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Edited Vietnamizations section to rework statement that Nixon's diplomacy caused a reduction in aid to NVN. Quite the contrary, such aid INCREASED as detailed by respected US military historians who themselves served in Vietnam.
in the North. That support continued, enabling the North Vietnamese to mount a full-scale conventional war against the South, complete with tanks, upgraded jet fighters and a modern fuel pipeline snaking through parts of Laos and North Vietnam to the front, to feed the North Vietnamese invasions in 1972 and 1975. The fact that the NVA/PAVN was able to mount such attacks despite massive US bombing indicates that military assistance *INCREASED* not decreased. Nixon's "opening" to China helped pressure North Vietnam back to the bargaining table, allowing America a face saving exit, or "a decent interval" as Kissinger called it. Military writers such as David Palmer ("Summons of the Trumpet") and Harry Summers ("On Strategy") detail the massive influx of material to the NVA/PAVN even after Nixon's diplomatic moves, as well as the continued presence of personnel from other communist countries, including Chinese and Russian troops. Those are the indisputable facts. Enriquecardova 08:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
You English is quite good, User:82.27.205.64|82.27.205.64, except you kept using words like "Vietnameses" and "Chineses". There are no such words in English anymore than "Frenches" or "Englishes". The plural forms for "Vietnamese" and "Chinese" is the same as the singular. Signed: Bac Ca
The first Indo Chinese war had civilian casualties on the hundreds of thousands, it then that the Vietnamese won their independence. For purposes of security, not reflecting political sentiments of the populance, the country was divided in two. Ho Chi Mihn allowed this so that Chinese forces (sent in by the allies) would abandon the north. It was done with a promise that the will of the electorate would be heard after two years. Diem was installed in the South without any democratic support, none. This i call the establishment of a proxy US government in South Vietnam. This is a colonial practice. If you want to use today's lingo, it is a neo imperialist practice. The US then sent over a million men to Indochina and proceded to murder millions of peasants. Is anything i am saying untrue?
As far as i understand this is all accepted by the US, i haven't even touched unaccepted truths. The US sent its troops because elections would have proven fatal to the unpopular DIem and the reunification of Viet Nam would have occurred peacefully. This was against US interests.
Laos, Cambodia and VIetnam went on to suffer a decade of bombing and poisoning by the US. The US was not invited to Cambodia, it was most certainly not invited to Laos and i can assure you that Diem was hardly representative of the Vietnamese people as he had been instated by the US. That is an invasion, perhaps not quite as honest as that of Claudius in Britain but certainly as desastrous to the native population.
All i ask is a scholarly citation to prove that the past "statistics" are not anything but propaganda. "The Vietnam War did not prove domino theory wrong", please cease to use Cold War dogma in civilized conversation. The world knows of the horrors of the North American Empire. I am merely asking that the North American people finally debunk the propaganda or offer some proof. I am tired of seeing your army of death go into any country it pleases claiming there was a civil war. When the majority fights to obtain its rightful power it isnt a civil war, its democratization.
This page contains a picture of alleged American war crimes. If they are going to be shown there should also be pictures of alleged or confirmed Vietcong or NVR war crimes which are numerous.
A Question: If the United States hadn't started Vietnamization and pulled troops out of the country, would Vietnam be a democratic country today?
Vietnam would be a democratic country today if the US had been helping Chu Tich Ho Chi Minh from the start of the French War. Ionius Mundus 06:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Could use a picture of McNamara? savidan (talk) (e@) 08:53, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
It cites no sources. Is the "further reading" lists texts still to be read or have they all been read and incorporated - some clarification as to sources is needed. Minor things like POV linking (America but not USSR and PR of China in the lead) and weird use of headers. Also it is so big (>100kb) that it's a bit much for one person to read through and evaluate every bit - it might be more suited for WP:Peer Review for a longer list of more specific criticism, in order to help improve the article. Poulsen 07:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
"More than 2 Vietnamese cows and lambs were killed so far by landmines and unexploded ordnance. [6]" If someone knows true number, please fill it in.
