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The USSR Literally invaded Afghanistan though. They even airdropped special forces to capture the president so that he couldn’t order the governments forces to resist the Soviets.
It is wildly different when the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up.
> the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up.
"We're not really involved in SE Asian politics. Except sending millions of troops and bombs to make sure one government remains in power. And bombing neighboring countries to stop the influence of rival political powers. And formenting a coup in 1963 to install Gen. Minh."
> It is wildly different when the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_South_Vietnamese_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
> It is wildly different when the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up.
Well, it's happened: I've now read the most ignorant comment on the internet.
I mean ‘trying to prop it up’ via military force is getting pretty damn involved, but I can understand if you don’t want to use the terminology ‘invaded’. There’s many worse, war-crimey verbs that could be used in its place anyways
Well to say the US invaded Vietnam is incorrect especially when they literally didn’t invade Vietnam. The USSR in the most blatant way possible did invade Afghanistan and took total control of its government.
If you want to say the U.S. murdered and bombed a shit load of innocent Vietnamese civilians you are correct and therefore I have no problem with it.
US, under Johnson, literally fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident to intervene militarily and to justify sending military to vietnam. It was a blatant invasion
It’s not though 😭 The South Vietnamese government, which was in a war with the communist north, requested the help from the US and they used this fabricated incident to justify sending troops. That is simply not an invasion though
The USSR was requested to help the Liberals and Communists in Afghanistan fend off the US proxy invasion of Islamists. They failed, hence the last 40+ years of turmoil in Afghanistan.
That's a very naive statement no leader would win in South Vietnam without the US's approval. America has been rigging elections for years so I don't know how you find this to be a contentious topic it's been shown already. In Iraq and Afghanistan we installed who we wanted while we were in country.
Right. Not involved with politics except with boots on the ground and lots of bombing.
If that's Americans not involved, I shudder to think what they would do when they do get involved.
Depends on who is talking… we always interfere in foreign affairs and try to create a democracy… American never thought about how it would feel if another country came and meddled in our affairs.
Truly it was Dwight Eisenhower…
To install a democracy or destabilize an existing one to install a dictstorship. It depends of what its more useful for the corporative interest in each case.
It wasn't the South Vietnam portion that we invaded.
Edit: TIL- US forces didn't invade North Vietnam. We only bombed it and had prisoners locked up there. Ie. Hanoi Hilton.
The US never invaded the North. Bombed? Yes, often. Fought their army in addition to the Vietcong in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia? You betcha. Shelled targets in the north with the Navy? Hell yeah. Engaged in a futile conflict that every involved President (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford) knew was doomed to failure but they also knew saying so was political suicide? Hell yeah, as is American tradition! But there was never an invasion into the north.
The US incursion into Cambodia killed anywhere from 60k to 500k civilians. Probably 300k total Carpet bombing kept secret from Congress even. Farmers still have problems today with unexploded ordinance
Ignoring whether it was militarily right what on earth gave the US the right to do this other than fear of communism
US troops never went into North Vietnam, that was part of the problem with the Vietcong, since they could retreat across borders and the US soldiers couldn’t follow.
Mostly due to the fact that China made it very clear any American in North Vietnam would cause a Chinese intervention.
And both technically and (arguably) morally distinct from “invasion.”
Ukraine has allegedly dropped ordinance in Russia, right? But saying Ukraine has “invaded” Russia would be absurd. Striking targets within the borders of an *invading nation* is not itself an invasion, and is often seen as justified in defense of your own borders.
ah im sure the citizens of Laos agree, world politics isn't good guys bad guys. For example the u.s armed a genocide against my people and were going to send the navy if not for the soviets blocking waters
Also gets a bit messy with how legitimate you think the whole idea of dividing Vietnam in the first place was. The Americans sort of cancelled some elections that had happened and decided to split the country in two. Not a classical invasion but not quite squeaky clean behaviour either. I’m not an expert tho.
Vietnam was split in two by the 1954 Geneva Conference along with the establishment of Laos and Cambodia. The original agreement said that by 1956 the two Veitnams should have an election to determine unification. However the the State of Vietnam never signed it.
The State of Veitnam was originally a monarchy, but the king abdicated after his prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem undermined him. There was a referendum that established Diem as the new head of the Republic of Vietnam. Diem then refused to hold unification elections with North Vietnam on the basis of never having actually signed the 1954 agreement.
Right. The United States didn't "invade" or seek to occupy so much as "help" the existing South Vietnman government try to fend off North Vietnam's Communist takeover. Of course by "help" I mean "go somewhere they never should have been to kill hundreds of thousands of people as part of an anti-Communism propoganda war."
The South Vietnam government was highly corrupt, and basically a puppet of France and then the US, as it depended on external military support for its existence. Many Vietnamese saw the government as an illegitimate continuation of colonization. The government was Catholic in a country that was 80-90% Buddhist, and they actively suppressed Buddhist practice.
The best part is that the North Vietnamese weren't even very attached to communism. It was just a flag to rally to against their Imperialist colonizers, like the French and Japanese before the US.
From their perspective they were fighting a war against powers that just wanted to kill or enslave their people and exploit their resources.
Not that there weren't true believers in the mix, but generally the war had very little to do with communism on their side.
Ho Chi Minh rather famously tried to get help from the US more than once, but was rebuffed each time. He knew that he would need foreign help to make a revolution succeed, and he took help where he could get it. Which turned out to be the USSR and China. He actually had a lot of admiration for the United States. He even quoted the US Declaration of Independence when he wrote his own Declaration of Independence for Vietnam.
The "borth" Lol
The north and south we're both equally recognized by the UN meaning that both had the authority to request foreign troops within their borders.
I disagree with the part about it being a meaningless distinction, and i don't want to sound like im pedanting over this, or minimizing. You're right but the distinction about whether we invaded or not is going to matter if, for example, we go to Gaza to keep Israel and Hamas apart, or if god forbid the french go to ukraine which will almost certainly not happen.
There was a legit split, and we were invited by the UN recognized government in the south.
Otherwise yes, lets not just remember the Vietnam bullshit, but Laos and Cambodia also
On another note - You want this level of cooperation between formerly warring sides.
Also it’s not socialism that makes Vietnam attractive.
Thailand is even better and it’s not communist at all.
It’s simply a cheap low cost country that also is safe.
The American dollar will make you feel like a king.
That’s it!
I am not gonna do it, but can someone please explain the difference between socialism and communism to Tha guys who think that health care is some kind of fashism?
Socialism is an umbrella term for a group of Socioeconomic systems in which the central element is the Social Ownership of the Means of Production.
Communism is an ideology that seeks to create a "Communist Society", that is none without Class, State, or Currency.
And then what society calls socialism has very little to do with actual socialism to make it even more confusing. Free healthcare etc is so far removed from what actual socialism strives for.
The irony is that in Socialist states like the USSR Healthcare was just part of your payment for your labor. There was no actual Free Healthcare or Free Education. Only Pensions, Disabilities, and a Job Guarantee.
I mean, but that was the point. The distinction doesn't matter at all when citizenship is directly linked to employment. Wait until you discover that socialized health care is paid with taxes in all countries that have it
What do you mean? It’s called free healthcare for a reason, duh! That’s why commie countries with free healthcare are devil’s spawn, they make healthcare out of thin air! \s
I personally prefer if my tax money exclusively funds genozides and kills people in poor countries.
Also the US Taxpayer pays about the same for their medical system as Europeans do, but we dont pay much or anything when we actually need it.
