Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy by Sir Max Hastings

Beginning in October of 1968, discussions ensued between the Director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute (USAMHI) and the Commandant of the U.S. Army War College to create a “discussion series” on strategic leadership and military history. This initiated what would become the Perspectives in Military History Lecture Series. On Wednesday, October 17, 2018, the U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (USAHEC) kicked off the 50th year celebration with Sir Max Hastings, author of The Secret War, who presented the General of the Army Omar Nelson Bradley Memorial Lecture. In this lecture, based on his new book, Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy, Sir Max Hastings critiques the methods, mistakes, and devastation caused by both sides during the war.
From France’s crippling defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 to the forced reunification between North and South in 1975, parts of the former French colony of Vietnam pushed back even the greatest powers of the world. The decades of war inflicted a huge material and human price on the Western powers, but the greatest cost inflicted by the war was suffered by the Vietnamese people themselves. Both North and South Vietnamese were forced to endure tyrannical and incompetent governments. For every American who died there, forty Vietnamese perished. When the U.S. pulled out of South Vietnam, the entire nation fell to Communist rule. The world remembers America’s excesses, immortalized in gritty photography and the anti-war movement, yet forgets the vicious acts of terrorism carried out against the Vietnamese people by the Communists. Sir Max Hastings spent three years collecting accounts from both sides of the war and gathered the testimonies of people from many walks of life, both soldier and civilian. Giving no undue praise to either side, Hastings masterfully depicts the cost of misused martial power in complex cultural and political issues that reject simple answers.
Lecture Date: October 17, 2018

[@justinjex1]

My father is a Vietnam vet. My brothers and myself have served in the desert war era with my brother seeing the bulk of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our discussions are sad and grim. My wife is Vietnamese. I am patriotic and fly my countries flag every day in my yard. I feel betrayed by the federal government as we all do. Most of us have the mental scars of war. We dream horrible dreams. I weep sometimes. Mostly in the shower so my wife doesn’t see. War is horrible. Men who seek war for their benefits and political gain are demons. God help us all.

[@floro7687]

These wars were acts of bedrock stupidity.

[@mfdzkdfz]

God bless you.

[@drjimbomac]

You are not alone.

[@john-lenin]

Chickenshit Libtards have always told our enemies: “just keep murdering American soldiers” and when we are in power, we’ll cut-and-run.” And they did.

[@seancrowe3353]

Bless you all

[@geilbertschluckbier1908]

Skip the introduction 11:35

[@DANVIIL]

Thanks.

[@11Kralle]

Einen wunderschönen Namen hast Du! Ach so: Danke für den Zeitlink.

[@Kylemathews1]

Did it myself, thanks

[@ludeman]

Tank you tank you very much!

[@jerseywalcott6408]

Thank you!

[@markmathison7165]

Hastings book on D day & Normandy is one of the best I've read.

[@Applecompuser]

I have that book which I picked up used and read several times.

[@johnsummers1333]

Max Hastings is a genius. Thank you for this.

[@joniheisenberg6691]

Reading his book now. It is outstanding ! Highly recommend.

[@marctempler3250]

Also. BrIllIant book.

[@kendallandrews8691]

As good as Stanley karnows?

[@LBG-cf8gu]

Just picked up a copy; haven't started yet.

[@lw3646]

Same, I'm still on the French period. Seems like a prelude to the later war.

[@rudolphguarnacci197]

Best lecture on the topic since he talks of the disgusting brutality of the war in personal terms and never once rehashing what anyone who's seriously interested in the subject has already heard numerous times.

[@baystgrp]

One of the very best single volume histories of that very long war. The first I’ve read in which actions and decisions in both North and South Vietnam are addressed. One of the few that focuses on Le Duan as the spine of North Vietnamese resolve, and the only one in which Bill Colby, then chief of the CIA’s effort in Vietnam and later Director of the Agency, is quoted as saying that during the entirety of the war, we did not have a single reliable source of intelligence (i.e. a human asset) inside North Vietnam. Incredible. Hastings has written a terrific work.

