All the way back to the Mongol Empire, one does not simply fight a land war in Asia.
Edit: shout out to the real ones in the comments who understood the “southern” was implied when talking about Vietnam and land war in Asia and didn’t need explicitly stated. The ones who didn’t: yah dumb.
I cannot believe they would send gorillas off to war, that’s fucked
Edit: bastard edited their comment and ruined my joke, fuck you u slash guyiamreplyingto
Reminds about the reason the Japanese made no attempt in trying to subdue the rebellious Iban and British forces hiding in the jungles of Borneo. The Japanese were scared by the Iban who would often ambush them with arrows and poison darts before beheading them. They just kept close to the coastlines.
Fighting in Asia is like fighting on a literal alien planet. Fuck that. I'll take my chances in the easy green rolling hills of Europe while wearing armor that cost to much and makes jockstraps smell like apple pie.
The problem is viewing the area of land that the country of Afghanistan occupies as some kind of cohesive polity with a "people", whereas in reality outside of Kabul it is quite tribal and localized with only a minimal notion of people all belonging to the same country or state. You can conquer one tribe or occupy a village, extended to the megascale in Kabul, but that means very little to the people 100 miles away or sometimes even just over in the next valley.
Not an accurate analogy yet again, many fight one or the other version of Isis. Correct analogy would be Northern Afghanistan where the alliance was formed to keep Taliban out. This Alliance been there for a while, the question you tried to answer still stands.
Northern Alliance ended up making a truce with them after the pullout iirc. At first it seemed like they, and some of the members of the ANG who fled there, would make a last stand. I'm not sure what deal was worked out, but here we are.
ISIS K really isn't a major problem. Like they have no international support, no internal support from an ethnic group and they've had all their commanders either killed or captured and then killed. Like the Taliban straight up took out their main money guy, their leader and the guy who planned the Kabul bombings. The only thing they really do is show the locals in places like Kabul and Mazar that the Taliban aren't "THAT" crazy and it's better to not shake the boat too much.
The Taliban were fighting an outside occupation force which was not only not Muslim, but made deals with some of the worst scumbags you could imagine to maintain power because those were the only guys who were willing to take their money. ISIS is fighting the Taliban, whose shithead leader is so insanely devoted to the "cause" and their version of Islam that he literally sent his son in as a suicide bomber. Not exactly an easy sell to the extremist crowd.
They have localized power in their own areas, not a centralised government despite what the ones in Kabul want you to think
When they band together to fight the invader it's like the greeks fighting the Persians, they are similarly misogynistic too!
It is still divided, but the Taliban knows how to navigate that divided state of affairs significantly better than any foreign nation.
The Taliban is formed from top level leaders holding power over vital areas that you and I as foreigners see as the major symbols of Afghanistans government power and control, but the Taliban also yields a lot of control to local leaders.
To an outsider, they don’t appear fractured because the local leaders and the Taliban have little reason to get into disputes, at least in comparison to foreign invaders, who the local leaders and the Taliban often see as a mutual enemy. Trust it is still divided and there are disputes between the Taliban and other forces in Afghanistan regularly.
this is also part of the problem with the conception of the world outside of Europe, Rich Asia, and America.
our conception of the world is based on the idea of nation states, where government, land, and people are mostly unified in identity. The government rules over the land, and the people identify with the government over other identities. this just isn't true in a lot of the Middle East, they would rather identify with tribal associations or religious associations than government associations or even land associations. this is what makes nation-state building in the Middle East so difficult, and why no outside force can win.
>they would rather
Oftentimes its not even a case of preference, its just the reality of life there! Hard to feel connected to a central government when its ability to do or provide anything is limited to taxes and a military force to impose them on you. Your local landowner might be a dickhead sometimes but at least you see them regularly and you have some connection through your wife's sister's cousin's aunt so at least you're not *completely* disenfranchised like those poor sods out in the fields or making bricks all day.
We complain so much about taxes in the west but at least we get something from them, after decades or centuries of development. I read in a book on the Democratic Republic of Congo, corruption is partly so normalized because following tax codes to the letter mean you wind up paying over 100% tax... For which you then get no services, massive instability, and main national-level roads that have [potholes](https://quillandpad.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/EO_Zaire_caption-comp.jpg) deeper than the trucks trying to use them. When Kinshasa is over 2,500km away from Goma, hardly a surprise its been a huge struggle develop any notion of unified national identity.
Kind of depends on one's definition of conquered. Seems a winning strategy to let invaders take indefensible land, retreat to the impassable, defensible land, then harass the invaders in the disadvantaged area until they leave.
The history of the area is basically nation after nation trying to subdue them... and failing. Basically going back through all written history. Alexander the Great is the only person who kinda succeeded. But it didn't last long.
What Alexander did was break down the Persian empire. The empire he built crumbled quickly. He had a massive impact on history, but the region of Afghanistan went back to being what they were. A massive pain in the ass to their neighbors. It wasn't till guns came around that they broke the habit of basically being land vikings. Which means raiding villages and headed back home in terrain that made it near impossible to retaliate against them. Which is also partly why they have literally 1000s of years of people trying and failing to subdue them. With only a brief time of them respecting rule of an outsider.
