HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: tuan@lgc.com (Tuan Nguyen)
Subject: Re: NGO DINH DIEM
Organization: Landmark Graphics Corporation
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 21:25:00 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.193920.16563@emr1.emr.ca> khanh kim nguyen <knguyen@emr.ca> writes:
>Agreed. But one thing we have to look at is about generals and officers who
>killes Mr. Ngo-dinh-Diem. Almost those faces live in France now.Read memoirs 
>about their life, you will feel sad. Those are thugs who are not trained to
>govern, but to get fat and to run abroad fast. You will see many of them 
>have two nationalities (Vietnamese and French).  
>In brief, if we are good, more educated, compassionate nobody can 
>overthhrow our elected government.
		^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Anh/chi. Khanh,

Please, do not try to get the rest of us here confused between "fiction"
and "history".

What "elected government"? The fact is, "self-appointed" should be the 
more accurate term to describe the government of Ngo Dinh Diem.  Had he 
shown any compassion at all towards his people, his fate and his younger 
brother's would have been different.  Diem's aloofness and distance from 
the very people he claimed to represent prevented him from truly 
understanding what the people really wanted.

Sincerely,

Tuan Nguyen


Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: jbc4m@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU (John B. Carr)
Subject: Re: Kennedy
Reply-To: jbc4m@holmes.acc.Virginia.EDU (John B. Carr)
Organization: University of Virginia
Distribution: all
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1992 21:20:22 GMT

	Sorry the old articles have expired by the time I got around
to looking up the numbers, but here they are.  The Gravel edition of
the Pentagon Papers is one of the best places to look this stuff up,
by the way.

	To the poster who stated that Kennedy did not increase the
number of advisors in Vietnam:

	date 	# of advisors in Vietnam
	----	------------------------
	12/60	   692
	12/61	 3,205
	12/62	 9,000
	10/63	16,300	

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 John Carr                           UNIX Support Specialist
 jbc4m@virginia.edu                  Academic Computing, Gilmer Hall
 804/982-4710                        University of Virginia
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: dzik@access.digex.com (Joseph Dzikiewicz)
Subject: Press in Vietnam (was Re: Did We Lose?)
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1992 17:35:56 GMT

I don't think the press caused us to lose the Vietnam war.  (And yes, I think
we lost the Vietnam war.  We may have won the cold war, but we lost
that battle in it called the Vietnam war.)

I suspect that the major reason the American public lost the will to 
fight the Vietnam war was that it lasted too long.  I suspect that
the major reason the American public was so enthusiastic about the
Iraq war is that the ground fighting was over in less than a week.

Remember, Vietnam was the longest war this country ever fought.  It
was twice the length of any war this side of the American revolution.
Serious disillusionment did not become a factor until it had already
grown longer than any war since the revolution.

And in several of those other wars, the public grew disillusioned.
(Abraham Lincoln was headed for defeat in the 1864 elections because
of disillusionment with the Civil War.  Only Sherman's taking of
Atlanta in September kept the Union from losing that war because of a 
lack of will to fight.)

So don't blame the press. And lets hope that, in future, our politicians
remember that the American public will not tolerate long wars.

Joe Dzikiewicz
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: gerth@watson.ibm.com (John Gerth)
Subject: Lineage of "Apocalypse Now" (was Books on Vietnam)
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 00:23:22 GMT
Distribution: usa
Disclaimer: This posting represents the poster's views, not necessarily those of IBM
Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Center
Keywords: movies

You are quite right to point out that plot is not everything and I
was too extreme in characterizing the film as a restaging + editorial
comments by the director.  My original intent was just to suggest that
the film had a literary origin rather than a biographical one. 

Whether the film merits any comparison to Shakespeare is a tale only
time can tell.  As far as we know now, however, the point is well-taken.

