Talk:Vietnam War/Archive 1

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Archive This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Contents

Vandalism and a criticism

June 8, 2005 The section on the beginning of the war has a blank area called "North Vietnam" bu no text. Apparently it has been deleted, ie. vandalism. As it stands now, it appears the VW was the sole creation of Kennedy -- a view which few historians would agree to. Can we please have 1) some explanation of NV and SV communist groups role in the origins of the war, eg. assassinations of village chiefs or bombings etc, and what their aim was, if and when any decisions were made on their part.

Also, the text about Kennedy is interesting but it seems a lot of unsourced mind reading is going on, and little of it is phrased in an objective manner. Phrases such as "By the political calculations of his administration, the U.S. had to work quickly to create a "valve" to release any built-up political pressures." could be cited to specific historians and presented as an interpretation of events, rather than the voice of God with access to Kennedy's brain.

Vandalism?

May 16, 2005.

Are the references on this page to "Jewish" forces intentional or vandalism? I think it should read "communist".

simple correction in order? Please check this

Under Johnson and the bay of Tonkim....

..The Marines were tipped-off by a NLF deserter who said that there was an attack planned against the US base at Chu Lai. The NVA learned from their defeat and tried to avoid fighting a US-style war from then on.

NVA I take it you mean NLF? Somebody who knows their history (i.e. not me!) ought to change that if I'm right.

General Discussions

There is just so much information that ought to go in this article. The Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Tet Offensive, the My Lai massacre, the antiwar movement in the U.S., the Cambodian bombing, the Paris Peace talks....the list is endless. Maybe as I have time I will add more--this is just a rough outline and a first stab at expanding this article. This is a potentially contentious subject, so it is important to try to be objective.

Hey dude, great job starting it. I couldn't just stand to see this page left blank, even something small mentioning it is better than nothing. I hope it will get people going and they will add righteous material to it.


I think there should be some mention of the "strategic hamlets" and descriptions of them so people know what they actually were, concentration camps. Not extermination camps like Hitler's, but political prisoner camps like the British used.

Vietnamisation

Vietnamization proved effective

Huh ? It proved exactly opposite. Army of South Vietnam lost. Taw
The article indicates that Congress reneged on Nixon's pledge of military assistance for "Vietnamization". The only thing proved here is that "Vietnamization" did not occur. Whether it would or would not have worked is a moot point in 2001.
The point of Vietnamization was that Vietnam would fight its own wars, so if it was necessary for the US to intervene militarily, then I would say that the policy was a failure.

There are three issues here:

1. What exactly, is the definition of "Vietnamization" as proposed by the Nixon administration?
2. Was this policy implemented as defined?
3. If the policy was implemented as defined, was it successful or not?

Further discussion is pointless until these three questions are addressed.


Okay, I'll give it a shot:

Vietnamization was the process of increasing training of South Vietnamese troops to the point that they would be able to take over the roles being played by American troops previously.

This policy was implemented as defined here.

The policy was successful enough that American troops were able to withdraw from Vietnam in stages as the policy was carried out.

It was not intended by the Nixon Administration that this would be the end of US attention to the war, or the end of US support for the South Vietnamese government when Veitnamization was implemented. It just kinda worked out that way.

On a related note, information was added to this article incorporating the perspectives found in Richard Nixon's memoirs, with the intention of supporting the stated aim that Wikipedia ought not be biased. Those additions have either been edited away, or qualified, while other statements of opinion are not similarly qualified. This is an extremely emotional topic area, obviously. Trying to create a balanced article is going to be very difficult no matter what we do, and reacting emotionally to the changes that are going to come as we hammer this thing out isn't going to help all that much. There are many viewpoints on Vietnam, and this article needs to be open to them so long as they meet the standards of the project. Identifying disputed points is a very good idea, but keep in mind that many of the points stated are going to be disputed -- it'll be better to identify the varying positions than to simply edit them away.

Vietnamization did occur, in the sense that the South did not fall for (IIRC) two years after the lsat American combat troop left. However, the stated purpose of Vietnamization (to support the South in continuing the war) was a constructive lie. The U.S. purpose of Vietnamization was to allow Nixon to keep his promise of getting U.S. troops out. I don't believe very many involved in that conflict on the U.S. side had any faith that ARVN could succeed. It was a fig leaf. -- Cecropia 01:16, 7 May 2004 (UTC)
I think it's fairly clear from Nixon and Kissinger's memoirs that those two, at least, believed by 1973 that Vietnam could have defended itself alone, provided continued American air and naval support along with the provision of military supplies. At numerous points Kissinger clarifies his belief that the Nixon administration did not believe that the United States would sell out its effort by ceasing such material support, especially air and naval support in the event that North Vietnam violated the peace accords. So Kissinger and Nixon, at least, professed a belief that the ARVN could do what was being asked of it. Vietnamization of the war itself is probably another matter, certainly the AVRN was incapable of significant offensive operations. But I think the Nixon administration believed they could defend the peace. Christopher Parham (talk) 18:48, 2005 Jun 25 (UTC)

Note from F. Lee Horn, CPT, INF, USA (Retired/Disabled): This can be a really great article, particularly given the excellent start some of you gave it. I am trying to be as objective about this subject as is possible, given the fact that I was there from SEP '67 to SEP '69. Some of the statements I have added (particularly ones about media coverage and some of the activities of the anti-war activists) may be a bit controversial, but I can promise you that they are all historically accurate since I lived through them and my memory hasn't failed me...yet.

I think someone tried to undo your changes. I restored your version because whoever it was made a horrible mess of it (destroying all the links and other formatting). But I haven't attempted to judge the contents - someone who knows about the subject needs to check that. --Zundark, 2001 Dec 30

I think, eventually at least, this article (possibly in a new section) should include at least something about the DMZ. Personally I'd also like to see at least some mention about the media involvement inside Vietnam, with references to Rex Hotel and the infamous "five o'clock follies." though that may be too much detail. This is just a request since I don't know much about it. --Ben 01:51, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The only reason it didn't fall for two years was because the North was following the Paris Peace Accords, then when they broke the agreement they conquered the south? How could this "Vietnamization" be effective when they had two years to train and still get conquered? Either they were not actively performing "Vietnamization" to enough of an extent, or that "Vietnamization" was not effective in the end? ----

NPOV

I think that as it stands this article lacks NPOV. I believe some rewriting may be necessary. On the whole, I would prefer to see certain points developed, rather than cut some of the more controversial elements of the article as it stands. There are four points, specifically, that I think need to be addressed

1) Discussion of the internal political dynamics in the United States that led to involvement, including the loss of State Department experts on Asia following the McCarthy witch-hunts, and Democratic fear of Republican accusations of being "soft on communism"

2) The opening of the article describes it as a war between RVN and the VC (the former backed by the US, the latter backed by N. Vietnam and the USSR). I do not argue that this claim should be cut, but attention must be given to the alternative claim, that the RVN was a creation and puppet of Western colonial powers (first France, then the US), and that the VC was fighting a war against the United States, not just the RVN

3) The article specifies two sources of opposition to the war: that it was unwinable, and that it lacked clear objectives. These certainly were two problems with the war, and are primary among the lessons that the US military have learned from the war. But they are not the only, or even necessarily the most important, reasons for opposition to the war: many Americans dreaded seeing their country take the place of the French as a colonial power; many were revolted by US support for a corrupt dictatorship (and were later horrified to hear that the US supported the assassination of their own puppet, only to instal a new one). Many simply felt the war was wrong, immoral. I am not insisting that the article declare that the war was immoral, only that it report accurately that this was one of the claims made by those who opposed the war

4) finally, the article should explore some of the reasons why so many Vietnamese did not support the South. The article ends by reporting some pretty nasty things that the victors did after the war. Without trying to defend that government or those actions, the South Vietnamese Government were pretty corrupt, and had little popular support within their own country. A reader of the article cannot fully understand the war without knowing something about problems within the RVN -- SR

As for your point (2), there are other views... that the VC was a puppet to NV, and the NV to the USSR and Communist China. Only with better PR. And that the RVN was actually the creation of an alliance, just that this time the USSR blocked the UN Security Council, learning from its Korea mistake.

-- LeandroGFCDutra 14:41, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

You have some very valid points. Unfortunately, my view of the war was pretty much from the bottom up. I don't feel qualified to address most of the issues you raise. I think the article did state that a number of people who opposed it did so out of a sense that it was immoral. I can relate examples of how the people of the RVN, and beyond them the ARVN failed to give their full support (such as not having a deep idetification with SOUTH Vietnam, which was largely a creation of outside forces; or that the people were so war-weary that ANY peace, even under the North Vietnamese, was preferable to continued warfare), but beyond that I really can't go in all good conscience.

BTW...Zundark: thank you for the assist. I'm new to Wikipedia and most of the lost links and etc. wre probably my fault.

F. Lee Horn, CPT, INF, USA (Retired/Disabled)

Well, most of what I know comes from some youthful memories, but mostly Fitzgerals's Fire on the Lake and Halberstam's The Best and the Brightest, so I don't feel very qualified to write much in-depth. Given how big a topic it is, the article so far is a good start. I am sure there are many more people who have much to contribute, I look forward to seeing the process continue... SR

I agree. F. Lee Horn


NPoV - what NPoV? Every American atrocity is recounted in almost loving detail, but there is no reference to many documented North Vietnamese atrocities, either during the war or after. Why, for example, in the disucssion of Tet, is there no room to mention that in the order of five thousand citizens of Hue were murdered by the Communist forces.

Vietnam's Srebrenicza goes unreported, while a single extrajudicial killing by a South Vietnamese police official is given a prominent place. This article needs more than cosmetic changes to be truly NPoV. 144.131.119.228

This article seems very biased and I would certainly recommend a rewriting. This includes the necessity of placing more emphasis on "objective" commentary including but not limited to North Vietnamese atrocities and a removal of certain sentences which have a tint of propaganda. (anonymous)


I have been trying to add a little more background on the geopolitical situation, and how overlapping commitments in Europe and Asia led the United States to war in Vietnam. I have also written a few lines on the domestic situation in the States, per leandrod's entreaties.

At some points it is clear that evidence criticizing US motives in the region come directly from Noam Chomsky. I don't think he is a suitable critic, as he essentially denies the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge, or at least is apologetic towards them. Might someone else suggest a more qualified critic? -aufregende May 27, 2005

Unified Elections

It is a fact that Diem and the United States blocked elections in 1956 because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win those elections, and it is inappropriate to continually remove this fact from the article.

Some proof of this would be nice. F. Lee Horn

A simple search in Google turned up scores of citations. It all probably depends on what you consider "proof", of course, but frankly, I have never seen any history of the war that ever said otherwise. I would think that the "proof" would be on anyone who wanted to claim that this wasn't the case.

For what it is worth, the Encyclopedia Britannica claims the same. They say that the North did political work in the South, that the Southern government was unpopular, and that the Communists were confident to win the elections. So the South refused to call the elections, with the support of the US. I don't know how to independently verify that. --AxelBoldt

Britannica works for me. I stand corrected. Can we devise some language from NPOV? Perhaps you, Axel, can word it?  :) F. Lee Horn

Well, I have really no knowledge of the matter. All I could write would be a rephrasing of the Britannica material. If that's what you want, I'm your man :-) --AxelBoldt
Perhaps it should be noted the reasons for the refusal to elections. Given the universal experience until today, consistently when the Communist party won elections in an area bordering the Communist Block (as in Central Europe, the Far East, the Middle East, Africa, even outside like in Cuba) these would be the last fair elections until the regime was overthrown. Not a Communist exclusivity, the Nazis did the same.