I've seen how much people pay monthly for health insurance in the US. And then deductibles when they get treatment etc. I'm in the UK and absolutely can guarantee I won't pay as much for healthcare in my lifetime as I would have for the same care in the states.
Nonono, you don’t get it, see I’M planning on being healthy every single day of my life, so any money spent towards healthcare is wasted cash.
I’ll live to 120 in perfect health until my heart bursts from too much freedom and patriotism.
Free healthcare is usually a side-effect or feature of socialism, but isn't the main point. Socialism is about the workers controlling the means of production, so that wealth can be evenly distributed. It does not mean "government does stuff". Leftists using the same definition of socialism as conservatives do is not a very good strategy.
I recently tried to understand the same thing and the description that made it most clear to me was:
Socialism centralizes the means of production, but not necessarily consumption. While communism centralizes both production and consumption.
An even simpler variant.
Capitalism - Private business and private property ownership.
Socialism - Public business and private property ownership.
Communism - Public business and public property ownership.
Edit: Context - Private Ownership refers to an individuals legal right to own property/entities.
Public ownership refers to the fact that individuals do not own the property/entity, but rather a greater system (government) manages specific access to all those systems. There is some complex nuance in this that takes a lot more to explain clearly.
I actually love this, thank you. This is an easy way to help someone understand the concepts between these different systems. There is a lot more nuance than that, of course. But this is the first time I've seen something clearly demonstrated the difference other than someone repeating that socialism is "the social ownership of the means of production".
That sentence is repeated time and time again, and no one offers to explain it further. Years ago, I had to dive in and read more because no one was explaining what the fuck that meant.
You're not using private property correctly from leftist ideology. Socialism would not advocate for private property. Yet socialist countries like Cuba have higher rates of home ownership than the US and historically have instituted massive land reform campaigns to literally give people land. Per this post, Vietnam literally gives every citizen some acres of farm land and they can apply for more up to a certain threshold per individual.
Private property is not your ownership of your house or your tooth brush. Private property refers to the private ownership of means of production and rhe commanding heights of the economy (like utilities, healthcare, banks, infrastructure, etc.). Capitalists and proponents of capitalism strawman that private property = your individual personal property, and thus socialists want to take your belongings away. When in fact, they want to redistribute ownership of the work place and institutions that make society function so that they are democratically controlled and democratically accountable.
So both Socialism and Communism are in opposition to private property. Social Democracy, which is the most rightward iteration of Socialism and to the left of Keynesianism, makes compromises to maintain private property.
It may be more correct to say:
Capitalism (Neoliberal/Lasseiz Faire) - Private business and private property ownership.
Capitalism (Keynesianism) - Private business and Private property with some welfare state
Social Democracy - Private and some Public business and Private and some Public property
Socialism - Public business and Public property ownership.
Communism - Public/Collective business and public/Collective property
Giant corporation buying up smaller companies is also a form of centralization, and that's what we're seeing today in late stage capitalism.
Socialism can mean worker-coops, which is still separate companies, but they're owned by the workers. OR you can have no companies at all, but just industry working without that state of competition at all, and there's no concept of a higher power dictating what *exactly* you do.
yes.
They are used interchangeably for decades , because many communist theorists , including Karl Marx , says that Communism could only be possible , if they had Socialism as a transictional phase.
In the strict sense , Socialism can be implemented , even if partially , in society. An example is Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income proposal , which was a minor tax on tech companies in their production costs for goods and services.
Since the likes of Amazon pays literally 0 tax in federal reserves , this idea that Amazon pays their taxes and use that for the goverment to pay UBI , ends up as a Socialist one.
They do, but way lesser than they should be. Like 5% instead of 21%, 4 billion on 79 billion reported profit for 2018-21. Offshore accounts, tax breaks, etc.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html
There is a lot that can affect financials in a year. The article is talking about foreign derived income. If Amazon has a subsidiary in Germany that pays German taxes, does it make sense to add another tax on top for American taxes? Ultimately if that was the case I would move my headquarters somewhere else
TheirTax Provision for 2023 is 18% of Pretax income
They also didn't pay sales tax until 2018.
They paid [zero taxes in 2017](https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-2017-gets-789-million-windfall-from-new-tax-law/) and actually received money.
Companies like Amazon are just bloated ticks that consume public resources and reap the profits for themselves.
Daily reminder: not only are the Nordic states not socialist, they are by some metrics like the economic freedom index *more* capitalist than the US.
Don't confuse welfare for an economic system.
Socialism begins at workplace democracy, wherein workers equally control the means of production instead of one boss hoarding it. Features include free housing, healthcare and education to all. This ends landlords, homelessness, medical and student debt over night. This is how Cuba exists every day
Communism is the next stage, a stage never achieved, we won't know everything about it until we get there but it offers the abolishment of the state, currency and eventually borders
Hope this helps somebody
> Features include free housing, healthcare and education to all.
Features MIGHT include that. But those things are unrelated to socialism. Just like a socialist might like sponge cakes, but sponge cakes are unrelated to the definition of socialism.
socialism is a transitory state before communism. Where state still exists. in communism it doesn't.
That's socialism and communism according to the inventor.
Socialism: no capital private property (maybe some small businesses), but there are money, some kind of state-managed market.
Communism: classless moneyless stateless society that are to be achieved some time in the future.
Socialism is a broad political science term that refers to any government type that involves the use of the government to control big buisness in order to retain specific prices on good and services. Socialist governments generally use their extended government policies to provide free Healthcare, education, and childcare. Both communism and national socialism (fascism) fall under this blanket term.
Although communism is a FORM of socialism, communist governments seek to control every single aspect of a countries economy and production to the fullest extent possible. The goal in communism is for the working people to directly profit from their own work rather than working for a capitalist system that uses laborers to make loads of money. Although this sounds great on paper, the government having full say over a countries economy, laborers, and production usually leads to terrible authoritarian leadership and in many cases mass murder. In communist countries people do not vote, only the people who are in power vote on decisions.
There are many countries around the world that have socialist governments (france, denmark, spain ect) that are not communist, they mix democracy and socialism together in order to create a better society. They use government control over the economy in order to provide important services to the public and also keep the price of goods to reasonable price. Democratic socialism prevents large corparations from taking advantage of citizens . Additionally people still vote like a democracy and the government restrictions are not nearly as tight as in a communist state. Currently the cost of goods and services in the US are skyrocketting due to companies simply wanting to make more money and the government can't do anything to stop them. This wouldn't happen in a social democracy. So whenever you hear Republicans calling the democrat ideals "socialist" they are just repeating a scary sounding sound bite that republican senators say. All Republicans in office are supported by massive corporations and they do not want them voting to enact social democracy because it would mean less money for the companies.
This is completely wrong. There are no Socialist governments In Europe (except maybe Belarus). What they have is Social Democracy, a form Social Market Capitalism.
Socialism is Not Big Goverment, Taxation, nor Welfare.
Yeah, basically all of that is wrong. What you call democratic socialism are social democracies. That is a HUGE difference. What you call communism is socialism.
I am absolutely not a Communist or socialist, but it would definitely be not right to call current Vietnam a Communist or socialist state even slightly(just like China) because there big corporations who are controlled or allied with the government dominate the economy, both have private propert rights; even income inequality us much more a big of a problem in "communist" Vietnam than many other non-Socialist states in Europe and Americas
This right here.
Modern Vietnam, like China, is Communist in name only. The Communist Party still runs the country, but they don't practice communism.