[@Applecompuser]

@Fremont- Will have to check it out. I really have not read a detailed blow by blow of the ground. I am currently reading about the Gulf of Tonkin. Like you suggest, the US was inserting commando teams as part of OpPlan 34A, and they all get captured right away. Many are also simply incompetent.

[@michaelheery3085]

hhh USA knew all about SADDAM HUSSEIN but knew ZILCH.

[@Conn30Mtenor]

Sir Max was there, in the thick of it. He knows this material in and out.

[@Rohilla313]

Reading his book now. Thoroughly enjoyable as always.

[@udeychowdhury2529]

Thanks for sharing, and thanks Sir Max

[@simontmn]

Great presentation.

[@RasheedahsWifeSchool]

Max Hastings has compassion for humans on all sides of conflicts. If everyone were like this, maybe we wouldn't have war.

[@pauldouglas4158]

I was a combat medic with the 2/7th Cavalry in 1966-67 I was didn't like what I saw while in the field it was confusing and traumatic

[@Kylemathews1]

Respect

[@TrggrWarning]

You should tell your story! Might be painful hoping for catharsis, but it could help prevent similar experiences.

[@MarvelousLXVII]

I could listen to Sir Max for hours.

[@lw3646]

Looking forward to reading his book.

[@larajesser-abell8214]

Just finished this on Audiobook. Wish he'd narrated it beyond the preface/intro because his words through his voice ohmystars! "Inferno" was excellent as well.

[@DANVIIL]

I’m buying his book, now.

[@rustshoo5068]

It’s a great presentation because Max Hastings has the gift of making his chosen subject relevant and fresh, fifty years after the event. His style and method, which he puts great energy into, is an implicit tribute to all Vietnam veterans today: as soldiers and human beings in a very difficult political time for not just America, but the world. The fact that Hastings was a young reporter on the ground in Vietnam, in the late 1960s I believe, only solidifies further his authority over the history of the war, and his empathy with the participants.

[@crogeny]

Great lecture by a great author. Thank you for posting this.

[@simongleaden2864]

11:40 if you want to avoid the tedious introductions.

[@wuffothewonderdog]

Don’t nonentities love the sound of their own voices? There ought to be open season on them.

[@rogerpattube]

FFWD is a wonderful thing

[@kendalldefoe8499]

Almost completed his Vietnam book. Excellent research and information on both sides, but I would have spent more time discussing the effect of the draft on young people. The Ken Burns series makes this a key issue. But it is still the best book I have read on the war...

[@HreForTheMusic]

@6:51 does anyone know where to find the lecture being referenced? (Spanish dominance in the Indian ocean die to gunpowder)

[@jrbeeler4626]

At 50:50 he meant to say "Northern Regime" instead of "Southern Regime".

[@columbus7950]

Max Hastings is a pretty stolid speaker. When he gets to questions he is absolutely superb.

[@Steve1734]

Some in the audience sat stunned into contemplation at the reality spoken by Max. At the commencement of questions at 55:17, look at the body language of the man in the dark blue jumper in the front row. He sits staring ahead like his own belief system has been shattered. He is probably a veteran who felt he fought for a noble cause. I also fought in Vietnam with Australian forces from 1969 to 1971. I was a military field medic and at our field hospital at our base in Nui Dat, we had more Vietnamese and Vietcong patients than our own. Our soldiers were much more highly trained volunteers than the average US conscript. They were acutely aware that they could perform a humanitarian role behind the military/political facade. As a result, we accepted nearly 100,000 refugees onto our shores and Australia and Vietnam enjoy a deep and long lasting friendship. Many of our veterans have since paid visits to the area of our operations and the emotions of regret at the loss of life run deep. Yet, it's the Vietnamese generosity and capacity to forgive that welcomes them.

