Originally posted by FMFhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war#Exit_of_the_French.2C_1950.E2.80.931954
Ah so you admit that the French were not "gone" then. The real question is: how much backing could the U.S. provide? And the answer is: enough to end up slaughtering 3,000,000 Vietnamese while trying to impose its will on Viet Nam and prevent any moves towards national self-determination.
The Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success.[49]
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu marked the end of French involvement in Indochina. The Viet Minh and their mercurial commander Vo Nguyen Giap handed the French a stunning military defeat, and on May 7, 1954, the French Union garrison surrendered. At the Geneva Conference the French negotiated a ceasefire agreement with the Viet Minh. Independence was granted to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.
Vietnam was temporarily partitioned at the 17th parallel, and under the terms of the Geneva Convention, civilians were to be given the opportunity to freely move between the two provisional states. Elections throughout the country were to be held, according to the Geneva accords, but were blocked by the South Vietnamese president, who feared a communist victory.[50] Around one million northerners, mainly Catholics, fled south, fearing persecution by the communists,[51] following an American propaganda campaign using slogans such as, "The Virgin Mary is heading south",[52] and aided by a U.S. funded $93 million relocation program, which included ferrying refugees with the Seventh Fleet.[53] It is estimated that as many as two million more would have left had they not been stopped by the Viet Minh.[54] In the north, the Viet Minh established a socialist state—the Democratic Republic of Vietnam—and engaged in a drastic land reform program in which an estimated eight thousand perceived "class enemies" were executed.[55] In 1956 the Communist Party leaders of Hanoi admitted to "excesses" in implementing this program and restored a large amount of the land to the original owners.[56] In the south a non-communist state was established under the Emperor Bao Dai, a former puppet of the French and the Japanese. Ngô Đình Diệm became his prime minister. In addition to the Catholics flowing south, up to 130,000 ‘Revolutionary Regroupees’, went north for "regroupment" expecting to return to the South within 2 years.[57] The Viet Minh left roughly 5,000 to 10,000 cadres in South Vietnam as a "politico-military substructure within the object of its irredentism."[58] The last French soldiers left Vietnam in April 1956.[40] The PRC completed their withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time.[39]
Originally posted by zeeblebotYet another cut & paste from wikipedia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war#Exit_of_the_French.2C_1950.E2.80.931954
The Viet Minh received crucial support from the Soviet Union and PRC. PRC support in the Border Campaign of 1950 allowed supplies to come from PRC into Vietnam. Throughout the conflict, U.S. intelligence estimates remained skeptical of French chances of success.[49]
The ...[text shortened]... 40] The PRC completed their withdrawal from North Vietnam at around the same time.[39]
Do you have an argument or position?
Originally posted by FMFFMF: the north vietnamese were justified in waging war against the south because the french once owned by the north and the south and because the french and the USA aided the south, and because they share a language and a border.
Your "position" was an entirely fatuous and politically illiterate analogy. I provided a better analogy - one not very convenient to what appears to be your pro-colonial position - which actually created a rples-reversed hypothetical involving France and Viet Nam. Your response to this was to bizarrely cite the "strawman" with a cut and paste from wikipedia.
ok:
north vietnamese => scotland
south vietnamese => ireland
french => british
zeeb: scotland would be justified in waging war against ireland because the british once owned by the north and the south and because the british and the USA aided ireland, and because they share a common language and are not too far from each other.
now, you try it.
Originally posted by zeeblebotLudicrous. Try my better analogy involving Vietnam and France - in order to analyze what happened to Viet Nam after France's colonial rule ended.
north vietnamese => scotland
south vietnamese => ireland
french => british
Scotland = the north Vietnamese???
Daft.
Wasn't the Vietnam war just about the US wanting to secure a non-communist regime?
Ah yes. I knew it was that simple.
"Oh but Mark, the French were there first."
Absolutely right. They were still clinging on to the remains of their empire. Their containment of the situation wasn't about communism or capitalism, it was about resources and pride.
They failed (as imperialism everywhere was failing) and the US stepped up to the base, and for all their usual reasons.
Originally posted by zeeblebotMmmm. Scotland taking over Ireland, in your head, can be used as an intellectual device to reject national self-determination, to reject national unity while struggling to break free from colonialism, to support Western puppet military dictatorships in the section of the country carved off for the interests of former and later colonial powers... etc. etc. Scotland taking over Ireland enables you to argue these kinds of things????
and scotland as N. VN looks daft to you because your argument for the N. VN takeover IS daft.
Or what is it you are arguing with this Ireland, France, Viet Nam, Scotland stuff?
there's a gap in your "N VN was trying to kick out the French" timeline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu
The Battle of Dien Bien Phu (French: Bataille de Diên Biên Phu; Vietnamese: Chiến dịch Điện Biên Phủ😉 was the climactic confrontation of the First Indochina War between the French Union's French Far East Expeditionary Corps and Viet Minh communist revolutionaries. The battle occurred between March and May 1954 and culminated in a comprehensive French defeat that effectively ended the war.
...
Shortly after the battle, the war ended with the 1954 Geneva Accords, under which France agreed to withdraw from its former Indochinese colonies. The accords partitioned the country in two; fighting later resumed among rival Vietnamese forces in 1959 with the Vietnam (Second Indochina) War.
Originally posted by zeeblebotYou can misrepresent what I have said as much as you like. When you started talking about Scotland and Ireland I lost interest. Then when you characterized my analogy reversing the roles of Viet Nam and France, in a post-colonial realignment scenario, as a "strawman" argument, I realized you're just taking the p*ss.
there's a gap in your "N VN was trying to kick out the French" timeline.
Originally posted by zeeblebotLet me fill the void.
Nothing. An empty post. No point made.
Forget Scotland invading Ireland. Let's talk about Viet Nam and France.
Should the Vietnamese have intervened in Europe in 1945 to stop once Nazi occupied France reuniting with Vichy France?
2 edits
Originally posted by zeeblebotNo.
FMF: the north vietnamese were justified in waging war against the south because the french once owned by the north and the south and because the french and the USA aided the south, and because they share a language and a border.
ok:
north vietnamese => scotland
south vietnamese => ireland
french => british
zeeb: scotland would be justified in ...[text shortened]... because they share a common language and are not too far from each other.
now, you try it.
The Vietnamese people were justified in fighting to unify their country, which unification was blocked by the dictator Diem. If you read your wiki article, you'll see that US President Eisenhower supported Diem's refusal to participate in unification elections because he believed that Ho Chi Minh would get 80% of the vote in the entire country. The partition of Vietnam was never intended to be anything but temporary.
EDIT: From wiki (quoting Ike's book Mandate for Change ) President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed U.S. fears when he wrote that, in 1954, "80 per cent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh"