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#1
12-06-2006, 05:06 PM
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i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
while the book does a very good job of outining what the americans did wrong, and how the NLF operated, and why it was successful, she seems to have some strange sympathy for the communists, which unforchanately makes it so that i do not know what she is reporting honestly and what she has fabricated or manipulated. this is the problem with all of these books. a historian should not have an opinion on the matter. they should just report facts.
She writes about how the vietnamese communist party seized land and killed 50,000 people. One paragraph later she says "but it really was amazing and great the way ho chi min admited they were wrong to do that" About the massacare in Hue during Tet Offensive she says "its not understood if this happened by accident because the NFL had no previous history of wiping out civilians." she also hasnt yet mentioned the effect that a communist revolution would have on the cities of vietnam. it is an interesting read nonetheless, and you can take what you want from it. something else i dont get about Vietnam war, why didnt the Americans try to make friends with the North Vietnamese? The picture she has painted of the NLF and Ho Chi Min is that they are for the people, fighting the oppression of France and then the Diem regimine, and that they only want freedom and liberation. Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min? This is where I feel like I have been misled. 
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#2
12-06-2006, 05:33 PM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
this is the problem with all of these books. a historian should not have an opinion on the matter. they should just report facts. [/ QUOTE ] This is impossible. All facts are theory-laden. Biases are unavoidable in any historical account.
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#3
12-06-2006, 06:05 PM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
something else i dont get about Vietnam war, why didnt the Americans try to make friends with the North Vietnamese? The picture she has painted of the NLF and Ho Chi Min is that they are for the people, fighting the oppression of France and then the Diem regimine, and that they only want freedom and liberation. Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min? This is where I feel like I have been misled. [/ QUOTE ] I think you read the situation correctly. America's view was single issue: communist or not. Vietnam's issue was single issue: independence vs. colonialism. We were talking past each other.
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#4
12-06-2006, 06:10 PM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
while the book does a very good job of outining what the americans did wrong, and how the NLF operated, and why it was successful, she seems to have some strange sympathy for the communists, which unforchanately makes it so that i do not know what she is reporting honestly and what she has fabricated or manipulated. this is the problem with all of these books. a historian should not have an opinion on the matter. they should just report facts. She writes about how the vietnamese communist party seized land and killed 50,000 people. One paragraph later she says "but it really was amazing and great the way ho chi min admited they were wrong to do that" About the massacare in Hue during Tet Offensive she says "its not understood if this happened by accident because the NFL had no previous history of wiping out civilians." she also hasnt yet mentioned the effect that a communist revolution would have on the cities of vietnam. it is an interesting read nonetheless, and you can take what you want from it. something else i dont get about Vietnam war, why didnt the Americans try to make friends with the North Vietnamese? The picture she has painted of the NLF and Ho Chi Min is that they are for the people, fighting the oppression of France and then the Diem regimine, and that they only want freedom and liberation. Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min? This is where I feel like I have been misled. [/ QUOTE ] If the book didnt discuss the background to US involvement in the light of the Cold War and the communist threat, then it was either attempting to be non-political and presenting facts only, or it is biased. As the first socialist state in Southeast Asia, Vietnam was seen as a huge test of the US resolve to not allow the dominoes to fall easily into Russian and Red Chinese hands. Negotiation with Ho Chih Minh and the DRVN was impossible with the amount of aid and influence the communists already had, and pretty much free reign they gave the totalitarian regime. Google "domino theory indochina" if the book doesnt do justice to the topic. It has its obvious parallels with our policy in the ME.
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#5
12-06-2006, 06:12 PM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
a historian should not have an opinion on the matter. they should just report facts. [/ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min? [/ QUOTE ] Well, do you want an opinion or not? edit: Short answer: US policy towards communism.
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#6
12-06-2006, 06:14 PM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min? [/ QUOTE ] The Vietnam war started out as a was for independance from France. The US was essentially non involved untill France was pushed out which occured after the revolution had turned to the communists for help.
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#7
12-07-2006, 12:11 AM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min? [/ QUOTE ] The Vietnam war started out as a was for independence from France. The US was essentially non involved untill France was pushed out which occured after the revolution had turned to the communists for help. [/ QUOTE ]The American policy in Vietnam is mi sometimes labeled as short-sighted, im´pying some kinda "mistake". It was not. The policy was quite purposeful. (It was also disastrous for American interests, aside from any moral consideration.) When the French packed it in, the United States had the opportunity to support the nascent liberation movement of the Vietnamese and, in the process, turn it from a communist-dominated movement to a truly nationalist one. This would have been also helped by the deep animosity, running centuries back, between China and Vietnam. But the United States was set on a policy of agggressive roll-back of anything that smacked of socialism, world-wide, and an Asian policy of hegemonism. Hence, Washington chose confrontation -- in the case of both Cuba and Vietnam. Those two revolutions were first and foremost patriotic, liberation affairs, and secondarily socialist. (Same thing happened in Nicaragua some twenty-five years later, when Washington's stance and its help for the murderous contras radicalized the regime.) Those freedom fighters in Vietnam and Cuba were not going to their death for the dictatorship of the proletariat. No, sir. Mickey Brausch
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#8
12-07-2006, 05:43 AM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ] a historian should not have an opinion on the matter. they should just report facts. [/ QUOTE ] [ QUOTE ] Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min? [/ QUOTE ] Well, do you want an opinion or not? edit: Short answer: US policy towards communism. [/ QUOTE ] my first comment was mis-worded. I meant that the historian should not have an agenda. It seems to me that Francis obviously sympathizes with the communists and doesnt give all the facts straight, and distorts the truth to serve her own purpose.
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#9
12-07-2006, 05:45 AM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
...It seems to me that Francis obviously sympathizes with the communists ... [/ QUOTE ] What do you mean, there is a red under your bed??? LOL
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#10
12-07-2006, 10:01 AM
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Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
[ QUOTE ]
As the first socialist state in Southeast Asia, Vietnam was seen as a huge test of the US resolve to not allow the dominoes to fall easily into Russian and Red Chinese hands. Negotiation with Ho Chih Minh and the DRVN was impossible with the amount of aid and influence the communists already had, and pretty much free reign they gave the totalitarian regime. Google "domino theory indochina" if the book doesnt do justice to the topic. It has its obvious parallels with our policy in the ME. [/ QUOTE ] See Robert McNamara's "In Retrospect".
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