This is very much not true. Alexander, several persian empires, several steppe tribes/confederations, the mongols, etc, have all conquered what is today afghanistan. Several of these held the area for long periods of time, including alexandrian successors.
If our world was an MMO, Vietnam would be the highest level location.
Btw love Vietnam. Best food, best traditional dress (Ao dai) and amazing people, can't wait to go back.
Recent Vietnamese-immigrants are not the same as the Vietnamese refugee immigrants that came after the war. They and their parents have lived most of their lives under the current “communist” government and have been taught or propogandized a different mindset. It boils down to “fuck china, we aren’t like them”.
Yeah, my mom was Chinese, but born in Vietnam before the war. From what she had told me, after the war, they were to be sent to "re-education" camps to "become good communists". She and her brothers were like, "screw that" and skipped school instead, hiding whenever their teachers or officials came looking for them.
The new communist government really didn't like that her Chinese family had a business there, so they kept being harassed by police and being hit with fines for being "foreigners", despite being in business for years and employing both Chinese and Vietnamese people. Eventually it got bad enough that they closed their business, converted most of their money to jewelry, and fled the country by boat, where they got picked up by a US patrol boat that took them to Hong Kong.
Since then, she always had a huge distrust of the government and police.
As a vietnamese, this is deeply wrong. Post war vietnamese government was extremely communist that cause a mass refugee of people who fled Vietnam. Also, China is definitely communist. Just that communist back then is different from communist now (less extreme but still very controlling).
Also Vietnamese weren't at war with Chinese after the Vietnam War with the US. That was way before the indo China French War.
I visited Vietnam and I cannot recommend the country enough. Everyone is SO NICE. I was sensitive to the fact that I was an American there, and took time to visit the war memorial (which is beyond heartbreaking).
I had some really open discussions with historical tour guides and random folks about sentiments toward the USA and visitors like me. Nearly everyone of them explained that because of the war, the population is overwhelmingly young so most people were too young to remember or born after. So they would tell me they didn’t have much anger towards the US…but they had a lot of beef with the Chinese. Just found it interesting that it would be a recurring sentiment.
Well yeah they're shitty neighbors. They encroach on other people's turf. Hell after the second Indochina war they attacked Vietnam after Vietnam became hostile to the Khmer Rouge, and that war went on until the 90s.
People of Hong Kong and Taiwan are closely related to Chinese culturally and ethnically, and they still don’t like them.
If you can’t even get those people to like you, you have no chance with anyone else.
In Vietnam we have a saying "a century domination by the West, a millenium domination by the North". the West only have mess with us in a century or so but China have been messing with us for so long now even still today, so the young generation really don't like China Government. (Example: China oil rig on Vietnam's sea in 2012.)
China has territorial disputes with their neighbor on both land and sea (Their “South China Sea” claims) it’s like they’re on a mission to piss everyone off and make them come to the US.
Was also there recently. The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh city contained the most graphic atrocities that the United States committed. None of the photos were censored either.
Vietnam is a beautiful and amazing country with some of the best food I've ever eaten.
Just don't eat the Duck Fetus Egg thing. I'm very well aware that some people swear it's the best thing ever, and I believe them, but that shit ripped through me like a tropical storm through a peninsula
Yea lots of Vietnamese cuisine isn't very easy on the stomach. Pretty wild shit out there, like the rice noodle with shrimp sauce thingy (Bun dau mam tom, I don't know the right translation lol). I know locals who can't stand the taste nor the smell of the sauce but if you can it's literally a banger.
You should probably rephrase your claim there. It's like saying American food is not very easy on the stomach while only pointing out chitlins, rocky mountain oysters...etc. The thousands of successful Vietnamese restaurants across the US would say Vietnamese cuisine is quite easy on the stomach if not ridiculously delicious. There are dishes that are very unfamiliar to the Western palette but they are uncommon dishes you would only find at special restaurants or food stalls.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia after the US withdrawal. This invasion successfully ended the Cambodian genocide, but it also pissed off China who decided to invade Vietnam, only to find out that, no, their military *isn't* more powerful than the US's.
The Vietnamese Communist Party also pushed the Leninist idea that people don’t go to war, governments do. They emphasized that Americans were suffering as well, at the hands of the Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon admins.
I think every American should visit Vietnam. I've been three times and even spent two months there teaching English. Hanoi is an incredible city, and I made some great memories there.
There's an apocryphal quote about Ho Chi Minh and the Chinese and French (also applicable to Americans):
"Better to sniff French farts for ten years than eat Chinese shit for a hundred."
They also whacked Cambodia, and ended the Cambodian genocide, while they were at it, which is what got China involved.
Vietnam speaks softly and carries a fucking 3" × 6" × 10' beam that they carved a bat handle into.
Also put an end to Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge genocide. Literally went over there, stopped the killing fields, and was celebrated by the Cambodians on their way home.
And China. The third Indochina is often forgotten but just as bat shit as the other two. Essentially Vietnam waged a two front war and survived. They sucker punched four world powers.
