Talk:Vietnam War/Archive 1

message: I changed the statement from US supported RVN vs. Soviet and North Vietnamese supported VC to US supported RVN vs. Soviet supported VC
and North Vietnam.  The VC became less and less important as the 
war progressed, and the final offensive was conducted almost entirely
by the NVA.
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Made some small but very important changes in the first paragram
The U.S. supported government of Vietnam was known as the Republic of Vietnam, not the Republic of
South Vietnam.  There was a Republic of South Vietnam which was the government that was instituted
by the North after the fall of Saigon.  It lasted until 1976 when it merged with the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam (a.k.a. North Vietnam) to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
As I mentioned before, the war was not between the US supported RVN vs Soviet and NV supported VC.
It was between the United States supported RVN and the VC and North Vietnam.  The VC and the NVA
were two distinct groups with the VC playing a less and less important role as time moved on.
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Haven't looked at this article in a while, and I'm impressed with what y'all have done with it, and with how big you've made the /Talk article.  I think the current version (as I write this) and how it's handled Vietnamization works reasonably well, and that was the big issue the last time I was here.
A couple of ideas to bounce by you folks on where we go from here.  First, I know that sub-articles are strongly discouraged, but I think we're hitting the point with this that some kind of splitting up into separate articles could be a good thing.  Second, I think there's a need to include some mention of groups like the Weathermen and SDS and some of the more militant action opposing the war (bombings, shooting police, etc.) in the section on opposition to the war.  Third, I think it's time to cut some of the stuff in the /Talk here -- at the very least, the stuff up through the discussion of Vietnamization.  
Anyhow, just a few thoughts, and thanks again to everybody who's put so much time into this article.  You've produced an article with balanced claims, rather than buffered claims, and I think that's a good thing. -- Blain
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I did a minor edit, mostly for clarity--commas and spelling and such. Also added "and Indochinese" to "this turbulent period in American history" at end: it's easy for us, writing in English, to deemphasize Vietnam because the effects on the US are more important to us. I suspect post-war Vietnam belongs in the article on that country, so haven't added anything. 
Similarly, Weathermen/SDS and such probably belong in separate articles, manybe with links here. --Vicki Rosenzweig
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What does this phrase mean:
:for control of South Vietnam
I thought South Vietnam's goal was to retain its independence, while North Vietnam's goal was to conquer it -- analogous to the Korean War.
Is the phrase meant to insinuate the idea that the USA wanted to "control" South Vietnam? If so, the article should say so -- and document this. It should be rather easy to find such documentation, as I recall from the days of the peace movement that many people believed that the USA wanted to use South Vietnam as a kind of colony.
Also, does the phrase mean that the USSR or Viet Cong or N. Vietnam wanted to control South Vietnam separately? Or that they wanted to reunite the country? Considering that the aftermath of the war was a united country, I think it's the latter.
I'd like to see a better phrase used. 
User:Ed Poor
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This phrase is problematic:
:the war was unwinnable and immoral.  
I think it was meant to convey that the US military campaign in Vietnam was unwinnable and immoral. The other side in the war was not generally considered immoral by the peace movement. Almost always, when protesters said they opposed the "war" they meant not that they wanted both sides simply to stop fighting -- i.e., that all war is immoral. But that they wanted the US to withdraw.
Advocates of US withdrawal were divided into:
#those who favored a Communist victory
