Was The Vietnam War Justified?
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- čas přidán 24. 10. 2023
- The Vietnam war is the most controversial war in American history. But was it justified?
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I'm getting my passport renewed and I'm in a spot where it would be easy to save that money. I've never left my province in Canada.
So are you going to talk about the South Vietnamese refugees? Or what happened to the allies left behind? The concentration camps, reeducation camps?
You left out the part where US cut funding so we couldn't the ammunition that we promised them. They didn't even have bullets to fire.
Myth: There was no bloodbath in Vietnam after the communists took over.
Fact: At least a half a million Vietnamese died as a direct cause of the communist takeover. 1.7 million died in Cambodia, and a half a million more in Laos.
65,000-100,000 South Vietnamese were executed after the takeover.
165,000 died in re-education campus due to torture, beatings, disease and starvation.
250,000 died trying to escape the communist tyranny on boats.
Some estimates place total deaths from 1975 to the present at over 1.5 million.
1.7 million were murdered in Cambodia.
About 56,000 were killed in Laos. The Lao government continues to pursue and murder the Hmong people to this day.
@@sirbluelagoon7091 this guy is just regurgitating what the popular media says.
@@cyclone8974 thank you for bringing up and knowing about the ammunition supply issue. After the pull out, the South was actually doing really well and pushing back the Communist. I have family members who fought during that time, and they also brought up the issue with supply support. It was promised but the Democrats kept blocking it.
So once again the problem starts with the French.
Always the French
The French just don't want to stop exploiting their colonies. Once they plant the flag, you can never get them to leave.
Yep the US is our fault sorry
@@Saucisse_Praxis appreciate ya, but yeah is there anything you don't mess up?
My second guess was gonna be the British.
My Grandfather didn’t die in Vietnam, but the war did cost him his life. He worked as a construction worker during the war, building bridges and bulldozing forests. Unfortunately the forests he bulldozed were first killed with agent orange. So he was exposed to it during his time over there. He was diagnosed with cancer in 2013, and gave it his all for 4 years before he lost.
Lucky for you and your father did turn out normal because that thing will root your gene and make your baby a poor, disable, mutated thing
@@zevnduck9904 I don’t really see how I’m lucky. I think my mom would much rather still have her father still around.
@@onefadedgunner3281 When Holocaust victims were offloaded in the death camps there was an initial selection:
One group was immediately murdered in the gas chambers while the others were used as hard labor. It was "lucky" to survive the initial selection, but your chances of surviving more than a few months were very low.
That kind of "lucky".
If you want nightmares, look up what Agent Orange did to thousands of Vietnamese children (not to mention cluster munitions and mines).
Apparently your family was spared at least that horror, but that doesn't change the fact that the US government basically poisoned and killed your grandfather and thus imparted horrible mental anguish on your family.
I'm sorry for your loss.
@onefadedgunner3281 children and grandchildren of people who have been exposed to agent orange often have extreme disabilities and disfiguring birth defects
@@onefadedgunner3281 poor her, at least what left of him isnt a monster
The saddest part, in my opinion, is this whole thing could have been avoided. We had helped Ho Chi Minh liberate the country from Japanese control and Roosevelt was set to hand it over to them at the end of the war. After he died, and the French demanded their colony back, Truman screwed over our allies there, and did what France wanted. Thus, the French-Indochina war, then Vietnam war happened.
Yup, any goodwill America built up from the war died with Roosevelt. Truman set the world back by decades, maybe even centuries.
I debated with another guy on CZcams about whether Ho's admiration for America was genuine and an alliance with America was a missed opportunity (my view) or just Ho being opportunistic to forward a socialist agenda. But I came away with the idea the US "you're with us or you're against us" mentality really screwed things up. A big understatement I know. But I wonder if things would be different if the US looked at the Ho, Castro, and others and say, "We don't like you're Communists but at least don't hook up with the Soviets. Look at Tito. And here's a suitcase of cash."
They likely would have ended up like china
@@matthiuskoenig3378Vietnam hates china and their political structure?
there is no guarantee that would have happened, even today they are run by the communist party but are not like China, and back then they had a deep distrust with China due to history.
Guys I forgot to make a freaking thumbnail. Oh my god I feel dumb. That’s fixed
That's hilarious.
Cheers for all the content man, fuck knws how u keep all this knowledge in ur head
CZcams adding their little fact-check wiki blurb is the most useless thing ever.
Don't worry about it, i doubt many people noticed.
On this war Soldier of Three armies would finally die
Whats funny is if the US actually looked at Vietnam as a country filled with actual people and culture instead of stats, they would know that Vietnam and China were historical enemies. The north Vietnamese did ally themselves with the soviets and the chinese during the war. But it is also true that Ho chi Minh tried to get repeatly american support against french colonialism. But guess who were the only powers willing to support Vietnam independence it certainly wasnt the US or Europe.
If my country was occupied by a foreign power, I would seek help even from dictators too ˆˆ'
The tragic thing is - in hindsight you can see evey error done, every wrong decission... but back in the day there was hardly other decissions that could be made. Not only from a strategic standpoint - but also from a cultural one. So seeing this now, is like watching a clockwork slowly counting down to the big explosion...
I don't talk about the individual level - but about the big picture.
Sure - one big part, was the Americans alienating the Vietnam population in a lot of ways. And as sure - it would have been nearly impossible for NOT doing this. For one the US grasp on Asian culture was limited at best - and pretty much soured from WWII - so they couldn't equip their soldiers with proper guidelines to behave.
Then - having soldiers confronted with guerillia, will lead to cruelty and overreaction against civilians. There is no way to calculate which seargent or officer decides to retaliate against civilians or use excessive force - but it's easy to see that this kind of things will happen :D
@@robertnett9793 A lot of people both in the US government and in other countries told the US not to go in Vietnam, that would have been very easy to do and would've avoid a lot of problems.
@@robertnett9793 Yeah you would be right except in this case we have the pentagon files. The pentagon files or officially titled "Report of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Vietnam Task Force", was commissioned by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara in 1967. The paper was a deep analyses of all the decisions and policies that US made in regards to the Vietnam war and was commissioned because Mcnamara one of the most ardent supporter and initial architect of the Vietnam war was increasingly skeptical of the efficacy of the US troop's conduct in Vietnam and the competency of the South Vietnamese government. The paper in summary found that the Vietnam war found that the war was unwinnable and the US was needlessly escalating the conflict. However this information about the bombing of north vietnam, laos, cambodia and the dwindling local support for South Vietnam was withheld from the american public.The lies revealed in the papers were of a generational scale, and, for much of the American public, this grand deception seeded a suspicion of government that is even more widespread today. So Before resigning as the secretary of defense he wrote a letter to President Johnson, one statement stands out “The picture of the world’s greatest superpower killing or seriously injuring 1,000 noncombatants a week, while trying to pound a tiny backward nation into submission on an issue whose merits are hotly disputed, is not a pretty one.” So top US officials knew the war was going to be a failed proposition as the war dragged on and yet seven months later after Mcnamara advises on withdrawing from Vietna, Preseident LBJ increases US presence in the region drastically, ensuring that the war will drag on because he did not want his political opponents to accuse him of being weak on communism in the upcoming Presidential elections. So in conclusion Top US official did know that the war was going to be a failed endeavor and they deliberately withheld critical information from the US public. We have the pentagon files to prove it. Plus it is true that individual soldiers action cannot be completly controlled. But what matters is the consequence they receive, the My lai massacre by US troops resulted in at least 400-500 deaths of civilians, including children and infants with reports of some of them being raped. However only one US soldier was charged for this crime and he was out of prison after only 2 years.
@@krankarvolund7771 True. But as pointed out - NOT going into Vietnam would have been political suicide for the president back then.
With hindsight - again - it would have been a way smaller sacrifice, though.