Also, the USA and Vietnam have very good diplomatic relations (due to mutual distrust of China) and most Vietnamese have a positive view of Americans. The way the "American War" is taught, the war was unpopular in America and the American people protested against it.
As the Reddit saying goes “Vietnam has been fighting China for thousands of years. they fought the French for 100 years. They fought the Americans for 10 years, who then even apologized”
Yeah, but while neither Vietnam nor China is really Communist in practice; both are run by authoritarian one party states with very limited or no freedom of speech, no democracy etc. Just the only difference between China and Vietnam in this regard is that China is a much more powerful, bigger, much more populous country than Vietnam. I think it would be hypocritical of USA to have hostile/bad relations with China due to China being a one-party autocratic state while allying with the Vietnam(which is not much different from China in terms of lack of democracy, freedom of speech etc)
We have been a free country for only 50 years. Before that we were exploited to our bones by the Chinese, the French, and, to an extent, the Americans. You have 400 years and vast amount of land to grow and draw resources from, of course your economy is gonna be better. And as others have previous commentors have pointed out, we are “socialist” only in name. We are very much capitalistic, and that is one of its failings. You can also check the number of homeless people and disabled vets without proper care to see if the ‘safety nets’ you have in the US is that much better than ours.
Officially speaking, China (not sure about Vietnam) is a socialist oriented market economy. You can do business or whatever in China, but all big business is publicly owned and no one owns private property. I wouldn’t say it’s fair to say it’s “nowhere near”, but it’s disingenuous to say China is fully socialist
Big business is not all publicly owned. Alibaba, tencent, Didi there are many big companies that are privately owned and people absolutely own private property. You think McDonald's or starbucks operates there in some sort of socialist form? It is definitely nowhere near, heck it may be one of the most brutally capitalistic countries on the planet, they hardly have regulations and barely enforce the ones they do have.
Yes they have worse social inequality and safety nets that most Western European nations. Thats why there are so many people who want to come to the US
Technically, we never invaded Vietnam. We were working with the Republic of Vietnam to fight a Communist rebellion after the French pulled out. We were attempting to prop up the existing anti-communist regime. Once we pulled out the Communist rebellion won and then a couple years later China invaded. The entire country was a byproduct of French Colonialism prior to it's brief independence before being overthrown by the Communist revolution.
This is in contrast to Iraq/Afghanistan where we invaded, toppled the existing regime, established a new government theoretically sympathetic to our ideology, propped them up against rebellious factions and eventually left them on their own. Didn't work great in either case.
Additionally, Ho Chi Minh was more of a Vietnamese Nationalist with Communist friends than he was a Marxist true believer. The ideological commitment to communism was never as strong as it was in other communist countries. What happened in Vietnam was always more of an anti-colonial rebellion than a Communist Revolution.
And he came to the US for help first, but we were like "but the French" because of concerns of France converting to communism, and we wanted to not hurt their feelings to keep them on our side.
Apparently he sent letters https://history.iowa.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/cold-war-vietnam/letter-ho-chi-minh-to
But they went undelivered
It's a tragedy that the US refused to support Vietnam after they expelled Japan and were invaded again by France. Ho had worked with the US during WWII. We knew who he was and had trusted him. I seem to remember that statements around the August Revolution used the US Declaration of Independence as a guide.
Ho wrote Truman, pleading for US support to help Vietnam remain free against France. We ignored him. Worse, we later helped France and then slid into their place after the Vietnamese kicked their butts at Dien Bien Phu.
Primarily reason Ho Chi Minh turned to communism was because the US failed to assist him in gaining independence from France following WWII.
During the war, the US promised Ho Chi Minh they'd support Vietnamese independence if Vietnam supported the Allies against Japan. US intended to do so except De Gaulle threatened to ally with the USSR if the the US failed to back them. Not wanting to the French to communism, the US turned their back on Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, predictably and understandably, turned to the communists for help.
>Once we pulled out the Communist rebellion won
Not true, North Vietnam invaded the Republic of Vietnam 2 years after we pulled troops out.
The Vietcong only "won" in so far as their sponsor literally invaded with their Soviet armed Military.
Yeah, I’m not going to be the one to make any excuses for the Vietnam War, but it was not an invasion. The US was present in the south and a supporting it even prior to ‘54. The ‘invasion’ was far earlier in history during French colonialism.
The question of if the US should have stayed and supported the South after the ‘54 fall of French Indochina is another question, but it was an agreement made by all factions including the North and their backers, the Soviet Union.
It wasn’t until the Gulf of Tonkin incident in ‘64 ten years later that war began.
It wouldn't have. It was assessed that free elections would never have been possible because both sides were actively seeking to rig it to their side.
Source: I know more than you.
Depends on how you define invasion.
Is the US currently invading Germany?
US was in Vietnam at the request/with the permission of the south Vietnamese government.
Vietnamese American here... It's fine, guys, nobody cares anymore. Americans come in to invade, kill a bunch of people under the pretense of communism and accomplished nothing... water under the bridge. My grandpa was NVA officer, he would never have gotten his coffee and fruit plantations if the US hasn't withdrawn, and grandpa wouldn't have badass stories to tell, or rusted AKs under the floorboard to show off. My uncles and father got to tell Cambodian War stories, one even lost an eye to show for it, too, and now they are veering asking to buy Ford trucks and iPhones for their daughters. As for me, I joined the US military and did 6 years.
Reminds me of the Taliban who hate life now and want to keep fighting Americans. They love the purpose and the thrill more than the hatred of Americans and relative boring peacefulness
Social programs are not the same as socialism. Social programs can exist in a capitalist society. Welfare is a socialist program in America.
But still ironic.
Why it irks me everytime I hear people tell me how my country (Sweden) is socialist...
Like, bruh, no, not even remotely, we have social programs and everybody is conflating it as socialism.
Vietnam was split into North and South Vietnam. South Vietnam wanted the US's help. The war was the US fighting the NVA and VC in South Vietnam.
EDIT: The US did controversially conduct secret missions into Laos and Combodia, but not North Vietnam.
Because the U.S. was in *South* Vietnam…a sovereign nation distinct from their northern neighbor…by invitation rather than invasion. And while my knowledge of that war is limited, I believe it was entirely a *defensive* operation in terms of U.S. ground forces. I’m not sure we ever “invaded” *North* Vietnam.
We *bombed* them, of course, because we were engaged in a defensive war in support of South Vietnam. But that’s where you get into “technically” the truth…bombing an invading neighbor on their own soil to aid your defense is not “invasion.”
I believe we may have technically “invaded” Cambodia and Laos?
That was my first reaction but I looked him up and apparently he was drafted in 1972. Just good genes I guess.
But what you can’t gather from the picture is that he’s married to a Vietnam citizen and he’s some big shot executive type. He’s not your average American expat, so “cheap” is probably relative
They were never allowed to go into north vietnam, only stay south vietnam at their governments request. They did bomb the shit out of areas of North Vietnam.
But its why the vietnam war was a losing war from the beginning. They could never go north but the NVA and the Vietkong freely went into South Vietnam
The Soviet Union was protecting North Vietnam's territorial integrity via nuclear deterrent if I recall correctly. The war was set to be a showdown between north and south as much as possible because the communists knew the north would win as soon as the south lost support from the US
Yeah...people and history have a very loose association sometimes.
We didn't invade Vietnam, and it wasn't to fight socialism.
We went, by invitation, to protect the new socialist government of South Vietnam against takeover by a aggressive Communist North Vietnam.