#those who, while neither favoring opposing a Communist victory, nonetheless regarded the US role as unwarranted interference (let them work it out themselves)
#those who opposed a Communist victory, but opposed the US role as for any combination of the following: it was unwarranted interference in a civil war; it was immoral support for a corrupt dictatorship (S. Vietnam); or it was immorally motivated by the desire to exploit Vietnam as a sort of colony.
I'd like to use the term campaign to describe the US military involvement. I believe the term will help distinguish between the war -- which includes both sides, along with their allies -- and the military aims and actions of each of the two sides.
User:Ed Poor
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I changed the terminology from Viet Cong to NLF.  I think it's more NPOV to refer to groups by their official names or what they called themselves.  See http://www.lib.washington.edu/southeastasia/vsg/vc1.html for a rather long thread between historians on the appropriateness of using VC vs. NLF in historical texts. DanKeshet
:Yes but this is wikipedia and we need to always to give articles names that a majority of English speakers will recognize with a reasonable minimum of ambiguity. Therefore the article for the Viet Cong should be at Viet Cong and all other varients should be redirected to that article. This is especially important for edit links -- since there is a FAR greater chance of somebody creating a stub for Viet Cong than the official title (which few people know). Compare a search for  National Front for the Liberation of Vietnam with Viet Cong. The first gets 54 hits, while the second gets over 40,000. It would be OK to use the more "NPOV" title after introducing the far, far more common title. See the Linda Lovelace discussion in wikipedia talk:naming conventions for more reasoning. --maveric149
::I can definitely buy naming the NLF/VC article Viet Cong and making the link to the as-yet-non-existent article National Liberation Front.  But I still think it better if we use the name NLF within the Vietnam War article (with sufficient explanation so people who know them as VC can understand).  DanKeshet
:Agreed so long as the official title is always introduced as being what most people commonly call the "Viet Cong". Do you want to change the edit link or should I? --maveric149
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We need to include more on the other countries contributions. China?, Canada?
Korea sent 312,853 men over a twelve year period - how many casualties? What about casualties in Laos and Cambodia? --rmhermen
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need to tack in some stuff on ARVN (Army of Vietnam) the South Vietnamese army that we were supposed to Vietnamize; also local US allies such as the Nung, Montaganards (sp) and so on "helped" by the US Special Forces
also mention the expatriate Vietnamese community in the US and refugees / boat people, as well as the prison camps and sweeps as the North consolidated its postwar hold on the south
I hesitate to mention POW / MIA issues because of controversy, but something should be mentioned  user:clarka
yes, it should be mentioned. however as this topic is so large POW/MIA issues should be on another page and just linked to here. Lir 07:11 Nov 13, 2002 (UTC)
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"MIA soldiers from World War I and II continue to be unearthed in Europe. "
Is "unearthed" used here literally or metaphorically, I wonder?
This non-native speaker's opinion is that this sentence could use some clarification.
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How was it that Eisenhower had so much pull to cancel the elections? This needs to be explained in the article. Kingturtle 17:14 16 May 2003 (UTC)
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I disagree with the expression "and in addition the Communists were seen as highly unlikely to allow a free election in their half of Vietnam"
The pentagon papers make clear that Ho will win a election because the peasants support, The north don’t need to tamper with the election. This expression, with sources not acknowledged, looks more that a excuse to ban people expression  in the balloting booth. Cuye 10:44, 13 Sep 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  Actors 

