Vietnam Documentary

[Montegriffo]

I still don' t really understand why France was involved in Vietnam for that long...I mean was it really that financially viable and profitable?

https://history.state.gov/milestones/19 ... n-bien-phu

Southeast Asia, with Indochina at the center, had long been a region of interest to outside powers. Most of the region fell under European colonial control after the mid-19th century. During World War Two, Japan also sought the resources the area had to offer. After Japanese defeat, many of the countries of Southeast Asia occupied by Japan protested their return to colonial status, resulting in a surge of nationalism. American officials involved in the U.S. occupation of Japan also developed a strong interest in the region, which they viewed as a potential market for Japanese goods and a source of raw materials (like tin, oil, rubber, and rice) to supply Japanese manufacturing.

So, tin, oil, rubber and rice.

[Smitty-48]

And for all intents and purposes, slave labour to extract it, hugely profitable for the French, Indochina was the Jewel of the French Empire, as India was to the British Empire.

Michelin Tire? Ever heard of it? Yeah, that's all Indochina. They had their huge plantation at Dầu Tiếng north of Saigon, that's the birthplace of Michelin.

The French also taxed the shit out of Indochina, they sold French manufactured products in Indochina at a big mark up, and they made $5 billion a year in todays dollars just from selling Indochinese opium alone.

The French were rapacious in Indochina, French investors made returns in the scores of billions in today's dollars, every year, and returned almost nothing to Indochina therein, it was a straight up profit center, with almost no downside overhead at all, because all the downside overhead was being picked up by the French government, and the repression of the Vietnamese was brutal, merciless, slavery in all but name.

And like any empire, they had locals who were willing to sell their own people down the river to curry favour and enrich themselves, the Mandarins, and when America went to war, that Mandarin class is who America was fighting to prop up, Bao Dai, Ngo Dinh Diem, America's men in Saigon, that's who that was, the Mandarins.

Diem was titular Emperor Bao Dai's Prime Minister, who seized control for himself and his family, and then ruled over the Buddhist peasants as a Roman Catholic Mandarin with an iron fist, which incited the insurgency in the South, which America came in to put down, which incited the North Vietnamese to prop up the insurgents, which incited the Americans to bomb the North, which then incited the North to declare total war for independence and national reunification.

[heydaralon]

People often forget that while Diem and Bao Dai were mean to those Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire, they had the lowest sales tax in South East Asia. They also worked to turn the Ho Chi Minh trail into a biking/outdoor activities path.

[Smitty-48]

There was footage of him being mealy mouthed about the distinction between advisors and combat troops. He was saying that if the ''advisors'' were shot at they would return fire, yet there were 11000 troops there at the time and there were active units going on missions. Maybe lying is a bit strong but he was definately arguing semantics to avoid admitting the truth.

All politcians are mealy mouthed all the time, and you would be too if you were in politics, you're going to be attacked by your opponents ceaselessly, hysterically, and fallaciously, so you have to guard your flanks at all times, but the reality is, there's a huge difference between the advisory role and deploying your own forces head to head

Adviser doesn't actually mean that you don't accompany your advisees onto the battlefield, as you have zero credibility with them if you just sit in a classroom and never share the danger with them and prove your worth in the field. So you do have to go into the fight, but you're talking one or two American advisers for every one hundred to two hundred advisees.

Moreover, 75% of your deployed forces are service support troops in the rear, so 11,000 troops does not mean 11,000 advisers accompanying the Vietnamese into the battle, more like 2,000, in a 125,000 man South Vietnamese Army, most of what the Americans were providing was helicopters and air strikes, it was nothing like when Johnson put the US military into the field to fight the war for the Vietnamese, that didn't come until 1965.

[GloryofGreece]

And for all intents and purposes, slave labour to extract it, hugely profitable for the French, Indochina was the Jewel of the French Empire, as India was to the British Empire.

Michelin Tire? Ever heard of it? Yeah, that's all Indochina. They had their huge plantation at Dầu Tiếng north of Saigon, that's the birthplace of Michelin.

The French also taxed the shit out of Indochina, they sold French manufactured products in Indochina at a big mark up, and they made $5 billion a year in todays dollars just from selling Indochinese opium alone.

The French were rapacious in Indochina, French investors made returns in the scores of billions in today's dollars, every year, and returned almost nothing to Indochina therein, it was a straight up profit center, with almost no downside overhead at all, because all the downside overhead was being picked up by the French government, and the repression of the Vietnamese was brutal, merciless, slavery in all but name.

And like any empire, they had locals who were willing to sell their own people down the river to curry favour and enrich themselves, the Mandarins, and when America went to war, that Mandarin class is who America was fighting to prop up, Bao Dai, Ngo Dinh Diem, America's men in Saigon, that's who that was, the Mandarins.

