Dagget,

There is certainly some truth in your statement that the US was not prepared to let Vietnam become communist, even if that was what the Vietnamese themselves wanted.

The US, and many other countries rightfully feared that if they did not oppose the communist expansion in South East Asia many other coutries would also fall under the communist banner. The fact that this didn't happen cannot be used to suggest that it could not have happened. Massive effort and funding went into the fight in Vietnam. It would surely have gone elsewhere if Vietnam had simply changed hands in 1954.

You seem to be totally unable to accept the fact that communism has been a disaster everywhere it was implemented. That many people, in America in particular, felt that communism was a return to feudal times and a loss of the freedom of the peoples who were under its control.

you say >> "Without partitioning, there would have been elections up and down the country which the Vietnamese Communist Party would have easily won"

Among the viet minh in general there were at least as many nationalists, as communists. The suggestion that the victoy belonged to the communists alone is not correct. However, I do accept that the communist party probably would have won at that time.

The most important thing you are ignoring is the fact that the communist countries, once under such a system were not only brutal and corrupt, but didn't allow the people to change their minds about their system of gov't at a later stage.

Vietnam has been a communist country ever since 1975. Can you honestly suggest that the people of Vietnam, were they given the chance to vote, would have known they were voting to allow a single party to rule them for the next 40 years? Can you deny that the Vietnamese would have voted out the communist gov't at some stage IF they had the chance to do so.

TBC

Paul.L, you are attempting to raise the spectre of totalitarian communist rule to excuse the role of the U.S. in helping to prevent free elections in 1954 and its destructive war against Indo-China, just as he previously attempted to excuse Kissinger's role in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Salvadore Allende in Chile.

To partly cross-post from the forum "Tet lives on - forty years later" at http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=6974&page=0#106355
Marilyn Young's "The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990"(1991) gives a glimpse of just what might have been possible if the Vietnamese Communist Party had not been forced by their supposed 'allies' to agree to the partition of their country. She cites Joseph Alsop, who visited the "palm-hut state" in the Mekong Delta in the south in 1954:

"I would like to be able to report--I had hoped to be able to
report--that ... I saw all the signs of misery and oppression
that have made my visits to East Germany like nightmare journeys
to 1984. But it was not so." ... Alsop described an idyllic
landscape of emerald rice fields, tiny villages along canal
banks thick with mangoes, palms, palms, bamboo, papaya. Here,
during the war against the French, the Viet Minh established a
"strong self-contained state, with a loyal population of nearly
2 million, a powerful regular army, a complete civil
administration, and all other apparatus of a established
governmental authority."

Alsop's fellow passengers confirmed his observations, expressing
their contentment and boasting of the Viet Minh victory over the
French. Reluctantly, he believed them, for "their was no hint
of the bleak, guarded, totalitarian atmosphere, ... that I
imagined I would find." ... "At first," Alsop confessed, "it was
difficult for me, as it is for any Westerner, to conceive of a
Communist government's genuinely 'serving the people.' I could
hardly imagine a Communist government that was also a popular
government and almost a democratic government. But this is just
the sort of government the palm-hut state actually was. ...".
(p55 of "The Vietnam Wars").

The original article was Joseph Alsop, "A Man in a Mirror," The New Yorker, 25 June, 1955.

(tobecontinued)

Had there been elections, there is every likelihood that all of Vietnam would have become much like the "palm-hut state", and that Vietnam would have become, in South East Asia, "the example of a successful elected Marxist government" that Kissinger was later to to fear in Chile. (see http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0205-07.htm http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2052&page=0#44475) Just as Kissinger feared that Allende's government "would surely have an impact upon---and even precedent value for---other parts of the world, especially Italy" the U.S. rulers would, no doubt have feared that other people in South East Asia, especially Indonesia would want to emulate the example of Vietnam.

However the "palm-hut state" was dismantled under the 1954 Geneva agreement and the 2 million people in that region were forced to submit to the authority of a corrupt and unelected regime and the promises made to them that elections would be held in 1956 were dishonoured.

---

The totalitarian communist spectre, similar to that which Paul.L is now trying to convey, was what was successfully used only 11 years later, to make one of one of the other great crimes of the 20th century, only a few hundred kilometres to our north acceptable, to Australian and world public opinion.

