Who were the good guys in the Vietnam War?

[Turtler]

None. The Americans were there for imperialistic reasons, and regularly conducted themselves barbarously. The Soviets and Chinese advisers were much the same story.

Sorry, but if you hadn't put it in those same terms, you might have been able to argue that case. But as it is, you are absolutely not. For one, we know well enough of the Allied and Soviet/CCP units in Indochina to know they didn't really operate the same way or to remotely similar standards of conduct. To get the former to stand up, we'd have to clarify what "regularly" and "barbarously" mean. If we're talking about a My Lai or other wanton gunning down of civilians in cold blood every Sunday, we would have to say no. If we're talking about ham-handedly spraying the area with bombs and the chemical agents, then we might have something to talk about. But as it is we know abundantly well that the Soviet and Chinese advisers (both flavors of the latter, KMT and CCP) were nasty pieces of work, and would and did view things like My Lai as absolutely de rigueur (given that they were fresh off the boat from the WWII and post-WWII surpressions and the 1956/1968 crackdowns for the Soviets, Mao's ongoing war against the countryside and anything in it that could oppose his government for the CCP, and Chiang's desperate and ugly attempts to crush Taiwan under his boot for the KMT this should come as absolutely no surprise to anybody).

And finally, if having part of the rationale for a given action being imperialistic was a complete condemnation of something in and of itself, we'd have to indiscriminately condemn little things like WWII and the post-war occupations of Germany and Japan to name just two.

The North Vietnamese committed terrible atrocities and were totalitarians, samewise with their southern opponents (RVN) and allies (VC).

Point of order, but just the NV and VC can really fall under the definition of "totalitarian." As much as I rigidly despise the South Vietnamese government, they don't fit the mold or the archtype of totalitarianism. It's kinda hard on my end to quantify what they subscribed to, but it certainly was a lot more oligarchic than totalitarian; you never had this singular, institutionalized "Cult of the One Man" even if we did have an institutionalized "Cult of the Strongman." But whereas Hitler/Stalin/Mao/etc. held themselves up to be not just the people keeping the system going but embodiments of the system as a whole in the position of their roles (Fuhrer/etc) the South Vietnamese strongmen existed because they were mainly the people who could keep the entire rickety special interests structure together and opposition under foot or at least under control rather than any grand mission. That was the reason why the elite and little oligarchs/feudal arsehats/ industrialists threw their lot behind the person in power or a strong candidate trying to go into it.

I'm not sure, but given how I just referenced the KMT supporting role to the RVN, I believe a *much* happier and less shooty version of that is a good fit; that or the late Roman Republic. A succession of strongmen with authoritarian but not total power supported by narrow group of elites, with a great deal of internal bickering but with inter-elite violence and what have you being more absent than they were present. This is in contrast to even the post-Ho DRVN, where while we did see a similar breakdown of centralized/allmighty power by one man into a few subsets, this never got even close to the level the South Vietnamese were wrestling in (with Le Duan more or less taking over Ho's position as a sort of "Lesser Great Leader" in spite of losing a fair bit of power in some areas to people like Giap and Thang), and a far stronger cult of the Dictator-as-the-ideological-great spirit.

Maybe the Montagnards, as they were largely just defending themselves. But I don't know enough about their place in the war other than that; and my perspective on violence leads me towards ambivalence rather than support of their efforts.

With all due respect, sir, your ignorance in regards to that is the fault of only one person. So do what everybody else does; hit the research.

First, those aren't case studies. Don't use a word you don't know the meaning of.

Yes, they are. In case you have been under a rock for several years and missed how these things are defined. Perhaps if I wanted to be absolutely and fully correct in a scholarly point of view, I might refer to them as real life examples that are basically a living study subject for case studies. But in the end, "case studies" is a perfectly valid way to collectively describe both them and the corpus of work that is attached to them.

Second, you can't compare those countries with South Vietnam.

Only an idiot or an ignoramus would type a sentence like this. You can "compare' two of just about anything. From moonrock to cheese. That does not meant the two things are necessarily *comparable* (Ie: relatively similar, though in this case I would argue so), but it does mean you can do it. In particular since nowhere in this post do you even come close to explaining why it is inappropriate to compare the Republic of South Vietnam to the early Taiwanese and ROK states. Use it or lose it; back it up with reasoning and arguments or stop wasting valuable webspace and time.

Just because it has happened in those does not guarantee it would happen in South Vietnam

Wholeheartedly agreed, and I even referenced that fact earlier. A South Vietnamese path to true democracy was by no means foreordained. But that doesn't mean it was impossible, or that the circumstances between it and the ROK or Taiwan (especially the very early ones, when they were under the rule of the "Old Tyrant", like Rhee or especially Chiang). Which means it is quite possible.

nor is it a good excuse to support South Vietnam considering i ca list just as many communist countries who eventually became democracies.

