Watching that series documentary now, watched the first episode.

It's fascinating to see how the US got sucked into the war.

From early impressions it appears to have been formed from mistakes Truman made trying to keep the French onside after WW2.

Then the communists come in far more fully and it becomes communism/democracy....or to be more accurate communism/Vietnamese authoritarianism with capitalism,

It appears a lot of early mistakes were made with Ho Chi Minh after helping him during WW2's war with the Japanese.....all due to the French's desire to hold onto their colonial lands.

Fascinating.

Will report back after episode two.

Edited by Stirlingsays (07 Oct 2017 9.12am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

For the north surviving was winning as that brought unification....like the Taliban said, 'you have the watches but we have the time'.

It should be remembered that the British lost more soldiers during the Battle of the Somme than the US did during the whole Vietham war.

When you hear about the US being defeated....it has to be seen within its context.....What defeated the US in Vietham was the same reason Clinton pulled the US out of Somalia.

Political expediency mixed with knowledge that the war would require far more resources and manpower to 'win' than was worth it.

Edited by Stirlingsays (07 Oct 2017 9.56am)

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

I shall, it looks like a very well put together piece of work. Low on agenda.

'Who are you and how did you get in here? I'm a locksmith. And, I'm a locksmith.' (Leslie Nielsen)

The 'beautiful country' where over a million, mainly 'boat people' tried to flee from. The country of 'reeducation' camps for 500,000, where one left wing 'observer' said : "the inmates faced hard labour, but only rarely torture or execution" [only 'rarely note, so that's ok then]. In 1975 and 1976 alone, more than 600,000 people were forcibly moved from Ho Chi Minh City to new rural 'economic zones' - in reality, malaria-infested jungles. An American, Stanley Karnow, living in Viet Nam wrote: "When I saw Hanoi in 1981, not a needle or a bar of soap could be found in its empty shops. People spent hours foraging for a scrap of food or a stick of firewood. Ragged families straggled into town from areas that suffered from actual famine. They begged in front of hotels, and huddled together for warmth on cold drizzly nights ... rats scurried around the lobby, where outmoded European leftists exchanged fatuous revolutionary jargon with Asian, African and Latin American insurgents then often trained in Vietnam."
The beautiful regime lauded by the left.

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. [Orwell]

plot spoiller

"Everything is air-droppable at least once."

"When the going gets tough, the tough call for close air support."

Perhaps it is - I just hate commies.

We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. [Orwell]