That crime was the massacre of at least 500,000 (1,000,000 by some estimates) members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). Whole villages deemed sympathetic to the PKI were wiped out. Rivers ran red with blood of the victims. Woodcarvers, deemed PKI sympathisers suffered badly and for a long time afterwards, woodcarvings were difficult to obtain in Jakarta. I strongly recommend that everyone able to download and listen to mp3 files to get hold of a copy of "Accomplices in Atrocity. The Indonesian killings of 1965" at http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/current/audioonly/hht_20080907.mp3 (25MB) linked to from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/hindsight/stories/2008/2356330.htm do so.

It is well worth listening to. It provides evidence that both the Australian and U.S. governments colluded with the Indonesian military's plans to wipe out the third largest Communist Party in the world, few of whom had weapons with which to defend themselves.

Thanks Paul.

"I suppose what I most take issue with is the enormous part of your claim. I would argue that in AlQaeda and the other global jihadis we have an implacable enemy who, prior to a shot being fired in anger, already had an olympic supply of invigoration..."

Sure they did. But with a concerted and disciplined push from American and allied forces, that invigoration could be worn down. But not with events like Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, which have created a great deal of consternation across the democratic world and very clearly greatly assisted the cause of AlQuaeda and its associates and like-minded entities.

These massively antidemocratic happenings also greatly threaten support for the fight against 'terrorism' from western countries.

I mean, there is the utmost imperative that fundamental democratic and humanitarian principles be upheld by those fighting for a democratic world.

As far as decisions on the battlefield or in the heat of the moment go, I don't see an issue. Those decisions need to be made, often very quickly, some of which will mean 'collateral' damage and the death of civilians. I don't think that they run against democratic principles.

Anyway, I think we fundamentally agree. Cheers

Dagget,

You have again ignored almost every question I asked. I don’t need to raise the spectre of totalitarian rule. Its historical fact.

You say >> “Had there been elections, there is every likelihood that all of Vietnam would have become much like the "palm-hut state", and that Vietnam would have become, in South East Asia”

You have indulged yourself in what if’s, which at the best of times is pointless. But this is a debate dagget. Your quotes from Alsop are so far from relevant it’s not funny. I can state with confidence that the Vietnamese people would be a lot better off today if the communists had lost the war. But there is no way of knowing what might have happened. What we do know is what type of gov’t the Vietnamese communists implemented after they won the war. A totalitarian communist state. So much for your palm hut paradise nonsense.

For all your statements about the US subverting democracy, you fail to acknowledge that the communists you are attempting to apologize for, crushed democracy and wrote off the will of the people as bourgeoisie.

You say >> “"the example of a successful elected Marxist government" that Kissinger was later to to fear in Chile.”

What?? ?? Allende was a massive failure. He didn’t have the support of the judiciary. He refused to obey or enforce 7000 Supreme Court rulings. Inflation in 1973 was 508%. Kissinger wasn’t afraid Allende was going to be successful. Allende took money personally from the KGB. He agreed to their involvement in reorganizing Chiles military and intelligence forces. Kissinger feared Soviet Expansionism and he was right to. Just look at Cuba.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Allende#Soviet_involvement

Paul.L,

By your logic any political party deemed 'Marxist' should not be allowed to participate in any election since their winning office automatically lead to the establishment of 1930's style gulag socialism.

You dismiss out of hand clear testimony from a person who was clearly not predisposed to supporting 'communism' that a 'communist' state established during the course of the war against the French worked very well and enjoyed the loyalty and support of the people in that region.

Instead, you maintain that the people South Vietnam would have been better off if the Americans had done whatever was necessary to defeat Communism.

How many more lives than were already lost do you think that would have required, Paul.L? How many more bombs would you have rained down on Indo-China if you were in Kissinger's shoes? How many more villages would you have destroyed in order to 'save' them?

Whilst the government that emerged from the war clearly leaves a lot to be desired, it has made utter nonsense of the cold war propaganda that you are now repeating of it being abominably evil and demonic. Their human rights record clearly leaves for dead the human rights record of the former corrupt South Vietnamese dictatorship, not to mention the United States.

A lot of the problems that the Government of Vietnam faces I would have thought were the consequence of that devastating war, the subsequent war to rid neighbouring Cambodia of the Khmer Rouge and subsequent invasion from China and UN economic embargoes.

Whilst I realise that nothing will shake you from your conviction that any political forces, who have ever worn the label 'communist', are sufficiently evil to warrant even the unbelievably extreme means that the U.S. employed to defeat them in Indo-China, Korea and Indonesia, I think that others might recognise, as Alsop did, that, if the Vietnamese had been left alone to determine their own fate in 1954, they would have been vastly better off today.