[@VNExperience]

His book is excellent and he clearly has great insight into the conflict. What I don't understand is how, after all this time, he still mispronounces Vietnamese words and names of important people (specifically the [d] sound, which is pronounced [z] in the North and [j/y] in Southern Vietnam). _Áo dài_ -> [ao yai] _Lê Duan_ -> [le yuan] _Ngô Đình Diệm_ -> [ngo din yieem] I live in Saigon so the examples above are in the Southern accent.

[@TaZ101SAGA]

The book is fantastic.

[@olivergrumitt2601]

Max Hasting’s book is the best of many I have read about the war in Vietnam from 1945 to 1975. It gives a very good account of everything that happened and why the French and Americans could not defeat a peasant army that was prepared to suffer so many casualties in the goal of reunifying Vietnam under Communism. The Americans, especially, did not understand the Vietnamese and their culture, often clashing with their South Vietnamese allies - the American and Vietnamese cultures were so different that it was hard to believe they existed on the same planet. Perhaps the Americans would have fared better if they had acted with more sensitivity towards the Vietnamese and had not committed crimes like at Mai Lai in 1969, though those crimes were committed by only a small minority of soldiers. In the end though, as Mr. Hastings says, it would have been better to leave the Vietnamese themselves to discover that the theories of Marx, Lenin and Stalin did not work, and appalling as their experiment with Communism was, the result of the US attempt and the French attempt to prevent that experiment by force of arms was appalling as well. Vietnam showed that very often countries’ problems can not be solved by foreigners, those problems can only be solved by the indigenous people of those countries. For Anyone interested in the war in Vietnam, I would certainly recommend a visit to the battlefield site of Dien Bien Phu, where The French lost to the Vietminh led by General Giap. There is an excellent museum there and you can see many relics and remains from the battle, such as the French Command bunker, Giap’s Headquarters, trenches and bomb craters.

[@nacnudyelrah]

What a long yawning intro'. Surprised Max is still awake .................

[@CamusCombat]

I was there. 67-68. 11th ACR.

[@johnfranklin8319]

Key note speaker, Max Hastings; 11:45

[@hrwhitney7567]

I was in country in 1971---72. I don't know if I want to go this way. I have never dealt with that crap. I just don't know.

[@aaronwilkinson8963]

I am British veteran of Afghanistan and he is 100% right about the look of hate in the faces of just the locals in Afghanistan. I could see them thinking about how they would kill me. Were were trying to do hearts and minds but how can you do that with people who want to kill you. It was a wasted effort. But at least I can call myself a veteran

[@82zerox]

Much Respect Sir!👍

[@aaronwilkinson8963]

@@82zerox Not that we achieved much but we did try and make an effort. I think in the end the Afghanistan government was not worth propping up or dying for. When the president escaped with 169 million dollars and the Afghan soldiers not being paid or supplied in months having the choice of fighting to the death or surrender and go home I don't blame them. Make your assessment.

[@82zerox]

@@aaronwilkinson8963 of course.

[@aaronwilkinson8963]

@Oliver Mayo Tony Blair is a liberal their mindsets are twisted. Who knows what their end goal is or what their idea of victory is. Even the word liberals is double speak because they are the most illiberal people going. They are quite capable of repression usually to us. We live in dangerous times and things can go many ways. What is certain is the Western world especially America is going to be different. What we thought was the US is going to be different or is it just our perception of it

[@vivy2770]

Atleast you made out alive...

[@chrismorfas7515]

It's complex. The victorious North Vietnamese were unquestionably repressive, but Vietnam also subsequently enjoyed something like 8% annual growth for 20 years 1990-2010. Perhaps that's the victory of sorts for the USA to which Hastings alludes. Vietnam evolved into an authoritarian-but-capitalist state? ... I did a bicycle tour Hanoi-to-Vientiane in 2011 and was treated so well there. In rural, northwestern Vietnam, the kids would line the roads to give us high-fives as we passed.

