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Who won the Vietnam War?

Who won the Vietnam War?

  • The French

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The British

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Americans

    Votes: 6 6.1%

  • The Canadians

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Chinese

    Votes: 3 3.0%

  • The Russians

    Votes: 3 3.0%

  • The Japanese

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • The Vietnamese

    Votes: 46 46.5%

  • No one

    Votes: 23 23.2%

  • Other

    Votes: 18 18.2%
  • Total voters
    99
nonpareil said:
Maybe the killing in Vietnam and Cambodia would not be so horrendous without US involvement. If the South was not supplied by the US to fight against the North, the unification of the country would have happened much sooner with much less hunger for vengance by the North. In cambodia, without US encouragement, who knows if Lon Nol would actually succeed in overthrowing Sikhanouk, then there would not have been the insanity of the Khmer Rouge.

Politicians should not play God, especially in regions with cultures they couldn't understand.
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nonpareil said:
Did I say anywhere that the North was justified?
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That's what it sounds like to me. If not then I apologies for jumping the gun, but do you really think the violence would have been less without the U.S. involvement? It seems to me that Communist regimes always have policies of killing those that would oppose them for the Good of the Country and Party.
 
nonpareil said:
Maybe the killing in Vietnam and Cambodia would not be so horrendous without US involvement. If the South was not supplied by the US to fight against the North, the unification of the country would have happened much sooner with much less hunger for vengance by the North.
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ah, and the south would have collapsed much quicker to the victorious nothern communists.

like in China.

how'd that work out for them?

on the same vein, it occurs to me that fewer southerners would have died if the North had let them succeed after the first battle of Bull Run. fewer Japanese would have died if we had just let them have China. fewer Germans would have died if we had just let them have france and spend themselves duking it out against the USSR.
 
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cpwill said:
which is why i'm actually glad that our institutions are left wing; though i wish they would allow some contrarian viewpoints. it forces conservative students to think and helps keep the liberal ones dumb.
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I think you confuse not accepting Fallacious arguments as being intolerant of divise opinions. In a news world were some any extreme unsupported nonsense view is equal to supported logical and well reasoned views, some may well be confused and think there is no difference between the two. Too often is not the view that is the problem, but how poorly it is reasoned. When you break something down to the point of distorting the actual view you're responding to, or even losing any logic in your own view, there is room to criticise.

Also, it has been my experience that conservatives, many conservative students, are as likley, if not more so, to try and stop actual discussion. I won't go so far as to say liberals have never been wrong, but it is important to recognize intolerance and an unwillingness to listen is not limited to any ideaology.
 
Boo Radley said:
I think you confuse not accepting Fallacious arguments as being intolerant of divise opinions. In a news world were some any extreme unsupported nonsense view is equal to supported logical and well reasoned views, some may well be confused and think there is no difference between the two. Too often is not the view that is the problem, but how poorly it is reasoned. When you break something down to the point of distorting the actual view you're responding to, or even losing any logic in your own view, there is room to criticise.

Also, it has been my experience that conservatives, many conservative students, are as likley, if not more so, to try and stop actual discussion. I won't go so far as to say liberals have never been wrong, but it is important to recognize intolerance and an unwillingness to listen is not limited to any ideaology.
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Funny you say that as I posted an outline explaining the fallacy of declaring the Domino Theory invalid challenging some liberals on that assertion and it has been ignored by the leftists on this board... Who does not want to engage in honest discussion???
 
ludahai said:
Funny you say that as I posted an outline explaining the fallacy of declaring the Domino Theory invalid challenging some liberals on that assertion and it has been ignored by the leftists on this board... Who does not want to engage in honest discussion???
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I missed your post, so I'll have to go back and find it, but you might try re-reading what I wrote. ;)
 
ludahai said:
Not entirely true. Had the Communists consolidated control of Vietnam in the 1950s or early 1960s, then the Domino Theory may very well have come to pass. Thailand was struggling with Communists through most of the 1950s and into the 1960s. Malaysia had the 'Emergency' in the late 1950s and Indonesia had an attempted Communist coup (from the PKI) in the mid-1960s. Most of this (except an ongoing Communist insurgency in the Philippines) had pretty much died down by 1975. So, saying that Communist victory in the old French Indo-China not resulting in the further spread of communism disproved the Domino Theory shows an ignorance of the change in the situation in the rest of the region between 1954 and 1975.
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This is the type of revisionist efforts that have been common in recent years. When something doesn't pan out, the approach is to say it would have had not we spent the years and lives to prevent it. That is not neccessarily true. If you actually believe our system is superior, there is no reason to assume communism could have defeated in long term, regardless of what happened in that region. And as VN was clearly willing to work with us early on, a little support from us would have gone a long way toward creating a much better environment.

