How would the world be different today if the US had stayed out of the Vietnam War?
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"But, Mr. Block why would the the USSR put nuclear missiles in Cuba? They had to know the US would be frightened and angry about that?"
"Well they just wanted the whole world to be communist. They really thought communism would work. We don't have time to dwell on this there are six more units we need to complete before the AP* exam."
*AP stands for "Advanced Placement" I was in a 'advanced' history course and I earned an A! My head is empty nonetheless.
Even AP classes had a requirement to teach the accepted curricula (propaganda). Teachers in CA had to swear an oath they were not commies. So, probably self-selecting for being non-critical about state propaganda. Even open minded teachers I knew shied away from criticizing parts of the curricula.
FYI, the Vietnamese refer to that war as "the American War". There are probably history books written by Vietnamese authors in English that cover that perspective.
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Even AP classes had a requirement to teach the accepted curricula (propaganda). Teachers in CA had to swear an oath they were not commies. So, probably self-selecting for being non-critical about state propaganda. Even open minded teachers I knew shied away from criticizing parts of the curricula.
FYI, the Vietnamese refer to that war as "the American War". There are probably history books written by Vietnamese authors in English that cover that perspective.
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There are some elements of the Vietnam war that blended into other conflicts and actions by the US govt.
SOG was a group of "special forces" whose job was to "repatriate" US soldiers behind enemy lines. This is govspeak for a team of assassins hunting down and murdering US deserters living on the communist side of the line.
The elements tied to SOG may have also been involved in moving money, guns and drugs via Air America. This model will show up again and again.
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There are some elements of the Vietnam war that blended into other conflicts and actions by the US govt.
SOG was a group of "special forces" whose job was to "repatriate" US soldiers behind enemy lines. This is govspeak for a team of assassins hunting down and murdering US deserters living on the communist side of the line.
The elements tied to SOG may have also been involved in moving money, guns and drugs via Air America. This model will show up again and again.
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People previously assigned to SOG ended up overseeing Central American operations in Hondauras in the 80s. Again, you will see the same game played out with money, drugs, guns and airlines in Central America as well. The new airline name was Southern Air Transport.
Players involved in both become a handful of people, and identification isn't hard, they are in the historical record.
Also, what started in Vietnam is now becoming a model (later declassified by Clinton).
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People previously assigned to SOG ended up overseeing Central American operations in Hondauras in the 80s. Again, you will see the same game played out with money, drugs, guns and airlines in Central America as well. The new airline name was Southern Air Transport.
Players involved in both become a handful of people, and identification isn't hard, they are in the historical record.
Also, what started in Vietnam is now becoming a model (later declassified by Clinton).
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If you notice, there is a pattern of which drug is prosecuted more fervently internal to the US during these conflicts. Heroin during the Vietnam war, and crack cocaine during the Latin American conflicts. This is Congressional record.
I've spoken with former Coast Guard officers who were specifically enjoined to avoid inspecting certain boats. The one who did also recorded one of the largest cocaine busts by the Coast Guard at that time.
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If you notice, there is a pattern of which drug is prosecuted more fervently internal to the US during these conflicts. Heroin during the Vietnam war, and crack cocaine during the Latin American conflicts. This is Congressional record.
I've spoken with former Coast Guard officers who were specifically enjoined to avoid inspecting certain boats. The one who did also recorded one of the largest cocaine busts by the Coast Guard at that time.
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Back to projects and programs, the US has also tied creation of airstrips in target conflict nations with humanitarian efforts. Programs that build roads (often wide short roads in the middle of nowhere) and orphanages (and other buildings in the middle of nowhere), along with agricultural programs (which can be flipped to show farmers how to grow increased drug crop yields) are part of nearly every conflict where drugs, guns, money and planes are involved.
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Back to projects and programs, the US has also tied creation of airstrips in target conflict nations with humanitarian efforts. Programs that build roads (often wide short roads in the middle of nowhere) and orphanages (and other buildings in the middle of nowhere), along with agricultural programs (which can be flipped to show farmers how to grow increased drug crop yields) are part of nearly every conflict where drugs, guns, money and planes are involved.
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The airline that was SAT became rebranded later on and was used under another administration for "extraordinary rendition". The model for managing all of this that was declassed under Clinton became "fusion centers" in the US and abroad. The new "worst drug ever" became opioids and allies of the US in Afghanistan and the Middle East forced farmers to grow poppies.
The usual public works projects crept up in the Middle East. But let's talk about regional destabilization.
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The airline that was SAT became rebranded later on and was used under another administration for "extraordinary rendition". The model for managing all of this that was declassed under Clinton became "fusion centers" in the US and abroad. The new "worst drug ever" became opioids and allies of the US in Afghanistan and the Middle East forced farmers to grow poppies.
