My parents are Vietnamese. My dad actually fought in the war with the South Vietnamese army alongside US troops. He's a lifelong Republican, as were all of his brothers who also fought, as well as the vast majority of his friends and their families who arrived as refugees.
They supported the war. They saw the US as liberators against the communists who wanted to murder them and take over their country. They love America and despise communist Vietnam. They wish the US had finished the job.
Promoting things like the link above and conveniently omitting the pure savagery of the Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh, and the communists from the North is pure propaganda. It's always puzzling to me what types of topics journalists choose to run.
Instead of listening to journalists reporting on Vietnam from half a world away, you should visit Little Saigon in Southern California and Northern California and ask them how they feel about America and the Vietnam War.
EDIT: Since I have a post limit and I can't reply below, I'll reply here.
quan: I didn't say My Lai was propaganda. I said emphasizing My Lai over the several atrocities committed by the communists, including the systematic murders of those who opposed communism, is propaganda.
Same as your dad, five of my uncles fought in the war on the U.S. side, my grandfather and granduncle served in the South Vietnamese government in high positions. My family was persecuted after the war, many fled, the ones that stayed spent time in prison and fled after.
In college, I read a lot on the Vietnam war and learned about the Tet Offensive with the Hue massacre by the Vietcong, the Land Reform prior to that. But I don't see how the photos at My Lai is "pure propaganda." If you spend some time to learn about the tragic event you will find that there were a big cover up and for over 500 human lives lost, only one man was charged and subsequently pardoned.
The U.S. committed to a war when it didn't understand the people or history of Vietnam. Vietnam has a long history of fighting foreign invaders, and most people perceive the U.S. as such as they are just replacing the French when they withdrew after Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Till this day, most Vietnamese people consider China to be their biggest enemy even though the two countries share the same political ideology.
To be fair, the Vietnamese communities in Southern California are stuck in a time bubble. Vietnam has changed dramatically since the Vietnam War (or War of American Aggression as it's called in Vietnam), but the Vietnamese diaspora's image of the country has not. It's not the same place, and the government - while nowhere near perfect - is not the same as it was 50 years ago. The country still has many problems, but it is getting better, and the country's youth have a very healthy skepticism of government (unlike mainland China).
Also, let's not try to paint the former South leadership as noble. Buddhists weren't self-immolating in the streets of Saigon because of the communists, and the victim in the infamous photo being shot at point blank in the head was a Viet Cong.
You're using two data points when hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese civilians were systematically slaughtered by Ho Chi Minh and his comrades. The propaganda is strong when the general public knows more about the head shot photo than the mass murders committed by communist Vietnamese regime.
You're setting up a straw man to an argument I never made. All I'm telling you is how my dad, his brothers, and the vast majority of his first generation Vietnamese friends (who arrived as refugees) feel about America and the Vietnam War. Despite what you may think, they wholeheartedly support America.
If you don't believe me, you should try visiting Little Saigon on Bolsa Avenue in Orange Country and ask them what they think of the USA. Look at the flags they use (South Vietnam and the USA). If you want to get assaulted (I highly don't recommend this), try bringing Vietnam's current flag and parade it around.
EDIT:
to andrepd: Again, you keep setting up straw man arguments. It's very easy to attack someone if you misrepresent their views. I never said anything about excusing massacres.
I think you didn't mean it, from your later comments, but you came across as saying we shouldn't only talk about My Lai because the other side did bad things too. Yes, they did bad things, but it doesn't excuse us. We claim we are better. Just like in the Iraq War 2 and our prisons where we treated people horribly, it doesn't excuse it just because someone else also did bad things. I think that's a core principal.
It doesn't lessen the horror of atrocities if the other side did it.
That's exactly the point made. The US IS better. Better than the Nazis, better than North Vietnam/Vietnam, better than China (and frankly better than all European states during and immediately after WWI/II at least). Better than North Korea. Better than South Africa.
With better I mean "how people are treated", in the human rights, in general, and only as part of government policy.
