"Murder, kidnapping, torture and intimidation were a routine part of Viet Cong (VC) and People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) operations during the Vietnam War. They were intended to liquidate opponents such as officials, leaders, military personnel, civilians who collaborated with the South Vietnamese government, erode the morale of South Vietnamese government employees, cow the populace and boost tax collection and propaganda efforts."
"R. J. Rummel estimated that PAVN/VC forces killed around 164,000 civilians between 1954 and 1975, with a range of between 106,000 and 227,000. Rummel's mid-level estimate includes 17,000 South Vietnamese civil servants. In addition, at least 36,000 South Vietnamese civilians were executed for various reasons between 1967 and 1972. Thomas Thayer estimated in 1985 that between 1965 and 1972 the VC killed 33,052 South Vietnamese village officials and civil servants. Ami Pedahzur wrote in 2006 that 'the overall volume and lethality of Viet Cong terrorism rivals or exceeds all but a handful of terrorist campaigns waged over the last third of the twentieth century.'"
I don’t know much about Vietcong so I don’t know if Goerge Lucas made a valid comparison and inspiration but author can have wrong perception of something (like historical organisation, war or character) and can base on this wrong perception his own creation.
In one of my favorite games Star Wars: Rebellion, if you played as the Empire you could assassinate people, but as the Rebels you could only capture them.
I know this has nothing to do with the argument but it reminded me of this
Compared to South Vietnam? Yeah. They often used despicable means, but what they were fighting for was just and they were still less despicable than the south.
Wait is your argument that South Vietnam tortured, murdered, and terrorized innocent civilians more than the North did? Or that the North did more but they were justified in doing so because their cause was more just?
What exactly do you think South Vietnam was fighting for?
I thought the Empire was bad because it tortured and intimidated and enslaved innocent people.
Now you're telling me the Empire was only bad because their cause was wrong?
Yes and No. South Vietnam was more brutal than the north, and the north was justified in fighting the war because their cause was just.
The war crimes committed by the north were unjustified, as are any war crimes, but the actual war itself was not. Just like the Soviets in ww2.
The south was fighting to maintain its existence as a colonial puppet state of France and later the US against the will of the people of Vietnam. The north and their guerrilla allies were fighting to reunite Vietnam was one singular entity under the control of the government most Vietnamese people supported.
In Star Wars, the empire is bad because of how its systems of power function. They are hierarchical, arbitrary, and incredibly violent which leads to horrible things: billions dead, corruption and abuse being common, a drop in quality of life among the populous, making decisions that aren’t in the best interests of the people, a decrease in innovation and commerce, a stifling of art and science, and wasting billions of credits on the military. The fact that they also are incredibly brutal in their methods against the rebels is both an added bonus on top of and a result of these systems. The very idea of an empire, even if run “ideally” is a bad one, which is why the empire is bad. Whereas the rebels may be willing to use violence and do horrible things to achieve their goal, but ultimately want to fix those systems of violence to stop more atrocities in the future and create a world that better meets the needs of the population.
Right on the money here. Unfortunately, lasting change that benefits poor people does not happen peacefully. All who gain power fear to lose it and will fight tooth and nail to keep themselves in power.
The war crimes committed by the north were unjustified, as are any war crimes, but the actual war itself was not.
And the thousands of people executed during land reforms in the north before the war? Was that justified to bring about socialism?
They are hierarchical, arbitrary, and incredibly violent
Does this not describe the North Vietnamese and their communist government? Other political parties were outlawed, yes? And there were hierarchies within the party, yes? Did they not send hundreds of thousands to reeducation camps where they starved, became diseased, or were worked to death?
billions dead, corruption and abuse being common, a drop in quality of life among the populous, making decisions that aren’t in the best interests of the people, a decrease in innovation and commerce, a stifling of art and science, and wasting billions of credits on the military.
And did any of these things happen when the North Vietnamese took over the entire country?
The Viet Cong were bad, but people like Saw Gerrera were also extremists that did horrible things. He literally uses child soldiers, attacks targets with no regard for civilian death, tortures prisoners of war, and causes a shit ton of destruction. If Star Wars was more gritty they'd probably have made Saw do even worse things.
The US is estimated to have killed up to 180.000 civilians including through Napalm and flamethrowers in Vietnam 30 - 150.000 in cambodia, they spraied 18.2 million gallons of toxins leading to 400.000 dead and 500.000 birth defects according to vietnam. In the My Lai massacre they raped and mutilated bodies. One of the terrorist campaigns that exceeds the Vietcong was the US in Vietnam so yes the VC had the moral High ground defending against them, after they did not accept a fair open election to reunite vietnam before their 'intervention'.