-- LeandroGFCDutra 14:41, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

By the way, for what it's worth, burden of proof is almost always on the party making an assertion. F. Lee Horn

Go for it, Axel! Better that than constant wrangling over "who shot John." :) F. Lee Horn

after introducing the

Editing out facts that you don't like is not an example of NPOV. Just because it is uncomfortable to some that the South Vietnamese government held a one-man election in 1971, or that it tortured political prisoners in "tiger cages", that is not a reason to remove that information from this article. Similarly, the fact that Diem and Eisenhower rejected unifying elections because they knew Ho Chi Minh would win should not be sugarcoated just because it makes one unfortable.

I added a statement to that effect, which you promptly changed. I have no problem with stating the facts, what I have a problem with is stating them in such a way that it becomes obvious they are being utilized to support a particular viewpoint. If you can't be objective, perhaps you should let others who can be add to the article.
Why did you delete the information about the severe human rights abuses of the South Vietnamese government?
Did you include the North (or generally Communist) equivalents? One should show that the US and allies supported SV because it was thought the North would be worse and a menace.
Perhaps because you made so many changes that were misplaced and/or so obviously non-NPOV (at least in my opinion) that I had little choice but to reinstate the original article?

Furthermore, ad hominem attacks on one side of this dispute do not believe in this article, and are not NPOV. Accusing opponents of the war of having their position simply because they are "ill equipped" to cope with something is not only nosensical, it shows a complete lack of comittment to NPOV.

Show me where I indulged in any "ad hominem attacks" and I will humbly apologize to whomever it was I attacked. I don't think that stating people who had never experienced their country being in a war were "ill equipped to cope" with it. I went through the whole thing: two years in Vietnam, coming home to raving, spitting, cursing protestors, etc ad nauseum. Perhaps I can be forgiven for seeing this topic in just a *slightly* different light than others.
Fine, so you have deep emotional reasons for wanting to project your own viewpoint in this article, but it is important to stand outside that and at least try to be objective. The fact is that, unlike you, lots of veterans were themselves also antiwar activists. There is no question that Vietnam war veterans were not considered heroes when they came home, but it is also true that the primary issue that divided people was support versus opposition to the war, not whether people were veterans or not. Lots of antiwar protesters were also beaten up by hardhats and police. They have their own stories to tell about the abuse they faced. Everyone faced abuse.
Also, if you don't understand why it is an ad hominem attack against opponents of the war to attribute their beliefs to being "ill equipped" to cope with images, then you clearly don't understand how to write an NPOV article.
From the online "Stephen's Guide to Logical Fallacies" (http://www.intrepidsoftware.com/fallacy/welcome.htm): "The person presenting an argument is attacked instead of the argument itself. This takes many forms. For example, the person's character, nationality or religion may be attacked. Alternatively, it may be pointed out that a person stands to gain from a favourable outcome. Or, finally, a person may be attacked by association, or by the company he keeps." I don't recall doing this. If I did, I apologize.
I have no wish to "project (my) own viewpoint" onto this article. I was simply trying to state the facts as I saw them. To arbitrarily alter my input, rather than adding your own input as additional viepoint, is IMHO unacceptable.

Furthermore, the phrase "it was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it" is one of the most infamous phrases to come out the war, and to censor it out of this article as one might wish to do is not only a case of whitewashing the history of the war, but it is also leaving out an important explanation of why the "Hearts and Minds" policy was sNational+Front+for+the+Liberation+of+Vietnamuch a miserable failure.

This is the one statement you have made with which I disagree most strongly. The article already mentioned in several places that large numbers of people in South Vietnam were disencanted with the war. Your choice of where to place a rather heavy-handed statement (to say the least) about why everything we did was such a miserable failure only serves to distract the reader from the purpose of that paragraph: to describe the role of a (to that point) seldom-used type of military unit.
The entire paragraph was a glowing portrayal of how beneficent and wonderful the "Hearts and Minds" policy was. To devote an entire paragraph to this without also pointing out the negative effects of US policy that was counterproductive towards winning their hearts and minds is simply an attempt at showing bias. Furthermore, to explicitly remove the issue of "destroying a village in order to save it" is to whitewash the history of the war.
The entire paragraph was intended to convey information about the role of US Army Civil Affairs. It wasn't a "glowing portrayal" of *anything!*

Futhermore, the Vietnam Veterans Against the War did exist and it is appropriate to mention its existence. This is also being censored out of the article.

Where and when did I ever allege that the VVAW didn't exist? If you feel that strongly about inserting comments about this organization, why not do so in an appropriate place within the article? Much of your phraseology and your choice of where to place your comments leads me to believe that, rather than at least *trying* to present a NPOV, you are simply attempting to refute an argument you despise...an argument which, I might add, was never intended to be an "argument" in the first place.
If you will simply try to group your anti-Vietnam War comments in the appropriate places within the article and preface them with statements like "some authorities contend that" or "many people believed that" or "some people felt that" I will be happy to leave them there.
By the way...I think it's interesting that you choose to identify yourself as 128.32.172.xxx, rather than by name.
Not interested in that approach??? Ok, how's this: you write into the article whatever you like. Change language. Delete language. Add language. Then I'll come back and either edit to what I consider NPOV language, or add my own version of the facts to what you've already written. Then we can go back and forth until we find language in each area acceptable to both of us. Agreed??? F. Lee Horn
That seems like a fair proposal. However, I think I would like to devote my energies elNational+Front+for+the+Liberation+of+Vietnamsewhere, so from my point of view you may do with the article as you wish.

F. Lee and others: Can I just say that, from my point of view of relative ignorance, I like this article now. It reads in an even handed way, and is succint and informative (assuming there are no horrible historical inaccuracies that I'm too dumb to spot -- GWO

On behalf of 128.32.172.xxx and myself, I thank you! Trust me...it wasn't easy. I hope the damned thing meets with at least *most* people's approval now! ;) F. Lee Horn

I know many people have been putting a lot of work into this. My point may seem partisan, but I think it is serious and important.:

Currently, the article states "Vietnam was partitioned, ostensibly temporarily, into a communist North and a democratic South."

I do not think it is accurate to call South Vietnam a democracy. I am NOT trying to compare/contrast the South and the North -- I make no claims about the North. But the South was not by our standards a democracy. Halberstam described it as feudal (albeit with many of the trappings of republics, like elections). I suspect some historians would also reject that comparison. Frankly I myself do not know what to write. I know the US government thaught that S. Vietnam was better than N. Vietnam. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. And I know that they had hopes thad S. Vietnam would become a democracy. But it just wasn't.


After the French-Indochina war and the Geneva accords, the French ceeded the North to Ho Chi Minh and the South was NOT set up as a democracy but left in the hands of the French puppet emporer, Bao Dai. The United States insisted that the emporor name Ngo Dinh Diem as Prime Minister -- he was not elected. In 1956 Diemh opposed unified elections and instead staged an election in the South which he won. He and his brothers effectively ruled S. Vietnam as a family. In 1963 Buddhist opposition revealed Diem's shaky base to the US public, which began to see how corrupt and oppressive his regime was. At this point the US government was so embarassed by him that when ARVN officers asked Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge if the US would object to a coup, Lodge replied no. Diem was assassinated in 1963. A few years later, one of the leaders of the coup, Nguyen Van Thieu, became president.

If this is a "democracy," I hope my country never suffers from such a democracy!

By the way, many of these details are in the Encarta on-line encyclopedia articles on Vietnam. If our article is going to diverge profoundly from this account, it ought to explain why.

The article is not on "Vietnam," but on the war, so I don't know if all of these facts are appropriate for the article itself. I just think we have to get a different word than "democracy" to describeNational+Front+for+the+Liberation+of+Vietnam

1) a puppet empire of the French

2) a puppet dictator of the US

3) another puppet dictator of the US who rose to power by killing the first puppet dictator with US approval

SR

I agree. I was surprised and disappointed by the pro-American bias of this article. The truth is, the Eisenhower administration did, and supported, some pretty awful things in Vietnam, though perhaps they can be forgiven under the circumstances. There was a genuine fear at the time that Communism would continue spreading if it were not stopped by whatever means necessary, and I'm sure my modern perspective—that principles such as democracy and self-rule are more important than the victory of one party over another—would have been seen as ridiculously naive. I would like to see an article that shows clearly the Red scare context in which the Vietnam War developed, and the effect it had on foreign policy decisions.
I like Frank Smitha's version of the events, giving due attention to the brutality and unpopularity of Diem, the popularity of the Viet Minh and Ho Chi Minh, and frankly admitting that the U.S. blocked democratic elections because it didn't like the likely winner, at http://www.fsmitha.com/h2/ch26.htm. I'm tempted to add a link to his page with text such as, "A less pro-U.S. take on the history of the Vietnam War", but I think this would be inflammatory (essentially making a POV accusation without doing anything to fix it). Any better ideas? dreish 20:57, 2004 Sep 9 (UTC)

Actors

I changed the statement from US supported RVN vs. Soviet and North Vietnamese supported VC to US supported RVN vs. Soviet supported VC and North Vietnam. The VC became less and less important as the war progressed, and the final offensive was conducted almost entirely by the NVA.

Made some small but very important changes in the first paragram

The U.S. supported government of Vietnam was known as the Republic of Vietnam, not the Republic of South Vietnam. There was a Republic of South Vietnam which was the government that was instituted by the North after the fall of Saigon. It lasted until 1976 when it merged with the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (a.k.a. North Vietnam) to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

As I mentioned before, the war was not between the US supported RVN vs Soviet and NV supported VC. It was between the United States supported RVN and the VC and North Vietnam. The VC and the NVA were two distinct groups with the VC playing a less and less important role as time moved on.


Haven't looked at this article in a while, and I'm impressed with what y'all have done with it, and with how big you've made the /Talk article. I think the current version (as I write this) and how it's handled Vietnamization works reasonably well, and that was the big issue the last time I was here.

A couple of ideas to bounce by you folks on where we go from here. First, I know that sub-articles are strongly discouraged, but I think we're hitting the point with this that some kind of splitting up into separate articles could be a good thing. Second, I think there's a need to include some mention of groups like the Weathermen and SDS and some of the more militant action opposing the war (bombings, shooting police, etc.) in the section on opposition to the war. Third, I think it's time to cut some of the stuff in the /Talk here -- at the very least, the stuff up through the discussion of Vietnamization.

Anyhow, just a few thoughts, and thanks again to everybody who's put so much time into this article. You've produced an article with balanced claims, rather than buffered claims, and I think that's a good thing. -- Blain

I did a minor edit, mostly for clarity--commas and spelling and such. Also added "and Indochinese" to "this turbulent period in American history" at end: it's easy for us, writing in English, to deemphasize Vietnam because the effects on the US are more important to us. I suspect post-war Vietnam belongs in the article on that country, so haven't added anything.

Similarly, Weathermen/SDS and such probably belong in separate articles, manybe with links here. --Vicki Rosenzweig

What does this phrase mean:

for control of South Vietnam

I thought South Vietnam's goal was to retain its independence, while North Vietnam's goal was to conquer it -- analogous to the Korean War.

Is the phrase meant to insinuate the idea that the USA wanted to "control" South Vietnam? If so, the article should say so -- and document this. It should be rather easy to find such documentation, as I recall from the days of the peace movement that many people believed that the USA wanted to use South Vietnam as a kind of colony.