And yes, I agree. The US has it's downsides. The US has made mistakes. The difference between a mistake and a government policy is the number of times and the scale at which it happens, and the intent. The US has made mistakes, some of which lead to the death of hundreds, even thousands of people. Some of those mistakes involved the military. It was NOT the intent of any significant fraction of the US to make these events happen.
China, Vietnam, and Germany had a widely supported-by-the-people government policy of massacre. Every organisation in those countries is focused and involved in oppressing and massacring people for some reason. Vietnam's CURRENT government made children watch their own parents getting raped, slowly, and killed, then used them as insane soldier-killers sending them into defenseless villages where they brutally murdered everyone they could. This is NOT a one-off. They did this to children for decades.
The difference is indescribable and it is absurd to even compare the two. They are not on the same moral level, they just aren't. We are better than that, it's just that simple.
That's objectively so, and for some reason a lot of people feel the need to destroy historical views like this.
It may not lessen atrocities on the other side, but we should acknowledge the difference between mistakes and popular government-supported genocide.
Equating them does nothing, other than provide cover for these massacres. Hell, the amount of people talking up Chinese policy seems to be mounting every day. And, of course, the situation of people in China gets worse everytime some high up in the Chinese government thinks censorship is good enough that they can get away with something more.
It pains me to point out the obvious: "anti-racism" has become the leading excuse for racism, inequality and state-based massacres.
Ive looked carefully through he comments here and nobody is making any false equivalency In the terms you describe, or denying what you say about the US overall.
I don’t see why an article or subsequent discussion about a horrible crime committed by US soldiers, subject to an attempted coverup by the US army and limply prosecuted afterwards needs to also say how nice the US is otherwise. It doesn’t matter how nice it is otherwise. It’s got nothing to do with the issue at hand, any more than if it had happened in any other country.
I'm not saying there is an equivalence between the nazis and modern day us. I am just pointing out that when we do horrible things, we have to not deny it, not say it's not a big deal because someone else did something worse. We aren't equivalent, but we do make mistakes.
> try visiting Little Saigon on Bolsa Avenue in Orange Country
> If you want to get assaulted [..] try bringing Vietnam's current flag and parade it around
What a bizarre argument. Of course you're going to find pro-USA sentiment in the very people who decided to move to the USA. I hope you realise that the opinions of a few immigrants in the states are going to be pretty unrepresentative of those who actually live in, you know, Vietnam.
Speak to actual vietnamese people from actual vietnam and I don't think you'll find they are overwhelmingly pro-USA, nor at all interested in the flag of south vietnam. I'm no expert, but my experience is that they're mildly positive in attitude, mostly due to pop culture. The war was a long time ago and most people are just getting on with their lives.
Many immigrant communities foster a kind of "nostalgic nationalism" as a coping strategy when adapting to a profoundly different environment. It dates pretty rapidly. I very much doubt many of the 90+ million people in Vietnam even know of "Little Saigon", nor care overmuch about the opinions of a bunch of old-timers sitting in a mall in California.
Actually, Vietnam is one of the most pro-American countries in the world. There was a survey a while and over 90% view the US favorably. You can find it with a google search.
Some of it is, but some of it is that many VIetnamese went to the US after the at and so their family is there and they can see firsthand the benefits of living in the US.
Also Vietnamese are fiercely capitalistic. I've never seen a more go-getter attitude in any other country. That also colors their perception of the US.
> many Vietnamese went to the US [..] they can see firsthand the benefits of living in the US
This applies to many countries. Why does it specifically influence Vietnamese perceptions more?
> Vietnamese are fiercely capitalistic
This is true, but again, they're hardly alone. Chinese are fiercely capitalistic as well - and in the same context as the Vietnamese, within the framework of a nominally communist society. Why doesn't your theory apply there, too?