It seems to me that the 'timelines' of U.S. involvement during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy Presidencies (with the exception of the long, exegetical paragraphs immediately after the Kennedy timeline) are very underdeveloped. I added a expansion request as well as a notice here and on the Expansion Request page. Secos5 17:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I have changed "military advisers" to "military troops" and added one external link too Bharatveer 07:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted to re insert removed external link Bharatveer 11:54, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have added citation needed tag regarding Diem. Bharatveer 13:45, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
This is no article; it's a book!
I propose an agressive plan to shorten the article. "Back home" attitudes should be mentioned, having its own paragraph not pages of text. Move to wikibooks and build a new article from the existing text.
The article should not be shortened one bit. Doing so would deprive it of important information. It would make no sense to shorten it. That would only lessen its value. Ionius Mundus 06:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Boy Howdy! Vietnam as the most important military conflict of the second half of the 20th Century? How about WWII, the Chinese Civil War, or Korea? Talk about your skewed perspectives. If there is going to be a paradigm for military conflict during the post-WWII period (the Cold War), it will be the Korean Conflict, for the reasons stated by the author of the above entry. Containment was the name of the game. Same opponents. Almost the same allies. Same goal, except that it worked for the capitalist/Western side. Think about historical perspective for a moment. In 50 to 100 years, when all of the protagonists (and their grinding axes) have all been laid to rest and all of the dust has settled, Vietnam (and the new Iraq "War" for that matter) will be no more historically important than Great Britain's Egyptian Expedition of 1882 - remember that one? 12.152.8.229 16:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The Vietnamese Wikipedia titles this page Chiến tranh Việt Nam, whereas this page claims the name is Cuộc chiến Việt Nam. I see references to what is literally the "French War" in the discussion, or the "American War" there and in the first paragraph of the article as well, but neither of these are listed on the page as Vietnamese names of the war. There are some major discrepencies here! 59.112.50.53 21:03, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Edit: Sorry, the first is noted after all, just not bolded. What of the "American War"? 59.112.50.53 21:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Why does this article only reflect the anti war movements point of view? Why is wikipedia so liberal? Most articles seem to refer to Christianity, Conservatism, ect. as "the bad guy". Many citizens of America supported the war in vietnam. This article makes it seem like noone did. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sunoco ( talk • contribs) 17:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a simply massive amount of extremely POV information that fails to cite sources. I propose that we collect uncited POV information into their relevant sections within the article, verify what we can, qualify, quantify, modify, and/or delete what we cannot, and then go through the article in one massive coordinated search and destroy, (or sweep and clear, if you will) making all neccessary changes that have been agreed upon by concensus. Unless there are extremely compelling reasons, I'm going to start a collection of unsourced claims in a few days. -- Irongaard 02:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
good link for info
Good idea. A pretty clear one is in the first paragraph: "Enourmous numbers of civilian casualties resulted from the whole war in Vietnam, most of them being inflicted by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA, Viet Cong Socialist forces). "
Fantastic article - the casualty statistics on the top-right is very useful. However, there were additional casualties from other countries which participated. See the Australian War Memorial website at http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/statistics/vietnam.htm
The History Channel aired a documentary on spies about 2 years ago. One segment was on the spies China sent into southeast Asia soon after their Communist revolution. It said that one eventually became the head of South Vietnam's Special Forces and to this day, there are no known photographs of the man and nobody knows his real, Chinese, name. The other one mentioned worked his way to the job of Vietnam Buereau Chief for TIME Magazine.
Two excellent positions for making a mess of things. One sends the South's military plans to the North and the other sends propaganda to be published in TIME in the USA.
Other Chinese spies in the same group were trained to work their way into influential government, military and civilian positions as part of a long term plan for an eventual takeover of southeast Asia, much as the USSR was invading and taking over eastern European countries, sometimes adding them to the territory of the Soviet 'Republic', sometimes installing puppet governments taking orders from the Soviet government.
Far as I know, this documentary has only been broadcast once. I've searched the history channel site, but wasn't able to find it.
Just something more to research.
And here's an item that may be in 'urban legend' territory. I've heard that one big USO show in Vietnam had its big stage erected directly above a large underground NVA command center and nobody knew it until years later.
February 1946 - The French sign an agreement with China. France gives up its concessions in Shanghai and other Chinese ports. In exchange, China agrees to assist the French in returning to Vietnam north of the 16th parallel.
Wasn't it supposed to be the 17th Parallel?