As a veteran, who served in the Canadian Army after Vietnam, I thank you for your clear and balanced analysis.
Us Canadians got a rap sheet I’m tired of the nice Canadian stereotypes were just a mother baby of the Europeans warmongers for instance we did a lot of war crimes in ww1 Africa
@@sleepyherbs6303Correction: WW1 was Europe. The Boer War was Africa, when we put the Boers in concentration camps.
@@sleepyherbs6303
Really? Because Canada wasn't in Africa in WW1. Maybe you want to be more like the Yanks? You know, stupid and ignorant?
@@sleepyherbs6303 our hands aren't clean but maybe learn the history before you get so worked up on it lmao
I remember reading a book about US Army Rangers and Ho's guerrillas. A Ranger officer recommended that the US support Ho and his people because of the ancient hate the Vietnamese had for the Chinese. Indeed, there have numerous armed conflicts between China and Vietnam.
When I enlisted in the US Army in 1970, basic training drill sergeants were telling draftees how to avoid Nam. "There's no point in dying in a war that is lost."
The great What If: Truman had supported the Vietnamese rather than the French?
The real question is would Ho have turned his back on his ideology in order to aline with Truman.
@wpatrickw2012 Can governments do what is best for their people without becoming an enemy of the US?
That's a good point. Roosevelt already made promise to Ho Chi Minh that Vietnam will be independent state after WW2 but Truman is the one who screw it. We all can see that US betray Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh due fear of communism. I believe that France use anti-communism sentiment to get help from US to colonialize Vietnam again. Let's not forget that French is already in first phase of French-Algeria war.
@@wpatrickw2012 I think it's possible. From what I recall Ho Chi Minh kind of stumbled upon communism as a result of lenninist writings about how to oppose colonial oppressors so it is possible he wasn't as devoted to communism as he was to freedom for north vietnam..
@@chibzey5151 Based on how a united Vietnam turned out, he seems closer to Canadian socialism than Chinese communism.
It's surprising how many people don't realize just how long we were in Afghanistan. Most people I've talked to still think that Vietnam is the longest we've ever been involved in a war as a country, they don't realize that we were in Afghanistan for an entire year longer
And Russia before us.
@@madtabby66
Well...
Technically not before us necessarily... We were involved even back then we just weren't at war in the region directly at the time lol
I think its because the American Military doctrines have learned its lessons from Vietnam, back then to get to your enemy you had go there and find their presense, and call in air strikes, they get ambushed and PTSD, now the Americans have ICBM and satellite that can spot and destroy tunneled defenses that the enemy hides in. Also the way that soldiers are rotated in and out quickly now means soldiers dont get mentally overwhelmed as often. And being drafted into a war vs directly making the decision to join the army might be in consideration.
Don't forget Afghanistan isn't even the longest. The Korean peninsula is still at war. As recently as the Obama administration the north Koreans have shelled south korean territory.
@@butterlord6358 Tell me you know nothing about the Afghan war without telling me you know nothing about Afghan war
CIA: Allow me to introduce myself
CIA: kabom? US goverment: Yes CIA, kaboom!
@@wikkinator7537 this is incredibly inaccurate as the CIA doesn't listen to the US government, it's the other way around
Oh, no: the CIA had been around a while by this time. They'd been playing foul games in the third world since the early 50s. They actually got this one right: CIA people in VN worked with Ho to develop founding documents for a democratic regime based on the US Declaration of Independence. But the greedheads in DC said no.
I am from Cambodia 🇰🇭 .
At that time, US were bombarding constantly on "vietnam soldiers in Cambodia" in reality , US did massive bombarding on civilian's house and farm. Never record in the history or recognized anywhere. I only learn this from my dad, he still have PTSD on plane flies over.
Thanks for sharing this ❤.
P.S Still many many massive hole in the village. Many years later becomes pond home for fishes.
Thank you for the reminder that the US dropped 540,000 tons of bombs on just Cambodia, killing anywhere from 150,000 to 500,000 people. HALF A MILLION PEOPLE in a country we supposedly weren't even fighting in.
You are not forgotten. Some of us know and are sorry for that. I am sorry.
An explaination, American planes were hunting weapon smuggling in Cambodia to Vietnam. We attacked anywhere we saw smoke from campfires... the ones that were also in villages.
Again I am sorry for what my country has done to the innocents. of Cambodia.
Huge atrocity, somehow we did even worse to Laos.
Better than Pol Pot though.
Crazy the US funded and supported him too@@LoganLS0
My father didn't die in Vietnam but in a way it killed the light in his eyes. The massive PTSD was something that he could not get over
Thank you Stakuyi for educating your viewers, you allow me to learn, what you know is a drop and what you don't know is a whole ocean and I'm trying my best to discover that whole ocean. And you assist me in doing so.
I appreciate that
I think you're a little bit wrong on 20:00 Vietnam relationship to Americas and China there's a Video on this thing luna oi! Here's Her CZcams channel name Luna oi!
My brother is half Vietnamese, his father was a victim and subsequently evacuated as a baby during Operation Baby Liftoff. This conflict hits home more than most in the United States. My grandfather also was in Cambodia during the conflict, he developed cancer likely from exposure to Agent Orange. This conflict was senseless, and the first understanding for most Americans that we spend too much time over seas than here at home. This train of thought is extremely uniting even today in 2023. Americans are the 2nd priority over the rest of the world in the eyes of our Government. And Vietnam exposed this.
My grandfather served in korea and Vietnam as part of red horse and prime B.E.E.F. squadrons. He was exposed to many defoliants frequently due to his experience and it likely took his life in 2016 when he passed of stomach cancer. In Vietnam he was awarded a bronze star for heroism which as im about to tell youll likely say warranted something more. One day they were transporting materials to an airfield they were building. NVA soldiers had set up an ambush with grenades, mines and sniper fire. The first vehicle was hit and destroyed and everyone was confused. People were burned, body parts spread all over. Countless dead. My grandfather was in the very back and ran to the front though sniper fire and RPGs pulling multiple people to saftey. He ran to the lead vehicle that was still alive and retuned fire on the mounted machine gun suppressing and killing the snipers. When it was over there was countless dead. His friends gone with arms and legs nowhere to be found. Later in the war he was incharge of building a hut. One day 5 of his guys were slacking around and he yelled at them to get back to work. They all went into the basement which had no roof to start digging. 5 minutes later an enemy mortar landed inside shredding every single guy. All that was left was limbs and dog tags. Tell the day he died he harbored so much anger and sadness for yelling at his men who he had known for years and suffered PTSD episodes well into his 80s. He never talked bad about the reason he was in Vietnam. Infact sometimes he supported the war but hated how it was done. All he cared about was the people he lost. I miss you grandpa. Youre my hero and ill always cherish you
Thank you for your grandfather's service, my father was an ARVN airborne commando, he always talked highly of U.S. troops. He hated how badly the media and journalists treated U.S. soldiers.
@@sirbluelagoon7091my grandfather experienced the treatment us troops got at airports returning first hand. On his way over from Japan to his home base he had a stop over in Seattle. When he got off the plane he told me he was physically spit on and called names by the leftists adults there. They had been waiting for us troops to harass coming home. My grandfather was a man of honor and he never lied in the 15 years that I knew him. I fully believe it happened to him and if anybody tried to tell me "it didn't happen" or "it's just a myth" I know they are nothing but fools. Thank you for thanking me I guess but you shouldn't. I'm just his grandson. I didn't save people while risking my own life multiple times. He did. If anybody is to thank it's him. And I'm not sure if your father is still alive but if he is please thank him for his service every chance that you get. My dad is a gulf war veteran and any time he sees a vet with a Korea or Vietnam hat on we always go and thank them for their service and sacrifice because they are the most deserving of it and they definitely didn't get a welcome home from the 60s hippies/liberals. They went overseas only to come back with PTSD for the rest of their lives in many cases that would be 70+ years of nightmares, crying and pain. So anytime you see a vet of Korea or Vietnam please make sure to thank them.