I think the situation is much more nuanced than these too-obvious theories, or that can be surfaced in superficial "attitude" surveys. As mentioned in other comments, Vietnamese are deeply (and IMO rightfully) suspicious of China, despite the state's theoretical status as an ally. The USA, despite its history of botched and ham-handed interventions, is ultimately seen as a friend. There's a love/hate aspect to that attitude too, similar to Filipino attitudes to some extent. The absence of military bases in-country helps by keeping the notion theoretical, rather than the often-negative daily experience of having foreign soldiers around a la Korea and Japan.
Anyway, without getting too much into the weeds of theorising and speculation, my point was that it's complex - more complex than the OP suggested. Nostalgia for the South Vietnamese flag is a niche sentiment at best, and attitudes to the USA are a complicated product of history and pragmatism. "90% positive" does not capture the nuance, in my opinion.
It's probably too late but it would have been good to hear from some non-emigrant Vietnamese.
"The US" no longer uses anti-personnel mines outside the Korean DMZ (which is actually managed by the South Koreans). The US does not deploy them anywhere, and hasn't for years.
Maybe its India and Pakistan we're thinking of, hm?
Did you really think she/he was suggesting that the US is setting up landmines in Vietnam 50 years after the war?
Landmines can kill people a very long time after being deployed you know...
Do you really think the US government bears no responsibility for the actions of the US government 50 years ago and the consequences today? Would you extend that to other governments too? In what circumstances would you not? What Cut off period do you think is right generally?
For example do you think the US has no responsibility towards Pacific Islanders whose islands are now lethally radioactive due to nuclear tests 50 years ago, and can reasonably wash its hands of any problems arising from that today?
I can't claim to be directly responsible for the actions of my countrymen fifty years ago, but not doing anything about their misdeeds today gives my tacit approval to those past actions and to their ongoing costs so unfairly burdening present-day Vietnamese. Plus, I think it would be a nice bit of diplomacy for the U.S. to fund mine clearing efforts in Vietnam.
Just one point: there is no, “The US” as I’ve learned over time. The US is geographically vast, and full of hundreds of millions of people from wildly different backgrounds. Those poeple have politics ranging from Ghengis Khan, to Ghandi. They seem to agree, as a nation, on very little.
Have you ever been to Iceland? Sweden is remarkably united in their politics as well. Japan is much less politically and culturally diverse than most US states. Few countries are as geographically large and populous as the US either, even before you work in hundreds of years of immigration.
I have lived in Germany and the US each for years and for months in several other countries. From the outside or on a short visit all countries look homogeneous. Only after a while you see the subtleties. From that perspective I don't think the US is any different from other countries. Maybe other countries are in agreement on things that are contentious in the US but then they have other issues that never get discussed in the US. In short, the US is nothing special. It's a country like every other country and should be treated as such.
I disagree, but I can’t see the value in pitting anecdote against anecdote. If you want to believe that the US’ history, geography, and demographics make it essentially the same as (to use my examples) Iceland, Japan, and Sweden, I doubt that I could change your mind.
Look at where this discussion started. It started from someone talking about the Viet Cong and the US. Then you said there is no such thing as the US because it's so big and diverse. In this context the US has to be seen as one unit or how else can you describe a war?
As far as Sweden goes I bet the people living north of the Arctic circle have little in common with people living in Stockholm.
Then never talk about any other group like "the Chinese", "the Russians" or "the Nazis" again either. Because these are also millions of diverse people too.
Then never talk about any other group like "the Chinese", "the Russians" or "the Nazis" again either. Because these are also millions of diverse people too.
One of those things is not like the other, two of those things are kinda the same. Nazism is an ideology, a movement, so I’m going to move past that red herring.
The rest though, good advice that I try very hard to live by. I’m not sure at what point you decided that I was arguing in favor of something else. It would be downright stupid to assume that the lives and views of someone raising ducks and pigs on a small farm in an outer province of Chins bears much resemblance to the life of a high-level beaurocrat in Beijing. Some teenager with no future or hope in the outskirts of Moscow isn’t like a grandmother in Novasibirsk, or an oligarch in a penthouse.
By the same token, don’t assume that the US is some magically homogeneous group of people who don’t care if a Vietnamese child is blown away by a 50 year old mine.