The article states in the "Gulf of Tonkin and the Westmoreland Expansion (1964)" section that 'a few thousand Canadaians' served in Vietnam, however no source is listed. Does anyone know if there is a source for this? I don't believe that any Canadian armed forces served in Vietnam, however I do believe that many dual Canadian/American citizens served in the US military in Vietnam. While these are indeed Canadians in Vietnam, the article makes it sound as though there was participation from the Canadian government, which I don't believe was the case. Burtonpe 17:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I have left the following message on the user's talk page:
-- A Y Arktos\ talk 20:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the article should be structured by US presidents; too US-centered. It would be more neutral to subdivide it by occurrences in the war. 24.64.223.203 06:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
-- A Y Arktos\ talk 21:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed there isn't much about South Vietnamese military victories, its all about American "victories" here. It seems to me that American authors (Both on wikipedia and other sources) try to portray Vietnamese as weaklings by writing about how the Communist always losing, while the ARVN hardly win anything.
If Vietnamese are weak than Americans ain't no hercules either. -- Canpark 11:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Canpark-- Canpark 11:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Canpark except that Westerner = Western perspective. I have never yet left the West, but I have done a lot of research on modern Vietnamese history, and it seems obvious that the American perspective distorts almost everything while the Vietnamese perspective is generally almost exactly the truth. Unfortunately, it is true that most Westerners are as you described. Just recently another user blocked me from using the term 'puppet administration' to refer to the Southern Goverment, which was effectively both an American puppet and a dictatorship. I also believe that most Americans protesting the war were trying to save American soldiers, not Vietnamese. Ionius Mundus 12:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
No, I am portraying the Vietnam War protests. One example of this is Jane Fonda, who said she cried every day in Vietnam, but not for the Vietnamese, for the Americans. Of course protesters' motivations were all over the spectrum, the majority seem to be represented by this. Ionius Mundus 15:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
You have a point about villification of the soldiers. I do not know much about the protests, so I was judging by what I had heard. Thank you for pointing this out. Ionius Mundus 15:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, I will check this out. -- Ionius Mundus 16:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
In this article, there are only two sentences about Soviet involvement. The Vietnam War was one of the theatres of the Cold War. The Cold War included both the US and the USSR. It just seems there's a lot about why the Americans got involved but not much at all as to why the Soviets got involved or how they helped.
The U.S. killed millions of Vietnamese and failed to create a stable country friendly to American interests. However, the outcome was certainly not a military defeat, as the box says. There was no intent to invade or occupy, nor was there a forcible withdrawal of the military.
-- Tajmahall 04:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
In combat the DRV soliders fought not only Americans, but they also fought South Korean, Australian, New Zealand, Thai and Filipino troops as well. Oh, and don't forget the South Vietnamese, the Americans used Vietnamese to kill Vietnamese.
Crediting the the US military for the 1,000,000+ dead DRV soldiers is nothing more than a distortion of history as troops from other nations also took part in combat. -- Canpark 08:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
The Vietnamese people wanted independence and freedom at all costs. In WWII the Allies lost more than 1,000,000 people, I'm sure. Did the Allies achieve a military victory? Clearly, they did. The side withe the least casualties winning? Certainly nọt The South Vietnamese puppet administration is long gone. How could it have won a military victory? -- Ionius Mundus 07:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
You are correct that corruption and economic failure appeared not long after President Hồ Chí Minh's death, and that the Vietnamese people wanted peace and an end to the war. But theay also wanted an end to foreign domination, which is what most saw the Southern puppet administration as. You are wrong that the Liberation of the South held Vietnam back economically and politically. The South was far worse, and at least the North had the memory of Bác Hồ. Furthermore, I don't see what your edit even has to do with this section. By the way, you are being biased by erasing /Liberation. There is citation for the exaggeration of the landlord campaign. If you would like, maybe the landlord campaign section can be split in half, one part representing the opinions of the South and America, and the other with the opinions of the North. With all due respect. -- Ionius Mundus 01:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I have been using "U.S." instead of "US", "adviser" instead of "advisor", and "materiel" instead of material (in the case of military supplies, I believe "materiel" is correct. It was, at any rate, the conventional usage at the time of the Vietnam War)
Can we stick to these conventional usages for consistency's sake? U.S., U.S.A., U.S.S.R., adviser, materiel, communist (not Communist)...We don't say Capitalist, we say capitalist. So I think the lower case is correct for "communist" as well. No disrespect intended. Also, communism in the last two centuries has been an international movement. It is not as though a communist can automatically be identified with a particular locality the way, say, a German can. Also: "the south", not "the South"; "the north", not "the North".