message: DESOTO is mentioned with no context.  What is this?  Or is it a military acronym with no substantial meaning as far as this article is concerned?
Do people really call it the "Kent State massacre"?  I have always heard the shootings simply referred to as "Kent State".
Under "Analysis of impact on the United States", it's stated that the US sent "comparable" amounts of troops to the Gulf War.  Must verify this.
Tempshill 19:22, 11 Dec 2003 (UTC)
thread_title:  DESOTO 

message: The comment that Allies only sent 'token forces to fulfil their SEATO obligations' is untrue, at least in the case of Australia.  Almost 50,000 Australians served, and more than 500 died.  At it's height, one third of Australia's Field Force - including all arms and Special Forces - was committed to Vietnam.  Between 1966 and 1972, there were never less than three RAAF Squadrons and two RAN warships in theatre. Further, Australia paid its way fully.  Unfortunately, this article is marred by a US-centricity which seems to be the norm in many US-authored discussiona about Vietnam.  It's almost like nobody else - including the Vietnamese themselves - existed.
--User:fallingwithstyle 15 Sep 04
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I added the comment about the Canadian volunteers who fought in Vietnem. I had to use the weak "tens of thousands" because I could never find a defintive number, although 40,000 - 60,000 seems common. Would there be a count somewhere?
Also the wiki is big enough for an article on the US policy of accepting foreign volunteers into its armed forces from someone who knows the topic. Edmilne 15:52, Dec 21, 2003 (UTC)
----
I reverted the edit that removed GWB and added Dean to the list of presidents where their dodging the Vietnam war was an issue in their election on two grounds: 
#GWB did in fact dodge Vietnam
#Dean dodged it as well, but he has not been elected yet. 
If it is desirable, a section on candidates, not actual presidents can be added. --snoyes 15:31, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  US allies 

message: Forty years later and the obvious U.S. attack/aggression leading to the war on Vietnam is overlooked? Perhaps we shouldn't continue to distort history and stick to the facts
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/940727.html
http://www.nnn.se/levande/lessons1.htm
- Dorfeb
Perhaps we should edit this article to reflect the truth, rather than the words of U.S. military officials or mainstream newspaper outlets whom regurgitated the lies of the former?
:J.J - I know youre young and think you know everything, but it would be nice if you made effort to find consensus if youre going to remove a quote. I might simply restore the original, just so you understand what exactly it is talking about. -戴眩sv 04:22, 1 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  US guilty? 

message: Re: The paragraph beginning "The early origins of conflict in Vietnam came with a decision by Kennedy..."
Is there any source for this? Whether or not Kennedy felt the need to confront Kruschev by other means, this ignores the continuing conflict, the decision by the Communist resistance in Vietnam to act independently of Hanoi if necessary in 1959, the Manifesto of the NLF in 1960 and the inability of the Diem government to deal with the peasant population's discontent. Cecropia 15:23, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Kennedy's Decision on the War 

message: Moving "Analysis of impact on the United States" from its perfect location to the already-too-long History of the US!? It's like an obsession to reduce everything else to a stub in order to embed full-length textbooks in the encyclopedia. I've lost all hope for rational organization of WP's modern history material, and am going to stop watching these pages, it's just too painful and nothing I say makes any impression. Stan 20:43, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Let's talk about rational organization of "WP's modern history material." ** Vietnam War is not necessarily a U.S. history article.** "Analysis of impact on the United States" implies that you're getting a longer view look at the impact of the Vietnam War on U.S. politics and society, right? So, it's a topic that falls under post-Vietnam U.S. history. It fits perfectly well in U.S. history 1964-1980, but to wrap up this article with such a section is a patently outrageous example of Wikipedia's U.S.-centrism. 172 23:57, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: You know, there are thousands of articles here that treat the aftereffects of an event, and guess what, the info is in the article about the event, not moved wholesale to generic histories. I'm not going to point them out, because you've messed up quite enough well-organized articles already. And instead of deciding for everybody else what is and is not "outrageous US-centrism" - itself an example of US arrogance - why don't you ask some non-US people? In fact, if you look at the edit history of the article, you'll see there have been dozens of non-USian editors who were apparently perfectly happy having such a section there; it's been in there quite a while. But I understand I have the third-longest watchlist  in all of WP, so I need to prune anyway, and it will be a great relief not to see any more of this article mangling. Stan 06:12, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: If you have a specific criticism of my changes, I will address it. If you're just looking for an excuse to snip at me, I'm not interested. 172 06:58, 14 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you being deliberately obtuse or what? I already stated a specific criticism, which is that you removed a bunch of relevant material and put it in a worse place, and then I pointed out the faults in your rationale. If this were a disputation between normal people, your next step would be to answer those specific objections, not to start over from the top as if I hadn't written anything. My belief is that you don't have a good answer to my points, and so you play dumb - I've seen you do it before, with me and with other people. Stan 07:37, 14 May 2004 (UTC)

