Naked Science Forum
General Discussion & Feedback => Just Chat! => Topic started by: nicephotog on 26/01/2012 17:07:28
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Kenya and many other African nations are importing PRC Chinese workers and getting loans from China? If Vietnam is anything to go by the old rhetoric of reds under the beds and the commies will commit a domino effect on each country will be back.
The trouble is though , What the heck did they think they'd achieve originally in Vietnam , i know about the gulf of Tonkin incidents and the US airbase in vietnam(it was attacked by NLF A.K.A the Viet Cong) , that i believe was mishandled as too was the misnomer of attack upon the USA about the airbase which around amounted to attack on South Vietnam.
While it is all very well to simply state who's been attacked and who an allie is with regard to offense, the final conclusion of vietnam and even cambodia was failure to contain the trouble and in the cases of Laos and Cambodia commited complete inflamation to wars that did not previously exist.
What do think will start and conclude in Africa? ..."shame again sham?"...
note: another interesting feature of the statistics of deaths in Vietnam of US servicemen is the rationale is 1:1 KIA to accident-method-non-hostile.(have i gone nuts???)
ARTICLE I WROTE ABOUT VIETNAM because of a documentary i found
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Fa1U2z9GTr8
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Page: http://www.nicephotog-jsp.net/videoflash.html
Ever been asked how the Vietnam war(also known as "the Second Indo-Chinese war") bigun or how the west became involved? You couldn't honestly accurately answer could you! This is a video i found of has the peculiar property of explaining the vietnam war and its origination much better than any other documantary i have ever found. Interestingly it is because it mentions a number of parts of the problem and that it started much sooner, the late 1940's , than any US argument and intervention, almost the same era as the Korean war(actually partially previous to the Korean War) and had more than one set of political origin factions influencing it to erupt, indeed too when the USA was finally involved(around 1964 - 65), vietnam itself was "nothing of the national and political factions the origins were" on both sides. At its absolute roots, it started as a revolt against the colonial French governemnt of Vietnam , a group that became known as the Vietmin(named after their leader Ho Chi Minh).
Vietnams greatest distortion in the eyes of the world and history, is, (and most ironically) the very being of its painted over as a war of political economic governance morality involving the anti to capitalism as an aggressor when in its final bounds of involved containment (geographic or concept) is summed, it was a "to and fro of wins driven internal civil war(understated but for simplification)".
So much so i give it a name itself as the "Big Nothing" (achieved nothing sensible through massive and excessive utilisation of valuable resource) only because "a set of nations arbitrary of force and political creed by relevence to the vietnamese people and their conflict" as industrial and technological giants committed such massive devastation upon Vietnam, the war spilled past nominally valid geographical border areas with the immense force and ferocity ensued inside the valid boundary called Vietnam. It started with the Vietnamese people and it ended with the vietnamese people by decisive result and relevence to have achieved any solution at any time, it was a "civil war" as indicated and explained by the statement post to this paragraph.
The ultimate fueling of the Vietmin and Vietnam war (whether the theory of the "domino effect on Asian countries to communism" holds any rational truth) is not merely "poverty with no economic planning ability or means of successful change with economic progress" of an almost total peasant quantity of national population, it is the real effect of internal government and jurisdictional authorities corruption (whether being deliberate or by incompetence) has upon economics and management with as much the dictatorial style rule that makes economics a futility in such countries.
For the purpose, two stories apply that can be found in the tell tale headings of documentaries about the vietnam war are, "How we lost the Vietnam war" and "How we won the Vietnam war". It's totally dependant how you percieve loss or gain, whether final enforcement of creed on a people is successful or whether you believe the action made a difference in the status of your own.
Ironically neither is attested a truth from war anyhow as the most common belief is "no-one wins a war" but to put it in statistics and successes perhaps that phrase is true(hmmmmm)butthatsanotherpointanyhowandithinkitsbetterhereijustgoontoanotherpoint. This necst is an obscure point no-one would see too easily, i believe many do not realise or ever realise.Its greatest problem to approach its concept as an ethical action of war, is parity to the first world and second world wars,ethic, of "the war to end all wars". It finalises as unfortunate that unlike the expanse of Europe , Russia , the middle east and Africa and half of East Asia geographically in total(and aptly called the world) on the second world war was fought , the Vietnam war killed within twice the length of period of the second world war, and geographically in size inside maybe as little as 1/100th or less the area the second world war was fought inside, killed almost as many people as the second world war killed in/as the total numeric. There is no great need to totalise by numerics when comparing the Vietnam war to the Second world war, simply know they are near enough the same number killed in total, So in a psuedo effect, the second world war occurred again almost instantly in the twentieth century.