As I see more potential usage conflicts, I will add to this list. In the meantime, a good rule of thumb is simply to be consistent with what is already in the article -- unless it's glaringly incorrect.
By the way, someone besides me will have to put in the correct Vietnamese spellings for such terms as "Ho Chi Minh". starkt 10:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Please don't convert the article to Vietnamese spellings. Use standard English, e.g. Ho Chi Minh is spelled so, without diacritics. Use of Vietnamese diacritics is virtually unknown in English publications. Otherwise I agree with Habap; the South and the North are capitalized when they are shorthand for the two countries. Communist is often capitalized when it refers to a concrete political movement or party. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with dropping diacritics, as they are the key to pronunciation. If you do drop the diacritics, at least leave them on the first mention of a name for reference. Also, North and South should be capitalized when refering to political entities. -- Ionius Mundus 23:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I, for example, can pronounce written Vietnamese, but I can not read much Vietnamese. The diacritics are as much a part of the name as the letters. Plus, It is annoying to have to look up the proper spelling of a name you don't know. For these reasons we should include diacritics, at least on the first mention of a name.
Even a fluent speaker of Vietnamese who does not recognize a name will find it cumbersome to look it up, especially if it does not have a wiki link. Use the diacritics the first time, then I ask for no more. -- Ionius Mundus 04:43, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
We need to get citations for rather a lot.
Can we begin with this: "On the communist side, even before the Geneva Accords were signed, Ho Chi Minh had prepared to attack South Vietnam in case unification failed to take place through elections. His preparations included communication with thousands of covert communist agents in the south and the hiding of numerous weapons caches."? Cripipper 18:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Material on human rights in North Vietnam during the 1950s is being repeatedly removed from the page. The reasons given are that is somehow irrelivant. Following this logic, I then removed the corrisponding material about human rights in South Vietnam. These edits were immediately restored. The newer logic offered is that somehow the "vietnam war" isn't about "vietnam" but about South Vietnam and that somehow events in North Vietnam that in this case led to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing south and thousands of political opponents of the regime being rounded up are not relivant to the Vietnam War. I consider the removals of material to be an attempt to introduce POV into the page and unless someone can present some reasonable logic otherwise, the material will continue be restored to the page. 168.127.0.51 19:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
205.188.117.70 01:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Cripipper removed your sourced information as well as mine. I simply added my sourced information which you excluded when adding the section again. -- Ionius Mundus 02:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Correct. -- Ionius Mundus 22:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
This article is already very long, and there is a fair bit of duplication between the 'From Colonialism to U.S. Intervention' and the subsequent sections on Truman through to Kennedy. It seems to me it might be sensible to move this section to a seperate article called 'The United States and Vietnam, 1945-63' or something similar. ?? Cripipper 19:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
:::Seriously, "conquer" is such a strong word-- Canpark 05:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
He was already a socialist because he thought that the principles of true socialism matched the principles of the West. He had to turn to Communist aid because the West continually ignored him. He really must have seen asking the Western governments for help as hopeless when he learned the the USA had offered France atomic bombs to drop on Việt Nam. He admired the USA, except for its treatment of African-Americans in particular. Again, he wrote a lot on the subject. You seem to be equating socialism with evil. I suggest that you read a little about Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and then let's see if you still think so. -- Ionius Mundus 15:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we have a good article now, and should talk about shortening it. Or not shortening it, as the case may be. I'm satisfied with its length. There is a lot to cover. We might spin off some material as separate articles with links. But I have no strong feelings either way. starkt 11:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
It is obvious that there is too much controversy over the subject to only include one side. We should rewrite sections to give the opinions of both sides. -- Ionius Mundus 15:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 10 |
Edited Vietnamizations section to rework statement that Nixon's diplomacy caused a reduction in aid to NVN. Quite the contrary, such aid INCREASED as detailed by respected US military historians who themselves served in Vietnam.