[@ahmedakhan1]

I think you missed the point. Ho Chi Minh became a communist because he was a nationalist and the the only people who would support him in the fight against French colonialism were the communists. Just because Vietnam is capitalist does not mean that US has finally won. The fight between the US and Soviet Union was not really about ideologies but more about which country would be dominant. Instead of being communist the Soviet Union could have been fascist or even capitalist and there still would have been a struggle. Today the US sees China as a threat not because it is a "communist" country but simply that it could displace the US as the most powerful country. After all in the 1970s there were books about "the coming war between US and Japan," and as far as I can tell Japan is and was a capitalist and democratic country.

[@70galaxie]

so scary,so unheard,so unknown

[@dinola3268]

12:00 Start

[@Hanley209]

11:40 Hastings starts

[@jackreacher5667]

Hastings seems very passionate about this particular conflict, which is unusual for him. I have come on KZbin and Slated America and its Colonial past and present , But when you look at the veterans in the room I feel nothing but pity for them. It must be hard to face the fact that you fought a pointless war and it had all been for nothing and that you had been lied to. The whole thing should be a lesson on the futility of war but will we learn from it?

[@JustMe00257]

Clausewitz should be read and read again to prevent waging meaningless wars.

[@Johnconno]

We study him at The Point, son. In German.

[@GQ1123ja]

Also sun tzu talks about avoiding long wasteful conflict's

[@ianshaver8954]

Know yourself, know your enemy, and know your allies.

[@70galaxie]

entire 20th century was rife w/economic disaster wrapped in nationalism,warfare&conflict resolution that brought more&more economic chaos. great talk. G.I.Davis sr4Jan2024

[@totoabicyclette7100]

the interesting bit starts at 11:48

[@williamhicken1206]

Why are these introductions so long?

[@richardanthonygilbey]

🔔⭐️🌲🌲🔔 Right from the top, it’s going round we are going back

[@nickharris9761]

Hastings starts at 11:55

[@robertb4563]

I thought the most illuminating comment was made around 54:50. I was saying the same thing in 2003.

[@MrTeeri4]

Starts at 12:07

[@amac6483]

Was it ever officially a war ? The Veitnamese people don't call it that.

[@Applecompuser]

Not by the US Congress.

[@angloaust1575]

Bernard fall gives an account of the french experience in the indochina War 1946.54 and the operations Of the gcma special forces in Counterinsurgency which the American advisers took over in Second indochina war Both being failures!

[@paulmcclung9383]

Hastings comes on at about 11.5 minutes

[@davidrodgersNJ]

Hastings comes on at 11:42

[@aihong2971]

You don’t mention the Dulles Brothers. CIA. French Connection. Black Ops. Hmmmmmmm

[@badguy5554]

Contrary to what one hears from many of these speakers (who say "American LOST the Vietnam War)...The American military WON the Vietnam War. It DESTROYED the Vietcong in 1968. It DESTROYED the North Vietnamese Army in 1972 when the North attempted to invade the South. And it all but DESTROYED the North Vietnamese capital, Hanoi, in December of 1972 using B-52 bombers. The North was FORCED to return to the Paris Peace table and sign a treaty that guaranteed the independence and freedom of South Vietnam. At that time Nixon PROMISED the South Vietnamese the USA would AGAIN use B-52's to stop any future North Vietnamese invasion and that America would continue to support South Vietnam and its militlary. Of course those promises ended when Nixon was forced to vacate the Presidency. Two years after America pulled its troops out of South Vietnam, America was a different place, with a different President and a VERY different Congress. At the height of the 1975 North Vietnamese invasion the leftist American Congress not ONLY cancelled all funding to the South Vietnamese militlary...it cancelled ANY use of B-52's against the invading North's forces. When the South Vietnamese troops heard about this betrayal, they IMMEDIATELY cessed fighting and fled south to Saigon. Again...The American mililtary WON the Vietnam War. The leftist American Congress AIDED AND ABETTED the North Vietnamese government and military in overrunning the South and murdering many of its people.