text: Well, do you think that there was anything wrong with the article ending with an overview on the impact on the U.S., but not Indochina? Typical U.S.-centrism. 172 12:50, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Find somebody else to accuse of US-centrism, I've added far more non-US content to WP than you have. If the problem was a missing section on the aftermath in Indochina, then the obvious logical thing to do is to add one, not to delete the aftermath in US section (and not leave a link to where you moved it to, geez). Since I'm not one to get into edit wars, and you're clearly continuing with your habits of reverting other people's edits, I'm not going to touch this article however. Stan 16:18, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Far more non-US content than I have? Not that this has much to do about anything, but I doubt this claim. We tend to interact on articles pertaining to U.S. history, but I've done a fairly good amount on Chinese, Brazilian, Russian, German, and British history. 172 10:02, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Just six countries? You know, the world's a little bigger than that - I've added articles relating to at least 200 different countries past and present. Cleaned up a three-way(!) dup of Argentina's Sarmiento just today. Stan 04:51, 24 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Geez, you should know that I was just listing the biggies (~a dozen articles). It's also harder for me to track my contributions since I haven't been listing them. BTW, I wasn't accusing you of U.S.-centrism. I was talking about an article, not a person. At worse, I was accusing you of blowing our disagreement regarding the move out of proportion, which probably had more to do with our disagreements regarding series than anything else. 172 05:10, 24 May 2004 (UTC)

text: I think you're going about this backwards, 172. The fact that the section in question is only problematic because it is not coupled with an impact on Indochina section does not mean that the impact on US section should go away. It means it should go in, and that someone should write a section on Indochina. If it motivates you so much, perhaps you should be the one to write it. Otherwise, WP would be boxed into an unfortunate problem where a lot of content would never be added because it would have to wait for someone to come along who happened to know enough to write both it and another section that should go in with it. That's foolish. WP is a perpetual work-in-progress. If the post-Vietnam section is half-written, it should go in the article half-written, and sit there waiting for its second half. Snowspinner 00:05, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see what's the big deal about reorganizing the article and moving content to related articles where they might fit better. But since it isn't, I'm simply resigned to forgetting about this. I've reinserted the section, along with a new heading for a section on Indochina under construction. 172 10:11, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Section movement 

message: I replaced the usage of "America" with "U.S." in accordance with the manual of style: "When referring to the United States, please use 'U.S.' so as to avoid ambiguity with 'us.' When referring to the United States in a long abbreviation (USA, USN, USAF), periods should not be used. Those seeking a briefer term for the United States of American, sans periods, should enjoy themselves with USA."  172 20:57, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: the MoS says nothing against using "American" in articles. It statement above was inserted by me and was against the usage of "US" (vs. "U.S."), not the usage of "American". Disregard this comment if your statement was really preemptive against the British. Previous discussion is at Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (US vs American). No consensus resulted. --Jiang 23:21, 10 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: U.S. vs. American

message: What did the vietcong know and when did they know it?  What had they been told, had they been lied too?  We need a section on what the vietcong thought they were fighting for vs.  what they actually got.  Could they have known at the time (perhaps if they had been better educated for instance) that they were actually fighting to allow a priviledged oligarchy to impose a repressive regime on them and their neighbors?  I doubt they were knowingly fighting for this, what did they think they were fighting for?--Silverback 08:03, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: All interesting and valid questions, but your last edit to the article seems to beg the question how much we actually know..."repressive communist oligarchy" is a pretty loaded term and seems to violate NPOV, although I tend to agree that "communist influences" is a bit weak. Any way to rephrase that? -- Ferkelparade π 10:28, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Even to this date when there has been some opening of the society, it is a single party system where speech is repressed, and foreigners and those who are suspected of harboring anti-government or liberal opinions are under surveilance or worse.  The phrase may have negative connotations, but it is an accurate description by western standards.  perhaps there are some who will argue that people should be free to choose a repressive system and that the government of Vietnam enjoys the support of most of the population, but this majoritarian argument would have more weight if the population was free to choose something else and if they had access to outside information.  --Silverback 11:02, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough, but the question is if this was a completely unavoidable outcome from the beginning, which your sentence makes it sound like. I also have doubts if an "accurate description by western standards" can be NPOV...I'd prefer a more neutral phrasing. -- Ferkelparade π 11:14, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)