So, while none of us can prove beyond all doubt about what would have happened, we know the dominos did nto fall, and that communism has not held up well. I also think it is also safe conclusion to reach that those deaths, those lives spent in VN were needless and wrong to spend. We can also clearly see that a democracy will not support long wars without very good reasoning for them. Stopping a maybe domino theroy will never likely be seen as good enough reason to engage in a long term war. Not for a majority, meaning you will not ever have public support to do this.
 
Obviously, the North Vietnamese.
They were destined to win and rule all along.
That we had an unfounded fear of communism cost the lives of thousands of Americans..
And this may happen again.
 
Boo Radley said:
This is the type of revisionist efforts that have been common in recent years. When something doesn't pan out, the approach is to say it would have had not we spent the years and lives to prevent it. That is not neccessarily true. If you actually believe our system is superior, there is no reason to assume communism could have defeated in long term, regardless of what happened in that region. And as VN was clearly willing to work with us early on, a little support from us would have gone a long way toward creating a much better environment.

So, while none of us can prove beyond all doubt about what would have happened, we know the dominos did nto fall, and that communism has not held up well. I also think it is also safe conclusion to reach that those deaths, those lives spent in VN were needless and wrong to spend. We can also clearly see that a democracy will not support long wars without very good reasoning for them. Stopping a maybe domino theroy will never likely be seen as good enough reason to engage in a long term war. Not for a majority, meaning you will not ever have public support to do this.
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I am not saying we can conclusively prove either theory... and btw, I have been advocating this view since the 1980s... You can't deny the regional geopolitical situation was far different in 1975 than it was in 1954...
 
ludahai said:
I am not saying we can conclusively prove either theory... and btw, I have been advocating this view since the 1980s... You can't deny the regional geopolitical situation was far different in 1975 than it was in 1954...
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Things are often fluid and not stagnent, which makes predictions difficult. That's one reason why we shouldn't try to shape the world.
 
earthworm said:
Obviously, the North Vietnamese.
They were destined to win and rule all along.
That we had an unfounded fear of communism cost the lives of thousands of Americans..
And this may happen again.
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Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it.
 
earthworm said:
Obviously, the North Vietnamese.
They were destined to win and rule all along.
That we had an unfounded fear of communism cost the lives of thousands of Americans..
And this may happen again.
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Destiny? wow you sound like your telling a Greek legend.
And the fear of communism is not unfounded, it stem's from the very foundation's of American value's; it's natural for an American, especially during that time to fear for the spread of communism... it is evil
 
celticwar17 said:
Destiny? wow you sound like your telling a Greek legend.
And the fear of communism is not unfounded, it stem's from the very foundation's of American value's; it's natural for an American, especially during that time to fear for the spread of communism... it is evil
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Nonsense, it just doesn't work.
 
LookingGlass said:
Nonsense, it just doesn't work.
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LookingGlass is right. Calling Communism "evil" in and of itself is a stretch. Certainly Communist regimes in the USSR and China have been capable of doing some pretty evil things, but that makes their authoritarian governments evil. IRL, Communism itself isn't evil so much as it is a stupid idea that doesn't really work beyond groups of maybe a few dozen people.
 
The poll is incomplete. The war was won by the NVA. They forced the Americans to eventually run with their "tails 'tween their legs". America was defeated by a gang of illiterate Koolies.
 
reefedjib said:
Hardly. They had their fair share of support, no doubt, but did they really have a choice? Communism talks a good game, plus the Communist Party was an organizing principle that the south lacked sufficiently in opposition, but when it was over in '75, communists reverted to their true colors and purged ideological dissent. That is the only way a "communist" movement can survive post conflict: it becomes a autocracy. The people of Vietnam suffered decades of maltreatment.
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um.. so your saying because the commies are persuasive and charismatic the vietnamese people had no choice? thats a funny statement coming from someone living in a democratic country. you do support democracy dont you?
 
