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Forty Years Ago, April 30, 1975. Who Won the Vietnam War?

Memories of Empire: Remembering the Fall of Saigon


Despite sharing the same diplomatic table as the United States, and forging ahead with trade agreements, Vietnam still remembers. Remembers, that is, those “countless barbarous crimes,” as the country’s prime minister calls them, committed by the United States during the long wars of the 1960s and 1970s. On April 30, 1975, Saigon was stricken by scenes of evacuation and panic. “Our homeland,” explained Nguyen Tan Dung, “had to undergo extremely serious challenges.”


Both countries provided mirrors of violent change, a form of toxic exchange that seemed share more with disease than nutrition. A distant country that was supposedly off the radar of American homes became a round-the-clock transmission feast of gore and depravity. Then came the battlefield traumas and the counter-cultural response.

The words from President Gerald R. Ford a week before the fall of Saigon before an audience at Tulane University spoke of America regaining “the sense of pride that existed before Vietnam, but it cannot be achieved by refighting a war that is finished as far as America is concerned.” The crowds began gathering for the evacuation – 130,000 Vietnamese leaving the South that April, a projection that made State Department predictions woefully inadequate. Bing Crosby’s White Christmas did the rounds on radio on April 29, triggering the airlift evacuation “Operation Frequent Wind”.

An all to quiet theme behind the commemorations has been one of waste. Waste of life, of resources. In Tim O’Brien’s words on the fall of Saigon and a slew of images, it was “the waste of it all. The dead, the wounded, the money, the psychic energy and the moral energy […] just everything.” Poor planning for the evacuation also saw a prolonging of suffering – the separation of families, the special, God-like power of who would join in the evacuation and who could not. “We separated families in a wink,” remembers Frank Snepp, one of the CIA’s top strategists working in Vietnam, “because we hadn’t planned adequately.”

But a response to defeat and trauma tends to be that of the reassuring fairy tale, the inventive scribe who finds better ways of reimagining horror. “Think of them,” suggests Bill Moyers, “as silver-lining tributes to good intentions and last-ditch heroism that may come in handy in the years ahead.”
Hence the fall of Saigon being deemed humanitarian and worthy of remembrance in its tragic meter. American aggression, noted Christian Appy, was given a different pigmentation: that of “a tragic humanitarian rescue mission.”[2]

The very idea of defeat that somehow masquerades as honourable exit started the show. The peace accords of 1973 served as a masking agent. The brutality began to disappear from the screens beaming into the homes. But scores were going to be settled, and vacillation before the advancing North Vietnamese forces would see compromising records fall into the hands of the victors. The CIA, as tends to be the usual pattern, could not be trusted to be reliable on this one – those on their payroll were found in undestroyed records, captured, sent for re-education, be it through ideological patching up or traditional execution.

As Moyers notes, a response of selective remembrance reverberates in the halls of quaint, if somewhat dangerous delusion. Spin doctors with dusters and gloves have gone back into the archives, reshaping defeats as strategic wind downs and “exists”. America, after all, cannot lose, and certainly can’t be seen to sport a broken nose. Corrupt regimes installed by the grace of superpowers become mechanisms of stability. Gambles pay off even when they are ignominious failures. That is the modern legacy of Vietnam, visible in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.

Euphemistic bureaucracy thrived in South Vietnam, and has given birth to some terrifying monsters. The language of “body counts” and “free fire zones” entailing practical desserts have not lost their appeal in any shape or form. They have found shape in the broader objectives of the modern American Republic.

Vietnam also provided another pertinent reminder in the context of refugees. The first makeover of anniversary thought was to neglect the enormous internal displacement created by US operations – those arising from the “strategic hamlet program” designed to “pacify” local populations. In a technique all too reminiscent of British strategy towards the Boers in South Africa, millions were forced off their land, herded, encamped. “I never flew refugees back in,” remembers flight chief Jim Soular. “I always flew them out.”

Refugees arising from the conflict chose the sea as a means of passage. They were the “boat people” snaking their way in danger via the Mekong and the South China Sea to make it to countries like Australia. Many were ethnic Chinese that formed the bulk of those expelled by the Vietnamese government in 1979. Government policy to them from Australia, an ally of the southern government, resisted cultural and racial angst. There was no Pacific or extra-territorial repulsion, despite the fear in some circles that white purity was being muddied. But tens of thousands would languish for years in refugee camps in Southeast Asia.

Even now, as the fall of South Vietnam is being remembered, it is providing moments of selective reflection. Whatever happens at these points, the strategists and the dream factory merchants should be kept away from the planning rooms about military interventions. Any reference to Vietnam as precedent is bound to be foolish and misguided, because the wrong questions are bound to be asked.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: bkampmark@gmail.com
 
Who talked about China being an angel/saint or helping Vietnam just for the sake of their kindness??LOOL:lol:

Have you ever seen a country/power basing its foreign policy on goodness/morality/kindness??:cheesy: IT HAS NEVER BEEN THE CASE IN HISTORY AND NEVER WILL IT BE. Be it the U.S, France, Britain, Japan, Russia, India, China, etc . All of them do things for their nationl interests. So you shouldnt single out any one country to be honest.:D

Fact of the matter is we are talking about a particular subject, which is wihout massive Soviet and Chinese support your Vietcongs would have been decimated in a few months at best. Thats the simple truth. Both China and the Soviets supported you back then because i was in their interests to do so against the 'imperialist U.S/west'. Mao himself summarised this clearly to your premier in i quote:
“Why have the Americans not made a fuss about the fact that more than 100,000 Chinese troops help you building the railways, roads and airports although they knew about it?” [67]
- - Chairman Mao to Vietnamese Premier Dong, 1970

You can go on and on arguing about why China supported you both materially, militarily and with manpower just out of bad intenions, but it doesnt matter, fact of the matter is that their support was crucil for your VCP/vietcong survival, else your country will be just another north and south korea like situation today, or better still united but under a capitalistic U.S BACKED south vietnamese government which to be honest would have been far more better for ordinary vietnamese in terms of development/living standard/growth/trade etc.

