No I didn’t, I argued that Diem was imposed upon the South Vietnamese people at the insistence of the US that his government had no legitimacy and as such appeals for assistance from the Southern Gov justified nothing. The Ike quote was simply a quick and easy way to show the complete lack of legitimacy of Diem’s government and also illustrate the extent to which the US was aggressively interfering in Vietnamese politics well before the “Vietnam War” started.
Diem consolidated power largely on his own; the Americans offered material assistance and gave guarantees that they would support his position internationally, but he was not elevated to power by a coup. In fact, Diem’s creation of a government in the South was no less despotic than Ho’s creation of a government in the North. His regime, though reinforced with American efforts, was equally as “Vietnamese” as Ho’s. The United States used, but did not create Diem. Therefore, Diem’s requests to the United States for assistance – and our acquiescing in it – can be considered an act as legitimate as Ho’s requests to the Soviet Union for the same. Diem had all the same credentials as the Ho government to his North.
No I didn’t, EmperorSolo brought up events in “the late 70s” to rebut my point about what happened in 1954, I was responding to him.
Actually, you indulged in a rather tortured flight of hypocrisy. The North Vietnamese, in your opinion, can be excused for writing off the possibility of democratic elections, but their absence in the South is the nail with which you try to pin down Diem. Of course, one can make an equally powerful argument as to why the South was unprepared for elections in 1954 compared to why the North was under too much stress to hold referendums after the Vietnam War.
Red herring, what have the North Vietnamese and USSR’s systems of government got to do with who was the aggressor in the Vietnam war.
Part of your accusations against Diem and the Americans was that they derailed democratic elections, which in your opinion, is somehow evidence of an American takeover of South Vietnamese affairs. But the North never held elections, either, farcical Communist Party votes aside.
What “popular support” would this be? Diem was a massively unpopular leader.
Diem may have been unpopular, but many South Vietnamese preferred life in the South to life in the North. How do we know this? The North’s advances eventually created a massive wave of refugees who had been unhappy under Diem, but had never clamored for the same kind of outlet as they did when Ho finally came.
Why is my dismissal of the legitimacy of Diem’s government stupid? When did I say that Diem was “synonymous with Washington in all respects”? I know that Diem was primarily concerned with stuffing his own pockets (when he wasn’t repressing Buddhists) and proved to be a poor puppet, the fact that he didn’t always do what he was told doesn’t mean that he was legitimate.
You dismiss Diem’s legitimacy on the basis that (1) the Americans never forced him to face democratic elections, and (2) he was, in your opinion, entirely an American product. But the first argument holds him to standards by which you never measure the North Vietnamese, and the second is patently untrue.
So what, this is a complete Red Herring and has absolutely no relevance to a discussion as to who was the initial aggressor.
Your attempts to legitimize the North – and therefore absolve it from responsibility for moving on Diem – relies on a radical attempt to proclaim it somehow more representative or democratic than the South.
When did I say “no South Vietnamese supported the American position”? I didn’t, what I did say was that even the US Pres thought that 80% of the Vietnamese population didn’t will you please rebut that statement.
Your point? The North held elections that favored only Communists. They never stood by the Geneva Accords within their own territory. You cannot bestow upon them recognition of anything more democratic than Diem.
Most people when now or then? Even with qualifications it’s still a meaningless statement and has no relevance to the feelings of the Vietnamese in the 50s who as I keep on pointing out seemed to want Minh a self professed commie as their leader.
Most people everywhere. The North Vietnamese only believed in Minh because he was seen as a liberator; Communism was a last resort to secure Soviet aid. Ho was every bit as much a puppet as Diem in that respect.
Red Herring, the current policies of the Vietnamese Gov having no relevance to who started the war.
We’re dealing with the professor’s statement.
Yes I know he was naive enough to believe the US’s bullshit rhetoric about freedom and democracy which sadly only seemed to count in Europe.
Actually, many Americans believed it, too. That’s what the professor was talking about.
I thought he joined the communist party in the 30s doesn’t really matter though you are right that he was really a nationalist with socialist leanings who was forced into the arms of the Russians and Chinese by the USA’s phobia of all things red.
No more than Diem was forced into the arms of the United States by his equally rabid phobia.
And was the U.S. wrong to have a phobia of all things Red, by the way? Certainly Communist government turned out quite poorly where it took root, and we know that the Soviet Union was an expansionistic power with its own ambitions of global hegemony.
He may well have fantastic credentials but if you aren’t misinterpreting him and he seriously argued that installing Diem in 54 can be justified by the triumph of capitalism in the 90s he’s dead wrong.
Strawman. His opinions have relevance to the sad tragedy that was America’s failure to actualize its rhetorical position over Vietnam, nothing more. The thinking that led us to men like Diem was flawed when executed.
You’ve obviously studied this area more than me, just how much support did the US expect it’s program for South Vietnam to receive because the Ike quote I keep on plugging and which you keep on ignoring would seem to suggest not very much.
Ike’s quotation must be taken in the context that Ho would have essentially been running unopposed by a viable alternative candidate.
Like the “altruistic” support for South American death squads?
You’re missing the point again.
Maybe it’s something to do with them being one people who realise that they were tragically pushed to slaughter one and other for nearly ¼ of a century by imperialist powers who couldn’t give a fuck about the pawns fighting their proxy wars for them.
South Korea was forced to slaughter no one by the United States. Are you now going to tell me that the Korean War was a legitimate attempt by the North to throw back the American aggressors?
Sadly in the process of shooting yourselves in the foot you also managed to shoot hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Cambodians and Laotians in all kinds of other places.
And that’s exactly what the professor was talking about.
Although the bombings of Cambodia and Laos were more spectacular because of the cover-ups than the actions themselves. The North Vietnamese were, after all, using Cambodia’s territory as a thoroughfare.
I shall add “Cold War Hot” to the ever expanding list of books I intend to read. Your approaches probably would have faired better than the one adopted, in either case the US would still have been the aggressor though.
No, it wouldn’t have been. Your argument fails because Diem was a product of South Vietnam, not the United States specifically.
And you are making the mistake of treating the Vietnamese as one unified entity. A lot of vietnamese want Vietnam free... from the Communists.
Skimmed a little quickly.