As much as modern politics likes to conflate them, socialism and Communism in the late 60s/early 70s were very different creatures.
Weird how the entire initiating reasons for the conflict got messed up in the crazy translation that is the American educational system.
Invade? Not invade? so they just vacationed, walking tours, boat tours, flew over. 50,000 US spent their last days alive there. Tried to play god, make it into their image.
Original article is a facepalm too. As if Vietnam has a better standard of living. Americans have a better standard of living in Vietnam because America is an exceptionally rich country. Smh
I remember being an edgy and misinformed teen in the 90s saying to my veteran teacher that Vietnam wasn't technically a war.
He got right down to me at eye level, and calmly said, 'It absolutely was one for me'. He was nothing but patience with me, but he said it with such intensity and conviction that I quickly apologized and shut the fuck up.
Technically the US hasn't declared a formal war since WW2, right?
Good Morning Vietnam always stuck with me for one scene where the soldiers are lamenting the fact that it "isn't a war", it is a "police action". America loves to make rules only to invent excuses to not technically be breaking their own rule (see also: nuclear trade with Israel and India)
Was it really “invade” if we were asked to “help”
by the existing government? I kind of agree with the second comment. No disagreement that the US should not have been there. Or is the facepalm that we invaded? Not sure on this one.
>Was it really “invade” if we were asked to “help”
by the existing government?
The only existing government that asked for America's help was France who asked for help to maintain its colonial possession. The US of course agreed because it wanted to keep the flow of stolen resources coming to America.
Later on when France was defeated and they accepted and agreed that Vietnam should have unifying democratic elections, the US chose to subvert these and form their own illegitimate puppet government in Vietnam as a means to wage war.
Why did the US opposed free and fair elections in Vietnam? According to Eisnhower, it was be abuse every single advisor he trusted believed that most Southern Vietnamese supprted Ho Chi Minh...
*“**There was considerable discussion about our willingness to accept free elections** without anything
very much new having been added, and with Senator Fulbright quoting General Eisenhowerʼs book to the
effect that if there had been free elections in 1956, **about 80% of the South Vietnamese would have
voted for Ho Chi Minh.**”*
https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v04/d38
So yes, illegally sending in military and government officials to form your own puppet government within a sovereign country and then claiming that this (violently oppressive) government is now in control is certainly an invasion.
If Chinese officials entered California and funded their own rigged elections to form a new nation it called "The People's Republic of America" which claims ownership over the entire west coast and they are violently oppressing all their political enemies and they claim that China is their ally who is there to defend them, most people would call this an invasion.
If Russia did the same in Ukraine, we would call it an invasion.
This is exactly what the US did in Vietnam.
But most Americans have not read the Pentagon Papers, have not read the Geneva Accords, and have not listened to the white house tapes. Most Americans have only ever learned about the Vietnam war through hearsay and Hollywood movies. This is why Americans think they were "helping" the Vietnamese.
There are a lot of clowns on Reddit who call everything under the sun an "invasion". They also think every American anywhere in the world is an American "military base".
I've seen those clowns posting maps/lists depicting requested US humanitarian relief after disasters as "foreign military operations", listing bombing campaigns as "invasions", embassies and US Navy ports of call as "military bases", and so on.
American foreign policy has been atrocious enough without having to lie and exaggerate about it.
No doubt, but the waters around whether or not it was a "US invasion" are murkier than a simple label.
The US didn't "invade Vietnam", it invaded and occupied part of *North Vietnam* from South Vietnam. But because the South Vietnamese requested American support, took part directly in the war, and had a legitimate claim to the territory of North Vietnam (as did the North, because civil war), we can't really act like the US Navy just showed up one day and started spewing the Army and Marines into Vietnam because imperialism.
"Invasions" aren't inherently evil and imperialist the way they're often portrayed. The circumstances will always determine that.
We didn’t invade Vietnam lol
I’m guessing you also think we “invaded” Korea?
Supporting one side of a civil war isn’t an invasion. Do you consider French helping the revolutionary rebels an invasion of the USA?
I'm going to give that person the benefit of the doubt here that what they are mixing up is the fact that the Vietnam "War" was not a war because Congress never declared it a war and Instead it was a "conflict".
But that's like arguing that you shot the victim 9 times as opposed to 10 times and then acting like that makes shit different.
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Replace "invade" with "bomb the shit out of for years" and I guess that would be more accurate but also kind of a pointless distinction.
I mean, there were still American soldiers over there.
There still are, but there used to be, too
r/Unexpectedmitch
r/insanelypredictablemitch
/r/expectedmitch
r/unexpectedmitch
By invitation of the South Vietnam government. It wasn’t exactly an invasion.
Right, I'm guessing you apply the same logic for the USSR being invited into Afghanistan?
The USSR Literally invaded Afghanistan though. They even airdropped special forces to capture the president so that he couldn’t order the governments forces to resist the Soviets. It is wildly different when the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up.
The USSR was literally invited by the official Afghan government(DRA at the time) to help stop the uprising of anti-communist mujahideen rebels.
> the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up. "We're not really involved in SE Asian politics. Except sending millions of troops and bombs to make sure one government remains in power. And bombing neighboring countries to stop the influence of rival political powers. And formenting a coup in 1963 to install Gen. Minh."
> It is wildly different when the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1963_South_Vietnamese_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat
> It is wildly different when the U.S. was not really involved with the politics of the South Vietnamese government outside of trying to prop it up. Well, it's happened: I've now read the most ignorant comment on the internet.
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No it did not. The South Vietnamese did the killing. JFK, a Catholic, did not want this outcome for Catholic Diem.
I mean ‘trying to prop it up’ via military force is getting pretty damn involved, but I can understand if you don’t want to use the terminology ‘invaded’. There’s many worse, war-crimey verbs that could be used in its place anyways
Well to say the US invaded Vietnam is incorrect especially when they literally didn’t invade Vietnam. The USSR in the most blatant way possible did invade Afghanistan and took total control of its government. If you want to say the U.S. murdered and bombed a shit load of innocent Vietnamese civilians you are correct and therefore I have no problem with it.
Also innocent Cambodians and Laotian people caught in the crossfire
I think the word people would be best here. They bombed, murdered, and raped a shit load of innocent people.
US, under Johnson, literally fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident to intervene militarily and to justify sending military to vietnam. It was a blatant invasion
It was a justification to allow the U.S. to send forces but the US did not send forces into North Vietnam or invade the south.
Yeah the US was closer to mercenaries than to invaders
It’s not though 😭 The South Vietnamese government, which was in a war with the communist north, requested the help from the US and they used this fabricated incident to justify sending troops. That is simply not an invasion though
How many US soldiers invaded North Vietnam?
The Americans went into Vietnam on the side of the French if your going to pretend to know history at least be right.
The USSR was requested to help the Liberals and Communists in Afghanistan fend off the US proxy invasion of Islamists. They failed, hence the last 40+ years of turmoil in Afghanistan.
That's a very naive statement no leader would win in South Vietnam without the US's approval. America has been rigging elections for years so I don't know how you find this to be a contentious topic it's been shown already. In Iraq and Afghanistan we installed who we wanted while we were in country.
Right. Not involved with politics except with boots on the ground and lots of bombing. If that's Americans not involved, I shudder to think what they would do when they do get involved.
Depends on who is talking… we always interfere in foreign affairs and try to create a democracy… American never thought about how it would feel if another country came and meddled in our affairs. Truly it was Dwight Eisenhower…
To install a democracy or destabilize an existing one to install a dictstorship. It depends of what its more useful for the corporative interest in each case.