-- 
John Gerth	 gerth@watson.ibm.com		(914) 784-7639
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: khanh kim nguyen <knguyen@emr.ca>
Subject: Re: What Did We Lose?
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A6ECB3EA72012259@knguyen.emr.ca>
X-Xxdate: Mon, 28 Sep 92 13:06:50 GMT
Organization: emr
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d11
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 17:39:42 GMT

Re: What Did We Lose?
I can't believe that Glenn Adams understands so much about Vietnam
History. After around one-thousand-year of Chinese occupation, we should
count one-hundred-year of French occupation. Until then, according our
history book, we  have only 30 years of peace through the span of our
nation. After that, we indulge into a civil, ideological war which lasts
about 30 years. This costs us at least one million soldiers dead in both
North and South Vietnam; this is not included civilians, allies.
It's the second occupation that opens the door for patriotic men and
women to get abroad, observe and find a right way to wash out French.
One of them chooses the Marx-Lenin way to achieve that eagerness. Some
go to Japan to study in one of famous military schools hoping
that after graduation, they can  go back, with the help from Japan, to
liberate their country. Some go to France, as an observers, pick up
modern ideas, make friends with French intellectuals who are against
colonial idea of their goverment. Some , studying in France, choose
another way by cooperating with colonial government and swaying them to 
do more reforms.
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: jewell@mace.cc.purdue.edu (Larry Jewell)
Subject: Re: Lost the War?
Organization: Purdue University
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 14:30:26 GMT


We lost the "battle" (Vietnam) but we won the "war" (against Communism).

I personal opinion is that the 20th Century will be seen in the future
as a series of wars with Communist on one side, and everybody else either
fighting the Communists or temporarily aligned with them.  (Please note
the words "personal opinion" in the lead line.  I make no guarantees.)

Larry J
RVN 13JAN70-12MAR72

-- 
#L.W. Jewell Moderator at the Veterans Information Site (veteran@cc.purdue.edu)#
#& WWII-L Listowner: "Sunday's horoscope is note worthy because of its strange,#
#sudden and wholly unpredictable and inexplicable occurrences, affecting all   #
#phases of life." "Your Horoscope" L.A. Evening Herald Express, Sat, 12/06/41  #
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: markb@iplmail.orl.mmc.com (Mark Bower)
Subject: Re: Domino Effect (was Re: Did We Lose?)
Organization: Martin Marietta
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1992 13:19:01 GMT

In article <1992Sep28.175539.8155@m.cs.uiuc.edu>
Dave Kohr writes
>> In any case, my point is that the original US objective of avoiding the
>> Domino Effect was largely successful in the sense that the governments of
>> the large majority of the countries which mattered the most economically to
>> the US and its allies in Southeast Asia (such as Thailand, Singapore,
>> Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia) did not fall to popular (read
>> "Communist")  insurgencies (despite the presence of insurgencies in many of
>> them at the time).

The most relevant answer to "Did the US achieve it's objectives?", IMHO. Vietnam
showed to all "popular" movements that a giant, capitalist power _could_be_
defeated. It more clearly showed how terribly high the cost of such a victory
would be.
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: drk@m.cs.uiuc.edu (David Kohr)
Subject: Re: How could the United States have won?
Organization: University of Illinois, Dept. of Comp. Sci., Urbana,  IL
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 1992 00:39:41 GMT

In article <5951@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at>, mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at
(Markus Stumptner) writes:
>I also think that their move into Cambodia was mainly motivated by power
>politics
>-- 
>Markus Stumptner                               mst@vexpert.dbai.tuwien.ac.at

Hadn't the Khmer Rouge also been attacking Vietnamese villages across the
border for an extended period of time?
-- 
Dave Kohr     CS Graduate Student     Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Work: 3244 DCL, (217)333-6561  Home: (217)359-9350  E-mail: drk@cs.uiuc.edu
                   "One either has none or not enough."
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: mccullou@cae.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough)
Subject: Re: VC strength after Tet
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Distribution: usa
Date: 26 Sep 92 09:38:08 CDT
Keywords: Tet

In asking about some instances where the revolutionaries were removed after
the successful revolution, look at Vietnam.  After the Vietnam War, the
remaining VC were too unstable to allow loose.  A more modern example
of soldiers breaking away is what the President of Yugoslovia (the larger
remaining chunk of it, whatever it is called now.) is claiming--that
irregulars are disobeying orders and attacking cities despite orders to
cease fire.  If you want to believe that, that is your business.  It
doesn't sound that unreasonable to remove the revolutionaries.  Unlike
regular army troops, they fought a more terrorist war with a very large
degree of freedom.  This could make it difficult to readjust.  There were
suppossed to be problems with US soldiers returning home, how some of them
could not readjust to peace.