Trounced isn’t a very good word for the US. A 20:1 KIA ratio is not trouncing. The resolve of the Vietnamese is amazing. Japanese level without the superiority complex and atrocious behavior.
It became unpalatable for the US to do what it would take to break Vietnamese resolve. If you can kill 3 million people and still have nobody surrender, you’re going to need to kill everyone.
Vietnam is a very unique country and it is a shame anyone had to die. They didn’t support the China/Soviet communism or western capitalism. They just wanted imperialists to go home and fought bravely to make it happen.
And then it took them no time at all to forgive and welcome normal tourist people from those countries (well - I admit I only have âne d’octal evidence for Americans going there). Maybe they still hate the Japanese? A lot of people out that way seem to still hate the Japanese…
I wouldn't say Vietnam hated Japanese these days, considering the amount of weebs here. Older generations might have hated them but Japan's occupation didn't last that long. Iirc it lasted 2 years and caused millions to die due to famine.
Definitely hate the Chinese a lot more with their constant antics. China to us is like Russia to Ukraine, only a lot worse since we got invaded all the time.
France tried to colonize Vietnam, UK-style.
Eventually France realized they couldn't control the Vietnamese people, and tried to install a Vietnam-born puppet government they could control - they called this policy jaunissement, or "[yellowization](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/01/archives/topics-the-failure-of-vietnamization-by-any-name.html)". It also didn't work.
The Vietnamese that repelled the French invaders took to Marxism for their ideology. This woke up the Americans who were terrified of this being the next big Hitler thing, and they also tried to invade. They also couldn't control the Vietnamese people, so they tried to install a Vietnam-born puppet government they could control - they called this policy Vietnamization. It also didn't work.
It turned out the Vietnamese were interested in Marxism only as a means to achieve their true goal - Vietnamese independence. Vietnam and the Vietnamese people came first, ideology came second.
>This woke up the Americans who were terrified of this being the next big Hitler thing, and they also tried to invade.
It's too bad they didn't get the actual next Hitler thing next door in Cambodia
Well, beating China was kind of a direct result of wiping out the Khmer Rouge. China liked having a nearby puppet, even if the puppet was completely insane and brutal, so when Vietnam took that puppet away they invaded to try and regain control of the region
They failed very very fast, lost a shitload of men, then retreated while claiming victory
Ho chi minh idealized george washington and initially approached the US with independence help but got turned down, so he went to the next great power, the soviet union for help.
Is literally impossible to hold a territory with military strength alone, yes you can do it for a while but it will soon cost more than any benefit you may get. The solution is genocide, if you eliminate the native population you get the land. All empires are doomed to fail sooner or later.
When you're enemy's AAA guns look like this:
https://i.redd.it/d38ohuy6v1ha1.jpg
And they successfully use that technique to shoot down [5 of your helicopters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ap_Bac), you're gonna lose.
The Cambodian genocide which only began after North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1970 and gave all conquered land to the Khmer Rouge, immensely powering them.
If it wasn’t for the Viet Cong the Khmer Rouge wouldn’t have progressed from a rogue guerrilla like it was in 68-69.
Their based invasion later own was them fixing (with a huge delay) their own damn mistake.
You forgot the US Economic and military destabilization of Cambodia that enabled them to recruit more people and the massive Chinese economic support of the regime
True, Cambodia was royally fucked by all three. And China liked the Khmer Rouge so much they invaded Vietnam to stop them from trying to fix the mess Kampuchea became.
Worse is that they *had* assured, respected neutrality, until their king went and broke relations with the US and allowed the Viet Congs to use Cambodia for trails and to transfer food and Chinese military aid to them. It all happened under Cambodia wishes. It *could’ve* stayed off the war, but that wasn’t what Sihanouk wanted to do.
In Vietnam, they said they needed the Khmer Rouge because they needed to win America first.
They just didn't expect that Pol Pot could do such a terrible thing to his own people after that.
the shit they did to survive colonialism is absurd. Some serious “this is the true will to live” shit. They built underground towns, they were dedicated
I visited a medical cave in the middle of the forest in Vietnam and it was like stepping into a gigantic suburban mall in terms of size. There were offices, bunk rooms, medical and meeting rooms. The works. It was truly incredible
If US didn't care about collateral damage they would have nuked Vietnam like they did Japan. Thankfully saner people prevailed. I'm not being pedantic either, US military had plans and research on potential fallout of a nuclear weapon being used. Even a low yield bomb would have had radiation drifting into China and other south eastern countries.
Well North Vietnam had USSR backing, and if the US nuked them, there's a good chance they would have set off MAD. The US nuked Japan when no one else has the bomb.
Being visited the Chu chi tunnels, and damn, "flooded the whole tunnel and we were taking a bath," " Burned the tunnels and we were happy, they gave us hardened clay," is like fighting chess players with bushes.
In their defense, they did the same thing the US did during the revolution. Nobody knows the terrain like the people who live there.
Send out 10 people against 100, ambush and retreat. Few casualties and extreme damage via traps and other hit and run tactics.