You should learn to put your biased/resentment/hatred for your rival and learn to acknowledge historical facts at least for your country's sake. WITHOUT THE SOVIETS AND CHINESE THERE WILL BE NO VCP IN VIETNAM TODAY FULL STOP. :agree: So blame them for your longg way, and subsequent sanctions/isolation (which made Vietnam lag soo much behind its SEA) neighbours, because if not for these two countries, Vietnam wouldnt have gone through all that to be honest. :bounce:

China Contributed Substantially to Vietnam War Victory, Claims Scholar | Wilson Center
Chinese and Soviet involvement in Vietnam
Military History Online
- Chinese Support for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War: The Decisive Edge
R u our old Mike ?? I told u already, US still couldnt defeat VN even when we didnt have Soviet-China's support, we just simply carry on the guerrilla warfare and wait until US run out of money and withdraw like in Iraq :P
 
R u our old Mike ?? I told u already, US still couldnt defeat VN even when we didnt have Soviet-China's support, we just simply carry on the guerrilla warfare and wait until US run out of money and withdraw like in Iraq :P

Ahahahah, yes bro it's me. Are you my old niceguy :pop:? :-)

And you are right Vietnam was smart to indulge in guerrilla style attacks /hit and run, mix in civilian populatio etc to confuse the ennemy . Thats the best way to engage when face with à far superior adversary. Just like Vietnam did later with the chinese, and the U.S found out in Vietnam, iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Never fight à much more bigger /superior adversary directly /openly like a regular/real army, else you will be decimated.
 
...there was no pro-Southern uprising in the North.
Only a constant stream of refugees from North to South.

The US military never had boots on the ground in the north.
Is is because the US could not ?

I'm surprised that you really think that a military dictatorship can gather popular support. There has never been an example of a popularly supported military dictatorship in all of history.
That is odd, because you believe the military dictatorship in China had popular support.

In the absence of any outside intervention, South Vietnam would've been crushed in a few months.
The Viet Minh could not have survived without outside intervention. Guess who that was ? France.

The only reason China and Russia intervened is because it was South Vietnam, not North Vietnam that started the controversy by cancelling elections and installing military dictators.
Wrong. Stalin and Mao meddled in Viet Nam because of their combined desire to spread communism, and also part desire to create a defense buffer.

Your reasoning is all borked up. China meddled in Viet Nam long before the US got involved. First as moral and political support, then later with arms when Ho and the Viet Minh turned against the French, who they invited back in via the Ho-Sainteny Agreement.

You should change your forum handle. It is not what you claim to be. :rolleyes:
 
Ahahahah, yes bro it's me. Are you my old niceguy :pop:? :-)
And you are right Vietnam was smart to indulge in guerrilla style attacks /hit and run, mix in civilian populatio etc to confuse the ennemy . Thats the best way to engage when face with à far superior adversary. Just like Vietnam did later with the chinese, and the U.S found out in Vietnam, iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Never fight à much more bigger /superior adversary directly /openly like a regular/real army, else you will be decimated.
Dude your old account @mike2000 is still out there. You aren't banned dear. If you are truly old mike , i wonder why you are operating from a new account lool .. You can always contact webby if you are facing some kind of trouble in getting into your old account.
Ahahahah, yes bro it's me. Are you my old niceguy :pop:? :-)
And you are right Vietnam was smart to indulge in guerrilla style attacks /hit and run, mix in civilian populatio etc to confuse the ennemy . Thats the best way to engage when face with à far superior adversary. Just like Vietnam did later with the chinese, and the U.S found out in Vietnam, iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Never fight à much more bigger /superior adversary directly /openly like a regular/real army, else you will be decimated.
There was nothing else North Vietnam could do while confronting a far superior enemy and they clearly succeeded in it unlike Iraq or even Afghanistan.
 
Only a constant stream of refugees from North to South.


Is is because the US could not ?


That is odd, because you believe the military dictatorship in China had popular support.


The Viet Minh could not have survived without outside intervention. Guess who that was ? France.


Wrong. Stalin and Mao meddled in Viet Nam because of their combined desire to spread communism, and also part desire to create a defense buffer.

Your reasoning is all borked up. China meddled in Viet Nam long before the US got involved. First as moral and political support, then later with arms when Ho and the Viet Minh turned against the French, who they invited back in via the Ho-Sainteny Agreement.

You should change your forum handle. It is not what you claim to be. :rolleyes:

what are you talking about lol , the ROC under generalissimo chiang kai shek was the military dictatorship, and it lost.
 
The Americans won the war,no doubt,for,after 40 years,the Vietnamese are again licking the balls of what you know。:rofl:
 
The Americans won the war,no doubt,for,after 40 years,the Vietnamese are again licking the balls of what you know。:rofl:

Such ironic, said the one who do same diplomacy in 1970 which was called "ping pong diplomacy" use support of US and Japan against threat of Soviet in 1970 as US decide to left and China that time not see them as threat in Asia like before instead USSR become more serious threat. Deng said : It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice.
Hold your position, hide your capacities, bide your time, accomplish things where possible
Right? my comrade
 
The Americans won the war,no doubt,for,after 40 years,the Vietnamese are again licking the balls of what you know。:rofl:
You sound most of the times like a psychopath. Ever considered to see a doctor?
 
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