@@Chris-yy5pj aight imma just say this, as disgusting as the acts taken by civilians to GI veterans is. You have to understand that they reacted that way because from the students and younger peoples viewpont especially. They're army and government had been lieing to the American people for years. Once all of the shit being done in Vietnam was revealed, it finally broke popular support in our government. Plus with the police and military suppression of protests for the war. It's no wonder people saw the army and its soldiers as one in the same with the government. An enemy to be railed against even if they ignored the fact that most of these soldiers where drafted or lied to by that very same government.
@@Chris-yy5pj
Those were the fake hippies. REAL hippies went there and got the soldiers through the gauntlet.
I mean there were winners in the vietnam war...
...the military industrial complex
Same goes for Iraq war 2003 and Afghanistan.
@@BVargas78 these guys just seem to win at every armed conflict
Giapp and Le Duc Tho. THEY won.
@@BVargas78 America won the Iraq War (2003-2011).
Came thinking it was an opinion piece but instead got a whole better understanding of the timeline of events from the start of Indochina to Watergate, puts everything into a better perspective
You make such dope content it's absolutely unbelievable👊🏻
I appreciate that!
Never blame the soldiers, blame the politicians
Don’t get me started. I quit supporting the poppy fund when the Canadian Legion claimed that the reason Hong Kong was lost was because the soldiers were drunk. The reality was piss poor leadership.
Soldiers are the ones who sign up to fight for politicians.
@@kakkakapwppwowWell draft but this does not mean they agreed when sent nor understood.
Mostly yes but they can do evil things. Bar that, fair enough.
@@kakkakapwppwow Important point to keep in mind with Vietnam is the draft was very much in effect, and the age to vote when it started was 21. So a very large portion of the soldiers in question were drafted without even having the ability to vote for the associated politicians.
The voting age in turn was changed to the current age of 18 as a result of the associated backlash. In turn mind that for a _normal_ person there were severe penalties for trying to evade the draft. In turn while Carter did grant blanket amnesty for Draft Dodgers in 1977 no one could have anticipated that in 1964. Also mind your average draftee circa the Gulf on Tonkin incident's prior knowledge of Vietnam would tend to have amounted to nothing.
I remember when my dad had showed me one of the declassified files that have been trickling over the years about an attack on a US airway during the Vietnam War. He was telling me how he had already heard of everything that was said in the declassified report but didn't know if it had actually happened. He had been fighting in the Secret War in Vietnam as one of many Hmong tribesmen that were recruited by the CIA. Growing up my friends and I were told about what had went down in the Vietnam War. When we had the opportunity to do our own history research projects in middle school we went crazy in trying to figure out what happened on both sides. In the end, we all had came to the conclusion that the Hmong people were essentially baited into fighting a war that they were going to lose just like the US soldiers that were drafted for the war. The Hmong were promised land but the Vietnamese were fighting for their country.
As a young Vietnamese guy, I read somewhere that Laos and North Vietnamese communist forces persecuted Hmong people right after the Secret War ended, something about using captured napalm and chemicals on Hmong villages, I remember it was on a website named Hmong foundation or the like. I was shocked and confused, can you clear up your side of the story? Thank you for your time.
@@butterlord6358 yeah the Hmong who fought with the Americans were hunted down by the communists, even today my dad isn't allowed to get into Laos to visit family just because he's Hmong. It's also the cause the of Hmong Disporea, you'll see us all around the world, from the States, South America, France and even Australia. There are still groups in SEA still. Some Hmong even had fought alongside the Communists and fought each other from some accounts. I have heard accounts of the use of chemical warfare too from family.
@@butterlord6358 It wasn't just Hmong, it was Laotian Royalist, South Vietnamese, Thai Special Forces and many more sides in Laos. The war was defiantly messy and had people who'd been living together for hundreds of years kill each other, because the French wanted to keep their empire (even though they lost WWII).
@@bobjohnson6946 The French lost World War II (1939-1945)?
Uhhh...they invaded Laotian territory. Bruh!
I appreciate you guys and your level of detail included.
Great vid brother. Love the way you cover history with hindsight and fairness.
Stak, I do appreciate your videos so much.
History isn't just timelines and dates, it's bubbles of political and economic influence, and I feel you handle this ongoing phenomenon well in how you present your content. Thanks to you & sources like GroundNews
We got an entire generation of sick music out of it so I can only hope the Vietnamese understand: it was the only way to get Fortunate Son.
Funny side note I recall hearing that Vietnamese public opinion towards the US since the war was/is actually pretty positive. Partially because we’re very active trading partners and frequently check China’s power, (who they have hated for a lot longer than we were ever over there) but also because… well. We left relatively swiftly and willingly in comparison to China or France.
If you think this would be an interesting thing to do a short on Stak that’d mean the world to me.
Keep up the good work either way!
That’s something that will likely happen
Vietnam and US are going to become allies. They are going to grant us the highest possible diplomatic status they have.
this may be a personal anecdote, but i once encountered a Vietnamese person online who repeated the line "we fought you for 20 years, we have fought china for a thousand"
@@historyofeverythingpodcast ❤️ awesome!
@@historyofeverythingpodcast Lol, you already mentioned it in the video! Serves me right for commenting before I have time to sit down and finish the video 😂
War doesn't determine who's right, it determines who's left.
Nahhh with the power of hindsight we can clearly see that Vietnam was right.
So are you going to talk about the South Vietnamese refugees? Or what happened to the allies left behind? The concentration camps, reeducation camps?
That is a VERY good question.
The crazy thing is Ho Chi Minh went to the Americans first…he was first and foremost a nationalist!
No, he was not.
As Betteridge's law of headlines dictates; “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no.”
Especially if it's true.
Something you strategically avoided talking about was the half million Chinese forces stationed in North Vietnam being perhaps the primary reason the US never invaded North Vietnam. This was always the crux of the argument. USSR/Chinese aid poured into Vietnam just as US aid did, their soldiers took part in the defense just as US soldiers did.
Care to provide source about chinese troop my man or you just make that shit up
@@quanghuyvo6112my dude it's pretty common knowledge.
It was a positioning stance they started doing after the Korea war where whe the US pushed into North Korea the Chinese poured over and the US was forced to pull back to avoid starting WW3 (prior to that the US Marines were beating the sit out of the Chicom forces).
The USSR and ChiCom had a vested interest in spreading Communism in Asia, or did you think the vietcong developed and produced perfect copies of Soviet gear?
@@korickarmstrong3468 yea huge cap. Although I'm not bothered enough to explain how, I'll leave it to other commenters.
@@quanghuyvo6112 The info is open knowledge. You can read it in books or even on wikipedia. I will post a few links if you want in the next reply since not everyone knows how to google things that do not merely affirm their preconceived notions and YT tends to delete replies with links.
I think the reason he didn't mention any of that was because most of that support happened once the war started. The main question he attempts to answer is "Was the war justified?"; the communist support that resulted from the war doesn't factor into that question.
In short, no
Also if we really gonna blame anyone, in true “Anglo-Saxon” fashion, default to blaming the French. Which in this case it isn’t just European bickering, but completely justified.
Edit: Of course I’m being cheeky, Red Scare is one hell of a justified paranoia.
In long, watch video
@@RatichIn long, nooooooooooooooooooooooooeuw
Like Corea, Irak and so on
@@Saucisse_Praxiswould you rather live in north korea or south korea
My understanding of the Vietnam War is that we, The Americans, were especially tricked. Starting when the French started to lose their grip on Vietnam, they and Brits started a scare tactic propaganda scheme to get the U.S. into the war. Minh, in my understanding, actually liked the ideals of America's past. He believed we would support their independence... But we betrayed that thanks to fear of being the lone non-communist bastion in a world full of communist enemies.
