Originally Posted by brughahaha

And Cambodia ( toppling the brutal khmer rouge) then the Chinese , often overlooked but equally impressive

But did Vietnam have a mandate from the UN and its deadlocked Security Council?

Khmer Rouge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Western governments repeatedly backed the Khmer Rouge in the U.N. and voted in favour of retaining the Cambodia's seat in the organization. Margaret Thatcher stated that "So, you'll find that the more reasonable ones of the Khmer Rouge will have to play some part in the future government, but only a minority part. I share your utter horror that these terrible things went on in Kampuchea.".[39]

What's a bit of genocide between allies?

Could you not have posted 'Giiap is 100' or numerous other non-comparative combinations of that general idea?

How could you not have foreseen that the Michael Collins part of your op would lead to the thread becoming bogged down almost immediately?

Why is everything about Michael Collins lately?

Oh and happy birthday to Giiap, the Viatnamese Che Guevara

Originally Posted by harry_w

But did Vietnam have a mandate from the UN and its deadlocked Security Council?

Khmer Rouge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
What's a bit of genocide between allies?

Indeed western support for Pol Pot has been airbrushed from much collective memory - as has dogged British and US support for Apartheid SA for many years

Originally Posted by brughahaha

Indeed western support for Pol Pot has been airbrushed from much collective memory - as has dogged British and US support for Apartheid SA for many years

Not airbrushed from all memories. They Yanks learned a lot from Vietnam, mostly how to keep the media sweet.
Vietnamese children are still dying in droves today as a result of Agent Orange.
Giap should not be compared to minnows like Guevara or any Irish. He was major league. Zhukov would be a better comparison.

Anyway, happy birthday General Giap. I reckon it will be your last but by God, you are indelible in the history books of your country.

This excerpt from Wiki gives an idea of how inspirational a figure Giap was. He proved that a colonised peasant country could defeat it's colonial master. To force the French out of Indo China was one thing but to follow that up with a comprehensive defeat of a world superpower, The United States, was awe-inspiring.

On 13 March 1954, Giáp launched his offensive. For 54 days, the Việt Minh seized position after position, pushing the French until they occupied only a small area of Ðiện Biên Phủ. Colonel Piroth, the artillery commander, blamed himself for the destruction of French artillery superiority. He told his fellow officers that he had been "completely dishonoured" and committed suicide with a hand grenade. General De Castries, French Commander in Ðiện Biên Phủ, was captured alive in his bunker. The French surrendered on May 7. Their casualties totaled over 2,200 men dead, 5,600 wounded and 11,721 taken prisoner. The following day the French government announced that it intended to withdraw from Vietnam.

Giap's victory over the French crushed the legend of Western invincibility and thus opened a new era in the struggles for national independence against colonialism. With this victory, the name of Vo Nguyen Giap has become identified throughout Africa and Latin America with the defeat of colonialism.

Originally Posted by brughahaha

Indeed western support for Pol Pot has been airbrushed from much collective memory - as has dogged British and US support for Apartheid SA for many years

It's easily seen how: When I checked the source for that quote...
Khmer Rouge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Western governments repeatedly backed the Khmer Rouge in the U.N. and voted in favour of retaining the Cambodia's seat in the organization. Margaret Thatcher stated that "So, you'll find that the more reasonable ones of the Khmer Rouge will have to play some part in the future government, but only a minority part. I share your utter horror that these terrible things went on in Kampuchea.".[39]

[39]^ "Margaret Thatcher – Transcript for the interview with Blue Peter in 1988". June 28, 2007. Retrieved January 25, 2010.

It's a good thing Blue Peter were on the case. Perhaps another successful campaign to gather bottle tops or something or other, but they did get the British Prime Minister on the record.

It wasn't the nodding dog coverage of BBC news and current affairs and their 'defence analysts' or 'security analysts' who tend to perform as cyphers for Ministry of Defence or Foreign Office briefings.

If it were left to BBC news & current affairs it would have slipped down a memory hole long ago. Aunty Beeb (cf. 'Big Brother') is the UK's Ministry of Truth.

Originally Posted by flavirostris

This excerpt from Wiki gives an idea of how inspirational a figure Giap was. He proved that a colonised peasant country could defeat it's colonial master. To force the French out of Indo China was one thing but to follow that up with a comprehensive defeat of a world superpower, The United States, was awe-inspiring.

That had been proven already, though it wasn't achieved primarily by Collins.

Originally Posted by harshreality

Could you not have posted 'Giiap is 100' or numerous other non-comparative combinations of that general idea?

