Vietcong was brutal, no doubt. But they didn't start the war - US did. Americans murdered unarmed civilians, gangraped women and killed their babies (1968, My Lai, the famous "And babies? - And Babies")
https://archive.org/details/MeadloWallaceInterviewNov241969/mode/1up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%E1%BB%B9_Lai_massacre
US did worse. They rounded up Phillipine civilians in 'camps' pumped them with water and stomped their bellies till they died (1900):
("water is steadily poured in" "we jump on them to get it out quick") https://books.google.cz/books?redir_esc=y&id=qvLfIHqkOOAC&q=we+jump+on+them+to+get+it+out+quic#v=snippet&q=we%20jump%20on%20them%20to%20get%20it%20out%20quic&f=false
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2008/02/25/the-water-cure
mayonesa@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
Some Americans committed war crimes and got prosecuted. This happens in every war.
Did America start it? They inherited unstable Vietnam from the French and wanted to keep it from falling into Communist hands.
I would say China started it.
Should we talk about the Mongols here? I think any aggression by Caucasians toward Asians is fully explained by that genetic memory.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
You are correct, but there are caveats. We both agree, voters should decide to start a war or not. A president lying to start wars should be jailed.
Vietnam War started on a lie that a US Navy boat was attacked in Gulf of Tonkin. The lie was revealed in Pentagon Papers leak 1971. American voters thought Vietnam fired the first shot, and they were acting in self defense, just like the lies before Afghanistan and Iraq, and Ukraine today.
LBJ was a war criminal like Bush, Obama, Biden, Hillary.
On top of deaths, Americans lose civil rights in war:
"American Govt" starts wars, not "America". Vietnamese and Americans were victims of the same Regime.
People need to learn history. We are about to repeat it.
mayonesa@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
I do not necessarily agree here. I think it started with the first advisers. The Gulf of Tonkin was just the touchstone to the military buildup, and involved an attack on the first day that was faked on the second. The US ships in question were radar surveiling the North Vietnamese coast, so an attack was... well, not unexpected.
The Patriot Act seemed to me to be related to 9/11 more than Afghanistan. Crises empower government.
The social media censorship has been going on for a long time.
No comment on Obama's drone wars except to say that I think they provoked a lot of resentment.
iamtanmay@wolfballs.com 2 years ago
You may be right, I only know the overall timeline on Vietnam. I think the huge anti-war movement showed what Americans thought. Only 'popular' wars were WW II after Pearl Harbour and Afghanistan after 9/11. Presidents would not manipulate Americans if they were willing to go to war.
Yes, Patriot Act was due to 9/11, not Afghan War. I was wrong. I knew better. I don't know why I wrote that. CIA funded Bin Laden and Taliban extremists with Billions in weapons for proxy war with Russians. 9/11 could not have happened otherwise. Seeing as we are now funding another group of extremists with Billions in weapons to fight a proxy war with Russians, it feels like planned self destruction.
No. Social media censorship came in waves. There was none before Trump's win in 2016. 2020 the first big wave, Hunter Biden Laptop, Trump deplatformed, Election fraud. 2021 second big wave with Covid/Vax. 2022 Russia was deplatformed by Youtube, Fbook, Visa, Mastercard, Google, Apple etc. I shouldn't say Biden is behind censorship. He is a part of the larger agenda.
Obama bombed two American citizens without trial. Constitutional rights disappeared with the War on Terror