Just my $.12, that inflation makes everything so expensive these days.

Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: mccullou@cae.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough)
Subject: Re: Lost the War?
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Date: 28 Sep 92 23:05:03 CDT

Instead of saying that we either lost or we won, why not simply admit that
though we didn't _win_ we didn't really lose?  Why does this have to be
a two valued system?  A real loss would have been us being forced to
pull out militarily.  That is not the only real loss, but it is the most
obvious.

Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: pd@sics.se (Per Danielsson)
Subject: Is communism immoral? (was Re: Did We Lose?)
Organization: Swedish Institute of Computer Science
	<1992Sep30.053341.10600@den.mmc.com><1992Sep30.124440.28171@doug.cae.wisc.edu>
	<5373@gold.gvg.tek.com> <PD.92Oct6023521@horus.sics.se>
	<SMITTIE.92Oct6125519@tui.csulb.edu>
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 03:05:59 GMT

In article <SMITTIE.92Oct6125519@tui.csulb.edu> smittie@beach.csulb.edu (Smittie) writes:

>>What's immoral about fighting communism?

>What's moral about it? Communism has been elevated to a level such that we
>think of it as the culmination of all things evil. Communism is simply a form
>of government. There is nothing inherently good or evil about communism.

Oh, yes there is. There are good forms of government and there are
bad. Communism isn't "simply a form of government". It is a bad (or
evil if you like) form of government. Claiming communism is "just a
form of government" is just as naive as saying the same thing about
nazism.

>The human rights violations of the former Soviet Union and China are
>not instrinsic to communism, they are the result of human greed for power.

Yes, they are intrinsic to communism. To set up a communist government
you have to abandon human rights. You are right about the power-greed,
though. Communism is a symptom of this greed.

--
Per Danielsson				pd@sics.se
Swedish Institute of Computer Science, PO Box 1263, S-164 28 KISTA, SWEDEN
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: soajj@rose.uib.no (Jan O Jacobsen)
Subject: Re: What Did We Lose?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Bergen, Norway
Date: 28 Sep 1992 11:20 +0100

In article <l0gz#7j@rpi.edu>, whangj@aix.rpi.edu (Junho Whang) writes...

>government was the most critical factor.  While not exceedingly 
>patriotic, the S. Korean people in general despised communism and
>were solidly behind the Rhee government.  Given adequate arms and 
>training, South Korea was a viable country, fully willing and able 
>to defend itself.  Cultural unity, tradition of nationhood, 
>peoples trust in and patriotic support of the government is often 
>very easily underestimated quantity.  It seems intangable, flimsy 
>quantity, but without this, no nation can survive. - and South
>Vietnam lacked this.
>   One continuing problem in S. Vietnam was vietcongs, majority of 
>whom were south vietnamese, and received active support from 
>populace.  Now how can you save a country if you have to shoot 
>everyone in it to save it?  When americans went into Vietnam, they 
>were essentially filling a vacuum - becoming the government, 
>soldiers, and the only supporting framework of the country.  S. 
>Vietnam was in a continual state of decline, without a stable and 
>viable government, populace dispirited by with 20 years of continuing war.
>Departure of americans in 1973 left just a husk of a country, 
>which collapsed more from internal implosion rather than invasion 
>of NVA.  The successful invasion was more of symptom than cause of 
>demise of S. Vietnam.
>  In end, despite similarity, Korean war and Vietnam was two
>entirely different class of engagment.  Former a deflection of 
>massive external agression to otherwise fully viable country, and 
>latter, an attempt at prolonged intensive resusitation of dying 
>fragments of a country.  If victory for americans meant leaving behind
>a secure, stable and vibrant nation, americans could and did win 
>in Korea.  But americans could never have won in Vietnam.