Yukon said:
The poll is incomplete. The war was won by the NVA. They forced the Americans to eventually run with their "tails 'tween their legs". America was defeated by a gang of illiterate Koolies.
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I think they were called goons, not koolies.
 
Yukon said:
The poll is incomplete. The war was won by the NVA. They forced the Americans to eventually run with their "tails 'tween their legs". America was defeated by a gang of illiterate Koolies.
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In short;
LOL...I don't know why I am going to waste my time with this but here goes. The NVA backed by Russia, China and the Vietmanese people who had a very strong will and cause in their belief won the war. Now America could have easily won this war if the rules of engagement were different, non the less America may have won the war but it would have never won the peace. BTW we chose to leave Vietnam because of no support back home and the eventual realization that it was a lost cause in trying to change the minds of a people we really knew very little about. The Vietnam war IMO was really about keeping Russia and China in check. Although during that time little did we realize that Communism will always fail and eventually collapse within it's self.
 
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Yukon said:
The poll is incomplete. The war was won by the NVA. They forced the Americans to eventually run with their "tails 'tween their legs". America was defeated by a gang of illiterate Koolies.
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Only because of politics... otherwise we could have and would have killed every single one of them, as well as invade and conquer that dinky little island 90 miles to the south...
 
StillBallin75 said:
LookingGlass is right. Calling Communism "evil" in and of itself is a stretch. Certainly Communist regimes in the USSR and China have been capable of doing some pretty evil things, but that makes their authoritarian governments evil. IRL, Communism itself isn't evil so much as it is a stupid idea that doesn't really work beyond groups of maybe a few dozen people.
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Communisn only works in theory.
 
deltabtry said:
Communisn only works in theory.
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Precisely :) Theory and practice are two very different things. Communism just plain doesn't work because of human nature, it might work if human beings were perfect (in which case they would no longer be human). That doesn't make communist ideology, or people who are communists, evil, it's just that it's a flawed ideology.
 
StillBallin75 said:
Precisely :) Theory and practice are two very different things. Communism just plain doesn't work because of human nature, it might work if human beings were perfect (in which case they would no longer be human). That doesn't make communist ideology, or people who are communists, evil, it's just that it's a flawed ideology.
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Agreed, although perhaps misguided:)
 
StillBallin75 said:
Precisely :) Theory and practice are two very different things. Communism just plain doesn't work because of human nature, it might work if human beings were perfect (in which case they would no longer be human). That doesn't make communist ideology, or people who are communists, evil, it's just that it's a flawed ideology.
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It does, however, beg the question as to why there are still those who are communists in spite of its dismal failure.
 
LookingGlass said:
It does, however, beg the question as to why there are still those who are communists in spite of its dismal failure.
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You'll have to ask them. I believe some people are just bleeding-heart idealists, even if they know that their own views will not be put in practice.

For instance I consider myself a democratic socialist in that I believe Scandinavian social democracy to be an example of a society that does a pretty good job of promoting social justice while not stifling economic activity and wealth creation. It doesn't mean that I think such a system will ever be implemented in the US, at least in the near future. It would require drastic cultural and societal change for something like that to happen but it's still an ideal.
 
cpgrad08 said:
That's what it sounds like to me. If not then I apologies for jumping the gun, but do you really think the violence would have been less without the U.S. involvement? It seems to me that Communist regimes always have policies of killing those that would oppose them for the Good of the Country and Party.
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Right, they have "a policy of killing those that would oppose them", if the South lose quickly the opposition to the North is lesser and the killing I think is lesser too. Once the purge is finished, the Vietnamese as a country has been able to enjoy quick growth after adopting capitalism. If you go to Vietnam now, it's no worse than say Thailand.

If I were to say that without American intervention the Taliban might not have come to power in Afghanistan, it doesn't justify the Russian Invasion of that country. The same applies here.
 
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