Communist Atrocities After The Fall of Saigon

[Jonathan Randall]

Communist Atrocities After The Fall of Saigon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_atrocities_after_the_fall_of_Saigon

By many estimates 850,000 or more South Vietnamese were murdered by victorious communist forces after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. These deaths occurred AFTER the surrender and disolution of the South Vietnamese government and army.

Thoughts? Comments?

 

[Hand Sword]

Terrible. We should've handled it the right way.

 

[michaeledward]

Thirty year old news.

The world is a horrible place. It's very sad really.

 

[Jonathan Randall]

Terrible. We should've handled it the right way.

The saddest thing is that the South Vietnam government had decidedly turned back a major NVA offensive in 1972 - but after the American cut off in air support and funding (the South Vietnamese literally ran out of ammunition) they were helpless in 1975.

Now I know the South Vietnamese government was largely corrupt and often innefective, but Congress's refusal to approve the $750 Million in emergency funding in early 1975 was a criminal abandonment, IMO.

What an unmitigated tragedy for all concerned. The Left got this one wrong, IMO.

 

[Makalakumu]

The Left got this one wrong, IMO.

Jonathan, I can see the same thing happening in Iraq. As soon as the American presence leaves, we'll see a wholesale slaughter...an outright ethnic cleansing of sunni by the shia majority.

So, what do we do? It's the same question we faced back then. What do we do?

Do we keep spending our national treasure prolonging the mess that we made, or do we get out before we go bankrupt?

I don't think the decision to leave the south vietnamese was easy for anyone. The country was deeply divided and people had very strong feelings. Mostly, people had the feeling that America had made a huge mistake.

And this is exactly where we are now. The legacy of Vietnam, that America can make mistakes, was largely forgotten by the neocon right. Now we have another mess and getting out is going to be just as hard.

 

[qizmoduis]

Communist Atrocities After The Fall of Saigon:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnamese_atrocities_after_the_fall_of_Saigon

By many estimates 850,000 or more South Vietnamese were murdered by victorious communist forces after the Fall of Saigon in 1975. These deaths occurred AFTER the surrender and disolution of the South Vietnamese government and army.

Thoughts? Comments?

You really should read up on this. That number includes those who died as refugees, economic and political, and others. Although you can indirectly tie the entire number of dead to the communists, its disingenuous to claim they were all murdered by the North Vietnamese.

This is not to say that the north vietnamese communists were nice people. They weren't, and my wife can attest to that personally, having spent a month in a re-education camp. But they weren't interested in wholesale ideological slaughter akin to Pol Pot.

But then, you're real point isn't really about the North Vietnamese communists and their idiocy, but rather an attack on some nebulous "Left" that forced us to abandon the valient South Vietnamese to the lions just when victory was in sight.

So if the "Left" is responsible for 850000 deaths, then who is responsible for the deaths of 60000 US soldiers and the 3 million or so vietnamese killed while we were there?

The obvious answer would, of course, be as astoundingly dimwitted as your original accusation and would be rooted in the same anachronistic imposition of blinded hindsight on past events carefully excised from surrounding historical context to try to prove some completely unrelated ideological point.

It's a page from the the neo-con political propaganda manual.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Left, right I think both sides should be blamed for Vietnam and the mess that we made there. It is a sad, sad story and unfortunately will probably be repeated soon but just in another part of the world.

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

Having said the above let us all hope that what is happening in Iraq turns out better than Vietnam.

 

[Jonathan Randall]

But then, you're real point isn't really about the North Vietnamese communists and their idiocy, but rather an attack on some nebulous "Left" that forced us to abandon the valient South Vietnamese to the lions just when victory was in sight.

It is. My point was entirely directed against the NVA and their post victory atrocities.

You did NOT read my post. I acknowledged the grave imperfections of the South Vietnamese Government. I also lamented the fact that we cut off financial aid to them in their greatest hour of need - almost entirely due to the Left's opposition. I understand and agree with the fact that we could not and should not have maintained a ground force in Vietnam.

Read my posts, dude. I am an adversary of the neo-cons and thought, and still do, that the Invasion of Iraq was the United State's greatest strategic error ever.

 

[Don Roley]

But then, you're real point isn't really about the North Vietnamese communists and their idiocy, but rather an attack on some nebulous "Left" that forced us to abandon the valient South Vietnamese to the lions just when victory was in sight.

No, it was not.

Go back over his posts. He and I are on different ends of the political spectrum.

And the lessons I get from this is that there are those that would do things in international relations just to promote their domestic agenda. And they will use the idea that they want to save lives of people overseas and hold up the many deaths that go on as an excuse to get what they want. But once their blow against the Illuminati/ Military- industrial complex is in place, they stop caring about the deaths of thier little brown brothers.