Diem was titular Emperor Bao Dai's Prime Minister, who seized control for himself and his family, and then ruled over the Buddhist peasants as a Roman Catholic Mandarin with an iron fist, which incited the insurgency in the South, which America came in to put down, which incited the North Vietnamese to prop up the insurgents, which incited the Americans to bomb the North, which then incited the North to declare total war for independence and national reunification.

So Vietnam was as profitable as Haiti once was for the French?
Did the French control present day Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand until the Japanese came in?

[Smitty-48]

So Vietnam was as profitable as Haiti once was for the French? Did the French control present day Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand until the Japanese came in?

Thailand was never part of Indochina, Thailand is actually the only Southeast Asian country never to be colonized by Europeans.

Thailand is Siam, that was a power unto itself, the French basically annexed Cambodia and Laos from Siam for all intents and purposes.

The French take over in the mid-19th century, about the time America is fighting the Civil War and conquering the Wild West, the French are moving into Indochina, they rule until the Japanese depose them, then the Indochinese fight with America to defeat the Japanese, but then after the war, the Americans reinstall the French as the colonial power, at which point, all heck breaks loose;
French-Indochina War

[Fife]

Here's a good interview with Burns and Novick.

The Vietnam War Is the Key to Understanding Today's America: Q&A with Filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick

[Smitty-48]

"Exhume the war's buried history", that's a good way of putting it, because the spin on Vietnam in America has totally warped the perception, on the Right but also on the Left, the Hardhats and the Hippies, they both get it mostly wrong, they both try to bury the facts under a mountain of spin to favour their preferred narratives.

It's interesting how the Vietnamese have totally buried the war, where America obsesses about re-litigating it by proxy for eternity, the Vietnamese have basically put it in a box, locked the box, put it on the shelf, and moved on, they barely ever bring it up, in Vietnam, the war might as well be ancient history now.

Obviously I'm not one who favours a brutal communist dictatorship, but in terms of fighting and winning the Vietnam War, and then immediately moving on? Only a brutal communist dictatorship could have pulled it off. That was their strength and they knew it, and behind the scenes, the Americans knew it too, the brutal communist dictatorship could hunker down and take the pounding, America couldn't, simple as that.

[GloryofGreece]

So Vietnam was as profitable as Haiti once was for the French? Did the French control present day Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand until the Japanese came in?

Thailand was never part of Indochina, Thailand is actually the only Southeast Asian country never to be colonized by Europeans.

Thailand is Siam, that was a power unto itself, the French basically annexed Cambodia and Laos from Siam for all intents and purposes.

The French take over in the mid-19th century, about the time America is fighting the Civil War and conquering the Wild West, the French are moving into Indochina, they rule until the Japanese depose them, then the Indochinese fight with America to defeat the Japanese, but then after the war, the Americans reinstall the French as the colonial power, at which point, all heck breaks loose;
French-Indochina War

How did Siam stay independent with all those global powers chumping at the bit to gobble up territory? Not a lot of profitable natural resources/economic motivation to control them or what?

[Smitty-48]

So Vietnam was as profitable as Haiti once was for the French? Did the French control present day Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand until the Japanese came in?

Thailand was never part of Indochina, Thailand is actually the only Southeast Asian country never to be colonized by Europeans.

Thailand is Siam, that was a power unto itself, the French basically annexed Cambodia and Laos from Siam for all intents and purposes.

The French take over in the mid-19th century, about the time America is fighting the Civil War and conquering the Wild West, the French are moving into Indochina, they rule until the Japanese depose them, then the Indochinese fight with America to defeat the Japanese, but then after the war, the Americans reinstall the French as the colonial power, at which point, all heck breaks loose;
French-Indochina War

How did Siam stay independent with all those global powers chumping at the bit to gobble up territory? Not a lot of profitable natural resources/economic motivation to control them or what?

Better governance, stronger and more deeply entrenched political infrastructure, powerful central authority, Siam was far more resistant to divide and conquer, they were an empire unto themselves, they had to cede their colonial territories to the British and French, but at the same time they were cunning about making deals with them to keep them out, they essentially played ball with the European powers, "you leave us alone and we can do profitable business with you, and to hold on to the territories that you have annexed, it's in your interests to have us as a stable ally rather than as a sworn enemy, let's be friends, we're imperialists too, we're not here to stop you from doing business, we can help..."

The reason why Indochina and Burma was ripe for the picking, is because those were Siamese imperial colonies which the Siamese themselves had decapitated, losing their colonies, but cutting deals to maintain their own independence, that was just the price of doing business, and the British and French had as much if not more than they could chew already, so having Siam as a pliable and willing ally to help them keep a lid on things, they rightly saw as being a good deal for them as well.

Even when the Americans show up, Thailand is still the Imperial Fortress which is willing to host them, that's where most of the USAF airpower was based, U-Tapao Royal Thai Naval Air Station in Rayong, that was the forward operating base for SAC, that's where the Arclight Strikes with the B-52's were launched from.