10-18-2020, 03:02 PM
(10-18-2020, 02:06 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(10-18-2020, 10:30 AM)David Horn Wrote:(10-17-2020, 01:08 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:(10-17-2020, 06:31 AM)David Horn Wrote: Even this sketchy overview is seriously flawed. Ignoring the Viet Minh as OSS clients during WW-II is particularly irritating, since we guaranteed them our support for decolonization after the war.
Did you actually look into this, or just write your personal views in long form?
"We" guaranteed Ho support? Speak for yourself. Maybe a random OSS agent intimated that the US would support decolonization, but random agents are not empowered to speak for the US government or nation.
... It was a simple deal: we would agree NOT to back the French returning as colonialist masters, and the Viet Mihn would take it from there.
That's neutrality, not "our support". If we promised that, we kept our promise: the French stayed on without our help, and then left by 1956. Not our fault that Diem was able to hold Ho off, and in fact we undermined Diem too.
We had assets on the ground supporting the French years before Dien Bien Phu, because I knew a few of them. And the Viet Mihn were well aware of our help. The first few names on the Vietnam War Memorial wall should have been from that time, but the arbitrary cutoff was the 1955 creation of MACV.
Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together.