How could you not have foreseen that the Michael Collins part of your op would lead to the thread becoming bogged down almost immediately?

Why is everything about Michael Collins lately?

Oh and happy birthday to Giiap, the Viatnamese Che Guevara

the op was penned one year ago-not this week - I would humbly suggest that had I not included collins in the op not a single reply would be received - the comparison with collins was simply to draw attention to the fact he to was a successful a freedom fighter and comparing himm to Che would only get the declan ganley fanclub/former employees delirious with indignation

Originally Posted by Cruimh

Wrong - sorry.

Ho had a deal with the Yanks that the price for their aid fighting the Japanese was that the USA would stop the French from returning. They betrayed them. Ho and many of his men, while leftist, were not Commies during WWII - the French and the Yanks drove them into the arms of the Commies - so the US rather than preventing the spread of the Communists managed to lose Vietnam to the Reds. If the USA had played fair Vietnam would have been a leftist democracy.

That is complete and utter horse poo. Well, the above and your prior post as well.

Next, re the "puppets" claim of some, well, some of you are well and truly both ignorant and stupid. From the late Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy (for you Frenchies, would be, La Rue Sans Joie):

What the battle [Dien Bien Phu] did not provide in material achievements, it amply made up in human (or rather inhuman) heroism. Lest one forgets--and one easily does---one-third of the garrison was Vietnamese when the battle opened in March 1954. Another 25 percent were Foreign Legionnaires, 22 percent were mainland French, and 20 percent were African (mostly Moroccan). In the course of the battle, five more paratroop battalions--one Vietnamese, one Foreign Legionnaire and the other three mainland French--and three complete Airborne Surgical Detachments were parachuted into the flaming hell of the valley, bringing the share of mainland French in the garrison up to 35 percent. Special mention should be made of the 1,530 volunteers who jumped into Dien Bien Phu as individual replacements for specialists (radiomen, gunners, etc.) who had become casualties. Of those men, 680 had never jumped from an airplane, and again, there were almost eight hundred Vietnamese who were dropped into the fortress. The last group of 94 volunteers were dropped in at 0520 on May 6--one day before the fortress fell. This perhaps was the best answer to those who, to this day, like to dismiss the French-trained Vietnamese forces as mere "mercenaries". For what Dien Bien Phu had to offer one day before its fall, there was just not enough money around to make it worth the fight.

And you nimrods might want to read up on the Battle of Xuan Loc.

Next:

Force KIA WIA
US Forces 47,378 304,704
ARVN 223,748 1,169,763
South Korea 4,407 17,060
Australia 469 2,940
Thailand 351 1,358
New Zealand 55 212
NVA/VC 1,100,000 600,000

When you include our non-hostile deaths, like, say, road accident death(s), add another 10,000 or so, to get 58,000 KIA.

So some great combat leaders, Giap, and the rest, whose forces took over 1 million KIA, as compared with roughly a third of that number for the opposition KIA, most of whom, as you can see, were ARVN, etc.

Now back to horse poo, courtesy of Wikipedia:

In 1923, Nguyễn (Hồ) left Paris for Moscow, where he was employed by the Comintern, studied at the Communist University of the Toilers of the East,[8][9] and participated in the Fifth Comintern Congress in June 1924, before arriving in Canton (present-day Guangzhou), China, in November 1924.

Strange activity, there, for a purported non-communist soul. You might want to read up on how, in the immediate aftermath of WWII, your beloved Ho and his sociopathic mates went about the place annihilating all those other Viet nationalists who weren't communist. In the meantime, as I've always said, Wikipedia is largely run by loony toons lefty types, so we get this tame statement here as well:

According to some sources, 1945, in a power struggle, the Việt Minh killed members of rival groups, such as the leader of the Constitutional Party, the head of the Party for Independence, and Ngô Đình Diệm's brother, Ngô Ðình Khôi. Purges and killings of Trotskyists were also documented in The Black Book of Communism.

So, not only rival nationalists, but fellow communists, of the Trotskyist type. Or you might say:

In August 1945, Ho's Vietminh seized power and set up a provisional government in the wake of Japan's withdrawal from Vietnam. This move violated a prior agreement between the member parties of the Viet Nam Cach Mang Dong Minh Hoi (Vietnamese Revolutionary League), which included the VNQDD as well as the Vietminh, and Ho was pressured to broaden his government's appeal by including the VNQDD (now led by Nguyen Tuong Tam). The Vietminh announced that they would abolish the mandarin governance system and hold national elections with universal suffrage... The VNQDD objected to this, fearing that the communists would perpetrate electoral fraud.