On my personal opinion in the moment of writing this, is that the War was indeed not justifiable.
I had heard similar information regarding Ho Chi Minh as well.
...and I also blame the French for Vietnam (as well as a number of other ills in Europe and Africa)
I think it's a bit of a cop out to say we were tricked. We knew what was going on.
@@KannabisMajoris
I think they mean 'we' as in the general populace and Congress (as opposed to the DoD and Presidency)
Remember, a LOT of the information that we have now about the Vietnam War was released much later and between that and Watergate is what wrecked the trust that people had in the government... heck, Stak even outlines this much in the video...
@@AnimeFreak40KWe were "tricked" in the same way our elites "trick" us about everything else, from capitalism to terrorism to drug wars, they're all just schemes to make some rich and the rest poor
that would be understandable, but they juxtaposed "we" (the US) immediately with "the French" implying that the French government tricked the US government@@AnimeFreak40K
Hey stak! Can you do a video on the Malayan crisis or the British occupation of Cyprus? I'd love to listen to you do a British topic as your detail is immense and I love it!
My grandfather was a Hispanic man in the Army. By the grace of God he was able to get a college deferment and so lived a good, long life and had an incredibly career in the Army. Many of the men he joined with did not live past 30. My uncles went to Vietnam as part of the draft and came home as well, but had similar stories of their comrades dying from 'invisible forces in the trees.' My mother is a doctor with the VA and she sees so many patients with effects from Agent Orange and ptsd still from Vietnam. This war effected so many people in so many ways for generations to come.
Any US grunt in VN from 64 to 70 was cannon fodder. It only got marginally better as we pulled out. By 71, were more troops were damaged by drugs (addiction, OD deaths) than combat casualties.
There was no safe rear area: you were as likely to be killed by a stolen American Claymore mine in the jungle as in a Saigon bar.
Id love to see a video about LBJ's great society. Also, it would be super interesting to see you do a video about the Sino-Vietnamese conflict. Its weird to think that the Chinese, who had given huge amounts of support and aid to Vietnam turned around and invaded Vietnam just a few years after the US pulled out and its not a subject that gets much attention
It's quite easy really. Tl;dr: Soviet and China having disagreements. China no friend with Slav, America is new friend now. America not sure about China intentions, want prove. America butt hurt about losing to Vietnam, who currently having border dispute with Polpot who sided with China as opposed to Vietnam to the Sovjet. China attacks Vietnam while their main forces are busy chasing Khmer rouge in order to make peace with US. US like that very much. Boom! Now everything is "made in china" and US of A gain a powerful opposition that they may or may not go to war with(except trade war, that they do alot) instead of USSR. Perfectly balanced, as all thing should be.
In the Gulf of Tonkin incident sonar called the contacts first. The passive sonar profile of a torpedo and a small fast boat is almost identical generating the same lines at the same frequencies. By doctrine these are reported as "high speed contact, possible torpedo" with the bearing so they can be verified, and deck watch did visually confirm the contacts as small fast torpedo boats. This means the CIC officer on watch failed at the simple logic of; there are two sonar signatures and two fast boats so there are no torpedoes. In my experience this is typical of the USN officer corps. The enlisted did their jobs correctly and the officers did not understand the basics of their own jobs.
I assume there would be training to deal with this problem but maybe not. The distinction between confirming something is a "torpedo" versus "torpedo boat" in a high stress situation seems very sketchy.
Excellent video that appears to be very well researched. I don’t always agree with you, but it’s nice watch a creator where those disagreements are genuinely debatable differences of opinion. Quite refreshing. I’ll shall continue to watch good sir!
Fucking love this channel. Side note, my grandfather injured his back on purpose to avoid the the draft here in Australia as He was about to have his first child (My father).
Draft-dodging is pretty crappy.
Was the Korean war justified? Most think so only because of the result so it could be argued that if we had won the Vietnam war would have been looked on more favourably
Korea was more than justified due to the overt aggression from the Chinese and Soviet backed North Korea. They conducted a surprise invasion into the South which pushed all troops down to the small area known as the Pusan Pereimeter. If we hadn't gotten more invovled, the South would've immediately fallen to communism, which would have led to a stronger grip in Southeast Asia as a whole.
Yes. There is little evidence to the contrary that the North invaded the South. Granted at the time, the North was not a democracy but if we look at the result we have a stable democracy on the one hand and unabashed tyranny on the other.
China illegally invaded a soverign nation that was a member of the UN; UN member nations are sworn to protect each other:this justified that war. Let alone that the so-called Communist bloc leaders in 1950-60s were still committed to expansionism.
A us commander spoke to a Vietnamese commander and said to him " you never defeated us in the field and the Vietnamese commander said" we didn't need to".
The US military never lost a battle, yet they lost the war.
INSTRUCTIVE LESSON.
@@michaelmcgovern8110 Yeah, stick up for your allies.
The US government was basically trying to lose the war. Just look at the target restrictions put on US pilots.
Love the spicy topics
Same. We gotta face our mistakes and make amends with them before we look to the future.
I remember reading a book made some years ago that collected interviews and journal accounts from both sides of the war. Seeing the different perspectives was fascinating, in particular accounts that the Tet offensive apparently shattered the Viet Cong as a fighting force. While in large part because of the failed "popular uprising," there was also rampant speculation from Viet Cong veterans that AVN forces withheld support to let them burn themselves out. The idea being that this would keep them from being too powerful or influential at the war's end.
In my view no. The north had the majority of the population that was enthusiastic, and willing to elect a communist government. And Vietnam is great example of US imperialism failing. There’s a very good book I would recommend called how to hide an empire.
Short answer: no.
Long answer: nnnnnnnnnnnooooooooo.
I know you're not a history "teacher", and I believe I remember you saying in another video that you don't have a desire to be one. BUT, if I had you as one in school, you definitely would've been one of my favorite teachers.
Great content dude, your videos have reignited my interest in history.
You’ve given a lot of good information. I appreciate the even handed approach.
The Vietnam War is much more complex than people think. It was, at its core, a civil war between Nationalist Vietnamese and Communist Vietnamese. The US stepped in to assist the Nationalist side partway through, then abandoned it when it became inconvenient.
Is it a civil war when PRC is active participant since 1959, is it a civil war when USSR is active participant since 1945(Chinese Civil War), is it a civil war when Russia is active participant(2014, "green men", annexation of Crimea, Luhansk and Donbass)?
The nationalists side would in fact be North Vietnam, not the South who was backed by US. Ho Chi Minh had been fighting for sovereignty from external powers since post WWI & WWII.
@@smileyday remind me which year did US get involved? And which year PRC did, eh?
@@smileyday And you have fallen for the Communist propaganda. The two parties that dominated South Vietnamese politics: Can Lao and DVQDD originated as true Nationalist parties. DVQDD started in North Vietnam.
People don't say that the Korean and Chinese Nationalists are not Nationalists just because they are Allied with the United States.
Agreed. So many in recent years try to claim S-Vietnam and those who founded it were somehow illegitimate or that it was somehow "not a real country", while glossing over the actions of the communists.
The media of the time pretty much took the enemy's narrative (albeit the US Military and Gov' screwed up too by allowing far more coverage of the war than any prior conflict, guarranteeing media bias would have a devastating effect), much to the detriment for the region & in the US itself.
Something that most people do not understand, especially in us is: would you fight for Washington or against him as American? Ho Chi Minh was a hero among his people because of his resistance and fight against french occupation, Japanese and again french return. He even tried to make Vietnam recognised by meeting first society of nation in mid 30s and after war he disguised himself and tried to meet WWII winner at peace conference to ask for Viet people their right to self determination and become a free nation.
