Vietnam celebrates 40th Anniversary of end of war

[webfact]

Vietnam celebrates 40th Anniversary of end of war



HO CHI MINH CITY: -- Vietnam is holding a parade to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the military victory that ended the Vietnam War and reunified the country under communist rule, Vietnam Tribune reported.

As top officials looked on Thursday, thousands of flag-waving Vietnamese soldiers, war veterans, and others marched toward the center of Ho Chi Minh City.

The parade was a reenactment of the events of April 30, 1975, when North Vietnamese tanks victoriously rolled into the center of what was then the South Vietnamese capital, known as Saigon.

The victory marked the end of the North Vietnamese government’s decades-long war, first with France and then with the United States. Around 58,000 U.S. soldiers and up to 4 million Vietnamese were killed in the conflict.

The US, which supported the South Vietnamese in an attempt to stop the spread of communism, pulled its last embassy officials out of Saigon as North Vietnamese troops entered the city.

During Thursday’s festivities, Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung praised the victory as one of “ardent patriotism” and national reunification.

Prime Minister Dung also slammed what he referred to as Washington’s “countless barbarous crimes” that he said caused “immeasurable losses and pain to our people and country,” according to the French news agency.

No US diplomats attended the parade. However, American officials were expected to attend a separate, small ceremony at the US Consulate on Thursday to remember U.S. troops who died during the final days of the war.

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/vietnam-celebrates-40th-anniversary-of-end-of-war


-- Thai PBS 2015-05-01

[SOTIRIOS]

...'more bombs dropped on Vietnam than both world wars combined'......

....I hear that quote again....... and I have to ask if it is possible.....

Edited May 1, 2015 by SOTIRIOS

[Johnpound46]

...'more bombs dropped on Vietnam than both world wars combined'......

....I hear that quote again....... and I have to ask if it is possible.....

I have no idea how many bombs were dropped on Vietnam in that war, but maybe that should be: more bombs dropped on Laos than in all of WWII. And Laos wasn't even "officially" participating in that war.

[ggt]

Prime Minister Dung...needs to petition the government to have his name changed...no shee-it...

While the Vietnamese people have flourished under Communism...freedoms aside...the US has morphed into a fascists police state...destroying the middle class while promoting the wellbeing of the elite 1% billionaire power brokers...

What the hell was that war all about? The long trail of US crimes against the Vietnamese people still resonates with deformed children from the use of agent orange...

Wonder where the US will do a 3rd world country a good deed next?

[metisdead]

An insulting post has been removed as well as a reply. An off topic post was removed as well.

[khaowong1]

It was a screwed up war, and I was there. We should never enter into a war with no determination to win it. Any war... I still believe today, it was a war run by the military defense industry for profit.

Edited May 2, 2015 by metisdead
Font.

[LALes]

No US diplomats attended the parade. No apologies. Yet, they are ticked off when Japan's Abe doesn't apologize. Hypocrites.

Edited May 2, 2015 by LALes

[TDCNINJA]

The United States of America has absolutely nothing to apologise for, nor the men who fought the war.

[sgtsabai]

TDCNINJA, perhaps you should read Nick Turse's latest book on the American War in Vietnam/Lao/Cambodia.

"Turse has described Kill Anything That Moves (2013) as a history of Vietnamese "civilian suffering" at the hands of U.S. troops during the Vietnam War.[27] The book is based on archival materials Turse discovered and interviews he conducted with eyewitnesses in the U.S. and Vietnam, including a hundred American Vietnam War veterans.[28]" Wikipedia

We did not fight an honorable war, but a war based on lies and the Geneva Accord of 1954 broken by the US. We fought to survive, as people in all wars do and I love my fellow brothers, many of whom, including my closest friend Sgt John Kniffin, USMC 2 tours, bronze star with V, purple heart and Texas leader of Vietnam Veterans Against the War have died from Agent Orange. I am proud to call them brothers.