After the seizure of power, hundreds of VNQDD members returned from China, only to be killed at the border by the Vietminh...Once the majority of the non-communist nationalists had returned to Vietnam, the VNQDD banded with them to form an anti-Vietminh alliance. The VNQDD and the Dai Viet Quoc Dan Dang (DVQDD, Nationalist Party of Greater Vietnam) started their own military academy at Yen Bai to train their own military recruits. Armed confrontations between the Vietminh and the nationalists occurred regularly in major northern cities.

The Ho Sainteny agreement, signed on March 6, 1946, saw the return of French colonial forces to Vietnam, replacing the Chinese nationalists who were supposed to be maintaining order. The VNQDD were now without their main supporters. As a result, the VNQDD were further attacked by the French, who often encircled VNQDD strongholds, enabling Vietminh attacks. Giap's army hunted down VNQDD troops and cleared them from the Red River Delta, seizing arms and arresting party members, who were falsely charged with crimes ranging from counterfeiting to unlawful arms possession. The Vietminh massacred thousands of VNQDD members and other nationalists in a large scale purge. Most of the survivors fled to China or French-controlled areas in Vietnam.

Or French controlled areas in Vietnam. As related, does the name, Diem, ring a bell? Just one of those who went south. As the one other Viet says in the US documentary series, Vietnam: A Television History:

Do you remember the election in 1971 of Nguyen Van Thieu? Do you have any thoughts about that? What did you think about the fact that he was the only candidate? What did you think about the Communists at that time?

Well, as the only candidate I don't think it's a very democratic way of an election. But ah...Well, I don't deal with politics and I think politics is a dirty word because you are playing with human lives. So ah...I don't think it is right first thing to have a single man for an election. And also I don't think much about him – because I don't think he is a good man in any...any sense – but I would support him many time if I have the Communists in hands. If I have to think about supporting Thieu or the Communists, I'd vote for Thieu any time.

Something the ignorant and/or the stupid still don't get to this day. This site, politics.ie, would be banned in Vietnam, and you nimrods would spend 5-8 years in the hole for daring to go online in support of a multiparty democracy. So some great and glorious liberation, you entirely dim nimrods.

Now back to our "puppets", some of whom are here holding captured PAVN flags after overrunning PAVN units during the Battle of Xuan Loc:



The Spartans at Thermopylae would surely consider the 18th ARVN Division as comrades in arms.

Oh, and did you hear the story of the ARVN trooper in the one photo who went into battle at Xuan Loc with a badminton racquet as part of his gear? For why:

Some sources indicate that the commanders of the ARVN 18th Division during its 10 day stand at Xuan Loc had created a “combat myth”. The RGM-16 is one of them. The weapon was a “radar guided” (RG) M-16 rifle that some ARVN soldiers carried into battle. It was hoped that the myth would make the NVA more cautious in combat actions for the weapon with its portable radar antenna (a badminton racquet, carried on the back) could differentiate NVA soldiers from civilians and ARVN, making the NVA unable to use innocent civilians as human shields or to blend among them. Also, a single bullet could penetrate several enemy soldiers when radar guided. It is unknown if the myth and rumor had any impact on the NVA soldiers when conducting close assaults like at Xuan Loc, but it is quite funny.

As someone, a Viet escapee, so aptly said, the war ended with a barbarous tribe overrunning a civilized society. Something else that the ignorant and/or stupid still do not get.

Well and truly lastly, for Cruimh, read up, and get yourself a horse:

As U.S. Army Major Allison Thomas sat down to dinner with Ho Chi Minh and General Vo Nguyen Giap on September 15, 1945, he had one vexing question on his mind. Ho had secured power a few weeks earlier, and Thomas was preparing to leave Hanoi the next day and return stateside, his mission complete. He and a small team of Americans had been in French Indochina with Ho and Giap for two months, as part of an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) mission to train Viet Minh guerrillas and gather intelligence to use against the Japanese in the waning days of World War II. But now, after Ho's declaration of independence and Japan's surrender the previous month, the war in the Pacific was over. So was the OSS mission in Indochina. At this last dinner with his gracious hosts, Thomas decided to get right to the heart of it. So many of the reports he had filed with the OSS touched on Ho's ambiguous allegiances and intents, and Thomas had had enough. He asked Ho point-blank: Was he a Communist? Ho replied: "Yes. But we can still be friends, can't we?