I think you are perfectly right on this. The american experience in
Vietnam are not unique. More or less the same was experienced by France
in Vietnam, in Algeria and in the Central African Republic, by England in
India and Kenya, by Soviet Union in Afgahnistan, by Cuba in Angola, by
Portugal in Angola, Mozambique and Guinnea-Bissau, by Israel in Lebanon, by
Vietnam in Cambodia and so on. You just can't kill the people's will to
national independence, without killing them all. The Americans for sure
tried that sometimes (My Lai etc), but thanks to the press the American
people learned about it. Then they said no. To blame the press for
losing the war is therefore in some sense correct. Hitler would
probably not have been so *sucsessfull* in his war of extermination 
against the European judes, if Germany had had a free press......

Jan O. Jacobsen

Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
From: mccullou@cae.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough)
Subject: Re: Did We Lose?
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Date: 3 Oct 92 10:57:50 CDT

In article <5373@gold.gvg.tek.com> mikea@zorba.gvg.tek.com (Michael P. Anderson) writes:
>In article <1992Sep30.124440.28171@doug.cae.wisc.edu> mccullou@cae.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough) writes:
>
>>The press was praised by the enemy for helping cause the US to fail to win
>>the Vietnam war.  How can you justify this biased and non-factual reporting
>>of the press?
>
>Just because the "enemy" praised the press doesn't mean that they helped to,
>in your words, "cause the US to fail to win the Vietnam War." The war was
>lost precisely because its goals were immoral, and the men who led that
>war were also immoral. They lied, they killed men on both sides because of
>their own petty hubris, and a majority of the American people saw through
>them and forced them to stop their crimes.

Since when does the morality of a war indicate who wins?  Please, I hope
you are not that naive.
>
>Now we can go through this over and over until the supporters of Vietnam
>get it right. This war should never have been fought; it was conceived
>by the boards of corporate America who saw their selfish interests
>in the far east being jeopardized, and they were willing to win, once
>they started, at any price.
>
What major corporate interests did we have?  Vietnam has no major resources
that I have heard of, produces no major products that can't just as easily
be made elsewhere.  And we certainly not take the attitude of win at any
price.  That attitude was last taken by the US in WWII.  If we had decided
to "win ... at any price," as you say, then why did we declare large areas
off limits, why did we for most of the war not bomb North Vietnam, why didn't
our ground units cross the border into North Vietnam, why didn't we mount
amphibious landings and naval attacks on North Vietnamese targets?  Admittedly,
during the rolling Thunder campaign, we did bomb North Vietnam, but that was
such a short period of time compared to the length of the war.  We tied our
own hands.  In no way should the US be accused of trying to "win at any price"

:)M^2
From: mikea@zorba.gvg.tek.com (Michael P. Anderson)
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
Subject: Re: Did We Lose?
Date: 3 Oct 92 00:34:01 GMT
Organization: Grass Valley Group, Grass Valley, CA

In article <1992Sep30.124440.28171@doug.cae.wisc.edu> mccullou@cae.wisc.edu (Mark McCullough) writes:

>The press was praised by the enemy for helping cause the US to fail to win
>the Vietnam war.  How can you justify this biased and non-factual reporting
>of the press?

Just because the "enemy" praised the press doesn't mean that they helped to,
in your words, "cause the US to fail to win the Vietnam War." The war was
lost precisely because its goals were immoral, and the men who led that
war were also immoral. They lied, they killed men on both sides because of
their own petty hubris, and a majority of the American people saw through
them and forced them to stop their crimes.

Now we can go through this over and over until the supporters of Vietnam
get it right. This war should never have been fought; it was conceived
by the boards of corporate America who saw their selfish interests
in the far east being jeopardized, and they were willing to win, once
they started, at any price.

Then, when America lost, they lied and said that all the prisoners were
coming home. As the Air Force Ranger said on Nightline the other night,
paraphrasing: "If Henry Kissinger knew that POWs were still in Cambodia
he should have told the American people regardless of the political
consequences; if it is proven that men were left behind and Nixon and
his cohorts knew, they should be tried for treason, and if found guilty,
they should be shot."

So Mr. Nixon, once again: What did you know and when did you know it?

								MPA
From: secrist@kxovax.enet.dec.com (Strong datatypes for weak minds.)
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
Subject: Re: Lineage of "Apocalypse Now"
Date: 27 Sep 92 03:16:50 GMT
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation


gerth@watson.ibm.com writes:

	; Whether the film merits any comparison to Shakespeare...