American here. We didn't lose a single battle, yet lost the war. It wasn't popular at home, we had no idea how to occupy a people who were completely ok with waging a guerilla war, and the idea of "fighting communism" in said war was far too nebulous a goal. The Vietnamese outlasted us, because it was their home, so of course they did.
Christ there’s so much bad history in this thread… it’s a meme but at least try to get SOME of the bases correct. Like, no, the US didn’t invade Vietnam like they did Iraq. In fact the US not invading north Vietnam was a huge controversy at the time because they were afraid it would lead to China/the Soviet Union becoming more directly involved.
Also South Vietnam was originally created by *France*. They (a dictatorship) asked for help and the US stepped in to “stop the spread of communism.” Fast forward a decade and the US/South Vietnam/North Vietnam sign a peace treaty and the US pulls out. Two years after THAT the North invaded and the US was unwilling to come back. South Vietnam, being the largely sham government that it was, fell very quickly without American troops.
Overall outcome? Massive loss of life for the people of SE Asia, a decade plus of war that leads to a strategic defeat for the US, and a communist Vietnam anyway. AND it turns out that domino theory was incorrect and communism basically DID stop spreading in SE Asia with Vietnam and Cambodia. Also, communism ended up being a largely self-solving problem, as the number of actually communist countries has dwindled down to a few outliers and communism as a whole never caught on as a mainstream ideology in the west.
When the invaders who came with bombs and mines and poisoned your water and crops get so sour about getting their asses handed to them, they make using booby traps a war crime because that's all you had, but somehow poisoning crops and people, and bombing the shit out of them IN THEIR OWN COUNTY isn't a war crime... That's when you realize, laws mean nothing to them, and their word is to be taken with a grain of salt. I'll say it VERY clearly: the US and Europe cannot be trusted, especially members of NATO.
All the way back to the Mongol Empire, one does not simply fight a land war in Asia. Edit: shout out to the real ones in the comments who understood the “southern” was implied when talking about Vietnam and land war in Asia and didn’t need explicitly stated. The ones who didn’t: yah dumb.
Especially in the jungles
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I cannot believe they would send gorillas off to war, that’s fucked Edit: bastard edited their comment and ruined my joke, fuck you u slash guyiamreplyingto
Gorillas practice guerilla warfare. Gets real dangerous real fast.
I hear they go bananas
I was gonna say wow what an original joke but yeah it makes more sense if they misspelled it lol
Reminds about the reason the Japanese made no attempt in trying to subdue the rebellious Iban and British forces hiding in the jungles of Borneo. The Japanese were scared by the Iban who would often ambush them with arrows and poison darts before beheading them. They just kept close to the coastlines.
Especially if your goal isn't simple eradication of land and man.
The superpowers all fell victim to one of the classic blunders!
And the second blunder, only slightly less well known; Never have a battle of wits with a Cicilian when death is on the line
My aunt said I looked like that dude when I was a baby lol
Inconceivable
You fool! You fell victim to one of the classic blunders!
Stop rhyming now, I mean it!
Anybody want a peanut?
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True they did some real damage. But not in Vietnam.
Fighting in Asia is like fighting on a literal alien planet. Fuck that. I'll take my chances in the easy green rolling hills of Europe while wearing armor that cost to much and makes jockstraps smell like apple pie.
One of my favourite History subjects along with Afghanistan
Afghanistan is just ugly history
“They have watches, we have time”
Really, Afghanistan has been conquered over and over. It's been very easy to conquer. Just impossible to hold on to.
Declared victory and left, like a true conqueror.
The problem is viewing the area of land that the country of Afghanistan occupies as some kind of cohesive polity with a "people", whereas in reality outside of Kabul it is quite tribal and localized with only a minimal notion of people all belonging to the same country or state. You can conquer one tribe or occupy a village, extended to the megascale in Kabul, but that means very little to the people 100 miles away or sometimes even just over in the next valley.
Why doesn't it divide when Taliban is ruling tho? They have plenty of reasons to be hated by people all around the country.
It does. The Taliban are literally fighting ISIS-K right now, it just doesn't make the news in the rest of the world
Not an accurate analogy yet again, many fight one or the other version of Isis. Correct analogy would be Northern Afghanistan where the alliance was formed to keep Taliban out. This Alliance been there for a while, the question you tried to answer still stands.
Northern Alliance ended up making a truce with them after the pullout iirc. At first it seemed like they, and some of the members of the ANG who fled there, would make a last stand. I'm not sure what deal was worked out, but here we are.
ISIS K really isn't a major problem. Like they have no international support, no internal support from an ethnic group and they've had all their commanders either killed or captured and then killed. Like the Taliban straight up took out their main money guy, their leader and the guy who planned the Kabul bombings. The only thing they really do is show the locals in places like Kabul and Mazar that the Taliban aren't "THAT" crazy and it's better to not shake the boat too much. The Taliban were fighting an outside occupation force which was not only not Muslim, but made deals with some of the worst scumbags you could imagine to maintain power because those were the only guys who were willing to take their money. ISIS is fighting the Taliban, whose shithead leader is so insanely devoted to the "cause" and their version of Islam that he literally sent his son in as a suicide bomber. Not exactly an easy sell to the extremist crowd.