[@JASHVEER22]

Imagine losing a near one in that conflict and now you are told it was for nothing

[@markdavis1116]

Brave young men and woman have died for nothing in every war. Only by facing the truth can we not repeat mistakes. If you are only learning now that the war in Vietnam was a colossal lie, you are a fool.

[@richardlopez2932]

We only owe respect to the living. To Betty Lopez, we owe only patronization of her lifeless way to suffer through everything.

[@panzertracks]

same thing happened in Afghanistan 2021.

[@lw3646]

Yep, same principle that no amount of firepower and foreign support in defence of a deeply corrupt and unpopular government will succeed agaisnt an insurgent campaign.

[@geoffbuss3699]

That beardy dude at the start spent 9 minutes introducing the guy who was going to introduce the speaker.

[@khiggins7231]

Colonel Sanders of the KFC airbourne deserves our respect

[@GregSteele-os8yp]

Credit where it's due,beards had an interesting tie.

[@richardlopez2932]

It used to be my gift and my curse to parody and remember. I'm going to assume it still is.

[@arthurfreeman2031]

What about whataboutism.

[@ozzie-sk9dh]

11:45

[@robertb4563]

The draftee forces in vietnam were 25%. They suffered 30.4% combat deaths. I think draftees filled out the infantry ranks to a higher degree because they were not trained to higher skilled MOSs and therefore were more "expendable".

[@user-qv1gc1vn7o]

damn, they count legs lost in Vietnam war

[@johnfleming7879]

He left out how Kennedy had worked behind scenes to have Diem removed, and a clumsy series of regimes followed. I am not sure how he will handle Democrats refusing to fund support for for ARVN according to the treaty obligations

[@imnotgayyy8489]

Still politically blind aren't ya

[@johnfleming7879]

​@@imnotgayyy8489 how so?I read the letter to Kennedy by Diem explaining why he would not leave Viet Nam as Kennedy had offered.It was in a class where we were studying Pentagon Papers. The Democrats refusal to fund our promised support to Viet Nam included in the Treaty is in the records.Communism almost starved Viet Nam.In 78 they released the ARVN Officers and others from prisons, and supported a somewhat free economy. They might e saying they still love Lenin, but there political self interests are putting VN in a de-facto alliance with Phil, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, HK and South Korea as a balsnce to Maoist China

[@graemeflatman5128]

37 new Zealanders also died.

[@richardlopez2932]

I'm not Pickle Beecher I'm just really old.

[@May4thbwithu]

'Like all wars, neither side held a monopoly on virtue or misconduct'. Very interesting, can we say the same about Britain and Germany during the second world war?

[@emceha]

Do you know about the bombings of civilian objects by RAF?

[@arpitakodagu9854]

@@emceha I and most other people without an axe to grind acknowledge that the calculated slaughter of millions of Jews outweighs collateral damage in the pursuit of strategic objectives (the German industrial base). The slaughter was senseless - all of it - but the Nazis were clearly the bad guys in WWII. Full stop. Only a rabid Anglophobe would argue otherwise.

[@arpitakodagu9854]

No, we can't. Funny how American are so quick to pretend that they singlehandedly won World War II but are nowhere to be seen when alleged Allied war crimes are discussed. Fuck off.

[@edoris9021]

@jeep23862 the british and Americans did technically use slave labour, after the war ended, German POWs were housed in appalling conditions and used as slaves, including clearing mines, in contravention of the Geneva convention

[@janridderbos5928]

@jeep23862 Agreed. Some of Hastings' comments are too broad, blurring lines. He reminds me much of Keegan.

[@Mosey410]

Wonder what his view is on how we could have avoided the war and gained influence at the same time. Ho Chi Minh had requested American backing after WW2 and our OSS had had advised that we help him or risk having to fight him in 10 years time. We chose to back France and the rest is history

[@chrisrecord5625]

Could that introduction be any more boring and unnecessary😠

[@decimated550]

The quality of the rest of the presentation makes up for it

[@green856w]

Eleven minutes to get to the main speaker! Hastings could have extended his talk with 10 minutes of relative information. Missed opportunity.