Also, does the phrase mean that the USSR or Viet Cong or N. Vietnam wanted to control South Vietnam separately? Or that they wanted to reunite the country? Considering that the aftermath of the war was a united country, I think it's the latter.

I'd like to see a better phrase used.

User:Ed Poor

This phrase is problematic:

the war was unwinnable and immoral.

I think it was meant to convey that the US military campaign in Vietnam was unwinnable and immoral. The other side in the war was not generally considered immoral by the peace movement. Almost always, when protesters said they opposed the "war" they meant not that they wanted both sides simply to stop fighting -- i.e., that all war is immoral. But that they wanted the US to withdraw.

Advocates of US withdrawal were divided into:

  1. those who favored a Communist victory
  2. those who, while neither favoring opposing a Communist victory, nonetheless regarded the US role as unwarranted interference (let them work it out themselves)
  3. those who opposed a Communist victory, but opposed the US role as for any combination of the following: it was unwarranted interference in a civil war; it was immoral support for a corrupt dictatorship (S. Vietnam); or it was immorally motivated by the desire to exploit Vietnam as a sort of colony.

I'd like to use the term campaign to describe the US military involvement. I believe the term will help distinguish between the war -- which includes both sides, along with their allies -- and the military aims and actions of each of the two sides.

User:Ed Poor

I changed the terminology from Viet Cong to NLF. I think it's more NPOV to refer to groups by their official names or what they called themselves. See http://www.lib.washington.edu/southeastasia/vsg/vc1.html for a rather long thread between historians on the appropriateness of using VC vs. NLF in historical texts. DanKeshet

Yes but this is wikipedia and we need to always to give articles names that a majority of English speakers will recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity. Therefore the article for the Viet Cong should be at Viet Cong and all other varients should be redirected to that article. This is especially important for edit links -- since there is a FAR greater chance of somebody creating a stub for Viet Cong than the official title (which few people know). Compare a search for National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam with Viet Cong. The first gets 54 hits, while the second gets over 40,000. It would be OK to use the more "NPOV" title after introducing the far, far more common title. See the Linda Lovelace discussion in wikipedia talk:naming conventions for more reasoning. --maveric149
I can definitely buy naming the NLF/VC article Viet Cong and making the link to the as-yet-non-existent article National Liberation Front. But I still think it better if we use the name NLF within the Vietnam War article (with sufficient explanation so people who know them as VC can understand). DanKeshet
Agreed so long as the official title is always introduced as being what most people commonly call the "Viet Cong". Do you want to change the edit link or should I? --maveric149

We need to include more on the other countries contributions. China?, Canada? Korea sent 312,853 men over a twelve year period - how many casualties? What about casualties in Laos and Cambodia? --rmhermen

need to tack in some stuff on ARVN (Army of Vietnam) the South Vietnamese army that we were supposed to Vietnamize; also local US allies such as the Nung, Montaganards (sp) and so on "helped" by the US Special Forces

also mention the expatriate Vietnamese community in the US and refugees / boat people, as well as the prison camps and sweeps as the North consolidated its postwar hold on the south

I hesitate to mention POW / MIA issues because of controversy, but something should be mentioned user:clarka

yes, it should be mentioned. however as this topic is so large POW/MIA issues should be on another page and just linked to here. Lir 07:11 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)

"MIA soldiers from World War I and II continue to be unearthed in Europe. "

Is "unearthed" used here literally or metaphorically, I wonder?

This non-native speaker's opinion is that this sentence could use some clarification.

How was it that Eisenhower had so much pull to cancel the elections? This needs to be explained in the article. Kingturtle 17:14 16 May 2003 (UTC)

I disagree with the expression "and in addition the Communists were seen as highly unlikely to allow a free election in their half of Vietnam"

The pentagon papers make clear that Ho will win a election because the peasants support, The north don’t need to tamper with the election. This expression, with sources not acknowledged, looks more that a excuse to ban people expression in the balloting booth. Cuye 10:44, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I feel that the images shown on this article were too POV, how about getting some images of atrocities that the Viet Cong committed (e.g. Hue massacre)? 128.195.100.178 02:01, 24 Nov 2003 (UTC)

DESOTO

DESOTO is mentioned with no context. What is this? Or is it a military acronym with no substantial meaning as far as this article is concerned?

Do people really call it the "Kent State massacre"? I have always heard the shootings simply referred to as "Kent State".

Under "Analysis of impact on the United States", it's stated that the US sent "comparable" amounts of troops to the Gulf War. Must verify this.

Tempshill 19:22, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)

    I first heard the incident called "the Kent State massacre"  
    (probably back in the '70s-'80s, when I first became aware of 
    it) but have mostly heard it called just the Kent State 
    shootings.--CBG

US allies

The comment that Allies only sent 'token forces to fulfil their SEATO obligations' is untrue, at least in the case of Australia. Almost 50,000 Australians served, and more than 500 died. At it's height, one third of Australia's Field Force - including all arms and Special Forces - was committed to Vietnam. Between 1966 and 1972, there were never less than three RAAF Squadrons and two RAN warships in theatre. Further, Australia paid its way fully. Unfortunately, this article is marred by a US-centricity which seems to be the norm in many US-authored discussiona about Vietnam. It's almost like nobody else - including the Vietnamese themselves - existed.

--User:fallingwithstyle 15 Sep 04

I added the comment about the Canadian volunteers who fought in Vietnem. I had to use the weak "tens of thousands" because I could never find a defintive number, although 40,000 - 60,000 seems common. Would there be a count somewhere?

Also the wiki is big enough for an article on the US policy of accepting foreign volunteers into its armed forces from someone who knows the topic. Edmilne 15:52, Dec 21, 2003 (UTC)

I reverted the edit that removed GWB and added Dean to the list of presidents where their dodging the Vietnam war was an issue in their election on two grounds:

  1. GWB did in fact dodge Vietnam
  2. Dean dodged it as well, but he has not been elected yet.

If it is desirable, a section on candidates, not actual presidents can be added. --snoyes 15:31, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)

There is no definitive source for the number of Canadians who served in the US military during the Vietnam War. There are three categories of Canadians who served: (1) Canadians who crossed the border to volunteer, (2) Canadian citizens who were living in the United States who volunteered, and (3) Canadian citizens who were living in the United States as permanent residents ("green card" holders) and were drafted. The bulk appear to have been volunteers (either Category 1 or 2) and their records show them as Americans with American addresses. The best estimates I've seen were that between 2000-5000 Canadians served. Higher estimates appear to be based on wishful thinking (i.e. that perhaps more Canadians came over the border to serve than Americans fled to Canada to avoid the draft). 40000-60000 is way too high. I changed "tens of thousands" to "thousands" and added some comments about the difficulty of getting accurate numbers because of the different ways Canadians got into the US military.

I agree that the issue of foreigners serving in the US military could be explored further. The Canadians who went back home after Vietnam had a much different experience than Americans because there was absolutely no support system for them.

US guilty?

Forty years later and the obvious U.S. attack/aggression leading to the war on Vietnam is overlooked? Perhaps we shouldn't continue to distort history and stick to the facts

http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940727.html http://www.nnn.se/levande/lessons1.htm - Dorfeb

Perhaps we should edit this article to reflect the truth, rather than the words of U.S. military officials or mainstream newspaper outlets whom regurgitated the lies of the former?

J.J - I know youre young and think you know everything, but it would be nice if you made effort to find consensus if youre going to remove a quote. I might simply restore the original, just so you understand what exactly it is talking about. -戴&#30505sv 04:22, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)

VW Kerry Quote

Removed from article:

"...many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia —not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command..." -John Kerry, Statement on behalf of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee - April, 1971.

Quotes and other POV like this is most certainly not appropriate for the lead section of this article. It unbalances the whole entry. I suggest this quote be moved to a more appropriate place in the article and given enough context so that it conforms to NPOV. --mav 03:25, 7 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Its not POV to use an important and iconic quote form that time - in fact I shortened it - originally it was:
"...many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia —not isolated incidents, but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis, with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command..." "They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages..." "...and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam..."
- John Kerry, in Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Commitee, 1971.

It sounds like that particular POV was rather well informed, dont you? Look at the Linguistics article - using a quote in context is not inapproprate BASOTI. -戴&#30505sv 00:26, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

There are more things to be said about Kerry and Vietnam (and may be said in the upcoming presidential campaign). Kerry's background and experience in Vietnam were unusual. He was one of a strange subset of those who engaged in the war—a college boy who volunteered and was unquestioning of the war until he found it not to be what he expected. His combat experience was (IIRC) less than three months, and that as a commander on a combat river boat. A more typical soldier of the time was a draftee who went because he was made to, to a country that didn't want him, returning to a home front that disrespected or despised him.
It may not be that unusual. If you Google "myth vietnam", you get a lot of sites that claim that most Americans in VN (2/3) were volunteers. Don't know how accurate those are. (Nov. 5, 2004)

Kennedy's Decision on the War

Re: The paragraph beginning "The early origins of conflict in Vietnam came with a decision by Kennedy..."

Is there any source for this? Whether or not Kennedy felt the need to confront Kruschev by other means, this ignores the continuing conflict, the decision by the Communist resistance in Vietnam to act independently of Hanoi if necessary in 1959, the Manifesto of the NLF in 1960 and the inability of the Diem government to deal with the peasant population's discontent. Cecropia 15:23, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)


..there is repetition of the My Lai massacre. And please don´t use unexplained abbreviations (e.g. MIA). This is an american encyclpedie but read by international people who are not familiar with US Mil-abbrr. (at least I hope so)

what's with the 600000 bombing casualties in Cambodia? Where is that number coming from? Sounds to me like Khmer Rouge's attempt to blame their own victims on the US. They were not out to exterminate the civilian population, imho.


The Americentrism is blatant here. The article, e.g., ends with an Vietnam War#Analysis of impact on the United States, but not an "analysis of the impact on Indochina." The article rushes through coverage of the millions of casualties Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, but features a paragraph (albeit good) on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington with a picture (albeit a very good one and well placed). Just to reiterate, I'm not criticizing the US-related content, but the weakness of coverage focused on Vietnam next to the strength of coverage focused on the US. Preferably, a new section on the Vietnam War#Analysis of impact on Indochina would be the best first course for curbing the Americentrism of the article. If this weren't accomplished soon, perhaps the Vietnam War#Analysis of impact on the United States could be moved to its own entry, or moved to the existing US history series. 172 11:13, 7 Apr 2004 (UTC)


I think it should be made clearer that Ngo Dinh Diem, albeit certainly a problematic leader (some would even say a puppet of the US) and maybe "quite uncooperative" in respect to "US-prescribed reforms", was a democratic leader. He was replaced by a military dictatorship after "US messages were sent to South Vietnamese generals encouraging them to act against Diem's excesses".

This sounds good (and might well have been a phrase of the US government at the time), but this "messages" were not independent of the support the US promised (and later amply provided) the putschists. Chances were that, without US-intervention, Vietnam would have stayed a democratic government.

In the article, however, it sounds different: "Diem did not believe that US ideas of democracy were applicable to his government, since the country was still so young and unstable. Kennedy was accused of being overly naive and utopian in his belief that US values could be instantly imported into any country, no matter what their culture or history." Poor US-politicians: it seems to be their fate to be misunderstood idealists!

This is only one of many small distortions I found in the article; they add up, though! I feel incapable of adding to or editing this article for this reasons. I feel sad that even at Wikipedia you can't find anything objective about such an important theme.