in the North. That support continued, enabling the North Vietnamese to mount a full-scale conventional war against the South, complete with tanks, upgraded jet fighters and a modern fuel pipeline snaking through parts of Laos and North Vietnam to the front, to feed the North Vietnamese invasions in 1972 and 1975. The fact that the NVA/PAVN was able to mount such attacks despite massive US bombing indicates that military assistance *INCREASED* not decreased. Nixon's "opening" to China helped pressure North Vietnam back to the bargaining table, allowing America a face saving exit, or "a decent interval" as Kissinger called it. Military writers such as David Palmer ("Summons of the Trumpet") and Harry Summers ("On Strategy") detail the massive influx of material to the NVA/PAVN even after Nixon's diplomatic moves, as well as the continued presence of personnel from other communist countries, including Chinese and Russian troops. Those are the indisputable facts. Enriquecardova 08:09, 8 March 2006 (UTC)
You English is quite good, User:82.27.205.64|82.27.205.64, except you kept using words like "Vietnameses" and "Chineses". There are no such words in English anymore than "Frenches" or "Englishes". The plural forms for "Vietnamese" and "Chinese" is the same as the singular. Signed: Bac Ca
The first Indo Chinese war had civilian casualties on the hundreds of thousands, it then that the Vietnamese won their independence. For purposes of security, not reflecting political sentiments of the populance, the country was divided in two. Ho Chi Mihn allowed this so that Chinese forces (sent in by the allies) would abandon the north. It was done with a promise that the will of the electorate would be heard after two years. Diem was installed in the South without any democratic support, none. This i call the establishment of a proxy US government in South Vietnam. This is a colonial practice. If you want to use today's lingo, it is a neo imperialist practice. The US then sent over a million men to Indochina and proceded to murder millions of peasants. Is anything i am saying untrue?
As far as i understand this is all accepted by the US, i haven't even touched unaccepted truths. The US sent its troops because elections would have proven fatal to the unpopular DIem and the reunification of Viet Nam would have occurred peacefully. This was against US interests.
Laos, Cambodia and VIetnam went on to suffer a decade of bombing and poisoning by the US. The US was not invited to Cambodia, it was most certainly not invited to Laos and i can assure you that Diem was hardly representative of the Vietnamese people as he had been instated by the US. That is an invasion, perhaps not quite as honest as that of Claudius in Britain but certainly as desastrous to the native population.
All i ask is a scholarly citation to prove that the past "statistics" are not anything but propaganda. "The Vietnam War did not prove domino theory wrong", please cease to use Cold War dogma in civilized conversation. The world knows of the horrors of the North American Empire. I am merely asking that the North American people finally debunk the propaganda or offer some proof. I am tired of seeing your army of death go into any country it pleases claiming there was a civil war. When the majority fights to obtain its rightful power it isnt a civil war, its democratization.
This page contains a picture of alleged American war crimes. If they are going to be shown there should also be pictures of alleged or confirmed Vietcong or NVR war crimes which are numerous.
A Question: If the United States hadn't started Vietnamization and pulled troops out of the country, would Vietnam be a democratic country today?
Vietnam would be a democratic country today if the US had been helping Chu Tich Ho Chi Minh from the start of the French War. Ionius Mundus 06:25, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Could use a picture of McNamara? savidan (talk) (e@) 08:53, 4 April 2006 (UTC)
It cites no sources. Is the "further reading" lists texts still to be read or have they all been read and incorporated - some clarification as to sources is needed. Minor things like POV linking (America but not USSR and PR of China in the lead) and weird use of headers. Also it is so big (>100kb) that it's a bit much for one person to read through and evaluate every bit - it might be more suited for WP:Peer Review for a longer list of more specific criticism, in order to help improve the article. Poulsen 07:34, 6 April 2006 (UTC)
"More than 2 Vietnamese cows and lambs were killed so far by landmines and unexploded ordnance. [6]" If someone knows true number, please fill it in.
It seems to me that the 'timelines' of U.S. involvement during the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy Presidencies (with the exception of the long, exegetical paragraphs immediately after the Kennedy timeline) are very underdeveloped. I added a expansion request as well as a notice here and on the Expansion Request page. Secos5 17:46, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I have changed "military advisers" to "military troops" and added one external link too Bharatveer 07:13, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have reverted to re insert removed external link Bharatveer 11:54, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
I have added citation needed tag regarding Diem. Bharatveer 13:45, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
This is no article; it's a book!