text: Nationalism certainly deserves its share of the blame for the mess humanity made of the 20th century.  The ruling elite in N. Vietnam  knew that the US had no colonial ambitions, the aftermath of WWI, WWII and Korea were incontrovertable proof of that.  History will be harsh in its assessment of their self-righteous cynical deceit.--Silverback 21:24, 11 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  What did the vietcong think they were fighting for? 

message: This paragraph is riddled with errors:
"America’s failure in the Vietnam War did not end its determination to fight Communism, rather its policy toward world Communism changed profoundly. Ronald Reagan took the Vietnam War into account when he directly applied political and diplomatic pressure on the Soviet Union while ignoring Vietnam and the rest of Asia. He applied the policies in a direct attempt to destroy Communism at its source of origin, instead of fighting Communism through proxy wars, with the notable exception of Afghanistan. In a sense American defeat in the Vietnam War helped lead to American victory in the Cold War. The Soviet collapse in 1991 left Vietnam without its main economic and political partner, and thus it began to seek closer ties with the West."
What does America was determined to fight communism mean?  One of the two major presidential candidates was just attacked for not wanting to fight communism.  Then it says that the USSR was the "source" of Communism.  If that is so, why have there been communist rebellions in places like Peru and Nepal in recent years?  It also says that Reagan wasn't "fighting Communism through proxy wars" which leads me to wonder, ignoring the word proxy, what he was doing mining Nicaragua's harbor and arming the Contras (with money from arms sales to Iran).  Then we're told  "In a sense American defeat in the Vietnam War helped lead to American victory in the Cold War."  This paragraph needs to go away. Ruy Lopez 02:30, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Analysis of effect 

message: I modified the addition of the fact that men 18-20 could be (and certainly were) drafted and sent to fight but could not vote or drink in most states. I actually think they could not vote (certainly not federally) in all states, and the only state I know of where you could drink at 18 was New York.
We need to be aware though, that the issue of conscription and drinking in relation to the corpus magna of 18-20 year-olds was largely bogus. The major push for lowering the drinking and voting ages was on college campuses, where many of the people there were there specifically so they wouldn't be serving below the voting and drinking age. Their concern wasn't essentially that the poor soldiers couldn't drink (actually, they could drink 3.2 beer on post) but that students wanted to drink (and many did,law or no law) . The catch phrase was "Draft Beer, Not Students"--a reference to fear of losing their 2S exemptions. A more inclusive phrase would have "Draft Beer, Not People," but I can tell you from first-hand experience that a lot of students did not consider soldiers people, including conscriptees.
As to voting, since military posts are federal instllations, the Congress could have extended the vote to military personnel on active duty if they wished, but they didn't wish. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 18:03, 5 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The hypocrisy of using conscripts to fight for freedom condemns the Vietnam War as an unjust war (due to unjust means), just as it does all the earlier wars of the modern era.  Conscription is the most lethal weapon of mass destruction in history.  It is too bad the efforts of Einstein and Gandi in the late 20s did not bear more fruit.--Silverback 00:31, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Drinking, voting and the draft 

message: I have now added a war template for this conflict, since none existed before.  I hope there's nothing wrong with it. -- The KoG | Talk 19:13, Dec 24, 2004 (UTC)
:I feel something strange about the "Strength". Is that true the ROV+USA's army is >> than DRV's army?? --Kerry7374 08:31, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: War template

message: Presentation of South Vietnam and North Vietnam (and allies, with their national flags) may or may not be the most accurate description of the combatants, but it is unbalanced, essentially the US POV. A balanced presentation would have the US (after 1964 or 1965) and North Vietnam as being the major combatants, with their allies and surrogates, or it would have South Vietnam ARVN and the Viet Cong and their respective supporters as the primary belligerants. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 20:37, 24 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Combatants 

message: If someone knowledgeable about this topic is keeping track of Vietnam pages in the Wikipedia, I'd like to bring to your attention that a new anonymous user just created an Vietnam casualties page. At the time of writing it is unwikified and orphaned, and seems to duplicate information given here. Could someone with a grasp of this judge whether there is anything to merge and then turn it into a redirect to here, which seems like the best solution? / Alarm 21:35, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Newly created casualties article - redirect here? 