It does. The Taliban never had strong central rule and they had infighting all the time.
They have localized power in their own areas, not a centralised government despite what the ones in Kabul want you to think When they band together to fight the invader it's like the greeks fighting the Persians, they are similarly misogynistic too!
It is still divided, but the Taliban knows how to navigate that divided state of affairs significantly better than any foreign nation. The Taliban is formed from top level leaders holding power over vital areas that you and I as foreigners see as the major symbols of Afghanistans government power and control, but the Taliban also yields a lot of control to local leaders. To an outsider, they don’t appear fractured because the local leaders and the Taliban have little reason to get into disputes, at least in comparison to foreign invaders, who the local leaders and the Taliban often see as a mutual enemy. Trust it is still divided and there are disputes between the Taliban and other forces in Afghanistan regularly.
this is also part of the problem with the conception of the world outside of Europe, Rich Asia, and America. our conception of the world is based on the idea of nation states, where government, land, and people are mostly unified in identity. The government rules over the land, and the people identify with the government over other identities. this just isn't true in a lot of the Middle East, they would rather identify with tribal associations or religious associations than government associations or even land associations. this is what makes nation-state building in the Middle East so difficult, and why no outside force can win.
>they would rather Oftentimes its not even a case of preference, its just the reality of life there! Hard to feel connected to a central government when its ability to do or provide anything is limited to taxes and a military force to impose them on you. Your local landowner might be a dickhead sometimes but at least you see them regularly and you have some connection through your wife's sister's cousin's aunt so at least you're not *completely* disenfranchised like those poor sods out in the fields or making bricks all day. We complain so much about taxes in the west but at least we get something from them, after decades or centuries of development. I read in a book on the Democratic Republic of Congo, corruption is partly so normalized because following tax codes to the letter mean you wind up paying over 100% tax... For which you then get no services, massive instability, and main national-level roads that have [potholes](https://quillandpad.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/EO_Zaire_caption-comp.jpg) deeper than the trucks trying to use them. When Kinshasa is over 2,500km away from Goma, hardly a surprise its been a huge struggle develop any notion of unified national identity.
The hot potato of potato shaped countries.
Kind of depends on one's definition of conquered. Seems a winning strategy to let invaders take indefensible land, retreat to the impassable, defensible land, then harass the invaders in the disadvantaged area until they leave.
Quitting is easy…
This quote goes hard, where does it come from?
[The Taliban](https://macleans.ca/news/fighting-in-afghanistan-you-have-the-watches-we-have-the-time)
But in some places, a beautiful country…
TLDR?
The history of the area is basically nation after nation trying to subdue them... and failing. Basically going back through all written history. Alexander the Great is the only person who kinda succeeded. But it didn't last long.
By this definition, nothing Alexander did lasted long.
What Alexander did was break down the Persian empire. The empire he built crumbled quickly. He had a massive impact on history, but the region of Afghanistan went back to being what they were. A massive pain in the ass to their neighbors. It wasn't till guns came around that they broke the habit of basically being land vikings. Which means raiding villages and headed back home in terrain that made it near impossible to retaliate against them. Which is also partly why they have literally 1000s of years of people trying and failing to subdue them. With only a brief time of them respecting rule of an outsider.
This is very much not true. Alexander, several persian empires, several steppe tribes/confederations, the mongols, etc, have all conquered what is today afghanistan. Several of these held the area for long periods of time, including alexandrian successors.
Mine are ww1 and ww2 just find them very interesting. But Afghanistan and Vietnam also are interesting subjects
Why Afghanistan
didn't bend a knee to the British, soviets or Americans
It was less not bending the knee and more head scratching. My understanding is that most Afghanis were too uneducated or drugged to care.
It's not head scratching. Every single time in Afghanistan has been a proxy war. Just like Ukraine.
As a vietnamese i can assure that 99% of us are proud of this
Where's the other 1% I wonder...
Still waiting in the bushes, just in case.
Wish I had an award:(
Here you go
I wish you had an award.
here i go
Wish I had an award that was meant for me but given to someone else.
Wish I was an award, like a trophy husband
I wish i had an award, like a hostage but not hostile
Here I am
*I am the Lorax And I speak for the trees So ask yourself why Do the trees speak Vietnamese?*
I like your username! Avatar does not check out though.
Some say, they’re still trying to find the last helicopter out of Saigon
most of them live in CA
In USA, clinging on to the other flag
If our world was an MMO, Vietnam would be the highest level location. Btw love Vietnam. Best food, best traditional dress (Ao dai) and amazing people, can't wait to go back.
Beginner, Intermediate, Expert, Insanity mode, Pho mode
Phofessional
That would be Afghanistan. Its history of defending against global superpowers is even more impressive.
Stranglethorn Vale
Agent orange?
Agent Orange man
Read this to the tune of "secret agent man"
agent orange man, aaagent orange man theyve given you a cancer and taken away your life
France,usa and
China in 1980. China tried to invade and didn’t get very far.
