Ken Burns' "The Vietnam War"

[@eclecticmn4838]

This was a panel discussion of the recent Ker Burns Vietnam series. The criticisms are mostly what Burns left out, not what he included. Corrected time stamps 5:00 Thomas Vallely 12:55 Lewis Sorley The best, most pithy IMO 19:03 Marc Selverstone 27:37 Gregory Daddis 35:42 Nu Anh Tran 43:30 Jay Veith Good IMO 50:47 Mark Moyar Good IMO 57:40 Q & A See also www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/10/the-vietnam-war-gets-the-ken-burns-treatment.php www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/10/the-ken-burns-version.php

[@julkiewicz]

I was looking for critical voices on the documentary, mostly because I found it so great myself. I always try to hear different sides of the story. Unfortunately, after hearing what Lewis Sorley had to say, I'm doubting whether he has actually seen the entirety of the documentary. Omission of nurses? Omission of pilots? Immigrants from Vietnam to US? All of those topics have significant segments dedicated to them. If the documentary is biased in one's opinion - fine. But don't pretend that a topic is not mentioned when it is clearly mentioned.

[@Dad_Brad]

Lewis Sorely is obviously a bit sore. I’ll send him a South Vietnamese flag for Christmas.

[@johnnotrealname8168]

I just watched this whole thing. Amazing work. I liked the diversity of opinions too. I noticed numerous discrepancies between the panelists which was interesting certainly.

[@Kissypooh]

This historical and intellectual discussion (and debate) is far more profitable than the propaganda of Ken Burns / PBS.

[@kevinperrier7274]

Lewis Sorley seems to forget at the end that neither China or the Soviet Union lost 58,00 men in the war. The Americans were tired of the losses.

[@silentiumestaureum1]

I thank eclecticmn for the timestamps, but I didn't take Sorley very seriously after he played the "Burns is anti-American" card.

[@garymorgan3314]

Fair point. Sorley, though I disagree with him is provocative in the best sense and made me think. Still disagree but I can respect him (as I cannot the foaming Trump fans here. That are outstandingly daft and ignorant).

[@cbraat27]

You seem to forget that our troops were mostly out of Vietnam by 1973 and that Sorley is critical of how we cut off aid we had promised at that point

[@TechnikMeister2]

The problerm for the US was stepping in after the French were tossed out. The problem for the US was promoting the "red peril" and "reds under the bed", defending from the "Hordes From The North". It was a fear campaign pushed by the defense industry and politicians who championed McCarthy. The fact is, the US never knew how to fight an insurgency and still don't. In Iraq, the Aussie SAS were dragged in to win the fight at Fallugia. In Afghanistan the Taliban is patiently waiting for the US etc to leave. I was in Vietnam in Military Intelligence with the Australian Commando's from 1969 to 1972. It got to the point that Australian professional troops (the only ones we have) refused to go out on patrol with US draftees. The Marines were better but not by much.You can't fraft in a 19yo farm boy into the Army and expect him to measure up to troops who were there to kill, like Australians were. There is no gilding the lily. It was criminal. In another instance we took a green US Army Lieutenant out on a reconnaissance patrol. This guy had everything but the kitchen sink in his pack. One of our Warrant Officers demanded he take everything out and replace it with ammo. We had been gone for about an hour and then he lit up a cigarette and stopped walking. He said he needed a rest. We pulled him up and put him between the scout and the next soldier. He nearly died of fright. We had to send him back with one of ours as an escort. In our army officers are kept in HQ and the Warrant Officers are in charge in the field.

[@seandineen999]

As the son of a corpsman from maine, I agree. My father said, the Australian were crack fighters, who built on the skills learned in malaya, and indonesia. The Australians and the New Zealanders understood the felt desires of peasants far more than Americans or North Vietnamese.

[@ChristopherCircelli]

Well done Erik!

[@tranminhtam785]

this is a discussion of competing ideologies-vietnam is simply a pretext-only businessmen are doing serious objective historico-socio-economics research of the terrain-others are simply projecting their ideologies-no wonder businesses never hire them

[@literallysquidward7170]

35:22 you're welcome

[@eduardoreyeslopez3522]

solicitó por favor sea traducido al español gracias.

[@mustavogaia2655]

I would support any dictator that forbid applauses during a public event.

[@cheerfulerik]

First hour good, second half (Q&A) boring.

[@thomasstorgaard9750]

I miss George C. Herring in the panel.

[@cbraat27]

Bob Sorley ftw

[@Beretta249]

Yeah let's not forget Diem may have been our monster, but he was still a _monster_ . He did some insane shit like ordering the murders/disapperances of over 1400 Buddhists over a protest started by their abuse by his police. Took 2 days, that's a good day for Stalin by comparison. And while I admire Lewis Sorley's bio on Westmoreland he really struggles with losing sight of how to most anyone who's a soldier the actual day-to-day events of the war _are_ far more important than the strategic successes. Someone's kid kills a local and is later blown to bits by a mine; that's what counts to them. Wars are made of a million little events like that and less of grand, sweeping changes to technology or the local politics. It's the job of the reporter to cover what's happening and the job of the politician to sell it as a good thing. The folks at home don't care about the specific rifle the ARVN are being issued, they care about who's shooting or being shot at. The reality of a democracy is that all foriegn politics are actually domestic politics. If you lose the war at home you lose the war overseas. That's how it works, that's how it's _supposed to work_ . We know Domino Theory was bullshit because we lost and China didn't swallow SE Asia. Again this idea is defined by it's ignorance of the actual politics of the area. And fuck that guy who invoked fucking _Indonesia_ as a success! Fucking Suharto, WHAT?! That man oversaw the murders of (low) end hundreds of thousands and high end over a million!

[@joedon1706]

Ken Burns Vietnam lie. We won that war.

[@tranminhtam785]

to this day there is no real history of the vietnam war because nobody has bothered to find the root cause-in the ken burns series the civil war the root cause is obvious and evident-nothing is said about the root cause of the vietnam war-the root causes of the chinese and vietnamese revolutions are scarcity and bad distribution of land-in both countries the grievances of the downtrodden serfs have been accumulating for centuries-revolutions are inevitable-most of the commie soldiers who are landless peasants felt that they are on a mission to avenge centuries of wrongs-commie leaders like mao are expert on capitalizing on ancient hatred and injustices-there was a revolution caused by scarcity and bad distribution of land in mexico in 1911 (1.9 -2.5 millions deaths)-mexico is next door to the united states-so it is strange that u.s. historians and commentators have never bothered to find the root causes,both in china and vietnam-listening to their narratives one has the impression that "boum",everything sprang up ex-nihilo,just like that-from their points of view the vietnam war is totally disassociated from the historico-socio-economic conditions of the country-businessmen always studied the socio-economic conditions of the terrain-most historians and geo-politicians are ideologically-minded and think that objective conditions doesn't matter at all-this is why businesses never hire those 2 kinds of persons-

[@robertholden3121]

These people bore me and represent the same type of apologists who stand up for the Warren Commission.

[@richardpluim4426]

Thank you Robert. My girlfriend was from Russia and she told me that Russia , Vietnam and and other nations of the like have never been a threat to the United States. In other words, its all a big lie. A big fucking lie. There is no threat.How could a little nation on the other side of the planet be a threat. They could never project their military like the US can. Good Americans died for nothing. NOTHING. If there was communism in south east Asia , well so what.

[@quaduabeo]

@robert holden, your neo-imperialist mindset is boring af