The intellectual laziness, dishonesty, and vapidness of this argument is only trumped by its' casual indifference to human suffering. Not the least of which because it forgets the fact that most totalitarian dictatorships (outside of a very, very few like Moldova or Mongolia) have to be uprooted by force of some fashion (whether it necessarily involves bloodshed or just a huge amount of turmoil), almost always cause higher amounts of devastation in comparison to dictatorship lites (like the RVN or ROK of the Right or Nasser or Qasim of the Left), and generally take huge amounts of time to even come close to recovering. It's not a surprise that a great deal of the current democracies that are in serious crisis (the Ukraine, Moldova, and Hungary, all of which have already seen democratic backsliding written into law) have had totalitarian pasts very close in their recent pasts. In contrast, even nations with relatively recent authoritarian but non-totalitarian histories that have a great deal of tension for their supposed instability (Greece, Spain, arguably even Italy given Mussolini's totalitarian philosophy versus his defacto need to share power) have not actually seen an eroding of civil liberties or legal safeguards like those in the former.

The fact that the South Vietnamese state was not the only route to democracy is evident. But the educated guess we can draw that it would be far easier and less costly to do it by there is evident from the parallel histories of the RVN, ROK, and what have you, and the fact that under the Northern-descended government Vietnam still remains a deeply authoritarian and divided nation.

As it is, democracy was only one of the many good arguments to support the South. Others being that regardless of what crimes the South comitted, they were small potatos to those of the North, like in the Korean War.

The ARVN was horrible. It was infiltrated heavily by the Viet Cong. i would never rely on them for anything. The South Vietnamese Marines were much better.

Disputable (they weren't that bad, especially after Nixon's Vietnamization emphasis. They weren't great either, but being able to stand toe to two with the average NVA regular is something), agreed, agreed with caveats, and agreed. That fails to ignore that somehow, that shoddy and somewhat unreliable army managed to fight through with increasing capability until the bitter end when it fell apart under the strain of several material shortages and numerical inferiority.

First, that is a lie. The Geneva Accords for Vietnam were written in 1954 and the elections were to be held in 1956.

So they are a lie apparently because you have failed to read what I write properly and assume that I'm alledging Geneva was signed after or during the election, in spite of that not making sense and having nothing to do with my overall point of the Communist legal stance being based primarily on a horrid mangling of international law where they somehow trump self-determination and international law. Practice some basic English skills, mate, and then get

And please. Explain how these Accords were illegitimate.

I already have. They were on shaky legal ground to begin with and would've never been accepted in the wording they used without behind the scenes chatter and gentlemens' agreements that in effect went against a good chunk of the written text (like the concrete ban on partition no matter what) but in order to square with international law. Than both sides began pulling out or selectively abusing them, especially the North. Which promptly broke all of said gentlemens' agreements and insisted on a literal interpretation of (parts of) the accords (the parts they found convenient that is, regarding the unification of Vietnam UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES) in spite of such a stance being by anybody's judgement A HORRIBLE VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW pertaining to things like self-determination, the laws of free and unbiased elections, blah blah blah blah blah. I could go on, but I already dealt with this in more detail earlier, so I won't repeat myself.

Long story short: Geneva Accords signed under shaky grounds that are only held up by unofficial conversations and the results of which that took place behind the scenes. Afterwards, *both* sides begin backpedalling on the Accords, insisting on highly selective interpretations that are preferential to them and legally dubious. The Communists just make themselves look the more shameful and blatantly unscrupulous by letting themselves be heard obviously insisting to terms that are in gross violation of international law. End of Story.

That does not make the accords illegitimate.

Reading comprehension isn't your strong suit, is it? Of course it didn't BY ITSELF. However, their grounds for objections to the text were blatantly based on the actual law, and that had to be handled and settled in the backrooms. It's the net effect of those guarantees, their violation, and the horrendously legality-challenged wording of the accords themselves that make them illegitimate. I went through all this.

Yes, a vote South Vietnam refused to hold.

For reasons that I already mentioned before. Now, factually we can be pretty sure that they were mainly doing it out of being greedy bastards wanting to hold onto power, but LEGALLY they had a point. Even under the appallinglylow standards we could reasonably expect Vietnam to have, the national elections were conducted under situations that would make a suspension of the elections quite valid. Having a well equipped and armed paramilitary running around en-masse conducting electoral fraud, intimidation, and mass murder isn't fertile grounds for any election. The fact that the regime cancelled for selfish reasons does not invalidate the legal problems posed by this.

The Geneva Accords were a signed agreement that was supposed to determine the fate of the teo countries. The only country denying self-determination here is South Vietnam as they refused to hold the vote.

Now, CLEARLY you are just being an apologist for totalitarian government and electoral fraud of the very, Very worst sort, who is too daft to even BOTHER looking up the laws in question or the problems with it for the sake of making your inherently illogical argument *look* somewhat less false. If you had any concern about these people at all, you would note that the North was blatantly denying self-determination as well through voter fraud and mass murder designed to prevent ANY alternative political grouping from having a decent say, both in the North (where they had free reign to more or less terrorize and kill the population that didn't agree with them into line) and in the South. This does not excuse the Southern government and its' affiliates at all, but it doesn't change the fact that the North and its' conduct was the bigger problem BY FAR.