Casualties : Sources

Could someone please post a link to the sources concerning the statement that "a total of one million Vietnamese combatants and four million civilians were killed in the war". I am not doubting it, I am just looking for some more info on this (Were this only the casualties in the part of the war where the USA was involved or are casualties from the internal phase included etc. etc. ?)

It is possible to find believably accurate numbers on the ARVN/US/Korea/Australian etc. side, because close records were kept. Almost any number on civilian or PAVN/NLF losses has to be biased one way or the other. The accuracy isn't helped by the US issuing incredibly bogus figures on "VC" dead week-by-week to make it look like RVN was "winning." I recall one newspaper reporter once did some adding and figuring and determined that the US could leave because everyone of the PAVN side was already dead! Cecropia 03:51, 22 Apr 2004 (UTC)
All the articles I've seen say that the official total is 2 million civilian deaths in the whole period from 54-75. See Washington Post April 30, 1995. Is one of them a typo? If that's not available, see Herald Sun, April 5, 1995; Plain Dealer (Cleveland, Ohio), January 1, 1996; Financial Times (London,England), April 5, 1995; Xinhua News Agency, APRIL 3, 1995; United Press International, February 25, 1997. (5 Nov. 2004)

Section movement

Moving "Analysis of impact on the United States" from its perfect location to the already-too-long History of the US!? It's like an obsession to reduce everything else to a stub in order to embed full-length textbooks in the encyclopedia. I've lost all hope for rational organization of WP's modern history material, and am going to stop watching these pages, it's just too painful and nothing I say makes any impression. Stan 20:43, 13 May 2004 (UTC)

Let's talk about rational organization of "WP's modern history material." ** Vietnam War is not necessarily a U.S. history article.** "Analysis of impact on the United States" implies that you're getting a longer view look at the impact of the Vietnam War on U.S. politics and society, right? So, it's a topic that falls under post-Vietnam U.S. history. It fits perfectly well in U.S. history 1964-1980, but to wrap up this article with such a section is a patently outrageous example of Wikipedia's U.S.-centrism. 172 23:57, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
You know, there are thousands of articles here that treat the aftereffects of an event, and guess what, the info is in the article about the event, not moved wholesale to generic histories. I'm not going to point them out, because you've messed up quite enough well-organized articles already. And instead of deciding for everybody else what is and is not "outrageous US-centrism" - itself an example of US arrogance - why don't you ask some non-US people? In fact, if you look at the edit history of the article, you'll see there have been dozens of non-USian editors who were apparently perfectly happy having such a section there; it's been in there quite a while. But I understand I have the third-longest watchlist in all of WP, so I need to prune anyway, and it will be a great relief not to see any more of this article mangling. Stan 06:12, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
If you have a specific criticism of my changes, I will address it. If you're just looking for an excuse to snip at me, I'm not interested. 172 06:58, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
Are you being deliberately obtuse or what? I already stated a specific criticism, which is that you removed a bunch of relevant material and put it in a worse place, and then I pointed out the faults in your rationale. If this were a disputation between normal people, your next step would be to answer those specific objections, not to start over from the top as if I hadn't written anything. My belief is that you don't have a good answer to my points, and so you play dumb - I've seen you do it before, with me and with other people. Stan 07:37, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

Heh, no answer once boxed in on his tricks. Typical. Stan 12:44, 19 May 2004 (UTC)

Well, do you think that there was anything wrong with the article ending with an overview on the impact on the U.S., but not Indochina? Typical U.S.-centrism. 172 12:50, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
Find somebody else to accuse of US-centrism, I've added far more non-US content to WP than you have. If the problem was a missing section on the aftermath in Indochina, then the obvious logical thing to do is to add one, not to delete the aftermath in US section (and not leave a link to where you moved it to, geez). Since I'm not one to get into edit wars, and you're clearly continuing with your habits of reverting other people's edits, I'm not going to touch this article however. Stan 16:18, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
Far more non-US content than I have? Not that this has much to do about anything, but I doubt this claim. We tend to interact on articles pertaining to U.S. history, but I've done a fairly good amount on Chinese, Brazilian, Russian, German, and British history. 172 10:02, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
Just six countries? You know, the world's a little bigger than that - I've added articles relating to at least 200 different countries past and present. Cleaned up a three-way(!) dup of Argentina's Sarmiento just today. Stan 04:51, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
Geez, you should know that I was just listing the biggies (~a dozen articles). It's also harder for me to track my contributions since I haven't been listing them. BTW, I wasn't accusing you of U.S.-centrism. I was talking about an article, not a person. At worse, I was accusing you of blowing our disagreement regarding the move out of proportion, which probably had more to do with our disagreements regarding series than anything else. 172 05:10, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
I think you're going about this backwards, 172. The fact that the section in question is only problematic because it is not coupled with an impact on Indochina section does not mean that the impact on US section should go away. It means it should go in, and that someone should write a section on Indochina. If it motivates you so much, perhaps you should be the one to write it. Otherwise, WP would be boxed into an unfortunate problem where a lot of content would never be added because it would have to wait for someone to come along who happened to know enough to write both it and another section that should go in with it. That's foolish. WP is a perpetual work-in-progress. If the post-Vietnam section is half-written, it should go in the article half-written, and sit there waiting for its second half. Snowspinner 00:05, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
I don't see what's the big deal about reorganizing the article and moving content to related articles where they might fit better. But since it isn't, I'm simply resigned to forgetting about this. I've reinserted the section, along with a new heading for a section on Indochina under construction. 172 10:11, 23 May 2004 (UTC)


Congress

I've been doing edits about various US Congresses and came across this. Some of this information looks incorrect.

Fiscal year 1973 (July 1973 to July 1974), $1.1 billion was appropriated to South Vietnam by Congress. Fiscal year 1974, $700 million was appropriated, with about $200-300 million in subsequent overruns (thus, about $1 billion spent from July 1974 until the fall of Saigon in April 1974). South Vietnam was getting about $1 billion a year for the two years prior to Saigon falling. I suppose it is technically true that "the 94th Congress eventually voted for a total cut off of all aid to take effect at the beginning of the 1975-76 financial year (July 1, 1975)", but that was because Saigon had fallen in April, there was no South Vietnam to fund by July. The appropriations vote for fiscal year 1975-1976 was taken after April, not before.

Anyhow "Although Nixon had promised South Vietnam that he would provide military support to them in the event of a crumbling military situation, Congress voted down any further funding of military action in the region." seems incorrect as Congress sent $1.1 billion from 7/73-7/74 and about $1 billion from 7/74-4/75.

Also the timelines for "The 94th Congress eventually voted for a total cut off of all aid to take effect at the beginning of the 1975-76 financial year (July 1, 1975). At the same time aid to North Vietnam from the USSR and China began to increase, as with the Americans out, the two countries no longer saw the war as significant to their US relations." seems out of kilter. In April of 1975, South Vietnam was not only getting it's $700 million appropriation but $200-300 million in subsequent overruns. Saigon fell before the 1975-1976 financial year vote came about. The USSR/China could not have been increasing aid at the same time aid to North Vietnam was cut off by the US Congress since the US Congress never cut off aid, or voted to cut off aid to South Vietnam until after Saigon fell and the South Vietnamese government surrendered. Ruy Lopez 09:55, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Ruy, a whole mishmash of facts are incorrect. China was cutting aid to North Vietnam, but the USSR was increasing it. The US Congress never voted funds away, but they did not come closing to matching the contributions that Nixon wanted, had promised, to make.
Also, the statement that "Although Nixon had promised South Vietnam that he would provide military support to them in the event of a crumbling military situation, Congress voted down any further funding of military action in the region." is very correct. I think you might be reading it wrong. Nixon believed that if the North began a type II warfare offensive that the US would directly intervene with troops. The Congress put a stop to that.
I'll try and get out some documentation later for exact numbers. I'm at work right now and don't have it available to me. Stargoat 15:03, 26 May 2004 (UTC)

Consequences

Is it really probable that the Khmer Rouge wouldn't have occurred? Quite to the contrary, practice had already shown the Communist block to be expansionist. Perhaps it wouldn't have been so bad, but perhaps too if it was less bad it would have been able to destabilise Thailand... it is dangerous to play 'if' games.

--LeandroGFCDutra 14:41, 1 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Yes. They were initialled armed by the North Vietnamese for the purpose of removing the American backed government in Cambodia. There was also talk of a pan-IndoChina state.

U.S. vs. American

I replaced the usage of "America" with "U.S." in accordance with the manual of style: "When referring to the United States, please use 'U.S.' so as to avoid ambiguity with 'us.' When referring to the United States in a long abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF), periods should not be used. Those seeking a briefer term for the United States of American, sans periods, should enjoy themselves with USA." [1] 172 20:57, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

the MoS says nothing against using "American" in articles. It statement above was inserted by me and was against the usage of "US" (vs. "U.S."), not the usage of "American". Disregard this comment if your statement was really preemptive against the British. Previous discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (US vs American). No consensus resulted. --Jiang 23:21, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Image:TrangBang.jpg

I don't think we can make a case for fair use for the Pulitzer Prize winning photo by Nick Ut with AP of Kim Phuc running from bombs. Ut's life was on the line and AP paid to have him there. They are entitled to whatever royalties they can get unless they have released the photo to the public domain -- ke4roh 17:41, Jul 13, 2004 (UTC)

why nothing about the Kent State shootings?

Shouldn't the Kent State Shootings be included in the opposition section?

My Daddy's no historian, but he always told me that more than anything else this turned the tide from support to public opposition to the war.

LegCircus 02:09, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

These should definitely be mentioned. Shorne 05:45, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Kent State was an important event, but I disagree with Leg's Dad's analysis. Perhaps it made all the difference for him, but it also had a chilling effect on campus protest. You also need to understand that the Kent State shootings were in 1970, and the tide had already turned in public sentiment about the war. Dissatisfaction with the war was probably the single greatest factor in LBJ not running for a second term in 1968. IMO the tide of opinion turned when even small locales in the US began to get body bags coming home, and the war became more real for the WWII generation that had supported it. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 06:18, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I agree with Cecropia. The tide had already turned about a year earlier.
I would also like to remind everyone of the killings at Jackson State University, which were hardly mentioned at all (even in the local press in Mississippi), simply because the victims were Black. Shorne 06:30, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Or perhaps because the events occured somewhere near 2:00 in the morning and resembled a riot. Stargoat 20:17, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

What did the vietcong think they were fighting for?

What did the vietcong know and when did they know it? What had they been told, had they been lied too? We need a section on what the vietcong thought they were fighting for vs. what they actually got. Could they have known at the time (perhaps if they had been better educated for instance) that they were actually fighting to allow a priviledged oligarchy to impose a repressive regime on them and their neighbors? I doubt they were knowingly fighting for this, what did they think they were fighting for?--Silverback 08:03, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

All interesting and valid questions, but your last edit to the article seems to beg the question how much we actually know..."repressive communist oligarchy" is a pretty loaded term and seems to violate NPOV, although I tend to agree that "communist influences" is a bit weak. Any way to rephrase that? -- Ferkelparade π 10:28, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Even to this date when there has been some opening of the society, it is a single party system where speech is repressed, and foreigners and those who are suspected of harboring anti-government or liberal opinions are under surveilance or worse. The phrase may have negative connotations, but it is an accurate description by western standards. perhaps there are some who will argue that people should be free to choose a repressive system and that the government of Vietnam enjoys the support of most of the population, but this majoritarian argument would have more weight if the population was free to choose something else and if they had access to outside information. --Silverback 11:02, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Fair enough, but the question is if this was a completely unavoidable outcome from the beginning, which your sentence makes it sound like. I also have doubts if an "accurate description by western standards" can be NPOV...I'd prefer a more neutral phrasing. -- Ferkelparade π 11:14, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Maybe they were nationalists fighting for their independece first, and communism second. Although it is not mentioned in the current article the problem was that the North Vietnamese perceived the Americans as the colonist successors of the French and the Americans thought that the North Vietnamese and the VC were simply agents of global communism. McNamara says something along these lines in "Fog of War". So I think a large part of what they were fighting for was independence and the unification of their country -- they had to fight the Chinese for about 1000 years for their independence, and the French for about a 100...

