In the spirit of the WWI thread, same idea here.
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In the spirit of the WWI thread, same idea here.
Well for me it is easy. The Commies were the bad guys.
I love America but, it wasn't our war and we really should have gotten involved. Plus, we lost over 58,000 young Americans in the war...so I hate to say it but the Vietnamese were the good guys
The pu tangs...and the commies.
the indigenous montagnards, fighting against persecution from the vietnamese
There were no good guys, the concept of a good side in itself is ridiculous.
which is why the montagnards are the "good guys" as they are the only ones who had a legitimate reason for fighting
The Viet-minh
Neither, as with most wars. We should never have gone in there in the first place.
Though as much as it pains me to say it, the North Vietnamese & Vietcong came much closer than the authoritarian, corrupt, unstable and utterly incompetent South Vietnamese regime(s).
Only innocent civilians ...
nobody was the "good guys" in the Vietnam War since it simply wasn't as clear cut as that.
I have to agree with uzi716.
It was a war the US should not have fought - we should have put the screws to France after WW2 they got a UN SC seat and a lot big 5 credit they did not deserve they should never have been allowed to keep their colonial empire. So I say not bad guys but certainly fantastically foolish guys on the US side - if we had forced a French withdrawal who knows maybe Ho Chi Mihn might have been one of our biggest cold war allies.
The US had some vaguely noble reasons (from their pov) to get involved in the conflict fully. After Operation Menu all sympathy I have for them disappears. They were under Tricky Dick, afterall.
As with most wars it isn't about right vs wrong but right vs right.
There is no conceivable angle from which America would be the bad guys here. The good guys were clearly America and South Vietnam, just like South Korea. The bad guys were North Vietnam and China, which supplied NV endlessly and in many occassions actually had several hundred thousand of the Chinese army fight on their side. It's through tactics that this that the US lost many soldiers, and the electorate back home got weak knees and decided to run.
Victor's rights - France folded and Vichy was damn pliable for the Germans. You didn't see a a Vichy Poland. At the end of WW2 the French were in no position to reoccupy their Asian colonies except with OK of the UK and US - who should have vetoed any return of colonial rule.Quote:
Hey, much as I am not France's greatest fan, what right does America have to tell them what they can and can't keep? Same with us and the Suez. None of their business.
Vietnamese, i wubbels my glorious American empire and all, but c'mon we invaded Vietnam for no good reason, if the french had trouble *:surprise:* why do you think we can do it just as well? We should've known it was going to end up being a gigantic cluster blank. Woodrow Wilson, i blame you should've paid more attention to ho chi minh!:tongue:
But seriously, the good guys were my poor asian bros down to the east.
Lol, the French's returning of Indochina is quite a complicated question. French, after the end of WWII, actually agreed Vietnam should self-governed itself, under both the pressure of US and Nationalist China (mainly because Nationalist China did not want to stay in Vietnam, so they forced French to sign the agreement). However, French government immediately cancelled the agreement once their army landed on Indochina; that betray and dishonest were the reason why Vietnamese were so pissed off and decided to revolt.