[@robertb4563]

Starts around 12:30. The beginning is just self congratulatory bs.

[@graemeflatman5128]

Troop deaths vietnam AND over 500 Australians.

[@saund102]

He uncovered tales from the French Indochina war that were horrific. The communists would display French heads on spikes for example. If only we’d had people like him elected to Congress.

[@philipmilner9638]

Max Hastings, forgot to mention the distruction of Cambodia in its 'genocide', by Khmer Rouge on their own people. None of which would have taken place, if the Americans had not allowed themselves to be sucked into a war by the French, who pulled out after Diem Bien Phu...

[@khiggins7231]

To avoid death by boredom then skip Colonel Sanders to 8:53

[@victorcross5949]

The length of the introduction is disgusting.

[@Quinefan]

Just skip it then?

[@angloaust1575]

The japanese managed to conquer The area in 1940 until 1945 The british actually rearmed them To keep law and order until The french returned!

[@mickymac6571]

He's a good military author, but the Vietnam war is too complex to cover in a short lecture. The one thing to take from it is it would have been better if America had not engaged in the war. The Vietnamese wanted independence, not to expand world communism. That was proved when they had border clashes with the Chinese after the war,their former allies. It was politics nothing else.

[@saund102]

It’s like MacArthur said, you can’t win an Asian war when fought on Asian turf. How do you destroy an enemy who’s created underground cities large enough to accommodate NVA divisions.

[@maesterchris2120]

Insane cope, even 6 decades later the US remains unable to introspect honestly

[@enlightenedwarrior7119]

They would impeach a president trying to pull out wouldn't they ? LBJ

[@250txc]

Opinion .... WTF ...

[@Skydv2005]

Is this a whole book about 'what aboutism' ?

[@mrswinkyuk]

Try reading it.

[@Skydv2005]

@@mrswinkyuk umm well.. Is it?

[@mrswinkyuk]

@@Skydv2005 So, my three words are the total ammount of effort you're willing to invest. You don't deserve an answer.

[@Skydv2005]

@@mrswinkyuk thanks for your help.

[@Skydv2005]

@jeep23862 I didn't ask to tell me what he wrote. It was a simple question.

[@rohdugan3781]

svn was nominally no more than 20% bddist

[@samueldoss9608]

The vietnam war should not have happened. The US didn't attack Hanoi effectively due to fear of widening the war with China involvement, if your not going in the fight to win, what's the point Fighting in the jungle to win a hill for a day is not effective Agreeing to not fortify Saigon was big mistake, Not trying to plant natives in North Vietnam to hopefully gain decent intelligence was a mistake (Maybe it would have worked maybe not) Once it was learned Charlie was every where underground and doing very little about it was a mistake Not declaring war on Laos, and Cambodia was a mistake They catered to our enemy, while Geneva says we can't enter the countries wink wink I'm not even getting started on the Korean War as well Walking away for a cease fire or right out defeat should never be a option Alot of good men and women died when they shouldn't have, or should have been able to rase the stars n stripes in victory for the honor Washington fumbled Vietnam and Korean War I say Westmoreland was Washington's escape goat, put in charge of war he is not allowed to win He walked through hell and held the fight for a decade or more Under those circumstances Westmoreland did pretty damn good He probably could have won any other war that didn't have Washington nervous of china

[@250txc]

Of course, comments are nothing but buttt-smooching ...

[@jacobcopple3733]

Why is there a 3 hour inteoduction? get to the goddam speaker.

[@cutefilms9385]

Jesus taught peace. But Japan should not have invaded Vietnam and planted grenades...allegedly

[@richardlopez2932]

I wish He'd moved to a place that has a bunch of old landmines buried in the hillside country.