If you think smileys can hide idiotic and morally daft reasoning, you are sadly mistaken.

South Vietnam was the only ones denying self-determination. They denied their people the right to chose whenever to remain a separate country or unite with North Vietnam.

Endlessly repeating that statement will not suddenly make it fact. The truth of the latter is not negated by and does not negate the fact that the Communists were guilty of *exactly* the same thing, on a far larger and bloodier scale.

Which means nothing as i wasn't comparing the two people.

The fact that you believe it means nothing is a problem in and of itself.

Point is that Ho Chi Mihn was extremely popular, and if the 1956 elections had been allowed to happen, chances are the country would be united under him.

Agreed indeed, That's one thing I've explicitly stated, and that's part of the reason why I find the Communist behavior so stupefying and needlessly evil. It wasn't just immoral to start nakedly ripping up the countryside, it wasn't even pragmatic. The fact that they more or less catalyzed the development of a distinctly South Vietnamese civil society (aligned against both the RVN government *and* the Communists) just goes to show that.

The elections were completely rigged. Diem was credited with receiving 131% of the vote in Saigon. Even gilded age America was better than this. These elections were a complete sham.

Agreed. Guilded age America was a LOT better than this (not the least of which being an actual democracy, even if a decadent one with a lot of corruption), but some of the official transcripts and other factoids have probably been played up, or at least somewhat altered for the sake of black propaganda. We don't have that much access to a lot of the primary sources to determine the exact counts, so we're usually stuck with relying on secondary sources with huge biases (either the records we still have of Diem's regime or the Communists). Right now, it's a question of asking who had their hands in ballooning the voter roles and where: Diem's regime in some sort of quixotic attempt to further add legitimacy or the Communists (to play up the obvious corruption). As it is, we're pretty sure it was a bi-partisan hack job, and that as it happened the election was at least vaaguely less rigged than what we have passed down to us, with the insanity and corruption of it all building a bit in the retelling for a couple different reasons.

Wow. That has to be the biggest understatement of how rigged the elections in South Vietnam were.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_o...ferendum,_1955

A: I'm not sure it is that much of an understatement, given how much power the local elites (who were in on the rigging as I said) could exert. Certainly enough to horridly taint the election to the degrees we've seen, but not quite to the levels of obvious brutality and widespread murder we see in the North and the countryside.

B: Actually, it isn't. You'd be amazed at how many Diem apologists still deny there was *any* rigging at all, and who ascribe the entire thing to Communist propaganda after the fact (there's just a sliver of truth in that we're sure they overemphasized how corrupt it was by inflating figures, but that was the limit of that accusation's relation to the truth).

That right there alone is some really bad manipulation of the election.

No kidding. The sad fact is that all things considered, it was probably the less corrupt of the two Vietnamese elections.

And here we go, Diem's brother controlling the logistics and locking people up for political reasons.

But just for good measure.



The Elections in south Vietnam were nothing but a sham.

Yes, I agree. We've already gone through this before. But you seem to be denying that the elections in North Vietnam were also a sham, maybe less of an obvious one but a far more murderous and bloody one.

I'd like a source for this.

Offhand? Pentagon Papers.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intre...gon/pent14.htm

No. Thats not even remotely close as my link showed above. These elections were massively rigged.

You are being incredibly daft if you think that A: Wikipedia, the lowest common denomenator, is the most reliable source, and B: the fact that the Viet Cong's early activities in the South alienating a huge chunk of the rural and urban population is somehow mutually exclusive with the State of Vietnam referrendum being more rigged than a windjammer. Turmoil over the Southern "election" was already quite expansive, but if the majority of the population really was as militantly supprotive of the Communists as they were just a few years earlier, we wouldn't have seen the relatively slow burn we saw. We would've see an outright explosion, like what happened in the Khmer Rouge's march on Phnom Penh or in the latter stages of the Chinese Civil War. The fact that the average, previously-Pro Communist rural population was more or less indifferent and passive (and thus got beaten up by all sides) points to a major loss of support for the Communists early on, which only gradually was counterbalanced by more extensive Northern operations to beef them up.

Not when the other side was just as corrupt and horrible.

Except legally that doesn't change the fact that one crime doesn't necessarily cancel out another by an opposing side, and by and large the RVN governemnt weren't. I hate the Diem adnimistration as much as anybody, but it's hard to attribute the same level of corruption (with the South having the obvious leg up in veniality) and horribleness (Diem would send some toughs to muscle you and have his brother steal your vote, the North would shoot you dead) between the two sides. And even if we could, it wouldn't change the "facts of the case" so to speak.

So neither?

Preferably and optimally a resounding YES.

Both were dictators. Diem was much more than just a corrupt oligarch.

Yes, yes they were.

And I know this is nitpicky, but Eh, Corrupt, Racist, Murdering Oligarch then. But probably not that far off from that general bracket. As much as I hate Ho and Giap, I can't even put them in the same ballpark, for both good and bad.

At least following through with the elections in 1956 would have saved millions of Vietnamese, thousands of American and other Allied soldiers in the war that would follow.