Also remember that they had a taste of the most brutal, inhumane form of capitalism under the French and compared to that communism probably didn't seem such a bad alternative.

Nyenyec 20:29, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Nationalism certainly deserves its share of the blame for the mess humanity made of the 20th century. The ruling elite in N. Vietnam knew that the US had no colonial ambitions, the aftermath of WWI, WWII and Korea were incontrovertable proof of that. History will be harsh in its assessment of their self-righteous cynical deceit.--Silverback 21:24, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Analysis of effect

This paragraph is riddled with errors:

"America’s failure in the Vietnam War did not end its determination to fight Communism, rather its policy toward world Communism changed profoundly. Ronald Reagan took the Vietnam War into account when he directly applied political and diplomatic pressure on the Soviet Union while ignoring Vietnam and the rest of Asia. He applied the policies in a direct attempt to destroy Communism at its source of origin, instead of fighting Communism through proxy wars, with the notable exception of Afghanistan. In a sense American defeat in the Vietnam War helped lead to American victory in the Cold War. The Soviet collapse in 1991 left Vietnam without its main economic and political partner, and thus it began to seek closer ties with the West."

What does America was determined to fight communism mean? One of the two major presidential candidates was just attacked for not wanting to fight communism. Then it says that the USSR was the "source" of Communism. If that is so, why have there been communist rebellions in places like Peru and Nepal in recent years? It also says that Reagan wasn't "fighting Communism through proxy wars" which leads me to wonder, ignoring the word proxy, what he was doing mining Nicaragua's harbor and arming the Contras (with money from arms sales to Iran). Then we're told "In a sense American defeat in the Vietnam War helped lead to American victory in the Cold War." This paragraph needs to go away. Ruy Lopez 02:30, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Drinking, voting and the draft

I modified the addition of the fact that men 18-20 could be (and certainly were) drafted and sent to fight but could not vote or drink in most states. I actually think they could not vote (certainly not federally) in all states, and the only state I know of where you could drink at 18 was New York.

We need to be aware though, that the issue of conscription and drinking in relation to the corpus magna of 18-20 year-olds was largely bogus. The major push for lowering the drinking and voting ages was on college campuses, where many of the people there were there specifically so they wouldn't be serving below the voting and drinking age. Their concern wasn't essentially that the poor soldiers couldn't drink (actually, they could drink 3.2 beer on post) but that students wanted to drink (and many did,law or no law) . The catch phrase was "Draft Beer, Not Students"--a reference to fear of losing their 2S exemptions. A more inclusive phrase would have "Draft Beer, Not People," but I can tell you from first-hand experience that a lot of students did not consider soldiers people, including conscriptees.

As to voting, since military posts are federal instllations, the Congress could have extended the vote to military personnel on active duty if they wished, but they didn't wish. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 18:03, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The hypocrisy of using conscripts to fight for freedom condemns the Vietnam War as an unjust war (due to unjust means), just as it does all the earlier wars of the modern era. Conscription is the most lethal weapon of mass destruction in history. It is too bad the efforts of Einstein and Gandi in the late 20s did not bear more fruit.--Silverback 00:31, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Questions about Origin

From the paragraph beginning "In June 1961, John F. Kennedy" to the end of the section on the origins of the Vietnam War, there is a very specific picture painted of American strategy in Vietnam prior to 1964. That is that the Kennedy administration made earnest efforts to escalate the conflict between the governement and Communist forces in the south. I will not attempt to refute these claims, but I would like to get a sense of how widespread this view is among historians and the extent to which the documentary evidence is in dispute. I am not an expert on the Vietnam War, but I have read quite a bit about it and have never come across such a categorical statement of this claim. Can I get some help here from some contributors to this article? --Wtmgeo 07:16, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I am still interested in getting some feedback on this point. It seems that there are issues which may be in historical dispute here. I will refrain from modifying the text for now. However the cause of the increase of armed opposition to the South Vietnamese government is a very important issue. The way it is stated in the article it would appear that a historical consensus exists that the principal cause was American instigation in the hopes of whipping up an insurgency against a regime that it supported. I am trying to find out what evidence people have for this claim. In any case it does not seem to reflect the consensus among the American authors of histories of the Vietnam War which I have read. If there is a dispute over this point then it should be made clear in the text. --Wtmgeo 03:17, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I guess the only way to get a dialog going is to start editing some of the text. I hesitate to do so since this section is quite well written. However it puts forward a very particular point of view which represents what I perceive to be partly speculation. In any case it does not represent the sort of universal consensus that one might expect given the tone of the wording. I will wait a little longer for someone to respond; after that I guess I will start to edit the text. --Wtmgeo 01:48, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The text in the article about the early Kennedy era is, IMO, rather more revisionist than the general understanding. I lived through the era (and got to participate, thanks to good ol' LBJ, who wanted me to "bring home a coonskin for the wall"). There are a number of issues I see totally missing the article, and others underplayed. The thrust of the article is that this was a Vietnamese conflict broadened by US intervention. Rather it was an Indochinese War, encompassing Laos and Cambodia as well. The major escalation in Vietnamese involvement was preceded by the originally hotter conflict in Laos (no mention of the Pathet Lao) which Kennedy seemed to have successfully stabilized.
The article underplays the notable division of emphasis toward the more bellicose stance of LBJ. This may partly be because Johnson is undergoing an (undeserved, IMO) renaissance in academic estimation at the present time. It seems many are more inclined to characterize it as "Kennedy's War" or "Nixon's War" (to the point where John Kerry imagined himself in Cambodia in 1968 while Nixon was lying about his presence there when he hadn't even become president yet) than "LBJ's War."
There is also insufficient attention paid to the Domino Theory, which was a great deal of the public face of the War. The Domino Theory didn't simply specify that if South Vietnam fell, so would more of Asia, but came from Stalinist expansion after World War II, Maoist expansion to encompass the entire mainland of China and active militating against Quemoy, Matsu and Taiwai, Laos, Cuba, Che Guevera in Latin America, attempts to influence Egypt, Syria and India, and factional support in Africa.
All in all, this article isn't bad, but it is slanted somewhat to the current popular view that the US is the root of all evil. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 04:30, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Thanks a lot for getting back to me. I will try to reread the article and provide some more detailed criticisms. Off the top of my head I can say that the section titled escalation seems a little out of place. I dont understand what is meant by the comments about the analogy to an escalator. My understanding is that escalation is an ancient word that has often been applied to political and military conflict.
As for the tone of the article, it seems that hoping to get a balanced perspective on such a divisive subject is not realistic. But maybe we can hope to limit ourselves to questions that are at least subjects of reasonable historical dispute and then enumerate the various positions. Right now this section on origins, despite being well written, doesnt seem to properly lay out what is in dispute. It basically states that the US initiated a terror campaign that led directly to the conflict that LBJ thought required upwards of 500K American soldiers. I dont really think that represents a widely held consensus. Some modification of the text is necessary but I dont think I am the one who should provide it; there are a great many people out there who know more than I do about Vietnam. --Wtmgeo 04:09, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

War template

I have now added a war template for this conflict, since none existed before. I hope there's nothing wrong with it. -- The KoG | Talk 19:13, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)

I feel something strange about the "Strength". Is that true the ROV+USA's army is >> than DRV's army?? --Kerry7374 08:31, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Views and treatment of Vietnam Vets

I heavily rewrote that very POV section and eliminated the extensive analysis of Bush, Iraq and Afghanistan. If that belongs anywhere, it belongs in one of the Bush articles, not in an article about the Vietnam War.

Vietnam War service has not been respected in the general culture until very very recently. As recently as the last '90s one of my contemporaries (who spent the war in State College, PA) and asked me whether I was comfortable with killing (I never killed anyone, not even annoying '60s college students) attacked me for saying I was anti-Vietnam war on the basis of the fact that I didn't support the US position, but I didn't support Ho either. When Kerry ran I was fascinated by all the Democrats hailing their "war hero," including some of Bush's harshest critics on his National Guard service, including Terry McAuliffe and Michael Moore, neither of whom (along with many others) had any military service at all. Put it this way, when Kerry started the convention with "reporting for duty," and the Democrats cheered, I put on The Weather Channel to check the temperature in Hell. -- Cecropia | explains it all ®

Combatants

Presentation of South Vietnam and North Vietnam (and allies, with their national flags) may or may not be the most accurate description of the combatants, but it is unbalanced, essentially the US POV. A balanced presentation would have the US (after 1964 or 1965) and North Vietnam as being the major combatants, with their allies and surrogates, or it would have South Vietnam ARVN and the Viet Cong and their respective supporters as the primary belligerants. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 20:37, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Newly created casualties article - redirect here?

If someone knowledgeable about this topic is keeping track of Vietnam pages in the Wikipedia, I'd like to bring to your attention that a new anonymous user just created an Vietnam casualties page. At the time of writing it is unwikified and orphaned, and seems to duplicate information given here. Could someone with a grasp of this judge whether there is anything to merge and then turn it into a redirect to here, which seems like the best solution? / Alarm 21:35, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)


Legal challenges

RE: "Opponents said that, in addition to other arguments, the lack of declaration made Vietnam an illegal war. The Supreme Court of the United States probably could have settled the issue, but no case was ever taken up by the Court." Was any such brief ever submitted to any U.S. court? An international court? — 216.137.71.74 19:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Guki's edits

I've reverted Guki's extensive edits not because they don't contain some useful material, but because s/he has turned an article that many have worked long and hard on into a very POV evaluation of the war giving a highly political and one-sided view of the war and events in it. Phrases just out such as:

  • opening with an inspirational quotation from Ho
  • "the U.S. chose to support several despotic minority governments (Republic of Vietnam) rather than allow the Vietnamese to follow the popular Ho Chi Minh into an alliance with the Soviet Union"
    • that is rather an oversimplification at the very least
  • "The West tends to regard the war as one between two sides: "Communist" North and "Democratic" South Vietnam, when in fact, the war was far more faceted."
    • never read the Pentagon Papers, did you, Guki?

This stuff might be good in a socialist grade-school reader, but not in an NPOV encyclopedia. I think Guki would do well to apply some of his perceptions to the existing article, rather than slash and burn and define the complex Vietnam War to his POV. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:32, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

To extend my comments a little, having lived through the era Guki is following the post-war perception that this a simple civil war in Vietnam that spread to other parts of former French Indochina directly or indirectly as a result of American involvement. In fact, a pretty extensive civil war erupted and raged in Laos before the war in Vietnam escalated.