I propose an agressive plan to shorten the article. "Back home" attitudes should be mentioned, having its own paragraph not pages of text. Move to wikibooks and build a new article from the existing text.
The article should not be shortened one bit. Doing so would deprive it of important information. It would make no sense to shorten it. That would only lessen its value. Ionius Mundus 06:15, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Boy Howdy! Vietnam as the most important military conflict of the second half of the 20th Century? How about WWII, the Chinese Civil War, or Korea? Talk about your skewed perspectives. If there is going to be a paradigm for military conflict during the post-WWII period (the Cold War), it will be the Korean Conflict, for the reasons stated by the author of the above entry. Containment was the name of the game. Same opponents. Almost the same allies. Same goal, except that it worked for the capitalist/Western side. Think about historical perspective for a moment. In 50 to 100 years, when all of the protagonists (and their grinding axes) have all been laid to rest and all of the dust has settled, Vietnam (and the new Iraq "War" for that matter) will be no more historically important than Great Britain's Egyptian Expedition of 1882 - remember that one? 12.152.8.229 16:06, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The Vietnamese Wikipedia titles this page Chiến tranh Việt Nam, whereas this page claims the name is Cuộc chiến Việt Nam. I see references to what is literally the "French War" in the discussion, or the "American War" there and in the first paragraph of the article as well, but neither of these are listed on the page as Vietnamese names of the war. There are some major discrepencies here! 59.112.50.53 21:03, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Edit: Sorry, the first is noted after all, just not bolded. What of the "American War"? 59.112.50.53 21:06, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Why does this article only reflect the anti war movements point of view? Why is wikipedia so liberal? Most articles seem to refer to Christianity, Conservatism, ect. as "the bad guy". Many citizens of America supported the war in vietnam. This article makes it seem like noone did. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sunoco ( talk • contribs) 17:58, 30 May 2006 (UTC)
There is a simply massive amount of extremely POV information that fails to cite sources. I propose that we collect uncited POV information into their relevant sections within the article, verify what we can, qualify, quantify, modify, and/or delete what we cannot, and then go through the article in one massive coordinated search and destroy, (or sweep and clear, if you will) making all neccessary changes that have been agreed upon by concensus. Unless there are extremely compelling reasons, I'm going to start a collection of unsourced claims in a few days. -- Irongaard 02:28, 1 June 2006 (UTC)
good link for info
Good idea. A pretty clear one is in the first paragraph: "Enourmous numbers of civilian casualties resulted from the whole war in Vietnam, most of them being inflicted by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA, Viet Cong Socialist forces). "
Fantastic article - the casualty statistics on the top-right is very useful. However, there were additional casualties from other countries which participated. See the Australian War Memorial website at http://www.awm.gov.au/atwar/statistics/vietnam.htm
The History Channel aired a documentary on spies about 2 years ago. One segment was on the spies China sent into southeast Asia soon after their Communist revolution. It said that one eventually became the head of South Vietnam's Special Forces and to this day, there are no known photographs of the man and nobody knows his real, Chinese, name. The other one mentioned worked his way to the job of Vietnam Buereau Chief for TIME Magazine.
Two excellent positions for making a mess of things. One sends the South's military plans to the North and the other sends propaganda to be published in TIME in the USA.
Other Chinese spies in the same group were trained to work their way into influential government, military and civilian positions as part of a long term plan for an eventual takeover of southeast Asia, much as the USSR was invading and taking over eastern European countries, sometimes adding them to the territory of the Soviet 'Republic', sometimes installing puppet governments taking orders from the Soviet government.
Far as I know, this documentary has only been broadcast once. I've searched the history channel site, but wasn't able to find it.
Just something more to research.
And here's an item that may be in 'urban legend' territory. I've heard that one big USO show in Vietnam had its big stage erected directly above a large underground NVA command center and nobody knew it until years later.
February 1946 - The French sign an agreement with China. France gives up its concessions in Shanghai and other Chinese ports. In exchange, China agrees to assist the French in returning to Vietnam north of the 16th parallel.
Wasn't it supposed to be the 17th Parallel?