Most likely. And this is one of my enduring misgivings with entering into Vietnam in the first place, even vis-a-vis Korea. Morally and legally, even the Southern government had its' valid complaints and might've turned out better than the situation is now. But overall, we had to pick and choose our fights, and I am not sure the facts were strong enough to justify going into this one.

That doesn't change the facts on the ground persee, just that unlike a lot of cases I don't know what the right thing to do was. Let Ho take power and try to cut some sort of deal with him and ignore the blood? Maybe. It's a valid stance, to say the least. It just hasn't come up a lot here on my end since we've been talking about the good versus bad guys of the war as it was, and in that much there isn't even that much of a comparison.

But that doesn't mean I still don't wonder....

[Vanoi]

Yes, they are. In case you have been under a rock for several years and missed how these things are defined. Perhaps if I wanted to be absolutely and fully correct in a scholarly point of view, I might refer to them as real life examples that are basically a living study subject for case studies

No, they are not.


http://www.thefreedictionary.com/case+study

1. A detailed analysis of a person or group, especially as a model of medical, psychiatric, psychological, or social phenomena.

Educate yourself.

But in the end, "case studies" is a perfectly valid way to collectively describe both them and the corpus of work that is attached to them.

No, its not even remotely close.

Only an idiot or an ignoramus would type a sentence like this. You can "compare' two of just about anything. From moonrock to cheese.

You are making more than just a comparison, but also a prediction. You listed those various countries and said they become democracies, so South Vietnam will too. That logic is flawed. there is no evidence behind it other than "It happened to these countries, so it will happen here too"

but it does mean you can do it. In particular since nowhere in this post do you even come close to explaining why it is inappropriate to compare the Republic of South Vietnam to the early Taiwanese and ROK states. Use it or lose it; back it up with reasoning and arguments or stop wasting valuable webspace and time.

And no where did you or Meneik provide evidence for your claim that South Vietnam would end up going the way of the ROK, ect. Stop wasting my time and start providing evidence for your claims.

The intellectual laziness, dishonesty, and vapidness of this argument is only trumped by its' casual indifference to human suffering. Not the least of which because it forgets the fact that most totalitarian dictatorships (outside of a very, very few like Moldova or Mongolia) have to be uprooted by force of some fashion (whether it necessarily involves bloodshed or just a huge amount of turmoil), almost always cause higher amounts of devastation in comparison to dictatorship lites (like the RVN or ROK of the Right or Nasser or Qasim of the Left), and generally take huge amounts of time to even come close to recovering. It's not a surprise that a great deal of the current democracies that are in serious crisis (the Ukraine, Moldova, and Hungary, all of which have already seen democratic backsliding written into law) have had totalitarian pasts very close in their recent pasts. In contrast, even nations with relatively recent authoritarian but non-totalitarian histories that have a great deal of tension for their supposed instability (Greece, Spain, arguably even Italy given Mussolini's totalitarian philosophy versus his defacto need to share power) have not actually seen an eroding of civil liberties or legal safeguards like those in the former.

Point flew right over your head. My point was supporting South Vietnam because it can turn into a democracy is stupid when various Communist countries themselves have became democratic.

So they are a lie apparently because you have failed to read what I write properly and assume that I'm alledging Geneva was signed after or during the election, in spite of that not making sense and having nothing to do with my overall point of the Communist legal stance being based primarily on a horrid mangling of international law where they somehow trump self-determination and international law. Practice some basic English skills, mate, and then get

Sorry, your very poor grammar threw me off. But thanks for not actually addressing my point.

And international law means nothing in this. The agreement brokered was not supposed to be support by international law.

and once again The South was the one violating the right of self-determination. they refused their people the right to determine if they wanted to unify the country or remain separated.

I already have. They were on shaky legal ground to begin with and would've never been accepted in the wording they used without behind the scenes chatter and gentlemens' agreements that in effect went against a good chunk of the written text (like the concrete ban on partition no matter what) but in order to square with international law.

International law does not matter. Do you even understand what this Accord was supposed to be? An agreement to unite the two countries by holding an election. south Vietnam did not want to hold it because Diem knew he would lose.

Than both sides began pulling out or selectively abusing them, especially the North. Which promptly broke all of said gentlemens' agreements

Such as?

and insisted on a literal interpretation of (parts of) the accords (the parts they found convenient that is, regarding the unification of Vietnam UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES) in spite of such a stance being by anybody's judgement A HORRIBLE VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW pertaining to things like self-determination, the laws of free and unbiased elections, blah blah blah blah blah. I could go on, but I already dealt with this in more detail earlier, so I won't repeat myself.

Yes, North Vietnam violated international law by wanting South Vietnam to adhere to the Geneva Accords, which they refused to do. I mean its not like South Vietnam refused to hold the elections, and thus denied their people's right to self determination at all. I am just sure all those South Vietnamese were glad to not be able to vote on whenever to unite with Norht Vietnam. Nope, this is all North Vietnam's fault.