message: RE: "Opponents said that, in addition to other arguments, the lack of declaration made Vietnam an illegal war. The Supreme Court of the United States probably could have settled the issue, but no case was ever taken up by the Court." Was any such brief ever submitted to any U.S. court?  An international court?  — 216.137.71.74 19:52, 6 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Legal challenges 

message: "On December 11, 1961, the United States sent 900 military advisors, and after began to clandestinely send more, both to give temporary support to the South's Diem RVN regime, and to engage in terrorism against both North and South Vietnam. Some of these bombing attacks were designed to inflame and exacerbate both the civil war in the South and to exacerbate the impression of a greater conflict with the North."
I'm confused as to your use of the word terrorism, in place of bombings. Did the US condone the bombings as a "terror tactic", or 
was it a tactical military blunder?
:This is Wikipedia, the home of "everybody's a spin-doctor" unsourced history. Take it FWIW. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 16:37, 27 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terrorism 

message: The table on top showing casualties on both sides are too simplistic.  On the South Vietnamese side, it only counts US casualties, not the South Vietnamese.  Also note that most civilian deaths occurred in South Vietnam.
DHN 09:38, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  inaccurate info 

message: From the Origins section:
The so-called ideological divide has little meaning among the Vietnamese, who well understand the beginnings of its civil conflict as being ethnic in origin; and for their own particular reasons, different outside parties took sides, and desired influence.
What are the "ethnic" beginnings that this sentence refers to?  Is this refer to ethnic differences within what outsiders see as the population of Vietnam (e.g., Viet vs. Cham), or is this a reference to the ethnic differences between the Vietnamese and outsiders? siafu 20:52, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Clarification

message: Why is the NPOV tag in the "Casualties" section? — Stevey7788 (talk) 05:41, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV tag in wrong place 

message: When we click on the Tonkin incident we see the truth but why aren't we saying that the Vietnam War started with a lie of the president on the main page?
:Tonkin did not start the Vietnam War. It was going on for quite a while with some complexity to its origins. Tonkin was a turning point, a significant boost to Johnson's rhetorical ability to claim justification for escalation. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 06:14, 4 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree, but its fair to mention how Tonkin was mostly stagecraft. I think there should be more background on the previous war with the French, and how the growth of Catholicism beginning in the 17th century brought about the social rifts upon which the French occupation and American involvement could be based. -SV|t 01:02, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Another point that is rather lost is that, at the time Johnson employed it, escalation was quite a novel concept. The closest that we can come to in modern times was FDR's open support for the allies before Pearl Harbor and Lend-Lease, which made the U.S. liable to a declaration of war, if the Axis powers had chosen to done so, but Japan  chose a sneak attack instead. FDR did not actually commit combat troops until he was able to obtain a formal declartion of war after Pearl Harbor. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 01:24, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: "Escalation [is] a novel concept" true, but only for those with power and the will to abuse it. -SV|t 02:07, 5 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why aren't we telling right away the truth about the Vietnam War. 