Another interesting read from a Vietnamese perspective is: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/opinion/sunday/our-vietnam-war-never-ended.html?_r=0

A couple of other relevent articles: http://www.thenation.com/article/204465/vietnam-battlefield-memory?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email_nation&utm_campaign=Email%20Nation%20%28NEW%29%20-%20Most%20Recent%20Content%20Feed%20-%20filter%20fix%2020150417&newsletter=email_nation

http://www.thenation.com/article/199225/lethal-legacy-vietnam-war

[ggt]

The United States of America has absolutely nothing to apologise for, nor the men who fought the war.

Yeah...the US should sue the Vietnamese people for winning the war when they were such an underdog...and sue them also for keeping the US from raping the country of it's natural resources...

[thaibeachlovers]

It was a screwed up war, and I was there. We should never enter into a war with no determination to win it. Any war... I still believe today, it was a war run by the military defense industry for profit.

As I understand it, the military war was won, at the cost of over 50,000 US lives, only for the south to be lost because the US government just ( ?got bored and ) gave it away to the north by refusing to support the south when it needed help.

[thaibeachlovers]

The United States of America has absolutely nothing to apologise for, nor the men who fought the war.

My Lai? Little girls with their skin burnt off by using napalm on civilians? "We had to destroy the village to save it"? Laos? Denying that agent orange causes birth defects?

Plus many other attrocities that are too sickening to mention on here.

[Prbkk]

The United States of America has absolutely nothing to apologise for, nor the men who fought the war.

My Lai? Little girls with their skin burnt off by using napalm on civilians? "We had to destroy the village to save it"? Laos? Denying that agent orange causes birth defects?

Plus many other attrocities that are too sickening to mention on here.

It is sometimes said that the picture of the girl on the road was one of the factors in turning middle america away from support for the war. She survived, wrote a book 30 years later ( "The Girl In the Photo"), lives in Canada.

[sgtsabai]

Mai Lai was perhaps the largest, but if you read Nick Turse's book, you will understand that happened all the time. Try to find a copy of the VVAW Winter Soldier Investigation. Where I was at for a time there was evening "happy hour". At sunset those at the top of the hill, and any were welcome to join, shot anything that moved at sundown. It is often said, the US won the battles, lost the war. There was a classic at the ending of We Were Soldiers Once where the Viet colonel says something amounting to it was too bad they won this one because now they will think they can win. The Vietnamese were fighting for their country, we were fighting for what?

[TDCNINJA]

Lot of communist sympathizers in this sight, I see.

[Johnpound46]

Lot of communist sympathizers in this sight, I see.

What an utterly dumb and ignorant remark .........

[TDCNINJA]

Truth hurt?

[sgtsabai]

I'm certainly no communist sympathizer. Your tact is a typical right wing tactic, attack the people, not the subject thereby changing the subject. It won't work. The truth can hurt, when you are able or willing to recognize it, ahem, that means you, or are you simply paid to troll?

[Scott]

It's called trolling and I strongly suggest members cease doing it.

Please stay on topic.

[NanLaew]

The subject of the post is Vietnam celebrating the end of the American War. It has nothing to do with another American introspective on political misadventure, foreign policy manipulation and subsequent unregulated abuse by the military industrial complex. The end of the American War is a defining moment in Vietnam's history with a far more significant impact on Vietnam's history than it ever had on America's. Vietnam's ideology changed, America's didn't.

[TDCNINJA]

When hacks responding to this thread post unsupported, blatant lies and pass them off knowingly as truth them I'm left to wonder about their underlying ideology.

1. The story of the naked girl running is a text book example of Marxist propaganda at its finest.

The fact is there was no American involvement with the Napalm bombing that injured 9 year old Phan Tho Kim Phuc, near Trang Bang on June 8, 1972.

The planes involved in this attack were flown by pilots of the VNAF in support of South Vietnamese forces on the ground involved in combat operations against communist forces.