For reasons that I already mentioned before. Now, factually we can be pretty sure that they were mainly doing it out of being greedy bastards wanting to hold onto power, but LEGALLY they had a point. Even under the appallinglylow standards we could reasonably expect Vietnam to have, the national elections were conducted under situations that would make a suspension of the elections quite valid. Having a well equipped and armed paramilitary running around en-masse conducting electoral fraud, intimidation, and mass murder isn't fertile grounds for any election. The fact that the regime cancelled for selfish reasons does not invalidate the legal problems posed by this.

Your now using this as an excuse when its not. You also haven't sourced it either.

The only reason South Vietnam did not participate in the 1956 elections if because Ho Chi Mihn would have won.

Now, CLEARLY you are just being an apologist for totalitarian government and electoral fraud of the very, Very worst sort, who is too daft to even BOTHER looking up the laws in question or the problems with it for the sake of making your inherently illogical argument *look* somewhat less false.

Can you quote me where i defended the North Vietnamese elections or the tactics they have used? Oh wait, no where. The only apologist here is you. South Vietnam was as corrupt and had just as bad election fraud as North Vietnam.

If you had any concern about these people at all, you would note that the North was blatantly denying self-determination as well through voter fraud and mass murder designed to prevent ANY alternative political grouping from having a decent say, both in the North (where they had free reign to more or less terrorize and kill the population that didn't agree with them into line) and in the South.

Your only concern uis being an apologist for the South. I showed they were just as bad with election fraud.

And once again, the South Vietnamese denied their people the right of self-determination by refusing to participate in the 1956 elections. Do you understand this?

Endlessly repeating that statement will not suddenly make it fact. The truth of the latter is not negated by and does not negate the fact that the Communists were guilty of *exactly* the same thing, on a far larger and bloodier scale.

It is fact you just refuse to believe. South Vietnam refused to allow its people to decide on whenever to unite the country or remain separated.

The fact that you believe it means nothing is a problem in and of itself.

How? The only comparison i mad between the two was that both were considered heroes and father's of their country. Nothing more, nothing less.

Agreed. Guilded age America was a LOT better than this (not the least of which being an actual democracy, even if a decadent one with a lot of corruption), but some of the official transcripts and other factoids have probably been played up, or at least somewhat altered for the sake of black propaganda.

Or you are just trying to donwplay just how rigged South Vietnam's elections were.

Yes, I agree. We've already gone through this before. But you seem to be denying that the elections in North Vietnam were also a sham, maybe less of an obvious one but a far more murderous and bloody one.

Really? Can you quote me where i denied it?

Offhand? Pentagon Papers.

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intre...gon/pent14.htm

Source the relevant passages.

You are being incredibly daft if you think that A: Wikipedia, the lowest common denomenator, is the most reliable source,

You would have to be daft to think Wikipedia isn't reliable. all my quotes have citations from various sources backing them up. Wikipedia is an accepted source here. Deal with it.

and B: the fact that the Viet Cong's early activities in the South alienating a huge chunk of the rural and urban population is somehow mutually exclusive with the State of Vietnam referrendum being more rigged than a windjammer. Turmoil over the Southern "election" was already quite expansive, but if the majority of the population really was as militantly supprotive of the Communists as they were just a few years earlier, we wouldn't have seen the relatively slow burn we saw. We would've see an outright explosion, like what happened in the Khmer Rouge's march on Phnom Penh or in the latter stages of the Chinese Civil War. The fact that the average, previously-Pro Communist rural population was more or less indifferent and passive (and thus got beaten up by all sides) points to a major loss of support for the Communists early on, which only gradually was counterbalanced by more extensive Northern operations to beef them up.

So nothing but conjecture? You keep downplaying the South's role in this and trying to pin most of the blame on the North.

Except legally that doesn't change the fact that one crime doesn't necessarily cancel out another by an opposing side, and by and large the RVN governemnt weren't. I hate the Diem adnimistration as much as anybody, but it's hard to attribute the same level of corruption (with the South having the obvious leg up in veniality) and horribleness (Diem would send some toughs to muscle you and have his brother steal your vote, the North would shoot you dead) between the two sides. And even if we could, it wouldn't change the "facts of the case" so to speak.

Your still missing the point, again. Both were corrupt horrible and both were known to use violent means to achieve what they want.

Both sucked. But only one was worth supporting.

[Vanoi]

delete

[Turtler]

No, they are not.


http://www.thefreedictionary.com/case+study



Educate yourself.


No, its not even remotely close.

Please educate yourself on the definition between case STUDIES and case SUBJECTS.

Perhaps it was unclear from my previous posts, but let me clarify the matters for you: in my first post, I was referring people to the many, MANY case studies *done* on and about the case *subjects* such as the ROK/Taiwan/etc and the many, MANY helpful conclusions drawn from them. At which point you promptly jumped on the matter and tried to beat me over the head for applying the common misconception that case studies (as most people call them) are the same as case subjects, as though even that were true that would have any bearing on the logical points at play.

End of Story. End of Discussion. All you are doing at this point in time is making yourself look like a desperate, sad little debater who wants to play "gotcha" at a ghost.