To many yes. He still could Edit: "not" land free elections though for some reason.
Which one, against whom, in support of which side and by what means?
"You know how little that narrows it down?"
Man I can tell you're a great dad by how you reason lol. Keep it up guys
Stakuyi: What footage should I use? Eh fuck it I'll just play Call of Duty.
Does it really matter? At least that doesn’t get nailed with a content violation. He’s already got a thought crime flag,
"Was the Vietnam War justified?"
Stakuyi: yesn't
Well actually
Maybe you could do a video on SOG and their operations within Vietnam.
23:37 newspaper on the left has my birthday on it
35:30 Nixon went into Cambodia in order to negotiate the end of the war from a position of strength. Nixon did good with the mess that he had.
I know a handful of south Vietnamese survivors and most of them blame Diem and the successor government.
To an extent justified but the main problem was corruption. South-Vietnam was freer than the North.
Guess Peru really be on that grindset this year this is the second channel I follow doing a Peru tour this year
Ty for this, you did great
Hey Stakuyi , I disagree HEAVILY with the framing: the US would pledge assistance to “democratic nations ” against communist forces. Planting in a way the idea of a good vs evil fight ( the US only supported good democratic guys or something like that), which is utter bullshit . In the current case , South Vietnam was far from democratic and the US supported MAINLY dictatorships in the 20 century from the DRC to Chile , Nicaragua, El Savador , Chad etc . There was ZERO moral difference between the US and USSR on the international stage during the Cold War.
You forgot all the dictators in the middel east that the US backed
The difference was that the U.S.S.R. only supported dictatorships or tried to make them so. South-Vietnam was far more democratic than the North and had many freedoms. Edit: The U.S. supported the Nicaraguan revolution (1961-1990), Chad...well that was to oppose Libya honestly and in El Salvador they supported Land Reform.
Vietnam would have been an ally of the US if they had stopped the French from returning. But Truman chose colonial imperialism over the right for self determination. The US started the Vietnam war, the minute they treated Vietnam as insignficant and unworthy of it's protection from French colonialism. The US started the Vietnam war the minute it ignored it's own ideals of freedom.
That's because Commies should never be trusted. Commie Chinese Hu Kwan, aka Ho Quang, aka Ho Chi Minh was an active member of the French Communist Party in 1920's, then later an active member of Russian Communist Party or Bolsheviks 1920's and 1930's, and then an active member of Chinese Communist Party CCP or Chinese Red Army attache in 1940's, long before he reached out to Truman in 1946. This flew in the face that he was a nationalist first and Communist second, as the opposite was true. How could anyone trust a Communist insurgent active for decades in global Commie movement? No wonder Truman couldn't trust the dude, not to mention he got many body-doubles as well. The real Nguyen Ai Quoc died in Hong Kong in 1932, but his impostor (Hu Kwan), a Chinese intel officer lived on to play his part. That's why "Ho Chi Minh" only ate imported Chinese food (his favorite was Gà rán Quảng Đông, or Guangdong fried chicken) and not Vietnamese food, wore only imported Chinese clothing and not Vietnamese, got tended by only imported Chinese nurses, and wrote and spoke Chinese better than Vietnamese. Even when he tried to write Vietnamese, his writings were full of spelling and grammatical errors like those of a 2nd grader. All true. Check out his photos and his archived letters. Not only that, Vietnamese Commies tried their hardest to brainwash people with lies about his being educated, single, and pure to fully devote his life and energy for his beloved country Vietnam, but in reality he was an addict (tobacco and alcohol), a Commie Chinese puppet, a mass murderer, a pedophile, and a playboy with third-grade education and multiple wives and mistresses. He even tried to mouth rape young Indonesian girls and was ordered not to do so. Search "President Ho told to stop kissing girls" The Straits Times, 8 March 1959, Page 8. In Vietnam, this criminal openly raped women, including Ms. Nong Thi Xuan and once she became pregnant, he murdered her whole family to cover up. Even former senior Party loyalist Bui Tin was shocked by his behavior. Of course, under order from his master Mao, dude brought Commie Chinese bloody rag for a flag from Commie China's Fujian province to his Pac-Bo cave in North Vietnam in 1941 and made it the flag of North Vietnam, then eventually the national flag of Vietnam after the North Vietnamese Commie terrorists invaded the free and prosperous Republic of South Vietnam, replacing the authentic national flag of Vietnam for 2000 years (yellow flag with 3 horizontal red stripes) dating back to the Trung Sisters Dynasty, 40 A.D.
Consequently, both Woodrow Wilson and Truman's assessments of character proved to be correct, and butcher as Ho Chi Minh later committed mass murder, slaughtering nearly 1 million North Vietnamese landowners to rob their lands and homes during his deadly land-reform (1953-1956), following similar massacres committed by his Commie masters Lenin, Stalin, and Mao. More than 1 million North Vietnamese fled to South Vietnam during Geneva Peace Accord 1954 to escape Communist atrocities in North Vietnam as a result. Dude is ranked among the world's top 10 mass murderers of 20th century, along with fellow Commie butchers Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol-Pot. The land robbing remains an ongoing crime against Vietnamese citizens even to these days! Search "cuop dat dan" ("robbing lands of citizens") right here on CZcams to see countless clips of land-robbing by the utterly corrupt and brutal Vietnamese Commie regime against the citizens. All true. Do your research. The truth shall set you free!
There's a great book about MAC-V called Once A Warrior King . Hezrts and minds.
Please do a video comparing the Gulf of Tonkin Incident with the Greer Incident in 1941.
As a Vietnamese, I never thought I gonna said this but its surprise that American do realize their mistake and try their best to fix it instead of saving face so.... I guess we cool now. (I know I know my English suck, its my third language after Chinese)
What do you mean saving face? Americans keep breaking themselves over Indochina.
Saw the black ops 1 thumbnail...and I IMMEDIATELY clicked the videos friend!
Same
Yup yup.
I love this video, but one that is chilling to me is how the prelude to the vietnam war is similar in some ways to the generally understood prelude to the 2022 Ukraine War
My grandfather was one of the lucky ones. The draft agents went to his house, knocked on the door for him and my grandmother, 9 months pregnant, answered the door and they basically told her that she was too close to giving birth for them to take my grandfather away.
my sister actually lives in Vietnam as an American. People would think that the vietnamese would be pissed at the US for the war but people also have to realize that they are more scared at an invasion of China in which they shortly did after our war with them. They know they need to have a friendly relationship with the world leader in the US and prevent China while trying not to piss them off at the same time.
The US has no chance of helping Vietnam in that region. So meddeling in their politics causes harm to Vietnam actually.
@@attilamarics3374What are you on about?
@@johnnotrealname8168 US help isnt help.
@@attilamarics3374 Do you mean now? It is not set in stone but U.S. superconductor policy is increasingly friend-shoring if not indigenous.
How can you shoot a gun and miss and then get return fire and say you were attacked. You’re in their waters
You can’t justify our action because it was base on an anti communist plan and then also say acknowledge the same plan to be borderline crazy.
Their country, their customs. It’s not our problem nor our business
Framing it around the Gulf of Tonkin makes it seem like a reasonable disagreement.. "oh you shot first, no you shot first"
Zoom out, one country bombs multiple other countries across the world to the stone age supposedly because that incident... It wouldn't matter if the North Vietnamese had SUNK one of those US boats, the end result is an unacceptable occupation with immense amounts of war crimes perpetrated by the most powerful country to ever exist on some of the poorest people on Earth.
It is if communism is spreading. Dude! Look into South-Vietnamese customs first.