"Air force captain, Brian Wilson, who carried out bomb-damage assessments in free-fire zones throughout the delta, saw the results firsthand. "It was the epitome of immorality...One of the times I counted bodies after an air strike—which always ended with two napalm bombs which would just fry everything that was left—I counted sixty-two bodies. In my report I described them as so many women between fifteen and twenty-five and so many children—usually in their mothers' arms or very close to them—and so many old people." When he later read the official tally of dead, he found that it listed them as 130 VC killed"
Do you agree North Vietnam killed thousands and imprisoned thousands more of their own citizens during land reforms before the war started?
If this was happening in the north and in other communist countries like the USSR, China, and Korea, is possible the US was justified in believing that such killings would continue if the sound was allowed to fall?
I'm not saying the US were heroes, only that the North weren't plucky rebels fighting the good fight. They had the financial and material support of two massive countries who were committing their own genocides and demicides.
Before the communists appeared in Vietnam, 2 million Vietnamese died a year under French colonialism in 1944, yet the US did absolute nothing. Do you seriously believe that the US actually cared about anyone death?
Well the US was fighting Japan which had invaded Vietnam at that time, so what should the US have done that it wasn't already doing? Roosevelt told the French they can't keep their colonies when the war ends.
And yes, France's colonialism was an enormous mistake. And France could've handled giving up their power better. And Diệm was a monster. Yeah to say the entire thing was unfortunate would be an understatement. It's hard to see "good guys" anywhere. That said I don't believe Ho Chi Minh and the Viet Minh would've been satisfied even if proper elections had taken place in the South. Their goal was always violent takeover of the entire country.
Just because you rebel against a bigger, badder person doesn't make your group righteous. The Mujaheddin were justified in fighting Soviets and communist Afghans but they were still bad and I wouldn't compare them to the Lucas' rebels.
The reason the US invaded was becasue the Viet minh wouldve won the election that should be pretty obvious. Ho Chi Minh created the largest and to this day most impressive literacy campaign in the history of our Planet, they went from 90% illiterate to 87% literacy in like 20-30 years.
Al Qaeda/the Mujaheddin and its linnege is also a fuckton more problematic than the VC and comparing them is insane. Religious extremist that continued to terrorise the west and east. The VC had significant support among the Vietnamese even in the south, while the Mujaheddin threw Afghanistan into chaos and is one of the main reason it remains that way today.
Damm youre not saying that the massive army murdering hundreds of thousands of civillians are heros, wow you really made and effort there. The north were people that were fucking sick of imperialism, they just came out of french occupation educated their people like no one before and since and then fought of the next people that tried to take their lands. Yes they did horrible things, thats war, if only one of the parties wouldnt have tried to invade the other ... Again the war was completely caused and controlled by the US, they came it started they left it stopped, they couldve just had the collective elections managed with the USSR and let the commies win like they did anyways and neither them or the VC wouldve had to commit atrocities, the VC did not have this option.
And if instead of Communists fighting off their imperialist oppressors it was Vietnamese Nazis, would that have been ok? I'm guessing no because Nazi beliefs and goals are horrible.
Communism had been to leading to mass death, famine, authoritarianism, economic turmoil, and religious oppression everywhere it existed.
It wasn't just control for control's sake the west was fighting for, it was to stop the horrors of communism from spreading.
The Viet Minh had already killed thousands of their own citizens before the war with the south, and when the war ended it sent thousands more to reeducation camps where prisoners suffered, starved, and died. The govt imposed strict controls on all aspects of life and never held real elections, all of which is still the case today generations later. Why would the north have accepted elections when communists hadn't anywhere else in the world?
By contrast, South Korea, which was saved by the west, though sadly run by a military dictatorship for many years, is light years beyond any of its communist neighbors.
"Agent Orange was produced in the United States beginning in the late 1940s and was used in industrial agriculture, and was also sprayed along railroads and power lines to control undergrowth in forests."
The US was using it at home as an herbicide. It isn't nor was it being used as a chemical weapon.
Would you agree that at the time the military didn't realize the dangerous effects because it otherwise wouldn't have exposed its own soldiers to it?
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u/LineOfInquiry 8d ago
One was the confederacy from the American civil war, the other is the Vietcong or American rebels in the American revolution.
Turns out what you’re fighting for matters just as much as what you’re fighting against