You listed My Lai and have the unmitigated audacity to pass this off as "common place" when factual evidence shows only two incidents of documented war crimes: the above listed incident at My Lai involving the 1st Platoon of Charlie Company, 1st Bn, 20th INF, 11th Light Infantry Brigade, 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division.

The only other documented instance of an American war crime is the murder of 16 non-combatant women & children by 5 US Marines assigned Bravo Company, 1st Bn, 7th Marines. 1st Marine division in the village of Son Thang 4, SW of Danang on 19 February 1970.

In both of the cases I listed, the accused were court-martialed and found guilty.

In the case of Lt. Calley, at My Lai, President Nixon pardoned him after spending only three years in house arrest. Nixon's outrageous action was a slap in the face of every other Vietnam Veteran who served their nation with honor and who correctly obeyed the 1949 Geneva Convention rules on land warfare.

Sadly, Calley's actions gave license to Marxists everywhere, even on this thread, to purposely, knowingly and intentionally portray these two rare instances as everyday actions of US Forces.

Furthermore, the same cretins who falsely parade My Lai as something that was common in Vietnam ignore completely the despicable war crimes committed daily by the communist forces of the NVA/VC on the Vietnamese people. Make no mistake 99.99% of documented war crimes were committed by the communists.

Case in point would be the deliberate targeting and murder of as many as 5000 South Vietnamese civilians-doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen and others during the 1968 Tet Offensive. In the city of Hue, alone, 3000 unarmed civilians were intentionally murdered by the NVA/VC. Funny how the communist backers fail to mention this fact when talking about atrocities committed during the Vietnam War.

These same leftist pinkos also conveniently leave out the intentional murder, capture and torture of American civilians such as USAID workers, missionaries, and other civilian workers. These types of actions to verifiable non-combatants by the North Vietnamese are commonly known by the Geneva convention as war crimes. Somehow, the criminally negligent leftists don't like acknowledging these truths, and even when they rarely do, they lamely chalk it up as collateral damage in the name of the socialist struggle. Sleep well.

[Scott]

An inflammatory post has been removed.

[tifino]

40th Anniversary of the End of the several-days-long attack by the North upon the South - nothing to do with the US.

This was a civil war, between the North and the South led juntas of Vietnam

The US involvement, the state of war, ended with the Armistice of 28Jan1973, which means the 42nd Anniversary of the 'American War, passed by in Jan this year...

[sgtsabai]

Ahem, perhaps if the US had allowed the elections from the Geneva Accord of 1954 there wouldn't have been a "civil war".

[tifino]

Ahem, perhaps if the US had allowed the elections from the Geneva Accord of 1954 there wouldn't have been a "civil war".

I've approached from the miltary point of view, and I'm not disagreeing with what's being written throughout.

Just the Dates.

Because of the mix-up, a heap of Vietnam war medals were Struck and Issued to Soldiers/Airmen of the US and Australia, when all they shouild have really been Issued with were Humanitarian medals, for rescuing whoever they could during the civil war turmoil of 1975.

for example the R.A.A.F airmen receiving their 'war' medals were the crews of C-130 Hercules operating out of Butterworth ,Malaysia only because they were the nearest rescue planes that OZ could send in to help with.

For Aust, the only relevant medal for presenting, relative to the recsue missions of 1975 - wasn't even promulgated until after the Crash of the R.A.N SeaKing helicopter at Banda Aceh Indonesia, following the Tsunami of Dec 2004.

I'm still awaiting the day the medals ahve to be returned, just like what happened to the Defence Force personnel who had to return their medals earlier presented for their service in Rwanada. The system had eventually worked it out, and then admitted the troops were not really in a 'war'

Edited May 3, 2015 by tifino

[thaibeachlovers]

The United States of America has absolutely nothing to apologise for, nor the men who fought the war.

My Lai? Little girls with their skin burnt off by using napalm on civilians? "We had to destroy the village to save it"? Laos? Denying that agent orange causes birth defects?

Plus many other attrocities that are too sickening to mention on here.