I couldn't find you original posting, but I hope you were pointing
out the parallels to Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness."

About the best books I've read thusfar have been "About Face" and
"Street Without Joy," but I'd like to hear about this from those
who were actually there.

Regards,
rcs
From: dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska)
Newsgroups: alt.war.vietnam
Subject: Re: How could the United States have won?
Keywords: books
Date: 29 Sep 92 14:24:21 GMT
Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder CO

In article <1992Sep27.002635.10527@emr1.emr.ca> knguyen@emr1.emr.ca (Kim Nguyen) writes:
>In article <1a0b0mINNm3k@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> aryeh@cash.ucsc.edu (Aryeh Friedman) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep25.151424.22364@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (Dean Alaska) writes:
>>>Although I'm obviously just speculating, I think that by the time of
>>>the partition it may have been too late.  If the US had not assisted
>>>France after WWII and let the younger Ho Chi Minh take over, I
>>>would guess that the resulting leftist regime would have been much
>>>more moderate and certainly less dependent on the Soviets.  Then
>>>they might have "migrated" towards more pluralism at an early date.
>>>Note that most of the surviving communist regimes today tend to be the ones
>>>that the US fought most strongly - Vietnam, Cuba and N Korea.
>>
>>I remember seeing in "Vietnam: A Television History", aired on PBS about 5 
>>years ago, that the OSS was training Ho's troops, to help resist the Japanese 
>>in WWII.  Ho matter of fact went so far to use the US Declaration of 
>>Independance as a Model for his.  Ho many times sigted the US as a very good 
>>friend of vietnam. But under the marshal plan the state dept. decided that 
>>helping France regain it's colonies was more importand then helping a very 
>>good friend in a then little understood region.  I also seem to recall that 
>>Castro had a very similor experenince in the early days of his war against the 
>>Cuban Goverment.   I should also note that the early CIA was in favor of 
>>befriending Ho.
>
>--------
I think it is generally believed that Castro never intended to have a
western-style democracy in Cuba.  He used the US.  Supporters of Ho like
to point to his declaration that is modeled after the US Declaration of
Independence, while others point to his training in communist countries.
We will never know for sure what kind of country Vietnam would have
been if the French had not returned.  I don't believe that it would
have been a social democracy but I also believe that it would have
been very independent of the USSR, in spite of his training.  

-- 

		dingo in boulder	(dean@vexcel.com)
From: v095qhyg@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (DINO ORFANOS)
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: Another Military blunder
Date: 4 Oct 92 01:24:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


	One military blunder that cost one side dearly occured in the
 Greek-Turkish war of 1920-24.  After WWI, Greece was awarded parts of
 the Aegean side of Turkey and the outskirts of Istanbul.  The Greeks knew
 they had to use the military to defend their awards from the new Turkish
 government that took over after the first world war.  However the king
 of Greece decided to send the troops on an offensive mission that would
 attempt to gain more land from Turkey as far as Ankara.

	When they reach Ankara, their supplies ran out and the turks started
 their own offensive that became a rout for the Greeks.

	The result:
                     Many Greek soldiers lost their lives

                    A genocidal catastophe was enacted on all 
                    Christians.  (including 2 million Armenians dead)

                   All Greeks of Asia Minor were forced to leave.

                  Greece loses all that was awarded to her from WWI.

============================================================================
====== Constantinos (Dinos) Orfanos            v095qhyg@ubvms         ======
====== 410 Fargo Hall                          (716) 645-4509         ======
====== SUNY at Buffalo                         Major: Business Admin. ======
====== Buffalo, NY 14261                                              ======
============================================================================
From: rholmes@dhvx20.csudh.edu
Newsgroups: alt.war
Subject: WWII squad TO&E's
Date: 3 Oct 92 00:02:46 GMT
Organization: CSU, DOMINGUEZ HILLS

I'll looking for sources for the make up of the squads of the combatants
during WWII; the TO&E in other words. Any help in this matter would be
greatly appricated.

Thanks
Rod Holmes
rholmes@dhvx20.csudh.edu
Newsgroups: alt.war