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Comment by camillomiller | Hacker News Reader

Try asking most people about the Vietnam War, then visit Vietnam, especially the war museum in Saigon. Then pay a visit to the Landmine museum outside of Siam Reap, in Cambodia, to learn about Nixon's secret war that carpeted the border between Cambodia and Vietnam with bombs and landmines without anyone knowing. That's a trip that would make you rethink America big time. It absolutely did for me. As an Italian, I was raised with the American Dream firmly in mind. When I turned eighteen I even started applying for the Green Card lottery every year for like six times. In the last 10 years I've grown so deeply disenchanted it's disturbing. The feeling of being force-fed a fake story by media for all these years is so bitter. But it's not just me. I would say that an entire generation of Europeans has been growing up to become deeply skeptical about anything Americans do.

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"Once you’ve been to Cambodia, you’ll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, prevaricating, murderous scumbag sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black-tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did in Cambodia – the fruits of his genius for statesmanship – and you will never understand why he’s not sitting in the dock at The Hague next to Milošević"

Anthony Bourdain, in "A Cook's Tour: Global Adventures in Extreme Cuisines"

Why just Henry Kissenger? Do you really think this boils down to a single person?

The single person that could have said no but said yes? The whole concept of responsibility breaks down when you make it impersonal.

Maybe Kissenger had the position he had because he said and did what he did. Had he not, someone else would be in the position he was in.

It's not about absolving the others, but pointing out main perpetrators. Should we not point out the central roles of Hitler or Himmler in the holocaust? At some point there is personal responsibility.

Don’t needlessly limit your scope.

I think the point is that just because Kissinger was a very influential diplomatic who as far as I'm aware revolutionised that field, people have glossed over the effects of his actions on places like Cambodia.

I can say the same about Americans. In the California Bay Area I have very few friends who think positively of the United States, it’s flag, or it’s history. The facts of the trail of tears, slavery, endless meaningless wars, corporate sabotage of governments and people, selfish oligarchs…that’s what they think when they think “America”. Do I think it’s all bad? Of course not. In fact I personally think any good history is completely forgotten to our extreme detriment. But I see where they’re coming from.

The reason you can find a description of the atrocities committed by the US in Vietnam is that the US lost that war, and Vietnam today is functioning society. If you take the largely comparable Korean war, the non-US perspective is completely absent from the western public conscience. Though with a raising China, that may one day change.

I'm glad that thanks to the internet and proper journalism, we have a better view on things. I grew up mainly in the 90's, with action movies from the time - think Rambo and co.

I don't remember watching anything that glorified the Vietnam war though. Full Metal Jacket showed how it was a shitshow. On a weird kind of lighter note, Forrest Gump showed how people died or were gruesomely injured. Rambo may have been the only one that tried to portray it somewhat positively? I don't quite remember.

The movies you mention always only show the atrocities from the American side, ending up justifying, pitying and damning or saving the American protagonist. America is just always front and center. Americans just can't help being up their own ass so deep that even when they express criticism they can't not make it all about themselves. I'm really sorry about the generalization, but as someone living in a city where US expats come to escape and complain about their own bubble by forming another, I'm reminded on a daily basis how that generalization never fails to hold true.

Wait, you mean American movies staring Americans, for American audiences WERE ABOUT AMERICANS?!

Inconceivable!

I’m currently visiting DC, and I hate to break it to you.

Every nationality, in any country, forms their own bubbles if they can.

People gravitate to what they know.

American movies are the only ones I can think of that tell GLOBAL stories from a purely American-only perspective. Local American stories are of course great! I love movies made by Americans who tell me American stories. Apart from that they all suffer from some degree of America as the savior syndrome, or as I like to call it “World Series” syndrome. Only a country like America could call “World” something that is purely American. So no, sorry, it’s not just a matter of perspective.

On this I agree entirely.

FMJ wasn't really a hollywood movie (other than the production company being Warner); the director lived in St. Albans (north of London). It was shot in England.

I heard the Peace Museum in Hiroshima is quite a trip too.

What was bad about it? The idea was to make overland transport through Cambodian territory (which U.S. did not want to outright invade) to supply Vietcong as difficult as possible.

Vietnam war may have been brutal, and eventually lost, but it disincentivised everyone else in the Southeast Asia from turning to Communism, so in the end it was a net benefit for the free world.

This answer here is exactly why you should visit the landmine museum near Seam Reap. Because if you don't grasp how carpet bombing civilians in a country you're not at war with doesn't strike you as bad, you just really NEED to stick your damn nose in it. You need to see what it means to carpet bomb a country. To plant landmines and forget them there. Vietnam's socialism has never been Russian or Chinese socialism, by the way. Ho Chi Minh was a peaceful intellectual, who studied in France under illuminist and progressive mentors. I disagree with the basics of communists society, but the neoliberal spirit that opposes that has been way more detrimental to the world than what they were trying to fight.

The best thing is what this person would cry about "russians bombing/blowing up Afghanistan kids with mines" [0] completely ignoring what BLU-43 is almost exactly the same.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PFM-1

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BLU-43_Dragontooth

You are getting downvoted but if you wrote something similar about the Korean war, you would probably be supported.

There is a strange perspective around all the US-led wars; all of them were/are good and justified except some how the Vietnam war ...

Oh yes, the Cambodia that didn't turn communist in the 70s and execute millions of people for wearing glasses? Totally disincentivized.

Which means, Cambodia never became a Soviet asset or was in any way beneficial to the Soviet Union (and this was the main goal of the Vietnam war: to prevent Soviet assets from appearing in the Southeast Asia). Pot Pot's regime was even a detriment to the Soviets as it tainted the 'good name' of Communism in the eyes of Western intellectuals.

It didn't turn Communist. Pol Pot's regime wasn't "communist" except calling itself this way. Soviet Union never recognized them as Communist.

Why can't I flag this disgusting comment?

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