You can read the rest here:

Ho Chi Minh and the OSS

No promise as you claim was ever made. And please note comment 10, which is entirely spot on:

The real story is how Ho used the OSS. Although this history is pretty much historically accurate it nevertheless ends in a wrong conclusion because it begins with a wrong premise. This thinking belongs to the anti-war movement and PBS Vietnam: A Television History school of thought. It is the kind of thinking that seeks to blame the U.S. for the turn of nationalists into Communists simply because the U.S. didn't help them when they came for help. Ho Chi Min was a committed Komintern type communist through and through who used nationalism and whatever means necessary to incorporate Vietnam into the international struggle for Communism. Even if the US had helped Ho obtain independence he would just have used the US and in the end establish a Communist regime just like Fidel Castro did. The naiveté of the OSS officers in taking Ho at his words as if he were some kind of George Washington is more than obvious. Later as the CIA they also believed the Castro brothers.

Even Wikipedia agrees, since the indisputable history is that Ho was a fellow traveler long before WWII.

Originally Posted by harry_w

It's easily seen how: When I checked the source for that quote...
Khmer Rouge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


[39]^ "Margaret Thatcher – Transcript for the interview with Blue Peter in 1988". June 28, 2007. Retrieved January 25, 2010.

It's a good thing Blue Peter were on the case. Perhaps another successful campaign to gather bottle tops or something or other, but they did get the British Prime Minister on the record.

It wasn't the nodding dog coverage of BBC news and current affairs and their 'defence analysts' or 'security analysts' who tend to perform as cyphers for Ministry of Defence or Foreign Office briefings.

If it were left to BBC news & current affairs it would have slipped down a memory hole long ago. Aunty Beeb (cf. 'Big Brother') is the UK's Ministry of Truth.

More ignorance and stupidity. A prior post of mine on another thread:

And you'd have to be a fool to think that the Viet invasion of Cambodia was any different. You can add the notion of lebensraum as well, since one of the events of the time was Viet immigration into Cambodia with official policy the decree that the local Khmers had to give them land and even help them build their houses. You can also add that for just over a decade, the Viets refused to allow any govt save for the communist govt they had installed. Led by some Khmer Rouge, by the way, those cadre from the formerly purged East Zone who had managed to flee into Vietnam before they could be purged. The Viets were in fact colonial masters, illustrated most perfectly by the Viet army's forced conscription of Khmer peasants to be perform corvee labor on military projects.

And so you know, there was this group called the Coalition Government of Democratic Kampuchea (CGDK). When the CGDK presented their credentials to the UN General Assembly, 90 countries voted to recognize the CGDK and not the Viet puppets as the ruling party of Cambodia. There was also the yearly vote on Viet withdrawal from Cambodia. 91 in favor in '79, 97 in '80 and 100 in '81. In '82 and '83 was 105 in favor and 23 against. The Get The Fvck Out Now vote rose to 110 in favor in '84. And who was CGDK? Included many, including other Khmer Rouge as well. This is why, by the way, I know when some are mere parrots of Soviet propaganda, since all we ever hear about is China and the US supporting the Khmer Rouge following Viet invasion and regime overthrow. Except that it wasn't just the US and China but the vast majority of the rest of the world. And not because anyone but Chomsky & Co are fond of the Red Khmer, but instead because the Viet invasion was not based on notions of sweetness and light. And back to those 23 votes against, well, who you think that was? Say the Sovs, the Warsaw Pact remainder, Cuba, etc? You'd be right, as that's who it was, and you can add India to round out the list. Everyone else saw it for what it was.

Almost forgot, but do you know why the East Zone was purged? Because the Viets had a policy of infiltrating the communist parties in neighboring lands. And so all those cadre who had been to Vietnam and been educated/indoctrinated/trained by the Viets were purged.

And that's what Tuol Sleng was all about, since if you read the Red Khmer's official publication, Revolutionary Flags, you can read for yourself that they never resigned themselves to the notion that they had successfully purged all of the Viet infiltrators. And as their revolution failed, just as Mao's had, their paranoia reached insanity and so whereas Tuol Sleng registrations were 2,250 in '76 they had shot up to almost 10,000 within four years. But I digress...

You might also add notion of mutual racial disdain. You are aware, yes, that Saigon on south were once called Kampuchea Krom? So the Khmers have a long history of understanding Viet expansion and expulsion. So do the Laotians.

Lastly, you also left out that the Viets were responsible for the Khmer Rouge being in power. Absent Viet training and aid, the Red Khmers would never have overthrown the Khmer Republic.

So everyone but your fellow travelers took the same position as the US. So, now that we've established that you are sadly misinformed, or entirely dim...