The article states in the "Gulf of Tonkin and the Westmoreland Expansion (1964)" section that 'a few thousand Canadaians' served in Vietnam, however no source is listed. Does anyone know if there is a source for this? I don't believe that any Canadian armed forces served in Vietnam, however I do believe that many dual Canadian/American citizens served in the US military in Vietnam. While these are indeed Canadians in Vietnam, the article makes it sound as though there was participation from the Canadian government, which I don't believe was the case. Burtonpe 17:59, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
I have left the following message on the user's talk page:
-- A Y Arktos\ talk 20:18, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
I don't think the article should be structured by US presidents; too US-centered. It would be more neutral to subdivide it by occurrences in the war. 24.64.223.203 06:52, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
-- A Y Arktos\ talk 21:04, 8 July 2006 (UTC)
I've noticed there isn't much about South Vietnamese military victories, its all about American "victories" here. It seems to me that American authors (Both on wikipedia and other sources) try to portray Vietnamese as weaklings by writing about how the Communist always losing, while the ARVN hardly win anything.
If Vietnamese are weak than Americans ain't no hercules either. -- Canpark 11:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)Canpark-- Canpark 11:05, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
I agree with Canpark except that Westerner = Western perspective. I have never yet left the West, but I have done a lot of research on modern Vietnamese history, and it seems obvious that the American perspective distorts almost everything while the Vietnamese perspective is generally almost exactly the truth. Unfortunately, it is true that most Westerners are as you described. Just recently another user blocked me from using the term 'puppet administration' to refer to the Southern Goverment, which was effectively both an American puppet and a dictatorship. I also believe that most Americans protesting the war were trying to save American soldiers, not Vietnamese. Ionius Mundus 12:57, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
No, I am portraying the Vietnam War protests. One example of this is Jane Fonda, who said she cried every day in Vietnam, but not for the Vietnamese, for the Americans. Of course protesters' motivations were all over the spectrum, the majority seem to be represented by this. Ionius Mundus 15:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
You have a point about villification of the soldiers. I do not know much about the protests, so I was judging by what I had heard. Thank you for pointing this out. Ionius Mundus 15:14, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
Thank you, I will check this out. -- Ionius Mundus 16:34, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
In this article, there are only two sentences about Soviet involvement. The Vietnam War was one of the theatres of the Cold War. The Cold War included both the US and the USSR. It just seems there's a lot about why the Americans got involved but not much at all as to why the Soviets got involved or how they helped.
The U.S. killed millions of Vietnamese and failed to create a stable country friendly to American interests. However, the outcome was certainly not a military defeat, as the box says. There was no intent to invade or occupy, nor was there a forcible withdrawal of the military.
-- Tajmahall 04:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
In combat the DRV soliders fought not only Americans, but they also fought South Korean, Australian, New Zealand, Thai and Filipino troops as well. Oh, and don't forget the South Vietnamese, the Americans used Vietnamese to kill Vietnamese.
Crediting the the US military for the 1,000,000+ dead DRV soldiers is nothing more than a distortion of history as troops from other nations also took part in combat. -- Canpark 08:35, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
The Vietnamese people wanted independence and freedom at all costs. In WWII the Allies lost more than 1,000,000 people, I'm sure. Did the Allies achieve a military victory? Clearly, they did. The side withe the least casualties winning? Certainly nọt The South Vietnamese puppet administration is long gone. How could it have won a military victory? -- Ionius Mundus 07:47, 24 July 2006 (UTC)
You are correct that corruption and economic failure appeared not long after President Hồ Chí Minh's death, and that the Vietnamese people wanted peace and an end to the war. But theay also wanted an end to foreign domination, which is what most saw the Southern puppet administration as. You are wrong that the Liberation of the South held Vietnam back economically and politically. The South was far worse, and at least the North had the memory of Bác Hồ. Furthermore, I don't see what your edit even has to do with this section. By the way, you are being biased by erasing /Liberation. There is citation for the exaggeration of the landlord campaign. If you would like, maybe the landlord campaign section can be split in half, one part representing the opinions of the South and America, and the other with the opinions of the North. With all due respect. -- Ionius Mundus 01:57, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
I have been using "U.S." instead of "US", "adviser" instead of "advisor", and "materiel" instead of material (in the case of military supplies, I believe "materiel" is correct. It was, at any rate, the conventional usage at the time of the Vietnam War)
Can we stick to these conventional usages for consistency's sake? U.S., U.S.A., U.S.S.R., adviser, materiel, communist (not Communist)...We don't say Capitalist, we say capitalist. So I think the lower case is correct for "communist" as well. No disrespect intended. Also, communism in the last two centuries has been an international movement. It is not as though a communist can automatically be identified with a particular locality the way, say, a German can. Also: "the south", not "the South"; "the north", not "the North".