[@sinatra222]

Colonel Sanders spoke way too long. Nobody wants to hear him.

[@tomviktorsson5052]

Vietnam were completely different from Korea or Germany. Korea and Germany were divided before the end of world war 2 by allied powers between the communist and non-communist bloc, Korea were , in fact, Japanese territories, so neither the Koreans , Japanese, or Germans have any says in the fate of their countries. Vietnam were a completely different story , it were never divided , it were a cease fire agreement where the French and French colonial puppet government led by Bao Đai could temporary occupied the South , therefore South Vietnam were not a Vietnamese government , but a French government , the US were not there to liberate anyones like Korea where they actually liberated the Koreans from the Japanese , the US involvement in Vietnam were a war of aggression , colonialism , imperialism , based on the fact that they were the sole contributor, supporter to the French war of enslavement against Vietnamese people, that is like Germany invaded Greece and the Balkan to liberate the Greeks and Balkans from ...Italian oppression , and free them from themselves.

[@haroldkerrii6085]

That intro was the longest winded BORING POS ever heard

[@albertoacosta9415]

Skip to 13 minutes to avoid all the Alzheimers

[@PoolNoodleGundam]

They buried the man for being a landlord? You mean to tell me, he got what he deserved?

[@georgemorley1029]

It’s communist newspeak for “owned something himself by which he earned a living for his family”, probably a straw and mud hut, a paddy field with two oxen, and he was likely making money from selling the rice he farmed. Bad idea in a communist state. “We’ll have that, thank you very much. Don’t like it? How about you be dead and we take all your shit? Fuck your life and freedom. From each according to his ability, to us according to our bullying”. Mao did this all in China before Ho Chi Minh took up the torch for communism in Vietnam. Great way to get the population onside. Give them a scapegoat for their predicament, turn them violent against them, engender fear that anyone else may be next, increase zealotry, divide and rule. Marxist playbook 101. Disembowelling old men, hacking their wives up in front of them and castrating their children. Yay commies! Cunts.

[@sgtcwhatley]

What a disgusting comment.

[@giancarlogarlaschi4388]

Longest , Boring introduction ever !

[@giancarlogarlaschi4388]

FULLY AGREE !

[@nguoisaigon1568]

Sir Max Hastings, the French came to Vietnam and Americans to South Vietnam in the glorious names of liberating our people of poverty and ignorance, enlightening and educating the universal human values of justice, equality and freedom...but then they both left us as impetuously as they had come, abandoning us to cruel inhuman hands of communist rulers who have committed genocide against the freedom- loving people of North Vietnam in 1954 and South Vietnam in 1975. They all have suffered, perished, or died for the valued ideals propagated by French and American administrators. Millions had died in concentration camps, at sea, in the forests after April, 1975, and throughout this long 44 years period to date, South Vietnamese people have been continuously discriminated and maltreated in same manner as Jews had been suffered from Nazists with no rights to voice their mind, let alone to participate in the administration. Peaceful dissidents are arrested and perished in jails without fair and just legal jurisdiction and look at what French and American administrations can do to save their once acclaimed close ally or global outpost of anti communism? Please help tell them not to forget the unforgettables. Thank you.

[@cheese3416]

Do u live there?

[@nguoisaigon1568]

@@cheese3416 why

[@nguoisaigon1568]

@jeep23862 totally disagree. What i said had been what the French and Americans said and written and acted, regardless of their hidden motives. As such, they both have to be ashamed of their boasted values. And finally, you dont need to deduct on my nationality as i dont do yours because truth is beyond boundaries of all. By the way you are arguing, you must be leftist or pro commies or 01 of their brainwashed victims. Period.

[@nguoisaigon1568]

@jeep23862it is you who are totally wrong and irrelevant hehe saying im scared of being arrested by govt bcoz im not in vietnam, and yr english betrays you as a north vnese post 1975 invasion, F.O.

