simply dissidents
Not really. The VWP were really quite expert and developing consensus and massaging dissent. The idea that Tet was used to destroy dangerously "independent" military force is a joke: the northern VWP central committee fully expected Tet to work.
>Communists will purge to their convenience.
Well they did after 1975. But after 1968 there were no more local battalions. And I suspect had there been 10 fewer years of war that 1965 would have looked very different to 1975.
>>71599
>And your interest or stake in the War comes from being... (if I may ask)?
You may. I was deeply suspicious of the US focused narratives on the war during undergraduate and read heavily on the Vietnamese side of the war. I also have an interest in "actually-existing Stalinism" and how the stalinist parties really operated. I have an additional interest in how the real revolution in Vietnam related to the stalinist party which attempted to and succeeded in repressing the revolution.
One example of the above is many young stupid marxists suggest that a "peasantry" existed in Vietnam in a dominant way in the 1940s, blithely unaware of the way in which the French fish sauce tax changed the rural economy and proletarianised the vast majority of people like the UK enclosures.
>all this NFL
Goddamn fucking commies.
>>71900
Did you even read the thread?
>>71844
If anything, I will say you seem sincere as a historian. I always assumed the non-VWP of the NLF was more or less a front for appearances to be "independent". I do not so myself as a revanchist merely as a Vietnamese obligated to correct the Northern spin on things. I bear the Communists little ill will but am just sad at how Vietnam fell short of its potential. It's had two chances with good leaders in recent history: King Quang Trung and Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem. Obviously our perspectives are bound to be different.
>>71978
>but am just sad at how Vietnam fell short of its potential
Oh I certainly agree. My fantasy vietnam is a 1965 southern revolution which revitalises the VWP and produces something even more exciting than a Titoist Vietnam.
The NFL organised a lot of cultist dissent, "liberal / progressive nationalist" dissent, social democratic dissent, local pissed off agricultural workers, nationalists, local religious worshippers, buddhists, etc.
The "Front" was meant to appear to be real, but in many ways prior to 1965 as it was growing actually was: the VWP couldn't produce actual communist cadre inside the NFL fast enough. So this meant that a lot of NFL activists still had their own political conceptions.
For example, when I talk about the Southern Revolution, I mean the men and mostly women in local villages who ensured that the tax man, government catholic school teacher, head landlord were made to run, or shot, as part of the village collectivising itself in a "liberated area." While there were certainly very brutal NFL & VWP activists, much of the brutality is 35 years of village resentment against government men and landlords.
>>72141
I see. You don't have the sentimental stake in it us Vietnamese do though to get to see our native country shine. None of it matters now anyways with a rising China.
>>72391
Well, to 1990 China wasn't rising. And 1990 is the 25 year rule.
>>57548
I blame the corruption in the south. Some of their presidents were corrupt fucking assholes. That made more people start becoming Viet congs
(who are not the same the NVA you fucking retarded american niggas who try to be historians of vietnam war and cant understand the NVA was a legit fucking professional army and that vietcongs were people form the south who defected and did guerilla warfare)
T guy who knows a shit load of viets and met a shit load of south vietnamese niggas who were alive during the war. Not some white stupid grinog.