As I see more potential usage conflicts, I will add to this list. In the meantime, a good rule of thumb is simply to be consistent with what is already in the article -- unless it's glaringly incorrect.
By the way, someone besides me will have to put in the correct Vietnamese spellings for such terms as "Ho Chi Minh". starkt 10:35, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Please don't convert the article to Vietnamese spellings. Use standard English, e.g. Ho Chi Minh is spelled so, without diacritics. Use of Vietnamese diacritics is virtually unknown in English publications. Otherwise I agree with Habap; the South and the North are capitalized when they are shorthand for the two countries. Communist is often capitalized when it refers to a concrete political movement or party. Christopher Parham (talk) 20:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I disagree with dropping diacritics, as they are the key to pronunciation. If you do drop the diacritics, at least leave them on the first mention of a name for reference. Also, North and South should be capitalized when refering to political entities. -- Ionius Mundus 23:36, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
I, for example, can pronounce written Vietnamese, but I can not read much Vietnamese. The diacritics are as much a part of the name as the letters. Plus, It is annoying to have to look up the proper spelling of a name you don't know. For these reasons we should include diacritics, at least on the first mention of a name.
Even a fluent speaker of Vietnamese who does not recognize a name will find it cumbersome to look it up, especially if it does not have a wiki link. Use the diacritics the first time, then I ask for no more. -- Ionius Mundus 04:43, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
We need to get citations for rather a lot.
Can we begin with this: "On the communist side, even before the Geneva Accords were signed, Ho Chi Minh had prepared to attack South Vietnam in case unification failed to take place through elections. His preparations included communication with thousands of covert communist agents in the south and the hiding of numerous weapons caches."? Cripipper 18:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
Material on human rights in North Vietnam during the 1950s is being repeatedly removed from the page. The reasons given are that is somehow irrelivant. Following this logic, I then removed the corrisponding material about human rights in South Vietnam. These edits were immediately restored. The newer logic offered is that somehow the "vietnam war" isn't about "vietnam" but about South Vietnam and that somehow events in North Vietnam that in this case led to hundreds of thousands of people fleeing south and thousands of political opponents of the regime being rounded up are not relivant to the Vietnam War. I consider the removals of material to be an attempt to introduce POV into the page and unless someone can present some reasonable logic otherwise, the material will continue be restored to the page. 168.127.0.51 19:40, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
205.188.117.70 01:31, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, Cripipper removed your sourced information as well as mine. I simply added my sourced information which you excluded when adding the section again. -- Ionius Mundus 02:06, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
Correct. -- Ionius Mundus 22:30, 28 July 2006 (UTC)
This article is already very long, and there is a fair bit of duplication between the 'From Colonialism to U.S. Intervention' and the subsequent sections on Truman through to Kennedy. It seems to me it might be sensible to move this section to a seperate article called 'The United States and Vietnam, 1945-63' or something similar. ?? Cripipper 19:07, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
:::Seriously, "conquer" is such a strong word-- Canpark 05:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
He was already a socialist because he thought that the principles of true socialism matched the principles of the West. He had to turn to Communist aid because the West continually ignored him. He really must have seen asking the Western governments for help as hopeless when he learned the the USA had offered France atomic bombs to drop on Việt Nam. He admired the USA, except for its treatment of African-Americans in particular. Again, he wrote a lot on the subject. You seem to be equating socialism with evil. I suggest that you read a little about Mwalimu Julius Nyerere and then let's see if you still think so. -- Ionius Mundus 15:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we have a good article now, and should talk about shortening it. Or not shortening it, as the case may be. I'm satisfied with its length. There is a lot to cover. We might spin off some material as separate articles with links. But I have no strong feelings either way. starkt 11:12, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
It is obvious that there is too much controversy over the subject to only include one side. We should rewrite sections to give the opinions of both sides. -- Ionius Mundus 15:54, 4 August 2006 (UTC)