You are making more than just a comparison, but also a prediction. You listed those various countries and said they become democracies, so South Vietnam will too. That logic is flawed. there is no evidence behind it other than "It happened to these countries, so it will happen here too"

And no where did you or Meneik provide evidence for your claim that South Vietnam would end up going the way of the ROK, ect. Stop wasting my time and start providing evidence for your claims.

Here is a copy of my original quote regarding the other reformed ex-dictatorships.

Actually, that's not overly true at all. Or more actually, it's partially, technically true, but there are so many omissions it's not even funny.

For one, the idea that there is no evidence for South Vietnam becoming a democracy requires you completely ignore the case studies of Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, the Philippines, the Dominican Republic post-Trujillo.... I could go on. Especially given the fact that the ARVN didn't lack for "loyal opposition"; they just tended to get crushed by either A: the regime or especially B: the Communists after they took over.

You see that, mate? I was referring to EVIDENCE offered by them, not making a prediction or trying to play Nostradamus with absolute certainty. Because I do not know if you've recently familiarized yourself with what evidence is, but evidence of something does not necessarily mean that thing will happen. We can say we arguably have evidence of super-Cthulu thanks to "The Bloop", and technically we might be right, it's just that a lot of times the evidence fits something else as well or better.

Now, there's a reason why parallel or similar subjects- or cases of one subject- are accepted as having evidenciary or at least predictive merit in science. If this incubated, fertilized egg hatches into a chick, this fertilized, incubated egg of the same apparent type will also hatch into a chick. This is not absolutes. This isn't even remotely close to being so. For instance, when the Soviet Empire shattered and Communist governments collapsed like dominoes, it would be a very reasonable interpretation of the evidence to expect the Communist Party of Moldova's government to follow. Except it didn't, for various reasons. Does that mean it was completely wrongheaded to make such a prediction at the time? Hardly. Likewise, it does not mean it was deterministic.

And finally, to kill this godforsaken accusation once and forevermore, I even accepted the possibility that no, the South Vietnamese Government would not become democratic. On This Very Thread.

I see no shame whatsoever in not punches against a right wing dictatorship like what existed in the South, and the main reason I support it is the same reason I support the Popular Front and its' heirs over Franco and the other Nationalists: the former had the far better chance of turning a bad situation into a true free state over their opponents. This does not exempt them from my condemnation as the murdering thugs they were, and if my hopes failed I would be the first to admit I was wrong and call for their heads. Especially after forty years have passed and they have failed to do anything but solidify the divisions in the country.

Your apology for willful lying and/or ignorance will be accepted once it is offered. If it is not offered, I will have to consider sending your libeling rear in to the mods for clear ad-hom.

And finally, you completely misconstrue the reasons why we study similar subjects and often assume similar results for them. That is because similar case subjects (like similar case studies IE like fifteen thousand IQ surveys done by the KKK) tend to have SIMILAR characteristics, similar facts, and similar origins. Ergo, it is not completely unreasonable to assume similar outcomes and traits. If it really were as simplistic as you accuse me of, I would be saying that South Vietnam likely seceded over slavery because that is why the American South seceded (nevermind the huge differences in those subjects).

Point flew right over your head. My point was supporting South Vietnam because it can turn into a democracy is stupid when various Communist countries themselves have became democratic.

No, the point went straight through your head and came out the other side while hitting nothing in between. This sort of shallow, surface-level comprehension would leave us asking why South Sudan didn't secede over retaining Black Slavery, or why it didn't secede out of anti-Communist influence (going off of the ROK and RVN). You are completely ignoring the rationale I gave for why your fallacy is wrong, and now you are trying to shove your fingers in your ears and rant "NyaNyaNyaICan'tHearYouNotListening." Nevermind the fact that that is not and never will be a valid counterargument or counterpoof, and just leaves the field to me.

Sorry, your very poor grammar threw me off. But thanks for not actually addressing my point.

A: When your posts stop being riddled with English mistakes of your own, you might be able to be taken seriously with such finger pointing.

B: The fact that I addressed your point will not change because you have said I haven't.

And international law means nothing in this. The agreement brokered was not supposed to be support by international law.

Obviously, you are either legally indifferent, morally indifferent, or both. An international agreement not supported by international law is *Invalid* for the same reasons you cannot legally make a contract out to commit murder. If international law really did not matter in this circumstance, the sack of scum wrapped in flesh known as Diem had any and every right to do whatever the frell he pleased pertaining to the pan-Vietnamese election. I notice you didn't account for that lovely little hole in your argumentation.

and once again The South was the one violating the right of self-determination. they refused their people the right to determine if they wanted to unify the country or remain separated.

I've already shot this one full of holes. I don't see the need to do this again.

A: Yes, the South was violating self-determination.

B: They were not the only ones.

C: Per the North, they were not even the larger violator.

D: If international law is such a dead horse in this case as you insist, none of this even *matters.* Because as self-determination is part of that overarching corpus of law, if it was invalid than Diem and Ho alike both had the freedom to do whatever the hell they wished to do and there was no legal basis for objecting whatsoever. You're basically doing what both sides of the divide were doing to Geneva itself: trying to selectively ignore and emphasize different parts of the argument.

