What happened to Vietnam after America pulled out? Did millions more die?

[Robin Hood]

I was in discussion with a freeper at work the other night and he said that we should never have pulled out of Vietnam because millions of people died afterwards at the hands of communists. He then mentioned Cambodia and I replied that I thought that Cambodia was a CIA operation lead by Kissinger.

Does anyone know what had happened to Vietnam after we pulled out of there? And did we try to save lives by taking 3 million lives? Any info would be appreciated.

My co-worker is the anti U.N. type and blames the U.N. for Vietnam but thinks that we should have stayed the course. Any links that I can print out would be helpful. Thanks.

[ramapo]

1. What did the U.N> have to do with it?

Millions died during the war, not afterwards.

I'm sure there were some retributions and certainly significant displacement and perhaps inprisonment of S. Vietnamese.

Stay the course to what? The only way the US could've won was by blasting the whole country to tiny bits, a position taken by some of the US military.

Read "Secrets" by Daniel Ellsberg.Besides great insights into what really went on in Vietnam, the author provides a history of the Pentagon Papers.

Better yet, tons of references. Ellsberg has a website too. Just Google him though I don't know that there's much there.

[Robin Hood]

2. What is interesting is...

That this is the second time that I have heard this talking point come out of two different freepers that work at my government paid job. I had never heard of millions dying after we had left. Are they lying or just simply deluded?

[Red State Rebel]

3. The movie The Killing Fields portrayed what happened

and it wasn't pretty.

I don't know if there are any arguments against the truth of that movie, I have watched it but haven't seen it brought up in any discussions.

[KG]

4. the killing fields story took place in cambodia.

[Robin Hood]

5. When he brought up cambodia, I brought up kissinger and the CIA.

He seemed to think that it was two different things.

[fsbooks]

6. The killing fields was Cambodia

A peaceful country, until we took them into the war.

[Jim__]

11. The killing fields was Cambodia and Cambodia was relatively stable

and an ally of the US. As we bombed Cambodia, we undermined the government that had been our ally; and strengthened the Kmer Rouge (sp).

[ramapo]

13. We weren't fighting the Khmer Rouge

This act of genocide did take place after the US withdrawal from Vietnam.

We had no ground troops in Cambodia (not legally anyway) and I don't think we would've taken on another front to the war by going after the KR.

It can be said we stood by while genocide took place but that's nothing new. The US has done that often.

[dicknbush]

7. It started when Nixon/Kissinger invaded Cambodia...

Up until this illegal invasion by the US there was a delicate balance with Nordom Shianook (sp?) trying his best to keep Cambodia neutral the war. The fact was that North Vietnam was using the border of Cambodia as a staging ground and refuge. US illegal invasion upset the balance and Shianook was topled by a military coup I think that led somehow to the Kemer Rouge bing in charge of Cambodia as the US pulled out. Kemer Rouge I think was aligned with China. Soon after we left China and Vietnam had border skirmishes and Cambodia and Vietnam went into full fledged war. Ironically it was the Kemer Roughe who were the bad guys and it was the Viet- Nam that bought stability back to Cambodia as they advanced. At least that is how I remember it.

[Robin Hood]

8. I have found something interesting here.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2000/04/15/world/main184477.shtml


However, the truth could be uncomfortable for a lot of people outside Cambodia. A lawyer for Ta Mok, a Khmer Rouge military leader who could be tried for war crimes, has threatened to subpoena Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Henry Kissinger and three former United Nations secretary generals to answer questions about their countries' support for the KR insurgency.

After the Vietnamese invaded and threw out the Khmer Rouge, the U.S. government supported the non-communist partners in a coalition army of which the Khmer Rouge was part. And world powers allowed the Khmer Rouge's delegate to occupy Cambodia's United Nations seat even after the Khmer Rouge were overthrown. Because Vietnam was America's enemy, critics say, the Khmer Rouge were treated as friends.

"There's a lot of embarrassment to go around," says Sydney Schanberg, who covered the Cambodian civil war for The New York Times."We haven't learned that the truth is the cleansing thing."

The truth is that U.S bombing of Cambodia killed many thousands, long before the Khmer Rouge had a chance to.

<Snip>

It appears that Pol pot was another US/British love child, just like Osama. Will we ever learn?

[TreasonousBastard]

9. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"...

caused more damn problems during the Cold War.

Half the shit in South America and Africa is due to our competing dictators-- proxy wars with the old Soviet Union.

[lottie244]

10. Viet Nam is now one of our trading partners. All war is vanity.

Proves that Communism was just a tool of the RW just as WMDs

[eridani]

12. Have your rightwing buds read the following--

--and then ask them if there is one goddam reason why Vietnam should not have bee independent in 1945. The single worst thing that our leaders do is stomp all over the very people who admire our basic values.

http://coombs.anu.edu.au/~vern/van_kien/declar.html

"All men are created equal. They are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness"

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America m 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

The Declaration of the French Revolution made in 1791 on the Rights of Man and the Citizen also states: "All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights." Those are undeniable truths.

Nevertheless, for more than eighty years, the French imperialists, abusing the standard of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, have violated our Fatherland and oppressed our fellow-citizens. They have acted contrary to the ideals of humanity and justice. In the field of politics, they have deprived our people of every democratic liberty.

They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united.

They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots- they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood. They have fettered public opinion; they have practised obscurantism against our people. To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.

In the fields of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people, and devastated our land.

They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have monopolised the issuing of bank-notes and the export trade.

They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a state of extreme poverty.

They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our workers.

<etc.>

[mememe]

14. The ugly truth......

...is that after the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam the war didn't stop. The North Vietnamese government agreed at the Paris peace talks to keep its troops out of South Vietnam in exchange for U.S. withdrawal. Both sides knew this was a farce. Shortly after the U.S. completed its withdrawal North Vietnamese regular units became active in and soon conquered the south.

During this phase of the war many 10s of thousands were killed. Also as mentioned by many others, well after the U.S withdrawal the Kymer Rouge unleashed a horrific slaughter on the people of Cambodia.

Killings, reprisals, "re-education", etc. continued in Vietnam for many years. Contrary to what many may think the Vietnamese boat people were not out on luxury cruises. They were risking their lives to escape brutal conditions.

Does this mean we should have stayed in Vietnam? Not necessarily. I'm not trying to argue that case. I am pointing out that all decisions have consequences and that while many thought the price of staying in Vietnam was too high, they should not ignore or dismiss the price others paid when we left.

[Nevernose]

15. Cambodia was actually invaded by Vietnam

In 1979, as the Vietnamese civil war has officially wrapped up (though there was still quite a bit of violence), the Vietnamese government invaded Cambodia with the intention of protecting ethnic Viets from genocide and putting a stop to the Cambodian Civil War.

We started the civil war in Cambodia; the Vietnamese were the only ones willing to "finish the job," as your friend might say.

How brutal does a civil war have to be before the fucking North Vietnamese have to bail them out?