The usual public works projects crept up in the Middle East. But let's talk about regional destabilization.
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Regional destabilization was coined by Ronald Reagan in a press conference in the 80s. It described a policy in which the US funds the Contras to oppose communism by sponsoring activities that force neighboring states into conflict against one another.
This may not seem related to Vietnam, but the whole process that became a policy of regional destabilization was kicked off by groups like SOG operating across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Patterns in Vietnam repeat.
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Regional destabilization was coined by Ronald Reagan in a press conference in the 80s. It described a policy in which the US funds the Contras to oppose communism by sponsoring activities that force neighboring states into conflict against one another.
This may not seem related to Vietnam, but the whole process that became a policy of regional destabilization was kicked off by groups like SOG operating across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Patterns in Vietnam repeat.
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Regional destabilization had lost the name, but the policy was developed starting in Vietnam, codified in Central America, and weaponized in the 1st Gulf War.
Once a developmental pattern can be described, it is easy to see how the US was going to proceed in the Gulf Wars, Afghanistan, and even the Persian Gulf today.
Just one element from the Vietnam war that became everything in 🧵.
Teachers with a set history curricula and a loyalty oath are not going to address this.
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How would the world be different today if the US had stayed out of the Vietnam War?
I know very little about this war and wouldn't mind maybe reading a book about it. But I don't know where to start. I'd love something that added context without pushing a political agenda. So I don't want an anti-communist book, or really even an explicitly ani-capitalist one. I'd like to think I could understand the power vectors and their impact on ordinary people. This is hard to do!
@futurebird for more of a "human impact" side of the Vietnam War:
"The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien had a huge influence on me as a writer. I studied it in 11th grade English and again for my degree. He's written some other stuff but that's his most famous one.
"Achilles in Vietnam" and "Odysseus in America" by Jonathan Shay, a VA psychiatrist who works almost exclusively with Vietnam vets. These address political and bureaucratic factors besides combat
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What does a typical US high school education teach about this war?
"The US went to Vietnam to save people from Communism, but it got messy and maybe it wasn't worth it."
That's about it. This must be... not even close to the whole story.
A lot of people including a significant chunk of American soldiers died in this war. When it started the US public supported it. By the time it ended most people didn't, though feelings are "complex."
@futurebird We learned a lot from our classmates who were refugees, but the history books fell suspiciously silent after 1945.
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Regional destabilization was coined by Ronald Reagan in a press conference in the 80s. It described a policy in which the US funds the Contras to oppose communism by sponsoring activities that force neighboring states into conflict against one another.
This may not seem related to Vietnam, but the whole process that became a policy of regional destabilization was kicked off by groups like SOG operating across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Patterns in Vietnam repeat.
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@undead @futurebird Evergreen Aviation has a museum in McMinnville now. Some of us are old enough to remember their roots tho.
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It's a good show with good writing and the writers did some good work.
But why was it allowed to exist? What role did it play in shaping the story we tell to ourselves?
It's like "Law and Order" and other cop shows in that way. (I love Law and Order, but it's also propaganda) ... this is the effective kind of propaganda, admitting many truths.
This is a point of view that's hard for me to understand
I grew up in the US during the Vietnam war
When I was in grade school, every night on the TV news we saw body bags. My parents talked about protesting. The music they listen to was about the absurdity and the horrificness of the war
And once a week, we got an episode of MASH. People treating the awful injuries, talking about the pointlessness of the war, the waste of money and human lives, showing empathy for the people of Vietnam
This edit gives you a pretty good idea of the context. Here's what we were seeing on TV, backed with what we were listening to
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How would the world be different today if the US had stayed out of the Vietnam War?
I know very little about this war and wouldn't mind maybe reading a book about it. But I don't know where to start. I'd love something that added context without pushing a political agenda. So I don't want an anti-communist book, or really even an explicitly ani-capitalist one. I'd like to think I could understand the power vectors and their impact on ordinary people. This is hard to do!
@futurebird you could start with this :
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/ -
There’s always a lot of context that’s implicit even to the people writing history. For example, consider Irish and English history. There’s a common narrative that Ireland was oppressed by the English, and there’s a lot of evidence to support that implicitly nationalist telling.
But there’s another story that the Normans (Norse folks who had settled in Northern France) invaded England and installed themselves as a new aristocracy. After about a hundred years, they’d run out of land to give to their friends and so conquered Ireland as well and installed themselves as an aristocracy there. They then continued to oppress both countries, Ireland more so than England. When the Irish rebelled, they recruited English regiments (from people whose other option was usually starvation) to kill the rebels. The classist narrative also has a lot of evidence to support it.
@david_chisnall @futurebird @roknrol i regularly think if we could go back in time and give Harold a machine gun so much of the world's evils would be noticeably less evil today -
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