Of president Nixon and his li'l Riechs pervasen into Cambodia and Laos that was not known of in American public until four years after it had been occurring on a regular basis, that had a plus and a minus in helping finnishing the Vietnam war. The plus for the United States was the people realised they couldn't trust their government, though at least it was right to have done so(simply it was right more in military resource and action terms). That ironically required ignoring the unimportant and physically useles north-south DMZ line concept and treating it no differently to the viet-cong by crossing east-west into Laos and Cambodia to fight or bomb the Viet-cong. The minus in it was the immense toll on life it took to successfully physically attack a difficult to locate enemy that thus required means of WOMD's(Weapons of mass destruction) style destruction weapons. However, It also seriously disturbed and destroyed the neighbouring countries political security in which those became internally civil war stricken or prone to periods of turmoil, particularly Cambodia that became Kampuchea under Lon Nol and the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot and because of the quick succession of governing groups and consequent coups deteriorated internally not dissimilarly the way South Vietnam deteriorated after the early US Vietnam war era succession of coups in Saigon.
Eventually it was felt the war had become a sizable quagmire in which more relevent information was given to the American public by media and official report that assisted in showing the goal of securing South Vietnam or re-uniting north and south as a success for the south was further away than it ever had and more than anything it was the Vietnamese , Cambodian and Laotions problem for them to decide anyhow. It vaguely shows as metaphorically taking ten years to realise it kicked the hornets nest not moved it carefully, by waring into another cultures exact living space, in and by which it probably would have done better to do so much more piously and megalemanially from onset as an exacting aggressor rather than acclaimed assistant allied intermediary that uses force.(note: OK so that's a bit of a heavy one to comprehend, so skip it if you need to argue based on feelings, it really is just a machine added subtracted statement by judgement of attritional values).
Unfortunately the tally killed of the civil war in Cambodia / Kampuchea may as be added to the total of the Vietnam war, and thus the date upon which it finally ended being when Kampuchea finally subsided to peace many years later, certainly openly known is that after the Americans withdrawl from Vietnam some Cambodian factions were being assisted economically by the USA as much in likeness to South Vietnam when it first gained cooperative ties with the United States, or to put it succinctly in a metaphorical perspective , there could easily have been a build up of United States military presence in Cambodia after 1972 resulting in direct conscription of people in the USA to do a year long tour of duty in Cambodia as grunts(never supposed or suggested in any historic documentation about USA involvement in Cambodia after 1972 , However, around all it lacked finally!!! Cambodia/Kampuchea had most of anything the South Vietnamese had as assistance from the USA , advisors, weapons, equipment, aircraft , helicopters , specialist support personnel and financing).
The actual decider in battle and military superiority for the Americans of the Vietnam war is a little bizzare. It wasn't better tactics and infantry equipment as per se' , it was a specific addition to their set of support equipment..
Many believe it was the "UH-1 huey" and its post adaption the "Huey Cobra", but those can easily be replaced for their combat effect by the "A-4 skyraider" and even the "WW2/Korean-war Corsair" for gunship effectiveness, However, to truly show its effect requires to know that as any utility vehicle it has its problems in other situations that deem it unable when a platoon is outnumbered 400 to 1 as is(????***footnote) the alike for the ARVN incursion into Cambodia in which over 60 US UH-1 pilots were killed and 700 UH-1 vehicles were lost.
So too can the lessons for the Cold War be replaced between "bombing Haiphong and Hanoi" as to the "NLF - NVA attacks on Khe San". It is clear that the ARVN folded after the USA leaved Vietnam "finally". Understanding how to attack technology cost the NLF - NVA many people at Khe San, understanding the cost to commit the demoralising factor of attacking Haiphong and Hanoi(apart the physical resource logistic) possibly extends the cold war by a decade or two by Soviet technology perfection comparisson against B-52's with the Soviet Vietnam Veterans, but more subtly a mistake of enemy-ising(direct threat) the North Vietnamese as directly intending aggressors rather than civil war politics witheld inside Indo China being committed by peasants. Those two are a parrallel level of loss and the pinnacle points of eithers' very enaction in that war, by either (remembering the context of the initial attacks in the North Vietmnamese gulf on the US warship, and on the US Airbase in South Vietnam were "jurisdictional territorial dispute(..."territorial pissings"...)" not actual pro-conquest invasive ..."on to take washington D.C."... that brought the USA into the Vietnam war).
