Ken Burns Tackles the Vietnam War

[Smitty-48]

but a ten hour TV show? Can't even scratch the surface of Vietnam with that, and, it's PBS, so no doubt it will be crippled by a lot a liberal kool-aid, I'm not expecting that Burns will make it all kool-aid, but the kool-aid is always in play if either Hippies or Hardhats are in the mix, baked into the cake.

It's 18 hours.

Can't cram thirty years of the most complex war in human history into 18 hours, without succumbing to a narrative, and if the narrative is from PBS, know that they are editing it to fit their preffered narrative. Not saying don't watch it, not saying don't enjoy it, not saying it will be total kool-aid, but just take it with a grain of salt, same as you would if it was The Vietnam War by Fox News or whoever, Ken Burns and PBS can't help themselves, they filter it reflexively, the Hippies can't see their confirmation biases anymore than the Hardhats can see theirs.

[K@th]

Well, if Burns was that biased, shouldn't I have come away from the Ho Chi Mihn episode feeling all cuddly about him? Because, that's not how Burns portrayed the communist.

[Smitty-48]

Well, if Burns was that biased, shouldn't I have come away from the Ho Chi Mihn episode feeling all cuddly about him? Because, that's not how Burns portrayed the communist.

You're not all cuddly for Uncle Ho? I am, I love the Most Enlightened One, Nguyen the Patriot, the George Washington of Indochina.

Ho and Giap are the good guys, the bad Commies were Le Duan and Van Dong. The Commies from the North were the cuddly ones, it's the Commies who came from the South who were the nasty ones.

[K@th]

I liked the part about him kicking out the French, but wanting to unite the country in communism? Nah... I'll keep watching. I'm not underestimating, I know almost nothing except some names and dates.

This wasn't taught in school and I didn't get interested in history until I got introduced to Carlin.

[Smitty-48]

The Viet Minh weren't hardcore Commies, they were caught up in the idealism of the Socialist Dream of the post WWI era, same as Americans were, but most of the Viet Minh were not actually Communists, it was a coalition, so was the NLF in the South, the hardcore communist dictatorship really didn't come into effect with gusto, until Le Duan started to gain more influence, he eventually took Uncle Ho down from within, and then took the war to a whole new level of ruthless brutality and viciousness.

Dismissing Ho Chi Minh as a mere "Communist" is like dismissing George Washington as a mere "Slave Holder", which, you Americans do not do, unless you're talking someone other than yourselves, disgusting hypocrites that you are, who knew?

Sure, Uncle Ho and Giap had to crack a few skulls, when you overthrow a colonial oppressor as nasty as the French, payback for the ostensible traitors in the ranks is going to be baked into the cake, but it didn't get genocidal until Le Duan took over, because he saw Ho and Giap and being naive and weakneed big softies who didn't have the resolve to do what must be done.

Bear in mind; Ho Chi Minh; he didn't even want to fight the Americans, he did not want to intervene in the South, he said the way to deal with it was to patiently wait them out, but the hardcore of the hardcore Le Duan, who had come from the South, he was not down for that, and so he took Ho down and seized control from him, in a silent coup, in order to escalate to total war of anihilation.

Vietnam did not start to recover, until Le Duan died in 1986. Ho Chi Minh is the George Washington of Vietnam, Le Duan was right, he was a big softie, but that's what makes Le Duan the Josef Stalin of Vietnam, because unlike Ho, Le Duan lacked humanity, he wanted a total war of anihilation, for its own sake.

That being said, in Le Duan's defence; just like Joe Stalin, he did win that war in the end. They call it Ho Chi Minh City, but in reality, it's Le Duan Ville.

[Montegriffo]

According to Burns, Ho had wanted to work with the Americans to gain independence from the French after 1945. They had fought the Japanese as allies so Ho asked for help against the colonial French. Obviously no American president is going to side with Communists even to free them from outside rule.
If the French had given up their Empire a bit more readily like the British did and granted independence in say 1950, would America still have intervened? Was the red scare so strong they would have interfered in a newly independent state because of domino theory.
Could US involvement have been avoided?

[Smitty-48]

The French exploited the American Red Scare, De Gaulle told the Americans (paraphrasing); "not only do you have to allow us to take back our colonies in Indochina, you have to actually; fund, arm, and help us do it, otherwise, we're going to have to flip to the Soviet's side, so don't fuck with us..."

He was bluffing of course, but the Americans were in such an hysterical Red Scare frenzy at the time, they fell for it.

America could have avoided the war many times over, even in the context of the Domino Theory; call the French bluff, or, after the French were defeated, allow the elections and let the Viet Minh win, fall back to Thailand, or, even after the French, abandon Diem to his fate and fall back to Thailand.

Even after the war was in progress, the Americans could have shortened it, don't bomb the North, Vietnamization right out of the gate let the chips fall where they may, or, Peace with Honor 1968, fall back to Thailand.

[Smitty-48]

By the way, there's even a way the Americans could have won the war on the battlefield, but that would have required completely reordering of their whole concept of operations, which, due to entrenched interests and institutional inertia in Washington, they were simply not capable of doing.

[Montegriffo]

You just can't trust those filthy French.
So do you think the US would have intervened if the French had left after the war?
Would Vietnam and Laos still be Communist today if they hadn't had to fight invaders for over 30 years?
Seems America got exactly what it didn't want.....

[Smitty-48]

You just can't trust those filthy French.
So do you think the US would have intervened if the French had left after the war?
Would Vietnam and Laos still be Communist today if they hadn't had to fight invaders for over 30 years?
Seems America got exactly what it didn't want.....

The initial American intelligence assesment when the French and the Vietnamese started fighting in the streets right after WWII was; "this is none of our business, there's nothing in this for America, we should just get the hell of out of here" but the guy who wrote that report, actually got shot dead by the Vietnamese when he was on his way to the airport to go back to Washington to submit the report, because the Viets mistook him for a Frenchmen.