Talk:Vietnam War

	This War related article has been awarded BRONZE status for quality. It's getting there, but could be better with improvement. See RationalWiki:Article rating for more information.
Editorial notes Since the war had a more devastating impact on Vietnam than in the U.S., the article should give more weight to Vietnamese affairs than in its current state. For instance, the legacy section talks only about the impacts on the U.S.. Another example: there are plenty of quotes in the article but none of them are from Vietnamese people.

Rummel

I dispute using Rummel as a reliable source for casualty figures. The man is a loon. ħuman 00:54, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.J._Rummel#Political_views

He has also argued that there is a leftist bias in some parts of the academic world that selectively focus on problems in nations with high political and economic freedom and ignores much worse problems in other nations. Related to this, he has also criticized the tenure system. Rummel has been very critical of Barack Obama, alleging that Obama is seeking to destroy liberal democracy in the United States. He believes that global warming is "a scam for power", and has opposed Obama's carbon-trading scheme. He believes that Obama has killed off a democratic peace that Clinton and Bush had been pursuing. Following the death of Edward Kennedy, Rummel condemned the media reaction as too benign and stated "the post-war blood of millions is on Kennedy's hands". Rummel believes that Kennedy's opposition to the Vietnam War helped to facilitate the state killings in Cambodia and Vietnam during the 1970s.

Someone explain to me why are made up numbers from this loon used by RW? Typhoon (talk) 16:15, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Checking the page history, it was added by an editor who also added similar things the Saddam article and was reverted, looks like it stayed here.Тy^rannosaurs 22:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

Numbers aside, I still maintain that there's an argument to be made that some of the related historical events (Cambodia, the Sino-Vietnamese war, etc etc) could be accounted for in this article. P-Foster Talk "The existing superstructure has handed out crumbs. We don’t want crumbs; we want the whole loaf now.” --Ras Frank I 22:55, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

I agree that an "aftermath" section is highly desirable. This current attention makes me proud of my 20 month old comment above, though. ħuman 02:48, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

I'm fine with such a section as long as it: 1. Mentions the aftermath of the war both in south-east Asia AND the USA. 2. Isn't almost as long as the section about the war itself. See the wikipedia article for an example of a good aftermath section. Typhoon (talk) 08:59, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Tet and Johnson/Nixon administration incompetence

Would it be a good idea to create separate sections for both to address any wingnut historical revisionism - that it was possible to win the war (aside from nuking the entire penninsula) without the presence of an anti-war "hippie" opposition in the US? There's still many that believe it could have actually been done (similar to the "stay the course for another 20 years" hawks in Iraq). Osaka Sun (talk) 05:44, 14 May 2012 (UTC)

Soviet Involvement

Not to rag on Nikita Kruchev, but the Soviet Union actually did get involved in the Vietnam War. The Soviet Union sent 3,000 troops to Vietnam to support the North Vietnamese.68.67.109.78 (talk) 22:36, 8 July 2017 (UTC)

Dying for a lie

Much of what soldiers were told about Vietnam was a bunch of inaccurate BS which led to the senseless deaths of both civilians and soldiers. Much like the Iraq War people died for a lie. --Possible KGB Spy (Eyes Shift) (talk) 01:31, 9 April 2021 (UTC)

the costs come home to roost

We could replace this with another heading if you want. It's a very obscure idiom, but it does make good sense, as this section describes the pressures and political costs faced by (and only by) the US government. "the costs come to the US" is a butchery of words. Kauri0.o (talk) 04:52, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

@LeftyGreenMarioKauri0.o (talk) 04:53, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

My attempt here was to try to move away from the U.S.-centrism the article unfortunately falls trap to, though I admit I didn't find the best way to do this. I think the Vietnam War is experienced by more Vietnamese than Americans and it has impacted the Vietnamese far worse than the Americans, though often the discussion, media, etc revolves around the U.S. and Americans. If you frame is as "come home to roost" it kinda makes the U.S. and Americans to be the "home" setting and characters of the conflict and not, well, Vietnam? I'm not downplaying the brutality Americans face but I'm not a fan of how the article, so far, has Vietnamese politics to be a sideshow, if it even is discussed. --It's-a me, LeftyGreenMario! 04:58, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Changed the title to "Growing political backlash in the U.S.", hopefully that's satisfactory. I completely agree that the article is overly US-centric. Kauri0.o (talk) 22:31, 5 May 2021 (UTC)

Good video on the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese perspective

It's a response to the Armchair Historian's video on "the Vietnam War from the North Vietnamese perspective" which is actually American propaganda. — Oxyaena ^Harass 03:17, 1 July 2021 (UTC)