I would suggest Guki might put some of his material, more NPOVed, in a section on Vietnam's attitudes towards the war. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 07:46, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I made at least one point which should be included: geopolitical rhetoric and reasoning aside, the war was a very very harsh persecution of South Vietnamese political dissidents in their own country. And why is there no mention in your article here of the Phoenix program or accusations of genocide and so forth? --g
WHy don't you start an article on the Phoenix program (with citations of course)?
There is One already, and its well written. --gu

As to genocide, every war where two of the opposing combatants are ethnically different is nowadays styled as "genocide," a term which was coined to describe Hitler's massacre of Jews.

I dont suppose you are going to say that every use of the term genocide under 6 million is inflammatory and unjust? --gu

That is probably the outstanding modern example of genocide, since it had the extermination of a particular class of people as its objective (as opposed to political, territorial or war objectives) and it came closer than most to being a fact instead of an intent (most of the Jews of Europe and about 3 of every 7 Jews in the entire world were killed).

A crime is a crime regardless of the subtle nuances of "intent." You brought up the Nazis: there were claims of Hitler not intending to kill the European Jews at all, but merely to move them out of Europe: Only when evil plan number 1 was found to be unworkable did he give up and agree to evil plan number 2. Even if this was true, what difference would it make in terms of how we use genocide to apply to Hitler? Would he now be "the misunderstood genocidal fuhrer?"

People of one ethnicity killing those of another might be racism, ethnic warfare, and many other things, but if we consider it genocide than we are simply changing the definition of the term.

But this was overwhelming force! To "drain the swamp!" And the issue is about US actions: what was done, not what they intended. Look at the numbers of civilians killed. Look at Winter Soldier. Phoenix Program. Racism? I thought racism was not giving Malcolm X a job, because he wasnt white enough. Millions killed is not genocide? Fine. Is it ok to say mass murder? According to your view, what is the word for x millions of "Asians" killed? According to what you said above, Buddhist Vietnamese have to be counted among the much larger "Asian" group, and therefore killing x million out of over a billion doesnt apparently qualify.

A recent example is the killings in Darfur, which certainly seems to have all the earmarks of genocide (ethnically different people indiscriminately trying to kill, rape and drive out people of another ethnicity in large numbers) but the UN didn't label it as such. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 20:01, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Youre comparing apples to oranges Cecropia. According to the UN the Darfur case was only "tens of thousands."

[2] [3] I'm done with this thread. --guki

Moral of the US troops

Found a intresting text from depths of the internet: http://www.isreview.org/issues/09/soldiers_revolt.shtml

Some quotes:

The refusal of an order to advance into combat is an act of mutiny. In time of war, it is the gravest crime in the military code, punishable by death. In Vietnam, mutiny was rampant, the power to punish withered and discipline collapsed as search and destroy was revoked from below.

Acts of mutiny took place on a scale previously only encountered in revolutions.

The 1968 combat refusals of individual units expanded to involve whole companies by the next year. The first reported mass mutiny was in the 196th Light Brigade in August 1969. Company A of the 3rd Battalion, down to 60 men from its original 150, had been pushing through Songchang Valley under heavy fire for five days when it refused an order to advance down a perilous mountain slope. Word of the mutiny spread rapidly. The New York Daily News ran a banner headline, "Sir, My Men Refuse To Go." The GI paper, The Bond, accurately noted, "It was an organized strike...A shaken brass relieved the company commander...but they did not charge the guys with anything. The Brass surrendered to the strength of the organized men."

The murder of American officers by their troops was an openly proclaimed goal in Vietnam. As one GI newspaper demanded, "Don't desert. Go to Vietnam, and kill your commanding officer." And they did. A new slang term arose to celebrate the execution of officers: fragging. The word came from the fragmentation grenade, which was the weapon of choice because the evidence was destroyed in the act.

No one knows how many officers were fragged, but after Tet it became epidemic. At least 800 to 1,000 fragging attempts using explosive devices were made. The army reported 126 fraggings in 1969, 271 in 1970 and 333 in 1971, when they stopped keeping count.

These figures do not include officers who were shot in the back by their men and listed as wounded or killed in action.

The motive for most fraggings was not revenge, but to change battle conduct.

An Army judge who presided over fragging trials called fragging "the troops' way of controlling officers," and added that it was "deadly effective."

The U.S. army was slowly disarming its own men to prevent the weapons from being aimed at the main enemy: the lifers. It is hard to think of another army so afraid of its own soldiers.

Gives a nice point of view to the war...

--Lauri Kosonen 23:37, 26 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Sure does give a point of view. It took me back to the early '70s, after I had gotten out of the Army and I was fed that crap by my many socialist friends, none of whom served (or resisted, for that matter) but knew all about what was going on in Vietnam. They lived in a fantasy world of baracada mentality in which great masses of working class soldiers, most of whom they fantastized were people of color, led great revolts in which officers hid in their tents, fearful of the roving bands of disgruntled enlisted men with live hand granades. When did soldiers have time to "frag" officers, when the same sources (including a certain former Presidential candidate) insisted we were too busy killing babies and raping women?
I only personally knew of one officer who apparently suffered at the hands of his own troops, and the man was an absolute bastard, so it wasn't any great surprise. This has gone on in any war. The number of WWII vets is rapidly shrinking, but ask some of them if they never heard of an unpoular officer who died bravely facing the enemy on the field of combat but their fatal wounds were in the back.
Please excuse the sarcasm of my tone. Don't believe everything you read on the web. How appropriate that you should have read this on a Socialist web site. I've been listening to this stuff for almost 40 years. There are grains of truth in what you read, but they are overwhelmed by exaggerations to outright lies. Excuse me, this is where I came in... -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 00:57, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Terrorism

"On December 11, 1961, the United States sent 900 military advisors, and after began to clandestinely send more, both to give temporary support to the South's Diem RVN regime, and to engage in terrorism against both North and South Vietnam. Some of these bombing attacks were designed to inflame and exacerbate both the civil war in the South and to exacerbate the impression of a greater conflict with the North."

I'm confused as to your use of the word terrorism, in place of bombings. Did the US condone the bombings as a "terror tactic", or was it a tactical military blunder?

This is Wikipedia, the home of "everybody's a spin-doctor" unsourced history. Take it FWIW. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 16:37, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I was surprised at the use of the word terrorism as well. This word is being bent by several/all political sides to suit their own needs, and even though I myself think it has a very simple definition it is a word that is easily politicized and it would probably be much more objective to use a word like bombing or similar as suited. As it is used now it only degrades the article without giving any kind of information of what it really talks about other than revealing the opinion of whoever wrote it.

Actually almost the whole paragraph needs linked documentation or other specific references to back it up, it reads very politically biased as it is -- Soulnoise

images; POWs

It seems a bit POV that every image of the war depicting injured, dead, or about to be dead depicts the U.S. and South Vietnamese as aggressor and the North or innocent as victim, all 5 such images. Meanwhile, there is next to no discussion of the treatment of prisoners of war by the North. Maybe it's possible to delude oneself into believing the article doesn't represent a specific non-neutral POV, though. Daniel Quinlan 11:15, Mar 6, 2005 (UTC)

inaccurate info

The table on top showing casualties on both sides are too simplistic. On the South Vietnamese side, it only counts US casualties, not the South Vietnamese. Also note that most civilian deaths occurred in South Vietnam. DHN 09:38, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Vietnamization" section is wrong on at least one point

The statement that "Ultimately, more American soldiers died, and more bombs were dropped, under the Nixon Presidency than under Johnson's" is flat out WRONG. Look at ANY reputable source for American war dead by year, and you will see that the majority of American deaths occured in the Johnson administration.

I am not sure if this statement reflects a bit of anti-Nixon bias, for the article as a whole seemed rather fairly written. I am studying the war for a graduate class, and I about fell out of my chair when I saw this statement! Just using the internet, the following casualties per year were found. They are mostly consistent with every statistic the US government has released on this war: 1961-65: 1864 KIA. 1966: 5008 KIA. 1967: 9378 KIA. 1968: 14594 KIA. 1969: 9414 KIA. 1970: 4221 KIA. 1971: 1380 KIA. 1972: 300 KIA. (http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html)

Raw figures show that, among HOSTILE deaths, the figures were far higher and peaked in the LBJ administration. Pretty simple math. Vietnamization was intended to minimize US casualties. Bombing Cambodia may have angered a few, but less Americans died under Nixon's war prosecution. LBJ presided over more combat deaths than Nixon (30,844 to 22,407) and had the deadliest years of the war under his belt. Please correct this.

Clarification

From the Origins section:

The so-called ideological divide has little meaning among the Vietnamese, who well understand the beginnings of its civil conflict as being ethnic in origin; and for their own particular reasons, different outside parties took sides, and desired influence.

What are the "ethnic" beginnings that this sentence refers to? Is this refer to ethnic differences within what outsiders see as the population of Vietnam (e.g., Viet vs. Cham), or is this a reference to the ethnic differences between the Vietnamese and outsiders? siafu 20:52, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

North Vietnam civilian casualties

The article says that there were 4,000,000 civilian casualties in the Repubic of Vietnam in the 1957-1975 war. What's the source for this number? [4] lists 8 sources with numbers in the 47,000–65,000 range for the 1963-1975 war. Section 9 suggests that 4,000,000 is an official Vietnamese figure. This needs a source; there also ought to be some discussion on why (or if) western authors have been so wrong. In particular, are the sources talking about the same thing? (In particular, might someone be confusing "North Vietnamese civilian deaths in the 1957-1975" war with "total Vietnamese deaths in the 1945-1975 wars"? 4 million is highly controversial for the former, but quite uncontroversial for the latter.) Gdr 00:04, 2005 Apr 7 (UTC)

Helpful Additions

I think it would really help the people not wanting to read this entire article, if someone could add an overview section. Thanks!!

More to the point, the introductory paragraph really needs to be cut down in size, with as many extraneous details as possible removed. The giant block of unwikified text recently added there doesn't help matters; the version from a month or so ago was better. --Delirium 07:57, Apr 25, 2005 (UTC)

Morality Debate

Forgive my naiveté; the Vietnam War had been long over by the time I was born. However, I conflict with whether or not the actions taken in Vietnam were truly immoral, or if we merely look down on them by standing high atop a pedestal of presentism. I am currently working on an essay discussing the concept of making judgments of morality based on information that is presently available, but was not at the time of the decision. Truly, I want to unearth whether or not ostracizing those responsible for the atrocities in the Vietnam War is justified. Any Feedback would be greatly appreciated