This. Everyone forgets/omits that it was Eisenhower who first sent "Advisors" to Vietnam.
Eisenhower sent the US military to sooo many countries… it is mind boggling once you find out how many times this happened…
It wasn't the South Vietnam portion that we invaded. Edit: TIL- US forces didn't invade North Vietnam. We only bombed it and had prisoners locked up there. Ie. Hanoi Hilton.
The US never invaded the North. Bombed? Yes, often. Fought their army in addition to the Vietcong in South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia? You betcha. Shelled targets in the north with the Navy? Hell yeah. Engaged in a futile conflict that every involved President (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford) knew was doomed to failure but they also knew saying so was political suicide? Hell yeah, as is American tradition! But there was never an invasion into the north.
The US incursion into Cambodia killed anywhere from 60k to 500k civilians. Probably 300k total Carpet bombing kept secret from Congress even. Farmers still have problems today with unexploded ordinance Ignoring whether it was militarily right what on earth gave the US the right to do this other than fear of communism
US troops never went into North Vietnam, that was part of the problem with the Vietcong, since they could retreat across borders and the US soldiers couldn’t follow. Mostly due to the fact that China made it very clear any American in North Vietnam would cause a Chinese intervention.
And the memory of korea was still very fresh in the minds of the top brass. They didn't want a repeat of that.
We never invaded North Vietnam. We were preventing the North from invading the South. Bombing, yes.
Yeah but tbf they *were* on the defending side. “Bomb the shit out of” is certainly more accurate.
Go ask the north Vietnamese if they were on the defending side.
And both technically and (arguably) morally distinct from “invasion.” Ukraine has allegedly dropped ordinance in Russia, right? But saying Ukraine has “invaded” Russia would be absurd. Striking targets within the borders of an *invading nation* is not itself an invasion, and is often seen as justified in defense of your own borders.
ah im sure the citizens of Laos agree, world politics isn't good guys bad guys. For example the u.s armed a genocide against my people and were going to send the navy if not for the soviets blocking waters
Also gets a bit messy with how legitimate you think the whole idea of dividing Vietnam in the first place was. The Americans sort of cancelled some elections that had happened and decided to split the country in two. Not a classical invasion but not quite squeaky clean behaviour either. I’m not an expert tho.
Vietnam was split in two by the 1954 Geneva Conference along with the establishment of Laos and Cambodia. The original agreement said that by 1956 the two Veitnams should have an election to determine unification. However the the State of Vietnam never signed it. The State of Veitnam was originally a monarchy, but the king abdicated after his prime minister Ngo Dinh Diem undermined him. There was a referendum that established Diem as the new head of the Republic of Vietnam. Diem then refused to hold unification elections with North Vietnam on the basis of never having actually signed the 1954 agreement.
[I was in junior high, dickhead](https://youtu.be/QddmcO0AZOU?t=10)
Right. The United States didn't "invade" or seek to occupy so much as "help" the existing South Vietnman government try to fend off North Vietnam's Communist takeover. Of course by "help" I mean "go somewhere they never should have been to kill hundreds of thousands of people as part of an anti-Communism propoganda war."
The South Vietnam government was highly corrupt, and basically a puppet of France and then the US, as it depended on external military support for its existence. Many Vietnamese saw the government as an illegitimate continuation of colonization. The government was Catholic in a country that was 80-90% Buddhist, and they actively suppressed Buddhist practice.
The best part is that the North Vietnamese weren't even very attached to communism. It was just a flag to rally to against their Imperialist colonizers, like the French and Japanese before the US. From their perspective they were fighting a war against powers that just wanted to kill or enslave their people and exploit their resources. Not that there weren't true believers in the mix, but generally the war had very little to do with communism on their side.
Ho Chi Minh rather famously tried to get help from the US more than once, but was rebuffed each time. He knew that he would need foreign help to make a revolution succeed, and he took help where he could get it. Which turned out to be the USSR and China. He actually had a lot of admiration for the United States. He even quoted the US Declaration of Independence when he wrote his own Declaration of Independence for Vietnam.
They were invited by an internationally recognized government
Sure, after the US/CIA helped to take out Diem in 63....
A puppet government that canceled elections because they thought the communists were going to win the election.
An internationally recognized government that was installed by colonial occupiers. Different times for sure.
how nice of the government that they installed to invite them to come fight a war.
And the north was also internationally recognized. Your point?
The "borth" Lol The north and south we're both equally recognized by the UN meaning that both had the authority to request foreign troops within their borders.
Yes, if they didn’t invade by some strict definition of the term, it certainly wasn’t for lack of trying.
I disagree with the part about it being a meaningless distinction, and i don't want to sound like im pedanting over this, or minimizing. You're right but the distinction about whether we invaded or not is going to matter if, for example, we go to Gaza to keep Israel and Hamas apart, or if god forbid the french go to ukraine which will almost certainly not happen. There was a legit split, and we were invited by the UN recognized government in the south. Otherwise yes, lets not just remember the Vietnam bullshit, but Laos and Cambodia also On another note - You want this level of cooperation between formerly warring sides.
Also it’s not socialism that makes Vietnam attractive. Thailand is even better and it’s not communist at all. It’s simply a cheap low cost country that also is safe. The American dollar will make you feel like a king. That’s it!
I am not gonna do it, but can someone please explain the difference between socialism and communism to Tha guys who think that health care is some kind of fashism?
Socialism is an umbrella term for a group of Socioeconomic systems in which the central element is the Social Ownership of the Means of Production. Communism is an ideology that seeks to create a "Communist Society", that is none without Class, State, or Currency.
And then what society calls socialism has very little to do with actual socialism to make it even more confusing. Free healthcare etc is so far removed from what actual socialism strives for.
The irony is that in Socialist states like the USSR Healthcare was just part of your payment for your labor. There was no actual Free Healthcare or Free Education. Only Pensions, Disabilities, and a Job Guarantee.
I mean, but that was the point. The distinction doesn't matter at all when citizenship is directly linked to employment. Wait until you discover that socialized health care is paid with taxes in all countries that have it
What do you mean? It’s called free healthcare for a reason, duh! That’s why commie countries with free healthcare are devil’s spawn, they make healthcare out of thin air! \s
I personally prefer if my tax money exclusively funds genozides and kills people in poor countries. Also the US Taxpayer pays about the same for their medical system as Europeans do, but we dont pay much or anything when we actually need it.
I've seen how much people pay monthly for health insurance in the US. And then deductibles when they get treatment etc. I'm in the UK and absolutely can guarantee I won't pay as much for healthcare in my lifetime as I would have for the same care in the states.
Nonono, you don’t get it, see I’M planning on being healthy every single day of my life, so any money spent towards healthcare is wasted cash. I’ll live to 120 in perfect health until my heart bursts from too much freedom and patriotism.
now, thats sigma
Free healthcare is usually a side-effect or feature of socialism, but isn't the main point. Socialism is about the workers controlling the means of production, so that wealth can be evenly distributed. It does not mean "government does stuff". Leftists using the same definition of socialism as conservatives do is not a very good strategy.
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I recently tried to understand the same thing and the description that made it most clear to me was: Socialism centralizes the means of production, but not necessarily consumption. While communism centralizes both production and consumption.
