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The Forum > Article Comments > Gallipoli good, Vietnam bad > Comments

Gallipoli good, Vietnam bad : Comments

By Sasha Uzunov, published 21/7/2009

Vietnam will remain Australia’s most controversial of wars because of the simple fact it was the first television war.

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Ive never read such rubbish.
I'm sick and tired of comparisons between conflicts the Australian Defence Force has been involved in.
Who cares if the war was morally right or not. Our men and women of the defence force fulfilled the obligations of thy governments bidding at the time. Get with the program people and stop knocking those past and present members of the defence force that have served or are currently serving in a war zone. Politicians decide on which war our defence force will fight if people dont like that then take the matter up with the government stop blaming those that have served or that are seving. The ANZAC tradition was about an entire nation supporting its veterans, unfortunately since the Korean war to present day there is an unthinkable but very obvious despicable display of an ungrateful nation.
As for Don Tate, please take another happy pill mate we know you were in a combat zone and so were many others and decisions right or wrong were made at the time so be it. Grind your axe for use against the government not your fellow veterans.
Posted by amazed, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 11:30:55 AM
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"Who cares if the war was morally right or not."

Good on you amazed, you've managed to express the moral bankruptcy of so many Australians most pungently.

Who cares about things like morality when we can ignore it and cheer Our Brave Diggers instead?

Nauseating.

Rstuart you write as if the domino theory was universally accepted wisdom. On the contrary, lots of us didn't require hindsight to see it for the paranoia you correctly say it was. We said so at the time, frequently and loudly, and were vilified as commies for our pains. These days we are vilified as terrorism supporters because we opposed the invasion of Iraq. Nothing changes except the labels; fearful ignorant people continue to see imaginary threats everywhere that require us to retaliate first, preferably with lots of things that go bang. And as amazed argued so eloquently, who cares if it's morally right or wrong? The point is it makes them feel good.
Posted by Ken_L, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 12:11:41 PM
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Anyone that has fought in a war will tell you it is bad. To try and justify world political failure by grading wars is not helpful in any way. War of any sort is definately bad and should be avoided where possible.
We have many reasons why we went to war given to us,, but basically I think it comes down to population control in many instances. With the world population at 2˝ billion in 1950, and now we are nearly at 7 billion,,, I wonder how long we have got till there is another population control adjustment?
Posted by NiftyOne, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 12:14:27 PM
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‘… who is the person who decides which war is “good” and which war is “bad”…?’

When it comes to Vietnam, that question cannot be answered without a history lesson…

Vietnam has had a 4000 year history of rich and stable independence punctuated by foreign invasion, occupation and finally expulsion by organised peasant resistance – two of its most heroic resistance leaders being the sisters Trung Trac and Trung Nhi.

A succession of dynasties have ruled Vietnam, some of which (like the Li) were extremely progressive socially, even by today’s standards. By the end of the 18th century, another peasant uprising united the three Indo-Chinese kingdoms but, unfortunately, the early death of the amazing peasant leader Nguyen Hue in 1792 made it vulnerable to French conquest.

The Vietnamese fought against French rule for 150 years. At the end of WWI, Ho Chi Minh led a delegation to Versailles to plead for independence. The very nations who had just fought a war that claimed 19 million lives in the cause of the ‘rights of small nations’ refused to even speak to them. Again in 1945, after Ho’s military organisation, the Vietminh, had spent the war resisting the Japanese, Vietnam’s pleas for independence were again refused an audience by the West.

After the Vietminh defeated the French in 1954, the Geneva peace conference called for a temporary division of the country, with elections to be held in 1956. As an 80% election victory for Ho Chi Minh was predicted (by President Eisenhower no less), the elections were never held.

Contrary to Western mythology, the Vietcong were NOT the North Vietnamese Army. They were South Vietnamese nationalist freedom fighters, fighting the West to force a reversal of its broken promise to allow a democratically elected government to rule a united Vietnam. Mainly made up of a tenacious and well-organised peasantry, they were following an ancient and proud Vietnamese tradition.

So … as for the question ‘… who is the person who decides which war is “good” and which war is “bad”?’

There is NO SUCH person. The only decider is history.
Posted by SJF, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 12:21:15 PM
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[Blairbar] ‘The essential difference between Australia's involvement in WW1 and WW2 and Vietnam was that Australia's involvement in WW1 and WW2 had overwhelming public support …’

[Amazed] ‘The ANZAC tradition was about an entire nation supporting its veterans …’

This is mainly true of WW2, because there was a real and direct threat, but not WWI. The truth about WWI is that the nation was deeply divided over our involvement.

The two defeated conscription referendums in 1916 and 1917 only scratched the surface of the heated tensions over Australia’s involvement in what was perceived by many as a superpower rivalry struggle on the other side of the world. The tensions went all the way to the top, with the ALP splitting over the issue.

Also, the very pro-active WWI peace movement - drawing up to 100,000-strong crowds to its public rallies - was considered such a threat by the Hughes government that draconian censorship laws were passed, forbidding any form of anti-war sentiment to be published or spoken publicly – even songs like ‘I didn’t raise my son to be a soldier’ were banned. Raids, jailings and deportations of peace activists and anti-conscription campaigners were commonplace.

This reprehensible episode in the nation's history is one of the great (deliberately) untold stories of WWI. Instead, the Anzac myth of overwhelming Australian support has been regurgitated by the history syllabuses, political spin doctors and media editors-in-chief of every generation since
Posted by SJF, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 12:58:46 PM
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SJF. Thanks for the enlightenment. Yes I have seen the comparison between the WW1 Diggers and Vietnam Diggers on a couple of occasions. Ben Avi tells one very nicely about a WW1 motorbike rider telling him of how they were similarly treated after their war.
To those that never served in war, I am sorry, but you do not, and never will understand the Veteran. It is a sad fact but very true.
Posted by NiftyOne, Wednesday, 22 July 2009 1:52:21 PM
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