@@johnnotrealname8168 the chosen government of a sovereign nation you’re not a citizen of it’s non of your business at all. You’ve been brainwashed to think imperial capitalism is good
you're right this is spicy
Good analysis bsir
Stephen, there actually was a precursor to this for the Americans & it was now known by my people as the Philippine-American War but you guys sometimes calls it the Philippine Insurrection. Also, if you look at the original constitution of Vietnam set up by Ho Chi Minh, it was actually patterned after the US Constitution & NOT that of Lenin hence Uncle Ho was originally pro-democracy & could have been pro-American if the US had strong-armed France into granting French Indo-china independence. Don't believe me? Look it all up! ENJOY!
He did that sure but he was himself a committed communist. As for that as a precursor, it was an insurgency but as a couple islands it was far easier to win.
The problem I have with the statement "America lost the Vietnam War" is that it is used as an oversimplification to discredit American military power. The US had both arms and a leg tied behind their back and still managed to win the battles on the ground. It was just an impossible war to win for anyone given the rules and restrictions imposed on the American side.
Lol? Rules? Yeah right
@@jackdaw6359 Yeah... like not being able to push into North Vietnam.
@@Arbidarbthey could, they were just beaten by an enemy that fought their fucking country, just like the amaricans were beaten in Afghanistan by people who were fighting for their country
@@weybye91 Tell me more about how you don't understand history. The US never attempted to invade North Vietnam, not because they were kept back militarily, but because the government feared China joining the war if they did. This effectively meant that they would be fighting an eternal war against random ambushes while never being allowed to actually push forward and defeat the enemy.
And the US left Afghanistan after its goals were achieved. Biden may have hamstrung the government left behind with a reckless pullout, but the Taliban took their country back from the Afghan government, not the US military. The Taliban were hiding at the fringes of the country when the US was there.
@@weybye91 You have no idea what you are on about if you think this.
Thanks!
Could you do a video or podcast over the history of smoking? Just in general. Humans have smoke many things for many reasons for thousands of years, I think it would be interesting to be able to look into what and why humans have decided to burn and ingest over the years, whether it was for religious purposes, medicinal, or just for "whatever reason"
1: The US never invaded North Vietnam (making the war unwinnable), only defended South Vietnam and bombed every surrounding nation especially North Vietnam.
2: The USSR was heavily involved with overthrowing governments around the world and arming them, it wasn't just the CIA, propaganda almost exclusively talks about the US though.
3: Sometimes it isn't about what is utopian idealistic "justified" and it is about whether you like the douchebag or the shit sandwich. The USSR backed dictatorship or the US backed dictatorship.
Yeah neither is really preferable, and Vietnam would eventually embrace open markets and become a mixed economy, being a really good example of marrying capitalist and socialist ideas into something that actually works.
The Viets invaded and deposed the murderous Khmer Rouge , which made China attack Vietnam. USA voted at UN in favour of Khmer Rouge communists until the late 1990s. Shame on USA,
The didn't invade north because they couldn't. No amount of mental gymnastics you do will change the fact usa got their ass handed to them by farmers
Well the reason why the US never invaded North Vietnam was that they didn’t want a repeat of the Korean War. And for sure the USSR definitely backed coups but the reason why the CIA gets a bad rep was that they overthrew some democratically elected leaders that had wanted to implement some socialist policies. I guess it’s the optics of it since it looks like a nation who proclaims itself as the defender of democracy undermines the democracy of another nation simply because their leader didn’t align with some of their ideals.
But yea in the end it was just geopolitics getting in the way
The US did invaded Vietnam using the puppet Republic of Vietnam. Vietnam was originally one nation before the US invasion and it became whole again after the US got their asses kicked out of the country.
My favorite war movie is we were soldiers. It shows both sides of the conflict and how hard each side fought. One of the true films that respects both sides and concentrated on the hardships of battle. From seeing home with the delivery of fallen soldiers letters, showing the general of Vietnam caring for his soldiers, and loved ones lost from both sides. Very deep movie and extremely historically accurate. On the levels of black hawk down.
I absolutely agree with you, personally for me though, some of the scenes showing some of the homelife of the wives of the soldiers were a real low point and there is some really cringe writing there that held it back from being my personal favourite.
@@mickieg1994I’m not sure I agree, only because of the experiences that I’ve been in and what I’ve seen all around me, there are people that think that racism is dead and people who thought that humanity is beyond the ‘barbarism’ of our medieval/ancient past. The people who are in power were alive and young that seen and were on the opposite side of the civil rights movement. There are also people that turn off anything political and just be ignorant all their life until it starts to affect them in some way. So that scene of the “whites only” comment and not realizing what it actually meant, I buy it.
@animegaming4057 totally get where you're coming from and again I agree, it's interesting that you knew exactly what scene I was thinking about too lol.
For me personally, it's the idea that the civil rights movement was in full swing around that time, so the characters obliviousness always came across to me as just a fault of the writing more than anything else, mostly because the idea that it would of been next to impossible to dodge every conversation, news article, radio broadcasts etc, that could of possibly brought it up for close to a decade by that point is just unrealistic to me.
Although again I do agree that there are plenty of people who only notice these things when it becomes convenient to them.
My biggest issue personally with those scenes though is that they are so slow, it's nice to take a breather from the action but I never found myself personally connecting with the other characters and felt like It took away from the pacing of the movie in my opinion.
I have a similar feeling to the love story scenes in pearl harbour too, I get why it's done it's just not personally for me.
Apologies for rambling.
Oh forgot to say, if you haven't seen it, history buffs did a great video looking at the historical accuracy of the movie and it's a great one to watch.
Huh. Nice and respectful. Breath of fresh air.
The US did in fact lose the Vietnam War.
The Paris Accords which gave Nixon his “Peace with Honor” treaty with North Vietnam in 1973 is considered by historians to be a groundless claim and essentially a surrender. The governments in the United States, North Vietnam and South Vietnam knew that once US troops left South Vietnam, nothing would prevent the North from taking over the South. There was no way President Ford was going to send the US military back into South Vietnam. President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu and the ARVN felt betrayed by the US and Nixon in 1973 and could do little to stop the demise of the Republic of Vietnam which finally occurred in 1975.
Yeah you forgot one thing. American air-power. That was the promise and CONGRESS stopped it. Congress stopped the use of air-power and refused to support their allies. It was a good treaty in that it got the game back to the South-Vietnamese but then the Americans began to stab themselves again.
One thing I am missing about Ho Chi Minh is that he asked the international community, specifically the US to intervene and help him get independence for Vietnam, both in a letter and once during a UN meeting if I remember correctly, it was after that fell on deaf ears that he turned to the state-capitalists for help, primarily the USSR. Its been a while since I've had this in my history classes though, but if I remember correctly that's how it went.
He was already a commie though.
@@johnnotrealname8168
He was a nationalist who was very pragmatic about what specific political system he was going to get. Ignored by us, he turned East. Self-fulfilling prophecy, just like Cuba.
@@michaelmcgovern8110 Both were already committed communists though. You falling for that liberal nonsense all over again? They claimed they were not sure to get more support but when in any modicum of power they went full-blown communist and we know how that went. If he were not a communist why would he do some of the stupidest land-reform policies and then collectivise anyway?
@@michaelmcgovern8110 You use Cuba as an example? America supported the Cuban revolt. Also no, he collectivised agriculture and set up a totalitarian regime. You missed that part.
NO, nor was the French Indo China war, nor was the British occupation of Indochina. Vietnam declared it's independence in 1945 and it should have had it's rights to self determination respected. Instead poor bloody Vietnam just turned into a bloody playground for cold war competition between the US and USSR. All these conflicts were completely pointless.
The South Koreans making kpop and your smart phone would disagree.
Who also served with us in Vietnam btw.
@@blckspice5167 The only reason North Korea and South Korea are divided is because the USSR and the USA decided it would be in 1945. Colonialist superpowers making decisions for others who they had no concern being involved with.
@@uberbeegshut up neckbeard
No. They have no right to be communist and guess what they did not want to be communist.
What they wanted was to be independent, and they had been fighting for that independence since the 1930s.
Ho Chi Minh even wrote a letter to President Truman telling them how Vietnam would be a great ally of the US if they stopped the French from returning ( they had declared their independence in 1945 ).
Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia became Communist for the same reason the Fin's fought with the NAZIs in WWII. To retain their independence.
The US' and for some part the West's extremist approaches to developing countries in the 1950s-70s was much of the reason why they turned too the Soviets for help and became Communist to get that help.
They didn't necessarily want to be Communist, but the only way they could see to becoming independent was to be Communist.
I have a friend, an Australian, like me, who runs a backpackers in Hanoi.
The Vietnamese are not bitter, they're quite welcoming, and the war is long over, they are too not quite who they use too be either.,
37:23 agreed. I knew people who were there and they said they didn't know why they were there. Good backstory. We should have stayed out of it. George Washington said something about getting involved in foreign wars didn't he?
Lots of presidents up to WWII said that. Pearl Harbour, there were warnings the attack was coming, but they were ignored.
After WWII the CIA was created and well, the rest is history.
George Washington was an idiot then.
This is the American man, they are both in thraldom to their founding and yet have no idea what it was about.
My grandfather was a paratrooper, and he was routinely exposed to agent orange. He also helped to raise me with my grandma when my mom would go off to college. We'd watch Jeopardy and I'd learn to sing the song, it was great.
It's not surprising then that he was diagnosed with lung cancer, truly I don't know if i found out when everyone else did, or if I was just too young to know before. I was closest to him when I was really young and the last few years of his life, because between those years he could be a little scary to me. He'd sometimes yell over super mundane things before immediately changing his tune again, he'd take me out for trips to the post office, git me my first bike and he taught me how to drive in the woods in a little ATV you'd find outside of a Lowe's.
I remember the year before he died, he actually came down to visit us instead of us coming to visit him. He was never really familiar with my dad, so he, my dad and I went to the movies to see King Kong Skull Island. I remember when one of the characters opens a can of beans, he remarked about how shit they'd used to taste.
Eventually he came down with a flu, and that's what took him. I found out by a phone call I got while I was in gym class. I know we never really communicated all lovey before, but i still feel an immense regret that I cannot remember a single time I said to him the words "I love you."
Very informative.
Kind of feel like you missed a few key points. One the North Vietnamese committed a lot of atrocities as well against civilians, particularly in the Tet Offensive Ho Chi Minh actually try to prevent the war between the United States and the north, but people under him saw the United States as a threat, and even killed some OSS agents at the end of World War II.
I've heard Vietnam's foreign policy best described as this:
"Hippity hoppity, get the f*** off my property."
They've fought off the Chinese multiple times since the Vietnam War, and countless times prior. I heard a Vietnamese man say:
"Fighting the French was personal. Fighting the US was business. Fighting the Chinese is tradition."
Actually they re-oriented it to please U.S. give some foreign investment money. It is why there is progress there.
@@johnnotrealname8168US investment into Vietnam is very small.
@@angkhoanguyen6114 Much more than they got before and I meant '90s.
@@johnnotrealname8168 by today US is pale. Not even reached top 10 investors. The ones that invest into Vietnam the most is always Japan and South Kroea.
@@angkhoanguyen6114 I wonder who their friends are.
I greatly appreciate your honest take on this inconceivably controversial conflict while both respecting those who served AND showing understanding to those who did not want to. Its very refreshing. On a side note, I still wholeheartedly believe if the military were not restricted to the limitations imposed by the President(s), we would have won (despite questions of justifiability). That may be military pride speaking as well so take that with a grain of salt. BUT not getting involved in the first place and letting the British and the captured Japanese mop it up by 1953 would have been monumentally better for everyone!
Letting the Japanese mop it up? Sheesh!
As a Vietnamese the Vietnam war was a very sad time😢for us
The fact the populace didn't throw out the Vietcong after the Tet offensive is crazy to me.
The Vietnamese and many other South East Asian countries are very spiritual. The idea of attacking a fellow countrymen during the most holy day of your calendar is something that past regimes would not be able to recover from.
Imagine the Papacy at the height of its power being attacked on Christmas or Easter by another Catholic ruler or an Arab attacking another Arab in the Al Aqsa mosque
The failure of the Christmas truce in WW1 did not produce any real political effect in WW1. That said the 68 Tet offensive did finally cause the urban populace of South Vietnam to realize that they would have to back a side whereas previously their was a high degree of indifference. By this time however the opinion of the US elite had changed due to the insane cost of the war which would eventually force the US to abandon the gold standard to prevent bankruptcy combined social pressure to remove conscription exceptions that would have sent their own children to war. Wars are always intensely political and rather than continuing to push a we can win narrative Tet served as an excellent excuse to quietly change their policy and begin withdrawal
@@TalonAshlar well the WW1 is what I would say is not impactful from a religious point of view. Though England France and Germany are nominally of Christian origin they each have their own different spin on Christianity. Russia itself at that time were Orthodox and would soon come under the wrathful purge of the Bolsheviks of which many Christian Iconography would be done away with in the pursuit of a united front.
In addition the level of religious fervor has died down considerably and the fact there were attempts although unsuccessful in some areas to come to truce for the holiday is a huge step compared to a coordinated premeditated and vicious sneak attack like the Tet offensive.
After the failed test offensive, the Communist were about to call for a truce, and an end to the war. U.S. journalist dropped the ball though, even though the test offensive was a massive U.S., South Vietnam victory, the journalists focused on the carnage and demonized the troops to the public. The Communist saw this and decided to continue the war.
What you don't understand is that Tet for Vietnamese is not a holy day, it only has traditional meaning and not related to any religion. Having an offensive operation at Tet is not unheard of either as it has happened before during Vietnam's feudal history. Not only that, the entire country is at war, the population in the North were being bombarded weekly by American plane while the soldier was fighting tough battles in the South, and most people cared about the war effort, not a lavish festival.
@@yukipaw1702 WoW! Is this just commie propaganda or what? There was a truce the commies wanted and they broke the truce. There was a truce. Let me repeat that *THERE WAS A TRUCE!* The point was that they were not supposed to do that. Also cry me a river they were sending their forces South to attack the South-Vietnamese.
I agree with Max Hastings. He wrote something like "the American involvement I Vietnam was morally correct, but the execution was not. During the war the standard of living in the south was constantly higher than the north"
Not being able to invade North Vietnam without starting WW3 really hurt the war effort. The Vietnam War was really popular at the outset. It was only after the war started to drag on with no end in sight (because the government couldn't figure out how to end it without starting WW3), and especially once they started threatening to draft wealthy college kids with communist sympathies, that it became unpopular.
I believe it was Nixon who even considered ending the draft because he felt that, without the threat of having to go and die in Vietnam themselves (despite the fact that most volunteers were stationed in the US or Europe to free up volunteer soldiers for fighting), the bulk of the anti-war protestors would stop caring.
Monetary well being doesn’t always dictate what’s better.
@@fongangamassana6034 Economic freedom is the single biggest predictor of political freedom.
IDK, having an authoritarian government in the south kinda precludes political freedom no? @@IncredibleMD
@@KannabisMajoris The *ultra-authoritarian* government in the North that just conquered half their country and wanted to conquer the other half was a huge factor in South Vietnam's authoritarianism.
Regardless of how bad you think South Vietnam was (which, by the standards of post-rapid decolonization governments, it was better than most), North Vietnam was worse.
The short answer is “Maybe” but almost every thing about it was done incorrectly. From understanding the culture and political divisions to overall strategy.
It’s nice to see the country has recovered as much as it has and I’m glad the veterans who fought there finally received the recognition they deserve.