It is sometimes said that the picture of the girl on the road was one of the factors in turning middle america away from support for the war. She survived, wrote a book 30 years later ( "The Girl In the Photo"), lives in Canada.

I think the actual photo that turned the US public against the war was the South Vietnamese guy executing the Vietcong guy by shooting him in the head during the Tet offensive. No wonder the US military won't allow unfettered news reporting any more.

Little girls on fire certainly didn't help though.

[thaibeachlovers]

Ahem, perhaps if the US had allowed the elections from the Geneva Accord of 1954 there wouldn't have been a "civil war".

Didn't the US tell Ho Chi Minh that if he fought the Japanese for them he could have Vietnam after the war, only to renege and support the French in continuing to rule Indochina?

[Bwanatickey]

The best example this war legacy left was what a waste of time and resources war is, everywhere in the world.life goes on regardless of your early death.

[thaibeachlovers]

When hacks responding to this thread post unsupported, blatant lies and pass them off knowingly as truth them I'm left to wonder about their underlying ideology.

1. The story of the naked girl running is a text book example of Marxist propaganda at its finest.

The fact is there was no American involvement with the Napalm bombing that injured 9 year old Phan Tho Kim Phuc, near Trang Bang on June 8, 1972.

The planes involved in this attack were flown by pilots of the VNAF in support of South Vietnamese forces on the ground involved in combat operations against communist forces.

You listed My Lai and have the unmitigated audacity to pass this off as "common place" when factual evidence shows only two incidents of documented war crimes: the above listed incident at My Lai involving the 1st Platoon of Charlie Company, 1st Bn, 20th INF, 11th Light Infantry Brigade, 23rd Infantry (Americal) Division.

The only other documented instance of an American war crime is the murder of 16 non-combatant women & children by 5 US Marines assigned Bravo Company, 1st Bn, 7th Marines. 1st Marine division in the village of Son Thang 4, SW of Danang on 19 February 1970.

In both of the cases I listed, the accused were court-martialed and found guilty.

In the case of Lt. Calley, at My Lai, President Nixon pardoned him after spending only three years in house arrest. Nixon's outrageous action was a slap in the face of every other Vietnam Veteran who served their nation with honor and who correctly obeyed the 1949 Geneva Convention rules on land warfare.

Sadly, Calley's actions gave license to Marxists everywhere, even on this thread, to purposely, knowingly and intentionally portray these two rare instances as everyday actions of US Forces.

Furthermore, the same cretins who falsely parade My Lai as something that was common in Vietnam ignore completely the despicable war crimes committed daily by the communist forces of the NVA/VC on the Vietnamese people. Make no mistake 99.99% of documented war crimes were committed by the communists.

Case in point would be the deliberate targeting and murder of as many as 5000 South Vietnamese civilians-doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen and others during the 1968 Tet Offensive. In the city of Hue, alone, 3000 unarmed civilians were intentionally murdered by the NVA/VC. Funny how the communist backers fail to mention this fact when talking about atrocities committed during the Vietnam War.

These same leftist pinkos also conveniently leave out the intentional murder, capture and torture of American civilians such as USAID workers, missionaries, and other civilian workers. These types of actions to verifiable non-combatants by the North Vietnamese are commonly known by the Geneva convention as war crimes. Somehow, the criminally negligent leftists don't like acknowledging these truths, and even when they rarely do, they lamely chalk it up as collateral damage in the name of the socialist struggle. Sleep well.

So who supplied the planes, napalm and training to SVN?

These same leftist pinkos also conveniently leave out the intentional murder, capture and torture of American civilians such as USAID workers, missionaries, and other civilian workers. These types of actions to verifiable non-combatants by the North Vietnamese are commonly known by the Geneva convention as war crimes. Somehow, the criminally negligent leftists don't like acknowledging these truths, and even when they rarely do, they lamely chalk it up as collateral damage in the name of the socialist struggle. Sleep well.

I am not supporting any of that, but that should be in a seperate thread. You claimed that the US did nothing wrong, when they clearly did.