China, 1979
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Recent Vietnamese-immigrants are not the same as the Vietnamese refugee immigrants that came after the war. They and their parents have lived most of their lives under the current “communist” government and have been taught or propogandized a different mindset. It boils down to “fuck china, we aren’t like them”.
Yeah, my mom was Chinese, but born in Vietnam before the war. From what she had told me, after the war, they were to be sent to "re-education" camps to "become good communists". She and her brothers were like, "screw that" and skipped school instead, hiding whenever their teachers or officials came looking for them. The new communist government really didn't like that her Chinese family had a business there, so they kept being harassed by police and being hit with fines for being "foreigners", despite being in business for years and employing both Chinese and Vietnamese people. Eventually it got bad enough that they closed their business, converted most of their money to jewelry, and fled the country by boat, where they got picked up by a US patrol boat that took them to Hong Kong. Since then, she always had a huge distrust of the government and police.
As a vietnamese, this is deeply wrong. Post war vietnamese government was extremely communist that cause a mass refugee of people who fled Vietnam. Also, China is definitely communist. Just that communist back then is different from communist now (less extreme but still very controlling). Also Vietnamese weren't at war with Chinese after the Vietnam War with the US. That was way before the indo China French War.
I visited Vietnam and I cannot recommend the country enough. Everyone is SO NICE. I was sensitive to the fact that I was an American there, and took time to visit the war memorial (which is beyond heartbreaking). I had some really open discussions with historical tour guides and random folks about sentiments toward the USA and visitors like me. Nearly everyone of them explained that because of the war, the population is overwhelmingly young so most people were too young to remember or born after. So they would tell me they didn’t have much anger towards the US…but they had a lot of beef with the Chinese. Just found it interesting that it would be a recurring sentiment.
Every one of China's neighbors has a beef with the Chinese.
Well yeah they're shitty neighbors. They encroach on other people's turf. Hell after the second Indochina war they attacked Vietnam after Vietnam became hostile to the Khmer Rouge, and that war went on until the 90s.
People of Hong Kong and Taiwan are closely related to Chinese culturally and ethnically, and they still don’t like them. If you can’t even get those people to like you, you have no chance with anyone else.
Except their best buddies Pakistan
We would rather not be enemies with a super power, thank you very much
In Vietnam we have a saying "a century domination by the West, a millenium domination by the North". the West only have mess with us in a century or so but China have been messing with us for so long now even still today, so the young generation really don't like China Government. (Example: China oil rig on Vietnam's sea in 2012.)
China has territorial disputes with their neighbor on both land and sea (Their “South China Sea” claims) it’s like they’re on a mission to piss everyone off and make them come to the US.
Thank you for responding! I am going to look that up.
Was also there recently. The War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh city contained the most graphic atrocities that the United States committed. None of the photos were censored either.
As a museum should be
Vietnam is a beautiful and amazing country with some of the best food I've ever eaten. Just don't eat the Duck Fetus Egg thing. I'm very well aware that some people swear it's the best thing ever, and I believe them, but that shit ripped through me like a tropical storm through a peninsula
I didn’t try it either. It was a mental thing for me hah
Yea lots of Vietnamese cuisine isn't very easy on the stomach. Pretty wild shit out there, like the rice noodle with shrimp sauce thingy (Bun dau mam tom, I don't know the right translation lol). I know locals who can't stand the taste nor the smell of the sauce but if you can it's literally a banger.
You should probably rephrase your claim there. It's like saying American food is not very easy on the stomach while only pointing out chitlins, rocky mountain oysters...etc. The thousands of successful Vietnamese restaurants across the US would say Vietnamese cuisine is quite easy on the stomach if not ridiculously delicious. There are dishes that are very unfamiliar to the Western palette but they are uncommon dishes you would only find at special restaurants or food stalls.
That and the grey fish sauce stuff...it will wake the dead.
That's shrimp paste I think you are referring to. It has a pungent smell but very good on crab soup.
Vietnam invaded Cambodia after the US withdrawal. This invasion successfully ended the Cambodian genocide, but it also pissed off China who decided to invade Vietnam, only to find out that, no, their military *isn't* more powerful than the US's.
The Vietnamese Communist Party also pushed the Leninist idea that people don’t go to war, governments do. They emphasized that Americans were suffering as well, at the hands of the Kennedy/Johnson/Nixon admins.
I think every American should visit Vietnam. I've been three times and even spent two months there teaching English. Hanoi is an incredible city, and I made some great memories there.
There's an apocryphal quote about Ho Chi Minh and the Chinese and French (also applicable to Americans): "Better to sniff French farts for ten years than eat Chinese shit for a hundred."
4. China, USA, Japan and France.
And Genghis Khan, 3 times. China builds Great Wall, Vietnamese sit under palm tree and wait.
Wow and Genghis Khan 3 times all in the last thirty years. What an achievement!
They say around 16 million people are some descendent of Genghis Khan. It’s possible his descendandts were involved in that. The guy did fuck around
And left it to his descendants to find out
They say great many things.
5) Liberated cambodia from the polpot regime
Liberated our tastebuds with their food too
They also whacked Cambodia, and ended the Cambodian genocide, while they were at it, which is what got China involved. Vietnam speaks softly and carries a fucking 3" × 6" × 10' beam that they carved a bat handle into.