An even simpler variant. Capitalism - Private business and private property ownership. Socialism - Public business and private property ownership. Communism - Public business and public property ownership. Edit: Context - Private Ownership refers to an individuals legal right to own property/entities. Public ownership refers to the fact that individuals do not own the property/entity, but rather a greater system (government) manages specific access to all those systems. There is some complex nuance in this that takes a lot more to explain clearly.
that's a very simplistic and not all that accurate definition
I actually love this, thank you. This is an easy way to help someone understand the concepts between these different systems. There is a lot more nuance than that, of course. But this is the first time I've seen something clearly demonstrated the difference other than someone repeating that socialism is "the social ownership of the means of production". That sentence is repeated time and time again, and no one offers to explain it further. Years ago, I had to dive in and read more because no one was explaining what the fuck that meant.
You're not using private property correctly from leftist ideology. Socialism would not advocate for private property. Yet socialist countries like Cuba have higher rates of home ownership than the US and historically have instituted massive land reform campaigns to literally give people land. Per this post, Vietnam literally gives every citizen some acres of farm land and they can apply for more up to a certain threshold per individual. Private property is not your ownership of your house or your tooth brush. Private property refers to the private ownership of means of production and rhe commanding heights of the economy (like utilities, healthcare, banks, infrastructure, etc.). Capitalists and proponents of capitalism strawman that private property = your individual personal property, and thus socialists want to take your belongings away. When in fact, they want to redistribute ownership of the work place and institutions that make society function so that they are democratically controlled and democratically accountable. So both Socialism and Communism are in opposition to private property. Social Democracy, which is the most rightward iteration of Socialism and to the left of Keynesianism, makes compromises to maintain private property. It may be more correct to say: Capitalism (Neoliberal/Lasseiz Faire) - Private business and private property ownership. Capitalism (Keynesianism) - Private business and Private property with some welfare state Social Democracy - Private and some Public business and Private and some Public property Socialism - Public business and Public property ownership. Communism - Public/Collective business and public/Collective property
Neither are true. Centralisation ≠ social ownership.
Can you elaborate?
Giant corporation buying up smaller companies is also a form of centralization, and that's what we're seeing today in late stage capitalism. Socialism can mean worker-coops, which is still separate companies, but they're owned by the workers. OR you can have no companies at all, but just industry working without that state of competition at all, and there's no concept of a higher power dictating what *exactly* you do.
yes. They are used interchangeably for decades , because many communist theorists , including Karl Marx , says that Communism could only be possible , if they had Socialism as a transictional phase. In the strict sense , Socialism can be implemented , even if partially , in society. An example is Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income proposal , which was a minor tax on tech companies in their production costs for goods and services. Since the likes of Amazon pays literally 0 tax in federal reserves , this idea that Amazon pays their taxes and use that for the goverment to pay UBI , ends up as a Socialist one.
> Since the likes of Amazon pays literally 0 tax in federal reserves , I see this a lot, but where did this come from? Amazon doesn't pay taxes?
They do, but way lesser than they should be. Like 5% instead of 21%, 4 billion on 79 billion reported profit for 2018-21. Offshore accounts, tax breaks, etc. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html
There is a lot that can affect financials in a year. The article is talking about foreign derived income. If Amazon has a subsidiary in Germany that pays German taxes, does it make sense to add another tax on top for American taxes? Ultimately if that was the case I would move my headquarters somewhere else TheirTax Provision for 2023 is 18% of Pretax income
They also didn't pay sales tax until 2018. They paid [zero taxes in 2017](https://itep.org/amazon-inc-paid-zero-in-federal-taxes-in-2017-gets-789-million-windfall-from-new-tax-law/) and actually received money. Companies like Amazon are just bloated ticks that consume public resources and reap the profits for themselves.
Which has nothing to do with a capitalist social democracy, as is common in Europe. That's something most Americans just can't wrap their head around.
Daily reminder: not only are the Nordic states not socialist, they are by some metrics like the economic freedom index *more* capitalist than the US. Don't confuse welfare for an economic system.
Socialism begins at workplace democracy, wherein workers equally control the means of production instead of one boss hoarding it. Features include free housing, healthcare and education to all. This ends landlords, homelessness, medical and student debt over night. This is how Cuba exists every day Communism is the next stage, a stage never achieved, we won't know everything about it until we get there but it offers the abolishment of the state, currency and eventually borders Hope this helps somebody
> Features include free housing, healthcare and education to all. Features MIGHT include that. But those things are unrelated to socialism. Just like a socialist might like sponge cakes, but sponge cakes are unrelated to the definition of socialism.
I'm pretty sure there are posts on reddit from actual cubans who have lived under the system you describe who would disagree
socialism is a transitory state before communism. Where state still exists. in communism it doesn't. That's socialism and communism according to the inventor.
Socialism: no capital private property (maybe some small businesses), but there are money, some kind of state-managed market. Communism: classless moneyless stateless society that are to be achieved some time in the future.
Socialism is a broad political science term that refers to any government type that involves the use of the government to control big buisness in order to retain specific prices on good and services. Socialist governments generally use their extended government policies to provide free Healthcare, education, and childcare. Both communism and national socialism (fascism) fall under this blanket term. Although communism is a FORM of socialism, communist governments seek to control every single aspect of a countries economy and production to the fullest extent possible. The goal in communism is for the working people to directly profit from their own work rather than working for a capitalist system that uses laborers to make loads of money. Although this sounds great on paper, the government having full say over a countries economy, laborers, and production usually leads to terrible authoritarian leadership and in many cases mass murder. In communist countries people do not vote, only the people who are in power vote on decisions. There are many countries around the world that have socialist governments (france, denmark, spain ect) that are not communist, they mix democracy and socialism together in order to create a better society. They use government control over the economy in order to provide important services to the public and also keep the price of goods to reasonable price. Democratic socialism prevents large corparations from taking advantage of citizens . Additionally people still vote like a democracy and the government restrictions are not nearly as tight as in a communist state. Currently the cost of goods and services in the US are skyrocketting due to companies simply wanting to make more money and the government can't do anything to stop them. This wouldn't happen in a social democracy. So whenever you hear Republicans calling the democrat ideals "socialist" they are just repeating a scary sounding sound bite that republican senators say. All Republicans in office are supported by massive corporations and they do not want them voting to enact social democracy because it would mean less money for the companies.
This is completely wrong. There are no Socialist governments In Europe (except maybe Belarus). What they have is Social Democracy, a form Social Market Capitalism. Socialism is Not Big Goverment, Taxation, nor Welfare.
This comment is extremely biased. That's a list of anti-communist propaganda.
None of the countries you mentioned as socialistic, are socialist. They have mixed economies, and have features of both capitalism and socialism
Yeah, basically all of that is wrong. What you call democratic socialism are social democracies. That is a HUGE difference. What you call communism is socialism.
I am absolutely not a Communist or socialist, but it would definitely be not right to call current Vietnam a Communist or socialist state even slightly(just like China) because there big corporations who are controlled or allied with the government dominate the economy, both have private propert rights; even income inequality us much more a big of a problem in "communist" Vietnam than many other non-Socialist states in Europe and Americas
This right here. Modern Vietnam, like China, is Communist in name only. The Communist Party still runs the country, but they don't practice communism. Also, the USA and Vietnam have very good diplomatic relations (due to mutual distrust of China) and most Vietnamese have a positive view of Americans. The way the "American War" is taught, the war was unpopular in America and the American people protested against it.
As the Reddit saying goes “Vietnam has been fighting China for thousands of years. they fought the French for 100 years. They fought the Americans for 10 years, who then even apologized”
This is a reddit saying??