Minus_5k@hotmail.com

I don't think that ostracism is necessary helpful as it is, but regardless, it doesn't make sense to completely exculpate anyone on the basis that information known now was not known at the time of the decision. The responsibility falls on those making choices to do a thorough investigation of said choices. Granted, acting with the best intention without full information can be seen as "innocent", it's also true that ignorance is sometimes a choice of its own, just as damning as its consequences. siafu 00:02, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
Exculpate? Who has the standing to ostracize or exculpate or anything in between anyone who engages in any war? The very use of the work "exculpate" suggests that you are accepting as true the charges. Why do you think they are? Why do you think that anyone now is entitled to pass judgment? Are you sure that the people whose greatest activity in the Viet Nam era was to keep themselves out of it are entitled to pass judgment?
I was just making a general comment on the nature of the questions, not saying anything about these particular charges. Continuing on that vein, I'd have to say that "passing judgment" is not necessarily something that one needs the "right" to do. One "passes judgment" on something involuntarily when one form an opinion. It's one thing to pass judgment, it's another to praise or condemn. Whether you choose to do any of these things yourself is up to you; but it should be clear that I'm not making any such stand here myself. siafu 18:45, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
You're definitely on the right track in understanding that history is often written with modern eyes and understanding, skewing a general understanding of peoples, times and events. I'll also point out that "history is written by the victors" and, in a sense, history is being written by the U.S. political victors of the Viet Nam War, i.e., those who didn't serve and pilloried those who did while they sat on the sidelines and felt morally superior. Most of the ruling structure of the U.S. today (both political parties and the academic establishment) are made up these people and their fellow travellers.
However, you are significantly begging the question when you ask "whether or not ostracizing those responsible for the atrocities in the Vietnam War is justified." Who are we talking about? Are you assuming that the social attitudes toward Viet Nam vets are because they committed atrocities? Are you sure atrocities were as commonplace as is assumed by such as John Kerry, who never personally saw any himself, only "heard" of them? Are you sure the other side didn't commit war crimes and atrocities? You have a good inquiring attitude, but you may have to immerse yourself in the times more than you want to to write what I think you want to.
At the same time, some of the true U.S. monsters of the Viet Nam War are being rehabilitated. More and more, it's being called "Nixon's War," but from my perspective it was and always will be oustandingly "Johnson's War." But Johnson is now undergoing new admiration. Why? Probably some of it is wanting to pin everything on a disliked Republican rather than a Democrat, but Johnson is now praised for his civil rights legislation, so what's a few million draftees and others thrown into a thankless war? Then there's Robert McNamara. He writes a book in which he apparently virtually admits to war crimes (IMO, of coutse) and everybody is going on about how sensitive and agonized he was about the war. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 18:53, 2 May 2005 (UTC)
The ad hominem on Kerry is a bit off, and seems to echo the way blame for Winter Soldier gets laid on Kerry, but I agree with everything else Cecropia said; particularly regarding the ridiculous Kennedy and Johnson worship. -SV|t 00:55, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm not "blaming" Kerry for Winter Soldier. I'm saying that he was the public face of the claims that American soldiers regularly committed atrocities and I'm saying that he did this while he acknowledged that he did not see of these alleged atrocities himself. The people who did claim to see the atroicities in Winter Soldier made their claims in a sheltered accepting environment not under oath, while Kerry was sworn before the Senate. If Kerry had testified that he had actually observed these acts, he would have perjured himself. Those who made the claims Kerry merely reported were not under oath and couldn't be prosecuted if they spoke falsely. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:18, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
I said "seems to echo" not "are blaming." I thought Jane Fonda was the real public face of VVAW, BTW. The claimed importance of a distinction between "Senate oath" as different than an church oath or otherwise seems rather off - for reasons I'm sure you can figure out. -SV|t 02:04, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
I'm not sure I'm getting your comparison (or contrast) of Senate oath and Church oath. When Kerry took an oath before the Senate he placed himself at legal jeopardy for perjury he lied. But the people who "testified" at Winter Soldier were not udner oath, so could not prosecuted for perjury and therefore the statements any particular one of them made are inherently less reliable.
As to Jane Fonda being "the public face" of VVAW, she is alleged to have been a very major contributor, but certainly was not more upfront than other celebrity supporters, and celebrity supporters in general could not be too prominent--it was supposed to be a veteran's organization, not a modern Hollywood "cause." -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 03:12, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
The claim that the very "legal" system which had brought about the "claimed" atrocities in the first place should also be the arbiter of which testimony is considered "inherently less reliable," is itself an "inherently less reliable" basis for any principled viewpoint. -SV|t 23:40, 9 May 2005 (UTC)
It is inherently less reliable because you can be punished for speaking flasely under oath. You can't for simply making statements while credulous listeners write them down. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 02:39, 10 May 2005 (UTC)
One can be punished just as easily for speaking truthfully. What if anything are you saying here that has any objective value? -SV|t 18:35, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Obviously nothing when speaking to a person whose subjective view of an issue does not allow an understanding of plain language. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 19:17, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
Thank you. -SV|t 22:09, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

NPOV tag in wrong place

Why is the NPOV tag in the "Casualties" section? — Stevey7788 (talk) 05:41, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Why aren't we telling right away the truth about the Vietnam War.

When we click on the Tonkin incident we see the truth but why aren't we saying that the Vietnam War started with a lie of the president on the main page?

Tonkin did not start the Vietnam War. It was going on for quite a while with some complexity to its origins. Tonkin was a turning point, a significant boost to Johnson's rhetorical ability to claim justification for escalation. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 06:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
I agree, but its fair to mention how Tonkin was mostly stagecraft. I think there should be more background on the previous war with the French, and how the growth of Catholicism beginning in the 17th century brought about the social rifts upon which the French occupation and American involvement could be based. -SV|t 01:02, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
Another point that is rather lost is that, at the time Johnson employed it, escalation was quite a novel concept. The closest that we can come to in modern times was FDR's open support for the allies before Pearl Harbor and Lend-Lease, which made the U.S. liable to a declaration of war, if the Axis powers had chosen to done so, but Japan chose a sneak attack instead. FDR did not actually commit combat troops until he was able to obtain a formal declartion of war after Pearl Harbor. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:24, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
"Escalation [is] a novel concept" true, but only for those with power and the will to abuse it. -SV|t 02:07, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

Chinese force in Nord Vietnam

12 may 2005

Excuse me my poor english, I am French.

Chinese intervention in Vietnam North

The spookman of the Chinese Ministry of the Foreign Affairs confirmed in 1996, that, on request of the Vietnamese northern communist government, China had sent between October 1965 and Mars 1968, approximately 320.000 soldiers in Vietnam to help Vietnam North in the tasks of air defense, genius and logistics. It also confirms that more than 1400 Chinese soldiers had been killed

Intervention Chinoise au Nord Vietnam

Le porte parole du Ministère Chinois des Affaires Etrangères a confirmé en 1996, que, sur demande du gouvernement communiste nord vietnamien, la Chine avait envoyé entre Octobre 1965 et Mars 1968, environ 320.000 soldats au Vietnam pour aider le Nord Vietnam dans les tâches de défense aérienne, de génie et de logistique. Il confirme aussi que plus de 1400 soldats Chinois avaient été tués

That really needs a direct citation. AFAIK the U.S. never claimed there were Chinese troops in North Vietnam. North Vietnam was a Soviet client anyway. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 14:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

Origine of the article ;) :

http://www.lmvntd.org/avl/demo0696/0696bai7.htm

13 May 2005 :

Precisions of Air Defence (DCA : Defense Contre Avions) for a chinese correspondant in a French forum :

Origine : http://www.net4war.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2277&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

China has envoye troops of DCA in Vietnam in August 1965 and has withdraws them in November 1968, the date or USAF ceased the bombardment on the Vietnam of North.

To support the joint effort of the international revolution, China has deploye 26 regiments DCA forming three big divisions, counting in all more than 100 000 men, equipes of machine-guns AA of 14.5mm, guns AA of 37 and 85mm, with their radar of shooting etc, they etaient vetu in Vietnamese uniform to mislead Americains, this known as, recall that the USSR has also envoye troops DCA, if the Chinese offer a certain similarity to the Vietnamese soldier, it would have ete difficult for them deguiser into Asian.

Planes US down by the DCA Chinese: 597 Damage: 479

The Chinese losses of 280 dead and 1166 wound.

traduction for http://world.altavista.com/

2 of your references to the presence of Chinese troops in Vietnam between 1965-1968 is not good enough. The reason: Your second link is a forum, anyone can post whatever they want. It can not be considered as a reliable source. Your first link [5] is even worse because it is a article taken from an anti-communist website. It is quite clear to me why any anti-communist would try to prove that there was Chinese troops in Vietnam, that is because most Vietnamese nowadays don't hate American, in fact, a lot of Vietnamese admire Americans for their achievement. On the other hand, most (and I mean about 75% of the population) really hate Chineses because we have been having war with them for more than 1000 years and 2 more small wars during the 20th century. Both started by the Chinese, one in 1979 in support of the Khmer regime when Vietnamese invade Cambodia to oust Pol Pot from power, and another one in the 1980s. One of the main reason behind the Vietnamese support for North Vietnam is that North Vietnam doesn't allow any other country to have military presence in Vietnam, even the Soviet Union & the Chinese, whereas at peak there were more than 500,000 Americans in South Vietnam. ~~lt2hieu2004~~

As I remember the war contemporaneously, it was the Soviet Union that supported Ho and the North, though with diplomacy and aid, not troops. If Chinese troops had been in Vietnam it would have been remarkable, as China and Russia did not have the same interests at the time. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 03:21, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Agree with Cecropia. Letting the Chinese troops in Vietnam would mean to lose the massive aid from the Soviet Union and also the support of the Vietnamese people to ally with Vietnam true enemy.

Military Medals

I am removing the military medals section. I have no problem with the content, although I will be adding some non-US medals, but the layout is absolutely horrible. If anyone else wants to fix the layout, feel free to do so, otherwise I will put it back sometime in a decently laid out version. Ruy Lopez 23:09, 8 Jun 2005 (UTC)

What is your justification for calling the layout "absolutely horrible"? That sounds like POV to me. Also, the template is in use by Awards and decorations of the United States military and modifying a template could affect several articles. Please don't mass delete images without discussing it first. -Husnock 02:11, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
When did the National Order of Vietnam become an award and decoration of the US military? And calling the *layout* horrible is POV? That's mindboggling. The layout is horrible. I don't have objection to the content, just the bad graphic layout, and also the naming. The NLF and North Vietnamese gave out medals, and that should be included in the Vietnam War article. Ruy Lopez 02:46, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
* The National Order was given to a few U.S. service members and is annotated in the foreign decorations section of Awards and decorations of the United States military. I removed the template (and moved it to indicate South Vietnam only) per your aspirations. And, calling any article "crappy" and "horrible" is a possible violation of Wikipedia: Civility. In any event, ther graphics are now out of this article. Please don't alter the template further. -Husnock 03:04, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Template in Question

Here is the template in question that Ruy Lopez called "absolutely horrible". Frankly, I don't see anything wrong with it I open the floor to whether or not this should go back in the article. R.L. is apparently biased, so what does everyone else think? -Husnock 03:39, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if just my setup, but I think it would help a great deal if the titles were aligned with the images. siafu 03:49, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
It is not just your setup. And as I said before, I have no problem with the content of the template, I have a problem with the format of the template. It's layout is...well, it's not good. If it is fixed up so it looks normal, I would have no problem with it. Ruy Lopez 03:35, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The new layout is much better than the old one. I've put it back into the article. Now it is very clear which medal belongs to what link. It was very confusing before. Ruy Lopez 17:15, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Even now there's still a problem with the template in that it does not feature medals issued by North Vietnam, making the article all the more U.S.-centric. 172 17:23, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Template is only for South Vietnam medals as it is used in articles detailing medals which are authorized by the US for approved wear. Template was actually renamed per that objection. -Husnock 28 June 2005 17:29 (UTC)
I agree that we need to put on the page more medals issued by the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, as well as the National Liberation Front, although I do think they should be in separate templates because some of the templates are used by several pages. I followed the first section with a section of North Vietnamese medals. There can be a section on NLF medals as well. So far, I did an article on the Ho Chi Minh order and linked to that. It's a low priority for me right now, but I may do an article about an NLF medal in the future. Ruy Lopez 17:58, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The Operational Conduct of the War

There is very little discussion whatsoever about how the war progressed. In fact, the organization doesn't lend itself to an easy cut out of the operational considerations seperate from some strategic issues, some social and and political issues, etc. Case in point, the section "The end of the war" conflates a significant two year into one or two paragraphs; the largest North Vietnamese offensive took place in 1973 and was soundly defeated by ARVN; only to be repeated two years later to South Vietnam's eternal detriment. This article is in major need of a rewrite. --Rev Prez 13:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Vietnamese Elections in 1976?