My father was a Vietnam vet. He didn't talk about it till I went to Iraq. The things he told me are hard to fathom right now. He was broken and even though he stayed in the military till 1983 he never forgot. Vietnam was a mess and we never should have fought it like we only had one arm.
Kinda sounds like we should've left them alone and tried to encourage free and fair elections through diplomatic means. Although perhaps the war itself strengthened Veitnam into what it is today.
Commies don't care about those. They'd already conquered half the country.
Yeah the US doesn’t do that. Read about the color revolutions.
@@madtabby66 Something being beneficial to America does not mean it was caused by America.
Bruh! In a communist country? You are dreaming.
Kinda ignored what else was going on in the region. Nearly every country in south eats Asia in the late 1950's and early 60's was fighting communist insurgents/terrorist. Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Melasia, Borneo, the list is a long one . Even Japan and India were having troubles communists. I really dont know if this justified the war in Vietnam, defiantly could have been handled better, but Communism was on the march and the domino theory did make some sense
Communism thrived because of Colonialism. US forced Vietnam to become communists.
Great video as always boss. Always appreciate your nuance on topics such as this. There was one thing I haven't seen from many people so I thought I might as well add it.
Even though the US lost our strategic objective of a "democratic" and capitalist South Vietnam, the sheer effect of intervention seemed to be a warning to many countries in Indochina and the rest of Southeast Asia. After both Korea and Vietnam, the US had proved that any countries willing to accept communism would be met with resistance backed by the west. It's thought that without these interventions, Southeast Asia would have likely fell to communism more swiftly, and thus we sublty still achieved a semi-positive goal of containment.
Yes. It is certainly not perfect but the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia gave an excellent opportunity for more commie-bashing. Granted the U.S. was not forthcoming for a while but they go there.
Where is the link to the trip?
trovatrip.com/trip/south-america/peru/peru-with-steven-bell-jul-2024
I was half expecting a "no" and then silence for 40 minutes 😭
I mean we would have learned a lot less, but come to the same conclusion nonetheless.
Gonna watch regardless cus I love this channel.. but the only correct answer is "No", it was not justified by any stretch of imagination. Any other answer is morally and fundamentally wrong. Vietnam is / was a sovereign nation, free to choose their own path. The US had no damn right to say "No, you can't use that form of government, we don't like it." Especially considering the south vietnamese "democratic" government was anything but an actual democracy. It was a puppet government established by the US - the US wasn't defending "democracy", it was defending an established dictatorship it had setup... as it has done in MANY countries since and before.
Do you feel similar to the Korean war?
@@far-middle ... keep in mind, while the French were fighting in Vietnam; the United Nation were fighting in Korea ... against Internationalist Socialist aggression (aka Communism) ... same fight in both Nation at the same time ...
@@far-middleYour comparison is flawed. South Korea was a legitimate state well before the US or UN intervened, it was not a puppet dictatorship established by the US or other outside country, unlike vietnam which was a puppet state created by the US. South Korea formally requested military aid from the west when North Korea invaded. Vietnam never had a legitimate formal democratic government, the US intervened because it's puppet state was endangered.
Aiding South Korea was moral / ethical, they asked for aid against invasion. Invading vietnam was immoral, they never asked for western intervention - the west intervened on Vietnam regardless of whether they wanted it or not, it imposed it's will on Vietnam and robbed them of choice.
If Vietnam had had a legitimate, democratically elected government and requested aid from the US / west, then it would've been ethical to intervene. But there was no democratically elected state, it was a US-created dictatorship in the guise of a "democracy".. as has already been long established / known for many decades now.
@@Hathur s Korea had fair democratic elections at the time?
@@far-middleDoesn't matter if it did or not, It was a sovereign state, not a puppet. It chose to ask for help, democratic state or not. If a dictatorship were to ask the US today for assistance against a hostile invasion, it would be within the US' right to choose to aid them against hostile invasion.. the way it did with S. Korea. Again, the comparison between Vietnam and S. Korea is myopic and built on an entirely false premise.
What about the British involvement in Vietnam prior to the first Vietnamese war?
i have one request. can you put the names of the people on screen? i have such bad hearing loss that i used subtitles and the autogenerated subtitles struggle on non-english names. thank you and have a wonderful day!
Justified isn't really applicable to war. It's more often about survival and protect your people's interest to ensure that survival rather than right or wrong. In my opinion the real question in circumstances like these is was it necessary. Based on my previous statement I would say yes. Now do with me what you will
What made it a fight for americas survival?
@@aDeprivedSeal, their line of thinking about Domino Effect. Hence they justifying to go to Vietnam, because in their eyes, if the Domino Effect succeeded, America's survival is at stake.
Laughable, i know, but that's what doctrine makes you to be.
If something is necessary, than that is justification... you went in a circle repeated the same thing you doofus. Haha
@@blckspice5167 strawman and slander, you're on a roll aren't you buddy? Those two are not mutually exclusive. To most people a "just" war is essentially self defense. The US war was to protect the South Vietnamese, but it was also to stop the spread of communism that would continue to threaten the west. Communism is an ideology that is designed for world domination through the subversion of political systems and societal norms, setting the stage for a revolution. Another nation that falls to communism is another tool in the belt of the Soviets for tearing the west apart peace by peace. That is what made it necessary. The threat isn't as direct and straight forward as self defense
@@aDeprivedSeal It's a small piece of a larger conflict for survival: the Cold War as a whole. Communism is an ideology that demands world domination by means of subverting Political systems and societal norms from within, thus setting the stage for a revolution. Another nation falls to communism, another tool in the Soviets' belt for tearing down the west as a whole little less the US. That is how it was a fight for survival
Myth: The United States fought and lost a war in Viet Nam (which was unwinnable in any case).
Fact: The United States was not even fighting in Vietnam when the war was lost. When the US left Vietnam, the Paris Peace Accords had been signed, and the war was over.
US combat troops left Vietnam after North Vietnam agreed to end all hostilities and signed the Paris Peace Accords in 1973.
South Vietnam succumbed in April, 1975, after North Vietnam had repeatedly violated the terms of the Paris Peace Accords.
South Vietnam lost the war because the US Congress abandoned them, passing the Foreign Assistance Act that withdrew almost all support from South Vietnam.
South Vietnam still managed to hang on for two years, until the North Vietnamese, heavily supplied by China and Russia, overwhelmed their undersupplied armies.
Fact: Communism beat Capitalism and whiny little turds like you can't handle it.
The US murdered over 2 million "Communists" in Vietnam, plus hundreds of thousands more in Laos and Cambodia in order to "spread democracy."
Everything you think you know about Communism is CIA-sponsored propaganda.
Do better research.
Conclusion: The US lost the Vietnam war.
@@formalbug5716 Conclusion: You can read.
@@formalbug5716
It seems like the South were really the ones that lose the war. Especially since these were the people that would rule them after
Myth: The Viet Cong were an idealistic nationalist group, just like the American Minutemen
Fact: The Viet Cong was a dedicated communist organization commanded by Ho Chi Minh and engaged in assassinations of their opponents from 1945 on.
The Viet Cong engaged in acts of terror as a matter of policy; grenades and bombs thrown into public venues, assassinations of police officers and army officials, etc.
From the beginning, in 1941, the Viet Cong systematically eliminated their opposition by betraying them to the French
Beginning in 1945 they began using assassinations and violence to eliminate opposition leaders and intimidate peasants into supporting them.
During the Tet offensive, the Viet Cong murdered more than 5000 civilians in Hue by strangulation and burying them alive.
The Viet Cong used torture and murder of village leaders to intimidate the rural population into compliance with their goals
38 minutes dedicated to a question that can be easily answered with "no, lol"
It could, but that doesn't mean it's the right answer. It at the very least warrents some consideration. To learn something.