Edit: Because apparently it must be said, The US Governmemt != “The US” in the same way that the Chinese Communist Pary isn’t “China” and Putin isn’t “Russia”.
You're suggesting there isn't an ideology moving the US government? Every country has an ideology, a doctrine or something like that, and independently of the sheer number and diversity of its population, what's ALWAYS discussed when someone mentions a country is its government and its policies, including foreign policies. You're bringing a no true Scotsman to the table, which is a fallacy. From its foreign policy on Vietnam, the US does not seem to "give a shit" as the OP said.
Maybe we should ask what Soviets think of their regime (most of them supported it, and still more people prefer the Soviet Union to Putin right now). That doesn't make their regime any more or less good.
And how does the "other side" committing atrocities excuse your own atrocities?? That's an appalling way to attempt to self justify.
Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese who opposed communism had their lives slaughtered. What is even remotely equivalent committed by the "other side"?
EDIT to andrepd, since I can't reply to you because of post limit: You're using straw man arguments and I can't keep up. I don't know anything about East Timor but by "other side", I meant the US and South Vietnam. We're obviously discussing the Vietnam War and the participants involved and you're going off on a tangent that makes it impossible to have any debate with you.
US financed, supported, armed and gave the okay for the decimation of over 1/4 of the population of East Timor. Their crime? They were looking dangerously close to electing a left-wing government... Oh, and some mining companies may have lobbied Congress to stay on Indonesia's good side, since they had mining interests there (but this, I admit, is more speculative).
How about Guatemala? How about Iran for Christ's sake? How many thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people's blood is on the hands of US imperialism?
Ken Burn's recent series on Vietnam is very well made and speaks with participants and stakeholders from across the ideological spectrum. Highly recommended: https://www.netflix.com/title/70202579
I know it's a popular series, and I haven't gotten my dad's response to it because he hasn't watched it, but many war veterans and South Vietnamese military members say it's not a very balanced documentary.
You have a lot of informed opinions because of course you were close to the war and your family was. I hope to see you continue to share your ideas, even if you are suffering some criticism.
Oh come on. Look at the series. You can say what you want but it is extremely biased. It takes about 30 seconds for it to call the war a mistake, and it doesn't get better from there.
I’m sorry, but this is blatant whataboutism. The crimes of the Vietnamese Communists are inexcusable, but so was My Lai. The linked article was simply an American media article about something the American military did. We should be able to discuss it purely in those terms.
What another army did somewhere else to other people simply isn’t pertinent in that context, even if in the same war, unless it directly relates to the circumstances at My Lai and the reasons for it happening. You aren’t saying VC atrocities excuse My Lai, or that they caused My a Lai, so how are they relevant? What context do they add to the decisions made by those American soldiers or the army cover up or subsequent investigation? I just don’t see how it would have helped the article other than to muddy and obscure the issues of discipline and accountability in the US military the massacre raises and which the article discusses.
The responsibility of the VC for their actions just isn’t a necessary part of that dialogue and is an important and necessary subject, but for another time and place. At time and place in which massacres carried out elsewhere by Americans also simply wouldn’t be relevant, nor excuse anything done by the VC. And no I’m not making any false equivalency. That’s the point.
They supported the war. They saw the US as liberators against the communists who wanted to murder them and take over their country. They love America and despise communist Vietnam. They wish the US had finished the job.
Promoting things like the link above and conveniently omitting the pure savagery of the Viet Cong, Ho Chi Minh, and the communists from the North is pure propaganda. It's always puzzling to me what types of topics journalists choose to run.
Instead of listening to journalists reporting on Vietnam from half a world away, you should visit Little Saigon in Southern California and Northern California and ask them how they feel about America and the Vietnam War.
EDIT: Since I have a post limit and I can't reply below, I'll reply here.
quan: I didn't say My Lai was propaganda. I said emphasizing My Lai over the several atrocities committed by the communists, including the systematic murders of those who opposed communism, is propaganda.