message: 12 may 2005
Excuse me my poor english, I am French.
Chinese intervention in Vietnam North 
The spookman of the Chinese Ministry of the Foreign Affairs confirmed in 1996, that, on request of the Vietnamese northern communist government, China had sent between October 1965 and Mars 1968, approximately 320.000 soldiers in Vietnam to help Vietnam North in the tasks of air defense, genius and logistics. It also confirms that more than 1400 Chinese soldiers had been killed
Intervention Chinoise au Nord Vietnam
Le porte parole du Ministère Chinois des Affaires Etrangères a confirmé en 1996, que, sur demande du gouvernement communiste nord vietnamien, la Chine avait envoyé entre Octobre 1965 et Mars 1968, environ 320.000 soldats au Vietnam pour aider le Nord Vietnam dans les tâches de défense aérienne, de génie et de logistique. Il confirme aussi que plus de 1400 soldats Chinois avaient été tués
:That really needs a direct citation. AFAIK the U.S. never claimed there were Chinese troops in North Vietnam. North Vietnam was a Soviet client anyway. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 14:25, 12 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: As I remember the war contemporaneously, it was the Soviet Union that supported Ho and the North, though with diplomacy and aid, not troops. If Chinese troops had been in Vietnam it would have been remarkable, as China and Russia did not have the same interests at the time. -- Cecropia | explains it all ® 03:21, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Chinese force in Nord Vietnam 

message: There is very little discussion whatsoever about how the war progressed.  In fact, the organization doesn't lend itself to an easy cut out of the operational considerations seperate from some strategic issues, some social and and political issues, etc.  Case in point, the section "The end of the war" conflates a significant two year into one or two paragraphs; the largest North Vietnamese offensive took place in 1973 and was soundly defeated by ARVN; only to be repeated two years later to South Vietnam's eternal detriment.  This article is in major need of a rewrite. --Rev Prez 13:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Operational Conduct of the War 

message: There seems to be an edit war of sorts with regards to the opening paragraph of this article that says the "war was fought to determine whether Vietnam would be united in accordance with the Geneva Agreement--" Now, if the war was fought (presumably by North Vietnam) to determine if Vietnam would be united with accordance with the Geneva Accords, they would have held the free and fair elections after their victory in 1975. Instead, as far as every resource and my own knowledge of the Communist state, the Communists picked the candidates for the National Assembly before the election of 1976. Obviously, that pretty much meant rigged elections from the start. Unless anyone can produce concrete resources that these elections were conducted fairly I will continue to delete this phrase. --User:24.210.183.105 24 June 2005.
: The communists put up some candidates, and some of them won, some of them didn't.  The communists are in a coalition called the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, some of the candidates the coalition endorses win, some don't.  In the 2002 elections, 447 candidates who won were in the Vietnamese Communist Party, 51 were not.  Of the 51 non-party candidates, 48 had the endorsement of the Vietnamese Fatherland Front, 3 did not.
: At the last elections, 19 may 2002, 3 members are self-nominated and do not belong to the VVF. 51 seats were won by non-party candidates.  So over 11% of the Quoc Hoi is not communist.  The situation was similar in 1976.
: You say the "Communists picked the candidates for the National Assembly before the election of 1976".  So what?  The US Republicans pick candidates for Congress before elections as well.  I'm not sure what is so sinister about this.  Some of their candidates win, some lose.  The communists have been a majority since 1976, but so what?  Japan had a Liberal Democratic prime minister from 1954 to 1993, yet you don't hear people here challenging whether they're democratic.  That's 39 years, compared to Vietnam's 29 years of a communist majority.  That's not factoring in that the Liberal leadership really stretches back to 1948, when the Liberals swallowed the small Democratic party, which stretches interrupted up until today, except for a brief stretch from 1993-1996 right after Japan's worst post-WWII recession and a series of corruption scandals in the LDP. Ruy Lopez 17:47, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: the difference is that these candidates were not predetermined based on govt. choice, they were chosen in elections (obviously) J. Parker Stone 02:18, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

text: you are the one disputing the validity of the 1976 election which did take place.  The onus is on you to prove it was unfair.  Your statement that people not nominated by the communist party can't be elected is not correct, as I said, over 11% of the Quoc Hoi was not nominated by the communist party and are not members of the communist party. Ruy Lopez 01:56, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vietnamese Elections in 1976?