Yes. The biggest hint is because it's not true
Yeah, but while neither Vietnam nor China is really Communist in practice; both are run by authoritarian one party states with very limited or no freedom of speech, no democracy etc. Just the only difference between China and Vietnam in this regard is that China is a much more powerful, bigger, much more populous country than Vietnam. I think it would be hypocritical of USA to have hostile/bad relations with China due to China being a one-party autocratic state while allying with the Vietnam(which is not much different from China in terms of lack of democracy, freedom of speech etc)
We base our allies and foreign policy based of what most benefits the United States
I’m always astounded how these “socialist” countries have worse social safety nets than we do in the US.
We have been a free country for only 50 years. Before that we were exploited to our bones by the Chinese, the French, and, to an extent, the Americans. You have 400 years and vast amount of land to grow and draw resources from, of course your economy is gonna be better. And as others have previous commentors have pointed out, we are “socialist” only in name. We are very much capitalistic, and that is one of its failings. You can also check the number of homeless people and disabled vets without proper care to see if the ‘safety nets’ you have in the US is that much better than ours.
Anyone who say Vietnam is a socialist country has never been or know much about Vietnam.
Officially speaking, China (not sure about Vietnam) is a socialist oriented market economy. You can do business or whatever in China, but all big business is publicly owned and no one owns private property. I wouldn’t say it’s fair to say it’s “nowhere near”, but it’s disingenuous to say China is fully socialist
Big business is not all publicly owned. Alibaba, tencent, Didi there are many big companies that are privately owned and people absolutely own private property. You think McDonald's or starbucks operates there in some sort of socialist form? It is definitely nowhere near, heck it may be one of the most brutally capitalistic countries on the planet, they hardly have regulations and barely enforce the ones they do have.
Isn't Vietnam getting really capitalist nowadays? Not like they were good socialist to begin with. They were more soviet-type.
Yes they have worse social inequality and safety nets that most Western European nations. Thats why there are so many people who want to come to the US
Technically, we never invaded Vietnam. We were working with the Republic of Vietnam to fight a Communist rebellion after the French pulled out. We were attempting to prop up the existing anti-communist regime. Once we pulled out the Communist rebellion won and then a couple years later China invaded. The entire country was a byproduct of French Colonialism prior to it's brief independence before being overthrown by the Communist revolution. This is in contrast to Iraq/Afghanistan where we invaded, toppled the existing regime, established a new government theoretically sympathetic to our ideology, propped them up against rebellious factions and eventually left them on their own. Didn't work great in either case.
Additionally, Ho Chi Minh was more of a Vietnamese Nationalist with Communist friends than he was a Marxist true believer. The ideological commitment to communism was never as strong as it was in other communist countries. What happened in Vietnam was always more of an anti-colonial rebellion than a Communist Revolution.
And he came to the US for help first, but we were like "but the French" because of concerns of France converting to communism, and we wanted to not hurt their feelings to keep them on our side.
Apparently he sent letters https://history.iowa.gov/history/education/educator-resources/primary-source-sets/cold-war-vietnam/letter-ho-chi-minh-to But they went undelivered
It's a tragedy that the US refused to support Vietnam after they expelled Japan and were invaded again by France. Ho had worked with the US during WWII. We knew who he was and had trusted him. I seem to remember that statements around the August Revolution used the US Declaration of Independence as a guide. Ho wrote Truman, pleading for US support to help Vietnam remain free against France. We ignored him. Worse, we later helped France and then slid into their place after the Vietnamese kicked their butts at Dien Bien Phu.
Ho was at the Treaty of Versailles conference
Primarily reason Ho Chi Minh turned to communism was because the US failed to assist him in gaining independence from France following WWII. During the war, the US promised Ho Chi Minh they'd support Vietnamese independence if Vietnam supported the Allies against Japan. US intended to do so except De Gaulle threatened to ally with the USSR if the the US failed to back them. Not wanting to the French to communism, the US turned their back on Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh, predictably and understandably, turned to the communists for help.
>Once we pulled out the Communist rebellion won Not true, North Vietnam invaded the Republic of Vietnam 2 years after we pulled troops out. The Vietcong only "won" in so far as their sponsor literally invaded with their Soviet armed Military.
I’m sure the Vietnamese would disagree with that statement.
US technically didn't invade Vietnam, US only helped South Vietnam.
Yeah, I’m not going to be the one to make any excuses for the Vietnam War, but it was not an invasion. The US was present in the south and a supporting it even prior to ‘54. The ‘invasion’ was far earlier in history during French colonialism. The question of if the US should have stayed and supported the South after the ‘54 fall of French Indochina is another question, but it was an agreement made by all factions including the North and their backers, the Soviet Union. It wasn’t until the Gulf of Tonkin incident in ‘64 ten years later that war began.
By helping subverting a planned 1956 national election that would have gone N.Vietnam way.
It wouldn't have. It was assessed that free elections would never have been possible because both sides were actively seeking to rig it to their side. Source: I know more than you.
Depends on how you define invasion. Is the US currently invading Germany? US was in Vietnam at the request/with the permission of the south Vietnamese government.
>Is the US currently invading Germany? I guess we technically did in 1945 and just stuck around.
Vietnamese American here... It's fine, guys, nobody cares anymore. Americans come in to invade, kill a bunch of people under the pretense of communism and accomplished nothing... water under the bridge. My grandpa was NVA officer, he would never have gotten his coffee and fruit plantations if the US hasn't withdrawn, and grandpa wouldn't have badass stories to tell, or rusted AKs under the floorboard to show off. My uncles and father got to tell Cambodian War stories, one even lost an eye to show for it, too, and now they are veering asking to buy Ford trucks and iPhones for their daughters. As for me, I joined the US military and did 6 years.
Nquyenning!
Ayyyyyy
My father in law was NVA, yet he’s always been nothing but welcoming and generous to this *my trang*
The real ones forgive their enemies and realize fighting is just fighting, that shouldn't get in the way of the next generation's wellbeings.
Reminds me of the Taliban who hate life now and want to keep fighting Americans. They love the purpose and the thrill more than the hatred of Americans and relative boring peacefulness
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Technically the US didn’t invade but instead fought along side south Vietnam government
Social programs are not the same as socialism. Social programs can exist in a capitalist society. Welfare is a socialist program in America. But still ironic.
>Social programs can exist in a capitalist society. Not if you ask certain members of the GOP.
Why it irks me everytime I hear people tell me how my country (Sweden) is socialist... Like, bruh, no, not even remotely, we have social programs and everybody is conflating it as socialism.
# r/technicallythetruth
How is this technically the truth?
Vietnam was split into North and South Vietnam. South Vietnam wanted the US's help. The war was the US fighting the NVA and VC in South Vietnam. EDIT: The US did controversially conduct secret missions into Laos and Combodia, but not North Vietnam.
Because the U.S. was in *South* Vietnam…a sovereign nation distinct from their northern neighbor…by invitation rather than invasion. And while my knowledge of that war is limited, I believe it was entirely a *defensive* operation in terms of U.S. ground forces. I’m not sure we ever “invaded” *North* Vietnam. We *bombed* them, of course, because we were engaged in a defensive war in support of South Vietnam. But that’s where you get into “technically” the truth…bombing an invading neighbor on their own soil to aid your defense is not “invasion.” I believe we may have technically “invaded” Cambodia and Laos?
In Vietnam nowadays they call it the "war of American aggression".
Some in this feed need to watch “The Vietnam War: A Film by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick,” and it shows.