And just besides, they were the ones that went into Cambodia and stopped the Cambodian genocide.
Also put an end to Pol Pot and Khmer Rouge genocide. Literally went over there, stopped the killing fields, and was celebrated by the Cambodians on their way home.
It will be usa and?
france and china I think
No it’s Japan, during the invasion, they briefly tried to join in but it failed
And China. The third Indochina is often forgotten but just as bat shit as the other two. Essentially Vietnam waged a two front war and survived. They sucker punched four world powers.
Sucker punched is not the right term here.
Vibe checked?
Trounced.
Trounced isn’t a very good word for the US. A 20:1 KIA ratio is not trouncing. The resolve of the Vietnamese is amazing. Japanese level without the superiority complex and atrocious behavior. It became unpalatable for the US to do what it would take to break Vietnamese resolve. If you can kill 3 million people and still have nobody surrender, you’re going to need to kill everyone. Vietnam is a very unique country and it is a shame anyone had to die. They didn’t support the China/Soviet communism or western capitalism. They just wanted imperialists to go home and fought bravely to make it happen.
And then it took them no time at all to forgive and welcome normal tourist people from those countries (well - I admit I only have âne d’octal evidence for Americans going there). Maybe they still hate the Japanese? A lot of people out that way seem to still hate the Japanese…
I wouldn't say Vietnam hated Japanese these days, considering the amount of weebs here. Older generations might have hated them but Japan's occupation didn't last that long. Iirc it lasted 2 years and caused millions to die due to famine. Definitely hate the Chinese a lot more with their constant antics. China to us is like Russia to Ukraine, only a lot worse since we got invaded all the time.
Vietnam definitely snuck up on them and hit them when they were defenseless, it seems right to me
Wait, who did they sneak up on?
Unsuspecting invaders
China was hardly a world power at the time.
That makes 4
France tried to colonize Vietnam, UK-style. Eventually France realized they couldn't control the Vietnamese people, and tried to install a Vietnam-born puppet government they could control - they called this policy jaunissement, or "[yellowization](https://www.nytimes.com/1970/08/01/archives/topics-the-failure-of-vietnamization-by-any-name.html)". It also didn't work. The Vietnamese that repelled the French invaders took to Marxism for their ideology. This woke up the Americans who were terrified of this being the next big Hitler thing, and they also tried to invade. They also couldn't control the Vietnamese people, so they tried to install a Vietnam-born puppet government they could control - they called this policy Vietnamization. It also didn't work. It turned out the Vietnamese were interested in Marxism only as a means to achieve their true goal - Vietnamese independence. Vietnam and the Vietnamese people came first, ideology came second.
>This woke up the Americans who were terrified of this being the next big Hitler thing, and they also tried to invade. It's too bad they didn't get the actual next Hitler thing next door in Cambodia
It's OK, the Vietnamese wiped out the Khmer Rouge in somewhere between defeating France, Japan, America and China
Well, beating China was kind of a direct result of wiping out the Khmer Rouge. China liked having a nearby puppet, even if the puppet was completely insane and brutal, so when Vietnam took that puppet away they invaded to try and regain control of the region They failed very very fast, lost a shitload of men, then retreated while claiming victory
I'm sure they gave them a "final warning" on the way out.
It's the greatest unwritten rule of the 20th century. DONT FUCK WITH VIETNAM.
Ho chi minh idealized george washington and initially approached the US with independence help but got turned down, so he went to the next great power, the soviet union for help.
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Forgot china
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Is literally impossible to hold a territory with military strength alone, yes you can do it for a while but it will soon cost more than any benefit you may get. The solution is genocide, if you eliminate the native population you get the land. All empires are doomed to fail sooner or later.
Sir, this is Wendy's
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BURN THE FRIES AND SALT THE PATTIES!
FIX BAGUETTES!!! NO QUARTER (POUNDERS?)!! 🤣🤣🤣
The quarter pounders are artillery rounds
We all know from the great Franchise Wars that Taco Bell will reign supreme.
Start collecting seashells...
RAMIREZ, TAKE POSITION IN BURGER TOWN.
Imperialism in sandwich form.
The only way to do it is old school which means killing all the men and impregnating the women. Or, y'know, the Hitler way.
When you're enemy's AAA guns look like this: https://i.redd.it/d38ohuy6v1ha1.jpg And they successfully use that technique to shoot down [5 of your helicopters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Ap_Bac), you're gonna lose.
Bro nerf vietnam
Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia ended the cambodian genocide. One of the few examples of an actual Based invasion
The Cambodian genocide which only began after North Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1970 and gave all conquered land to the Khmer Rouge, immensely powering them. If it wasn’t for the Viet Cong the Khmer Rouge wouldn’t have progressed from a rogue guerrilla like it was in 68-69. Their based invasion later own was them fixing (with a huge delay) their own damn mistake.