Ignoring the fact that if Geneva and the situation in Indochina wasn't supposed to have the support of international law, you can't complain about Diem doing things illegal under its' definition, but if you do support that international law was in force you can't condemn Diem etc. al. and then give the North a free pass.

Choose one standard and stick to it.

International law does not matter. Do you even understand what this Accord was supposed to be? An agreement to unite the two countries by holding an election. south Vietnam did not want to hold it because Diem knew he would lose.

And in this sentence you singlehandedly prove YOU do not understand what the Accord was supposed to be about. I've just finished fisking the heck out of you just above, so no need to be redundant here.

Such as?

This is the point where I tell you to take a hike and dig them up for yourself. I was willing to extend to you the benefit of the doubt earlier by linking you to the Pentagon Papers, but your behavior in this post leaves me no reason to do so. Particularly since someone so nakedly biased as yourself would mean any and all effort I expend would be wasted on that matter.

But I will clarify one for myself here, free of charge and out of the goodness of my heart. Namely that in spite of the wording of Geneva itself, all sides agreed that they would not stand in the way of self-determination if that was what the electorate said. Now of course we know quite well that the electorate didn't say much of anything, so if the North complained on that basis alone they wouldn't have been doing anything unbecoming. But no, they shredded it completely and unnecessarily, and somehow insisted that no matter what the electorate said, there could not be a separation in Vietnam, thus somehow holding that an inferior set of laws (the agreement between the various factions at Geneva) should take precedence over a greater law. Namely that of self-determination, and which is one of the most basic principles of international law and the member bodies.

Yes, North Vietnam violated international law by wanting South Vietnam to adhere to the Geneva Accords, which they refused to do.

Not exactly; they violated international law by declaring that screw what all the past agreements said, Vietnam HAD to be unified no matter what any plebiscite, election, vote, or popularity contest said. Therefore taking whatever legal high ground they might have had and wizzing it away. Especially since by this point in time Geneva had so many holes coming from both sides it was more or less unworkable unless both sides were willing to take a step back and start more or less from scratch. Which neither were in the least.
I mean its not like South Vietnam refused to hold the elections, and thus denied their people's right to self determination at all. I am just sure all those South Vietnamese were glad to not be able to vote on whenever to unite with Norht Vietnam. Nope, this is all North Vietnam's fault.

Your now using this as an excuse when its not.

Excuse implies that it is not true or valid to begin with, which is absolutely not the case here. When even the people brutalized and defrauded by the South Vietnamese government think you're being overly barbaric, you have problems.

I do not care one whit what you judge or do not judge to be a valid excuse. It certainly does not wash away Diem's crime, but the idea that we have to reward mass murder and genocide just because (apparently) you like the Northern regime better than the Southern regime is fundamentally baseless.

By the way, that's "You're." Mr. Grammar.

You also haven't sourced it either.

I do have it sourced, I just don't care to waste my time digging through my files to put it up on here, for you, now. Particularly given how it would be of no use whatsoever on you. I also note you patently have not sourced plenty of your arguments either, not the least of which being the idea that Geneva somehow trumps international law when no it does not. So as before, you are not one to be pointing fingers at anyone, Mr. Grammar.

The only reason South Vietnam did not participate in the 1956 elections if because Ho Chi Mihn would have won.

Perhaps, but from a legal standpoint it isn't quite that clearcut. It isn't enough to say that without going in to the reasons of why. Not the least of which being that even if the only reason South Vietnam did not participate in the 1956 elections was because the Communists would have won, it is in large part because the Communists would have won through methods even more corrupt and vile than that of the Southern government. The other half is the obvious power grab and selfish ambition part, but the idea that we are obliged to turn and avert our eyes from voter fraud mixed with mass murder, torture, and general pillaging does not and will never cut muster. It's the same sort of shameful logic that holds that we would somehow have to accept Kansas becoming a Slave State because of an election and government voted in through violence and fraud (far worse than merely the latter alone).

The law is not your plaything like Diem, Minh, Ho, and Giap believed; it is not something you can throw away and ignore when you see fit.

Can you quote me where i defended the North Vietnamese elections or the tactics they have used? Oh wait, no where.

Challenge accepted. For the sake of time, I will only include the most recent few.

The only reason South Vietnam did not participate in the 1956 elections if because Ho Chi Mihn would have won.

International law does not matter. Do you even understand what this Accord was supposed to be? An agreement to unite the two countries by holding an election. south Vietnam did not want to hold it because Diem knew he would lose.

Yes, North Vietnam violated international law by wanting South Vietnam to adhere to the Geneva Accords, which they refused to do. Your now using this as an excuse when its not.

and once again The South was the one violating the right of self-determination.

Is that enough? Or should I continue?

By refusing to acknowledge the crimes of the North or the inherent illegitimacy of its' reign (something I have never pulled any punches on with the South), you are defending their regime and by extension how they came to power. You are an apologist for a totalitarian government far worse by any objective measure than that of the Southern banana republic, and you deserve to have all the exposure you want for that.