The decider was the "B-52 bomber". Often people are not aware in the vietnam war history that it was a support bomber alike they think of a "Huey Gunship(called a 'Hog')" or "A-4" or a "Huey Cobra"-Attack Helicopter. The UH-1 itself if it made a difference saving lives was a "medivac" as "dust off" not as as weapons platform technology though it certainly is a more convenient carraige and delivery of such weapons equipment, a B-52 could obliterate ..."three football fields"... of jungle(known as 'carpet bombing') with High explosive "as effectively as an F-111 for accuracy". Had anything less been it, the USA and allied success would have been a much more horrific story, until Macarthur get us all with ..."around twenty A bombs would cure it"...
So, as i implied initially about the documentary video, it is one of the best to see how subtle and complex the reasons were that obscured sensibility or facts required to successfully or safely handle some international incidents. (note: The Gulf war and the islamic world are a completely different ideology and have no relation to Vietnams' styles and reasons of politics, there is no relevence for the Gulf War here). Vietnam often baffles people to why and how it occurred and is too complex to simply tell in one sentence or simply.
????***footnote: quoted(below paragraph) from URL http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/b/b361.htm
(note: Operation Lam Son 719 is an incursion is into Laos NOT Cambodia)..."Losses were heavy in Lam Son 719. The ARVN lost almost 50% of their force. U.S. aviation units lost 168 helicopters; another 618 were damaged. Fifty-five aircrewmen were killed, 178 wounded, and 34 missing in action in the entire operation, lasting until April 6, 1971."...
Note the above quote is similar to the other i placed in but my extract comes from a documentary about 1970's Cambodia(on youtube or LiveLeak) so may have been a media research info blooper.
I'll leave my text as either(the true one or the false one) is quite awful and quite similar regardless anyhow. Final note, over 2000 USA Helicopter pilots were KIA in the Vietnam war(USA Military statistics), most US Military statistics list these as "crashes" , also in Vietnam war US Military statistics terminolgy are data headings "intentional homocide" and "unintentional homicide" ,and, US Vietnam war expendature sector data headings are listed as "a balnk cheque for the president".
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China is investing in Africa for the same reason that the USA as invested in China & South East Asia.
It helps our economy to have workers at a lower socio-economic level to trade with and to do our work. At least in the short-term.
At this point, both China and Russia have strayed quite far from the original communist ideals. However, China, in particular, has become a fairly repressive, totalitarian government. However, they are not alone in being that way.
I don't see a war like Vietnam occurring due to Chinese influence in Africa. Other than the US meddling in the Middle East, the next Vietnam like war may be trying to decide whether to support the rebels, or the government in a country like Syria, especially if we decide one is more favorable to our interests than the other. Hopefully "Support" will be offered on a limited scale, and not an all-out war.
It is disturbing how tightly international politics and Religion are tied in many areas. And that, as much as anything, is a major cause of international political unrest.
China will undoubtedly supersede Russia as the next "Superpower", if they haven't done so already. Polarized views between the USA and China will undoubtedly send the Doomsday Clock a few more ticks towards midnight. However, both of our economies are so tightly intertwined, that a major war between the USA and China would be in nobody's best interest.
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CliffordK: the next Vietnam like war may be trying to decide whether to support the rebels
That was exactly how Vietnam finalised although it was committed before the Gulf of Tonkin and the Airbase attacks because the president of South Vietnam after Bien Dien Phu and the French leaved Vietnam asked for assistance from the USA government under the
"Eisenhower Doctorine" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Doctrine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eisenhower_Doctrine)
Somalia in the 1990s was almost the same conflict again though it was from a UN resolution, i suppose they simply did not have the population in Somalia to commit that type of argument the Viet Minh had.
A large quantity of the argument is the loans and the political ethics that have driven the Africans to look to China because western world economics is too strangling for them. At least its all economic at this time, but the PRC workers are effectively PRC not simply immigrants and that will bring some sort of "more left culture" to the African region. When that occurs there may be the same types of problems that essentially meant nothing finally, as was the problem in Vietnam and Cambodia of the move to communism, millions of peasants whom want a fair trade deal and rank in place with value as a citizen not an economically determined value of being a citizen that capitalism causes in finality.
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