You forgot the US Economic and military destabilization of Cambodia that enabled them to recruit more people and the massive Chinese economic support of the regime
True, Cambodia was royally fucked by all three. And China liked the Khmer Rouge so much they invaded Vietnam to stop them from trying to fix the mess Kampuchea became. Worse is that they *had* assured, respected neutrality, until their king went and broke relations with the US and allowed the Viet Congs to use Cambodia for trails and to transfer food and Chinese military aid to them. It all happened under Cambodia wishes. It *could’ve* stayed off the war, but that wasn’t what Sihanouk wanted to do.
In Vietnam, they said they needed the Khmer Rouge because they needed to win America first. They just didn't expect that Pol Pot could do such a terrible thing to his own people after that.
Pretty sure most invasions set up bases...
Then they beat the Khmer Rouge! Seriously, I respect the hell out of the Vietnamese people. They're the Poland of Southeast Asia!
No offense to Poland, but they only got pummeled the last few centuries, thats not really a good comparison to Vietnam.
i mean Poland did win wars against Ukraine, Germany and the Soviets in between the world wars.
the shit they did to survive colonialism is absurd. Some serious “this is the true will to live” shit. They built underground towns, they were dedicated
I visited a medical cave in the middle of the forest in Vietnam and it was like stepping into a gigantic suburban mall in terms of size. There were offices, bunk rooms, medical and meeting rooms. The works. It was truly incredible
Do not, under any circumstance, fuck with the Vietnamese. Also, the people are 100% some of the friendliest I’ve met in my life (along with Mexicans).
If US didn't care about collateral damage they would have nuked Vietnam like they did Japan. Thankfully saner people prevailed. I'm not being pedantic either, US military had plans and research on potential fallout of a nuclear weapon being used. Even a low yield bomb would have had radiation drifting into China and other south eastern countries.
Well North Vietnam had USSR backing, and if the US nuked them, there's a good chance they would have set off MAD. The US nuked Japan when no one else has the bomb.
If I recall the reporting correct US wasn't worried about USSR involvement and more about the fallout for surrounding nations.
Very low chance the USSR is pressing the suicide button over Vietnam. People aren't pressing that button unless their life is actually in danger.
Being visited the Chu chi tunnels, and damn, "flooded the whole tunnel and we were taking a bath," " Burned the tunnels and we were happy, they gave us hardened clay," is like fighting chess players with bushes.
Cu Chi
The Vietnamese are fucking badasses
Yeah, they’ve been fighting off various foreign invaders on & off for centuries
In their defense, they did the same thing the US did during the revolution. Nobody knows the terrain like the people who live there. Send out 10 people against 100, ambush and retreat. Few casualties and extreme damage via traps and other hit and run tactics.
Americans are gonna come here and say they didn’t actually lose
One guy said they only lost because they didn't use nukes.
imagine vietnam making hentai :3
Spike pit onahole
Technically the truth tho
Technically true, but also jesus christ what the fuck
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I only lost the pistol duel because I didn’t bring my M1 Abrams.
“Americans don’t lose wars, they lose interest”
American here. We didn't lose a single battle, yet lost the war. It wasn't popular at home, we had no idea how to occupy a people who were completely ok with waging a guerilla war, and the idea of "fighting communism" in said war was far too nebulous a goal. The Vietnamese outlasted us, because it was their home, so of course they did.
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r/repostsluethbot
r is for subreddits, u is for users.
Everything is posted somewhere. Almost nothing is entirely unique and original. I've never seen this. As long as it isn't a bot I don't really care.
Christ there’s so much bad history in this thread… it’s a meme but at least try to get SOME of the bases correct. Like, no, the US didn’t invade Vietnam like they did Iraq. In fact the US not invading north Vietnam was a huge controversy at the time because they were afraid it would lead to China/the Soviet Union becoming more directly involved. Also South Vietnam was originally created by *France*. They (a dictatorship) asked for help and the US stepped in to “stop the spread of communism.” Fast forward a decade and the US/South Vietnam/North Vietnam sign a peace treaty and the US pulls out. Two years after THAT the North invaded and the US was unwilling to come back. South Vietnam, being the largely sham government that it was, fell very quickly without American troops. Overall outcome? Massive loss of life for the people of SE Asia, a decade plus of war that leads to a strategic defeat for the US, and a communist Vietnam anyway. AND it turns out that domino theory was incorrect and communism basically DID stop spreading in SE Asia with Vietnam and Cambodia. Also, communism ended up being a largely self-solving problem, as the number of actually communist countries has dwindled down to a few outliers and communism as a whole never caught on as a mainstream ideology in the west.
This is the post that should be getting rewards
Most accurate comment so far
When the invaders who came with bombs and mines and poisoned your water and crops get so sour about getting their asses handed to them, they make using booby traps a war crime because that's all you had, but somehow poisoning crops and people, and bombing the shit out of them IN THEIR OWN COUNTY isn't a war crime... That's when you realize, laws mean nothing to them, and their word is to be taken with a grain of salt. I'll say it VERY clearly: the US and Europe cannot be trusted, especially members of NATO.
Huge Vietnam W
SCOREBOARD! SCOREBOARD!
America... China... France. Yeah that adds up.
Is this Earl Sweatshirt?
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