The only apologist here is you.

Saying that will not wash the blood you are soaking your hands on away. It will not change the truth. I've always admitted the basics that the South Vietnamese regime was illegally elected and maintained through corruption, graft, and authoritarianism. You have played with kid gloves about the far bloodier Northern Communist one. There is no balance.

South Vietnam was as corrupt and had just as bad election fraud as North Vietnam.

Found another one! So you somehow think that mass stuffing of the ballot box is as bad as serial shootings? Huh, odd. I wonder what the victims of both would believe....

The RVN was established through horrendous abuses of power and acts of corruption, and its' election fraud certainly makes it illegitimate, but the idea that that is on par with mass murder for the sake of voter intimidation does not fly with me.

Your only concern uis being an apologist for the South.

Then why have I beaten them about the ears so much on here, fellow traveller?

I showed they were just as bad with election fraud.

You did no such thing. Bodies outweigh ballot boxes, even stuffed ones.

And once again, the South Vietnamese denied their people the right of self-determination by refusing to participate in the 1956 elections. Do you understand this?

Yes, I do. I've only repeated that several times on here myself.

And once again, the Communists denied their people the right of self-determination by tainting the elections with blood and bodies on top of stuffed ballot boxes. Do you understand this? Do you even accept this?

It is fact you just refuse to believe. South Vietnam refused to allow its people to decide on whenever to unite the country or remain separated.

See above. This allegation against me has already been disproven. You're arguing against a strawman that has zero relation to what I've actually said. Or have you missed what I've been saying over and over again, and can provide quotes for?

How? The only comparison i mad between the two was that both were considered heroes and father's of their country. Nothing more, nothing less.

And that is exactly my point. The fact that you feel no moral compulsion to judge them accurately beyond that, or to do justice by their memories (both for good and for bad) shows the problem. Even in their times, Washington and Ho were very, very different people overall, and certainly revered as heroes differently. Washington didn't have to fight the Southern states and corrupt Southern elites (along with the Southern people)to accept his legitimacy because he had his men fix bayonets and load grapeshot to intimidate and bludgeon his way to power, alarming both the corrupt and the innocent alike. A fact like that is more than slightly relevant to this discussion here

Or you are just trying to donwplay just how rigged South Vietnam's elections were.

Or are you lacking in basic reading comprehension? You somehow think a passage where I *explicitly* condemn the Southern government's elections for being illegitimate even in comparison to the Guilded Age because at the least was a legitimate democracy somehow proves I'm trying to downplay the illegitimacy of the thing I just condemned? You are acting ignorant and rabid beyond belief.

Really? Can you quote me where i denied it?

Already done on this post. I'm not going to do it again.

Source the relevant passages.

I will to those I believe are acting in good faith. I refuse to do it for you. I value the time in my life too much to waste it doing that to someone who has shown himself to be inherently unreasonable, corrupt, and especially too daft to understand.

You would have to be daft to think Wikipedia isn't reliable.

Then I am daft and proud of it! Especially since I happen to know the many, many problems with it. If it isn't reliable, then why does Wikipedia go as far as to state that it itself isn't reliable enough to be used for scholarly work?

all my quotes have citations from various sources backing them up.

None of which change the facts a whit, and none of which excuse failure to research other sources.

Wikipedia is an accepted source here. Deal with it.

I am dealing with it quite well, thank you. I am just not foolish enough to believe it is the sort of concrete, absolute proof you seem to be hoping it is. Some of us actually know how to research, after all.

So nothing but conjecture?

If you want to be blunt? Yes. Absolutely. In the same sort of sense that someone doing physics is working on conjectures about the ball skidding off and falling down. I covered this before when talking about similar case subjects and the value of case examples. Conjecture is logically acceptable even where it is not absolute, strictly speaking. Deal with *that.*

You keep downplaying the South's role in this and trying to pin most of the blame on the North.

I have hardly if ever downplayed the South's role at all, and it's hard to NOT blame most of it on the North when what it did both North and South far dwarfed the actions of the Southern government alone. But yet again, we have the mind of the apologist, and more evidence that that is exactly what you are.

Your still missing the point, again. Both were corrupt horrible and both were known to use violent means to achieve what they want.

Both sucked. But only one was worth supporting.

No, you seem to be missing the point wholesale. What you say is absolutely true (albiet the implication that you are making- that the initial Southern fraud was largely the result of violence- is false). But what you fail to understand is that the "one" that was worth supporting was the South. Especially since unlike the North, it at least had decent amounts of people untied and untainted to the regime who still fought for that idea of the South. Much like I doubt all in the ROK fought for the sake of the Rhee dictatorship.

All you are doing is casting dust in the wind. By holding that between two choices- that of a totalitarian, mass murdering nightmare and an authoritarian banana republic= the *former* is the one that demands support, you yield any and all claim to the moral highground, or to intellectual dilligence. May God have mercy on your soul for I will not, and I suspect I am not the only one who won't.

Do some actual research.