There seems to be an edit war of sorts with regards to the opening paragraph of this article that says the "war was fought to determine whether Vietnam would be united in accordance with the Geneva Agreement--" Now, if the war was fought (presumably by North Vietnam) to determine if Vietnam would be united with accordance with the Geneva Accords, they would have held the free and fair elections after their victory in 1975. Instead, as far as every resource and my own knowledge of the Communist state, the Communists picked the candidates for the National Assembly before the election of 1976. Obviously, that pretty much meant rigged elections from the start. Unless anyone can produce concrete resources that these elections were conducted fairly I will continue to delete this phrase. --User:24.210.183.105 24 June 2005.

The communists put up some candidates, and some of them won, some of them didn't. The communists are in a coalition called the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, some of the candidates the coalition endorses win, some don't. In the 2002 elections, 447 candidates who won were in the Vietnamese Communist Party, 51 were not. Of the 51 non-party candidates, 48 had the endorsement of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, 3 did not.
At the last elections, 19 may 2002, 3 members are self-nominated and do not belong to the VVF. 51 seats were won by non-party candidates. So over 11% of the Quoc Hoi is not communist. The situation was similar in 1976.
You say the "Communists picked the candidates for the National Assembly before the election of 1976". So what? The US Republicans pick candidates for Congress before elections as well. I'm not sure what is so sinister about this. Some of their candidates win, some lose. The communists have been a majority since 1976, but so what? Japan had a Liberal Democratic prime minister from 1954 to 1993, yet you don't hear people here challenging whether they're democratic. That's 39 years, compared to Vietnam's 29 years of a communist majority. That's not factoring in that the Liberal leadership really stretches back to 1948, when the Liberals swallowed the small Democratic party, which stretches interrupted up until today, except for a brief stretch from 1993-1996 right after Japan's worst post-WWII recession and a series of corruption scandals in the LDP. Ruy Lopez 17:47, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
the difference is that these candidates were not predetermined based on govt. choice, they were chosen in elections (obviously) J. Parker Stone 02:18, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The difference between the American election process and Vietnamese is that there are multiple parties with different ideologies competing in an American elections (Republican and Democrat) but in Vietnam only those chosen by one party (communist) can run. In Japan the people kept the prime minister because they wanted him. He was opposed by multiple parties, but the people did not want a change. In Vietnam, there was only one type of candidate on the ballot, no choice for a change. Your other points are irrelevant because they deal with Vietnam recently, not in 1976. You say the situation was "similar", but do not give exact statistics.--User:24.210.183.105 24 June 2005.

you are the one disputing the validity of the 1976 election which did take place. The onus is on you to prove it was unfair. Your statement that people not nominated by the communist party can't be elected is not correct, as I said, over 11% of the Quoc Hoi was not nominated by the communist party and are not members of the communist party. Ruy Lopez 01:56, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

11%, by Joe! the token "opposition," no doubt. J. Parker Stone 02:16, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)


I didn't say only the communist party could run, I meant that they had to be approved by the communist party. Were any of these 11% capitalists?-User:24.210.183.105 25 June 2005.

[[6]] and [[7]] seems to have good information of the Vietnamese government.--User:24.210.183.105

Soviet backing for the North Vietnamese

is as common knowledge as U.S. backing for the South Vietnamese. please justify it's removal -- if you can't, then stop mass-RVing all my edits for chrissakes. J. Parker Stone 08:43, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

just to clarify, i realize that Soviet support was of a different nature (military aid) than U.S. support (active presence and military advisors before that) but it should still be noted, as it is important. J. Parker Stone 22:34, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Note: the USSR was NOT involved in this war in ANY way, this is just a speculation of the US government, and the people because of a tendency of democracies to, as George F. Kennan has said, make "Its enem[ies] become the embodiment of all evil."(George F. Kennan, Russia and the West, Under Lenin and Stalin) And so, in the minds of Western society, it had to be the Russians, and it couldn't be a sincere move by the north Vietnamese Government to communism in order to unite all of Vietnam. (which is true) The US saw communism rising, and because of ignorance of the difference between Leninism-Marxism and Communism, thought it MUST be a bad thing, thought that it could only be the USSR and their "intrigue."


The Soviet Union was "supportive" of North Vietnam, but it did not "support" Hanoi to the point that Hanoi can be assumed to have been little more than a Russian proxy. Hanoi got support from Beijing as well, which was more important. USSR had much more of a presence in N Korea, and often this is assumed to have also been the case in Vietnam. I think it is a little misleading to just call the North Vietnamese "Soviet supported." I think it should be deleted. Notice from my edits that my position is certainly not anti-US--far from it--I just don't think Ho was just a Russian stooge. User:Aufregende 25 Jun 2005

points taken, though the only reason I didn't say "Chinese-supported" was due to the anti-Soviet (and consequently, anti-Vietnamese) position Beijing adopted following the Sino-Soviet split. J. Parker Stone 28 June 2005 05:57 (UTC)
Despite the split between the Soviets and Chinese, both sides continued to support North Vietnam with military aid, diplomatic support, etc. at least while the war was on. China's attitude post-1975 and especially post-1979 would be significantly different. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 June 28 06:43 (UTC)
weren't there some problems dealing with any foreign relations at all during the Cultural Revolution? J. Parker Stone 28 June 2005 07:04 (UTC)
I'm not sure exactly what you mean exactly. If your point is that China couldn't offer much in the foreign relations department due to their lack of relations with key world players (e.g. the US), that would be true. Nevertheless, on that front the PRC was the first of the communist states to recognize the NLF, etc -- they did what they could. Military aid was more important, the Chinese probably provided 50%+ of the military aid recieved by the DVR during the war. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 June 28 07:21 (UTC)
"Soviet supported" wouldn't imply Ho was a Russian puppet, it just means that they enabled Ho to carry on with the war effort. -User:24.210.183.105
It should be remembered that much of the face-to-face war in Vietnam was US troops versus NLF (South Vietnamese rebel) troops. Yes, the USSR and PRC sent some military supplies to the Vietnamese, but they did not send troops. Right now the US sends military supplies to dozens, perhaps hundreds of countries, but has active troops only in Iraq and Afghanistan. So the level of support is much less. Also, PRC and Vietnamese relations were always strained - remember that China invaded Vietnam in 1979. Ruy Lopez 28 June 2005 17:59 (UTC)
The point about China invading Vietnam in 1979 doesn't seem relevant to their relations in 1967-1972 during the height of the war. Obviously, things had changed greatly by then, as Hanoi had achieved domination over all of Indochina with their wars in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The more-relevant millenia-old enmity between China and Vietnam didn't stop China, by it's own claim, from providing 300,000+ troops who served in the DRV. The article already rightly highlights the role of the U.S. which was certainly greater than that of the PRC and USSR (indeed it probably overconcentrates on the U.S. role), but mentions of the heavy support provided by the Communist Great Powers is definitely in order as without it North Vietnam would have been in terrible straits. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 June 28 20:12 (UTC)
Furthurmore, in future reversions please avoid wiping out non-controversial edits, numerous of which were lost in your past couple reverts. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 June 28 20:15 (UTC)

Gulf of Tonkin "falsified"

do we know this for sure? i saw Fog of War and my impression was that it was just somewhat unclear what had happened. J. Parker Stone 20:48, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The first attack actually occured, the second attack is more ambiguous. There is no evidence that a second attack occured apart from the sighting of torpedoes and North Vietnamese radio intercepts. Some say the former was caused by a storm or mistaken for the C. Turner Joy's wake. Still, all of the crew believed they were under attack. So it can't be proven either way.User:24.210.183.105 25 June 2005

Current intro

Aside from destroying all my other (some noncontroversial) edits, Ruy has switched the intro back. Now I just don't think this intro works -- does anyone really think that the U.S. and South Vietnam would've objected to the 1956 elections if they thought that there was some chance of Diem winning (which there wasn't)? So they essentially objected to the Geneva agreement (and remember, South Vietnam and the U.S. were not signatories) because if the elections did occur, Vietnam would be reunited under Ho Chi Minh, who led what was for all purposes a Communist government. Thus the current intro is misleading, because it implies that U.S. involvement was solely to keep Vietnam split, without mentioning the reasons why it didn't want Vietnam to be reunited at the time (because it would be ruled by a Communist government.)

and please stop referencing the RFC, it's old and you don't really have any business criticizing me considering your penchant for interjecting far-left POV into articles such as Khmer Rouge (and everything else.) J. Parker Stone 28 June 2005 03:07 (UTC)

Agreed, though perhaps there should be some compromise, e.g. "united under the communists, the likely result of the Geneva agreement". Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 June 28 06:52 (UTC)
The details to me are not important, I just want it mentioned that the 1956 Geneva agreement said Vietnam would have elections and be unified. Trey Stone comments the US did not sign the Geneva agreements, um, yaa - the US had no involvement in Vietnam in that time, why would it sign the agreements. I'm glad Stone freely concedes that while Minh could have won elections in Vietnam, Diem could not have, implying the only way of keeping Diem in power was as a dictator, supported by foreign armies. "Does anyone really think the U.S. and South Vietnam would've objected to the 1956 elections if they thought that there was some chance of Diem winning?" - so the US only objects to elections when their candidate won't win, how magnanimous. As far as your general Wikipedia conduct and mine, you're being arbitrated against, and have been blocked 8 times since it started, including two days ago. As far as myself, noting that Sihanouk had a role in opposition to Lon Nol after Lon Nol overthrew Sihanouk in his 1970 coup is not "far-left POV", but historical fact, and is noted in the US Army study of Cambodia, although I guess for you that would be a source of far-left POV as well. I ask people to look at the arbitration against Trey Stone and his 8 bans since his arbitration began as context for all of this. Ruy Lopez 28 June 2005 17:54 (UTC)
From the Geneva Accords article: The agreement was between Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, France, Laos, the People's Republic of China, the State of Viet-Nam, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. However, only France and Ho Chi Minh's DRV signed the document. Furthermore, the U.S. was involved in Vietnam; it had been funding the French forces who were fighting the Viet Minh.
The rest of your comments are not worth response. J. Parker Stone 29 June 2005 01:39 (UTC)

I think it should be remembered that neither Vietnam's signed the election clause in the Geneva agreement. CJK (formerly User:24.210.183.105). 29 June 2005

I don't really under what you are saying, CJK. Both Vietnam signed the election clause in the Geneva agreement in 1954. In 1956, South Vietnam refuse to hold an election to unify Vietnam claiming that North Vietnam would sure to win in an unfair election.--lt2hieu2004 2 July 2005 06:20 (UTC)

Nick Burks and Rory Trevis

I couldn't find any Web page mentioning either a "Nick Burks" or a "Rory Trevis". Perhaps they are made-up. Even if they are real, is it perhaps too small a detail to mention a couple of American (or other national) Rambo-style war heroes in an article about the broad history of the war? Are there any Vietnamese (on either side) heroes whose stories are well known? This paragraph seems very out of place in the "U.S. Forces Committed" section.

Given the large number of people who fought in the war it also seems exaggerated to described their story as "perhaps the most spectacular of all."

Agreed, the paragraph was both POV and unnecessary in this article. It was also unsourced; I have gone ahead and deleted it for now. Christopher Parham (talk) 2005 July 3 15:55 (UTC)