[@nguoisaigon1568]

@jeep23862 your English stinks and broken, stop it

[@topgeardel]

The "epic tragedy" was 2.7 million Americans listened to their dysfunctional Government and went to Vietnam. The hard reality is there would be no tragedy if they didn't go. Simply put...No soldiers...no war...no epic tragedy. I am a proud Vietnam/Draft resistor. It wasn't rocket science to figure out Vietnam was a loser's war. Vietnam veterans were chumps and pawns. They weren't heroes or someone's victim. They enabled the tragedy to go on for 10 years by being sheep of their Government.

[@brucenadeau1280]

The north Viet nam government bares most of the fault for the war

[@feereel]

lol...before the north even existed the vietnamese were fighting the french to regain there country and end slavery..after the french were defeated there were supposed to be elections promised by the u.s but since over 85% of the population supported ho chi minh..the americans cancelled elections and propped up the corrupt monarchist dictator bo dai

[@robertdonnell8114]

There was no such thing as "The Confederate Army." Please do yourself a favor and do some research before opening your mouth. It is 40 seconds into this video and I really don't think I want to hear any more of it.

[@alvin8391]

After about 22 minutes including all the introductions, I stopped watching Mr Hastings with great dissappointment. I was familiar with him from his lectures on WW1. I did not expect to hear him tell me about atrociities committed by the "Communitsts". Whatever their politics, the Vietnamese under Ho Chi Minh had one objective, and that was freedom from imperialism, under the French for decades and under the Americans and America's puppets since 1954. I do not care about what the "Communists" under Ho Chi Minh did or did not do. I cared then and now only about what our imperial, military dictatorship did in southeast Asia and almost everywhere else in the world. That is my business and the business of every other American citizen with moral courage. My country, the USA, is a worldwide, criminal enterprise that has killed tens of millions of people since the end of WW2 and always for a "good reason": to defeat Communism, to take weapons of mass destruction from dictators, to "liberate" other peoples, to promote freedom, to insure obedience to "rules of order", our rules of order! I am disgusted with "Sir" Max Hasting's apologia! I do not apologize for my country, because I know that no apology can lessen the pain I feel for what my host of criminal Presidents, congresses and Supreme Courts have done in my lifetime.

[@rustshoo5068]

Well, if you only watched to the 22 min mark, that means you only watched ten minutes, or about one-fifth of Max Hastings’ talk. He is clearly not indifferent to the shortcomings and nefarious activities of both sides, bearing in mind he is a man who has edited a conservative newspaper in the U.K. You just missed out around the 26 minute mark his mention of China and Russia demanding the Vietnamese agree to the partitioning of their country after their victory over the French. It appears that what you are saying is that it is immaterial that Ho Chi Minh’s North Vietnamese forces, including the Communists, committed atrocities - because if America had kept its nose out none of those atrocities would have been carried out. Is that why you expected Hastings to not say anything so negative about the North Vietnamese? If that’s the case, then you would be encouraging Hastings to be less than the good historian he is.

[@rustshoo5068]

I’ll also just add that the Vietnamese “boat people” of the late 1970s speaks volumes about the hope America offered to freedom-loving people everywhere. Probably sounds a little crass, but if not America, then who?

[@alvin8391]

@@rustshoo5068 MY first business as an American is what MY country does. MY country allowed the Japanese to rule Vietnam AFTER the war ended, rather than allow them self government. Then, as soon as the French were capable, Truman returned it to their rule. There were no "North" Vietnamese at that time. When MY country commits atrocities, I don't turn my attention away to others. No country in the history of the world has committed as many atrocities as has MINE, even if you start the count as late as Ronald Reagan's presidency. Read Gen Smedly Buttler, US Army! Ask a native American! For half my life, I have heard nothing but Communists, Communists! Now, I hear how bad China and Russia are. Americans have to stop watching TV and stop swallowing our mainstream news. The leader in state terrorism is MY country.

[@alanoconnor1824]

11:45

[@TheToonMonkey]

11:40