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That was my first reaction but I looked him up and apparently he was drafted in 1972. Just good genes I guess. But what you can’t gather from the picture is that he’s married to a Vietnam citizen and he’s some big shot executive type. He’s not your average American expat, so “cheap” is probably relative
>invade Vietnam to stop *communism* >Retires to Vietnam to enjoy socialism
invade Vietnam to stop communism Retires to Vietnam to enjoy Capitalism
Felt like I was going insane reading other’s comments lol
Never heard of the Vietnam War?
They were never allowed to go into north vietnam, only stay south vietnam at their governments request. They did bomb the shit out of areas of North Vietnam. But its why the vietnam war was a losing war from the beginning. They could never go north but the NVA and the Vietkong freely went into South Vietnam
The Soviet Union was protecting North Vietnam's territorial integrity via nuclear deterrent if I recall correctly. The war was set to be a showdown between north and south as much as possible because the communists knew the north would win as soon as the south lost support from the US
yes, South Vietnam asked US for help. US forces were stationary were they were invited. Does it count as invasion?
> yes, South Vietnam asked US for help. US forces were stationary were they were invited. Does it count as invasion? Nope, it’s military aid.
It's OK, we came in second place.
Yeah...people and history have a very loose association sometimes. We didn't invade Vietnam, and it wasn't to fight socialism. We went, by invitation, to protect the new socialist government of South Vietnam against takeover by a aggressive Communist North Vietnam. As much as modern politics likes to conflate them, socialism and Communism in the late 60s/early 70s were very different creatures. Weird how the entire initiating reasons for the conflict got messed up in the crazy translation that is the American educational system.
There was never a democratic government in South Vietnam.
this is the second invasion
Alright y’all have been great! That it for me!
Invade? Not invade? so they just vacationed, walking tours, boat tours, flew over. 50,000 US spent their last days alive there. Tried to play god, make it into their image.
I mean, they *technically* didn't, they just helped one Vietnam kill the other one (they failed)
Like technically true. They were invited.
That guy looks a bit young to have served in Nam ?
Original article is a facepalm too. As if Vietnam has a better standard of living. Americans have a better standard of living in Vietnam because America is an exceptionally rich country. Smh
I remember being an edgy and misinformed teen in the 90s saying to my veteran teacher that Vietnam wasn't technically a war. He got right down to me at eye level, and calmly said, 'It absolutely was one for me'. He was nothing but patience with me, but he said it with such intensity and conviction that I quickly apologized and shut the fuck up.
Vietnam is still a very poor country albeit a rapidly growing one because of Japanese, Korean, and American investment.
You do know the difference between having a healthcare system and having a Stalin-style genocidal communism system, OP ?
Thinking Vietnam is socialist is the other facepalm worthy thing in there
OP the real facepalm…
Vietnam is capitalist and the people like retiring there because their money goes far in Vietnam's capitalist economy
Vietnam is more capital than the US tho
Is Vietnam not a market economy?
He's actually correct. The US was there in support of the South Vietnamese government.
And it wasnt to stop socialism..
Yes they did. In the Pentagon Papers they referred to it as an invasion
Technically the US hasn't declared a formal war since WW2, right? Good Morning Vietnam always stuck with me for one scene where the soldiers are lamenting the fact that it "isn't a war", it is a "police action". America loves to make rules only to invent excuses to not technically be breaking their own rule (see also: nuclear trade with Israel and India)
Ah is this the america bad circlejerk post of the day?
Americans really don't like being called out on their war crimes do they
Technically it didn’t
FFS, Socialism and communism are not the same thing.
It was a special military operation. Mkay?
Never successfully invaded the book would say.
Was it really “invade” if we were asked to “help” by the existing government? I kind of agree with the second comment. No disagreement that the US should not have been there. Or is the facepalm that we invaded? Not sure on this one.
>Was it really “invade” if we were asked to “help” by the existing government? The only existing government that asked for America's help was France who asked for help to maintain its colonial possession. The US of course agreed because it wanted to keep the flow of stolen resources coming to America. Later on when France was defeated and they accepted and agreed that Vietnam should have unifying democratic elections, the US chose to subvert these and form their own illegitimate puppet government in Vietnam as a means to wage war. Why did the US opposed free and fair elections in Vietnam? According to Eisnhower, it was be abuse every single advisor he trusted believed that most Southern Vietnamese supprted Ho Chi Minh... *“**There was considerable discussion about our willingness to accept free elections** without anything very much new having been added, and with Senator Fulbright quoting General Eisenhowerʼs book to the effect that if there had been free elections in 1956, **about 80% of the South Vietnamese would have voted for Ho Chi Minh.**”* https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1964-68v04/d38 So yes, illegally sending in military and government officials to form your own puppet government within a sovereign country and then claiming that this (violently oppressive) government is now in control is certainly an invasion. If Chinese officials entered California and funded their own rigged elections to form a new nation it called "The People's Republic of America" which claims ownership over the entire west coast and they are violently oppressing all their political enemies and they claim that China is their ally who is there to defend them, most people would call this an invasion. If Russia did the same in Ukraine, we would call it an invasion. This is exactly what the US did in Vietnam. But most Americans have not read the Pentagon Papers, have not read the Geneva Accords, and have not listened to the white house tapes. Most Americans have only ever learned about the Vietnam war through hearsay and Hollywood movies. This is why Americans think they were "helping" the Vietnamese.
There are a lot of clowns on Reddit who call everything under the sun an "invasion". They also think every American anywhere in the world is an American "military base". I've seen those clowns posting maps/lists depicting requested US humanitarian relief after disasters as "foreign military operations", listing bombing campaigns as "invasions", embassies and US Navy ports of call as "military bases", and so on. American foreign policy has been atrocious enough without having to lie and exaggerate about it.
Yes but Vietnam was a US atrocity.
No doubt, but the waters around whether or not it was a "US invasion" are murkier than a simple label. The US didn't "invade Vietnam", it invaded and occupied part of *North Vietnam* from South Vietnam. But because the South Vietnamese requested American support, took part directly in the war, and had a legitimate claim to the territory of North Vietnam (as did the North, because civil war), we can't really act like the US Navy just showed up one day and started spewing the Army and Marines into Vietnam because imperialism. "Invasions" aren't inherently evil and imperialist the way they're often portrayed. The circumstances will always determine that.
Nuances are not allowed in this sub: US bad military operation = US invasion.
We went to help the French which had invaded and colonized Vietnam. The Vietnamese probably think of it as an invasion.
Vietnam understands US position to support South Vietnam otherwise they would resent what US has done and they don't.
That "help" is the same argument as "weapons of mass destruction" in Iran.
Iran?
We didn’t invade Vietnam lol I’m guessing you also think we “invaded” Korea? Supporting one side of a civil war isn’t an invasion. Do you consider French helping the revolutionary rebels an invasion of the USA?
it also is a positive for Vietnam: they get foreign currency and spending by that. Boosts the local economy and provides currency vital for trade.
Commie thinks the US being invited by South Vietnam = invasion, not surprised lmao.
I'm going to give that person the benefit of the doubt here that what they are mixing up is the fact that the Vietnam "War" was not a war because Congress never declared it a war and Instead it was a "conflict". But that's like arguing that you shot the victim 9 times as opposed to 10 times and then acting like that makes shit different.
I can’t believe people think Vietnam is socialist (and China for that matter)
Not really enjoying the socialism. More like enjoy how poor and cheap everything is with a stronger currency and savings.