Best southeast asia history books according to redditors
We found 189 Reddit comments discussing the best southeast asia history books. We ranked the 108 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 189 Reddit comments discussing the best southeast asia history books. We ranked the 108 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
>It is weirdly easing on my mind to have have some truly horrific, monstrous wars and battles to compare to my virtually playtime-in-comparison events in Iraq.
Man, every time I read something about how it was in Vietnam, I'm glad as hell we got stuck with the desert war and not the jungle one.
Just read Hue 1968 and it sounds like a goddamn meat grinder.
One theory is that the landmass 'Sundaland' once held a great civilization and after the end of the ice age flooding forced its inhabitants to flee to other parts of the world and sowed the seeds of ancient civilizations like Sumer and Egypt.
https://www.amazon.com/Eden-East-Drowned-Continent-Southeast/dp/0753806797
Nick Turse wrote a book on war crimes that were confirmed by the Pentagon, in the Vietnam War Crimes Working Group.
From Wikipedia:"The records were declassified in 1994, after 20 years as required by the Freedom of Information Act, and relocated to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, where they went largely unnoticed. Nick Turse, a freelance journalist, discovered the archive while researching his doctoral dissertation for the Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health at Columbia University. He managed to examine most of the files, and obtained copies of about 3,000 pages — representing roughly a third of the total — before government officials removed them from the public shelves in 2002, stating they contained personal information that was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act."
I think the fact of denial of systematic war crimes committed by the US government at this point is a hard case to make.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_Crimes_Working_Group
http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/0805086919
you get 10,000 points for "Sightseeing"!
I can't think of too much fiction... The Windup Girl is an excellent book, but the Thai setting feels a little cringey and forced. It doesn't ruin the book but it doesn't have to be in Thailand either.
Three non-fiction books I think are essential for anyone who hates being clueless:
edit: I remember an
awesomehilarious collection of anecdotes/essays by a prototypical farang sexpat in the late 40s but I forget what it's called, I'll look for it tomorrowedit #2: Lonely Planet's "World Food Thailand" is also excellent and well-researched
edit #3: "Letters from Thailand" is interesting too, it's about a boy who immigrates to Bangkok from southern China in the 1940s and it follows the rest of his life in Thailand.
"Hell in a Very Small Place" taught me how insane they were in Vietnam. They had guys make there first Airborne jump, into an encircled DZ. Like holy shit.
Also made you appreciate how good of a general Giap was. One of the best books about a battle I've ever read. The author sadly died in Vietnam when he was reporting on the American effort there.
https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Very-Small-Place-Siege/dp/030681157X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538095807&sr=8-1&keywords=hell+in+a+very+small+place
> Issan showed they can burn down parts of the capital
Can you explain this? As far as I'm aware there's no evidence that anybody who burned down those buildings was from Isaan, nor that Isaan (the biggest part of Thailand) should in any way be blamed for it. That's like saying "Muslims did 9/11".
> We need better than Time.com to explain Issan to us. Anybody know better sources?
Well, the article is mostly paraphrasing David Streckfuss, so you could start there. It also links to this book by Charles Keyes, which I haven't read but looks interesting. Keyes talks a bit more generally about rural cosmopolitanism vs entrenched middle class in Asia in this interview.
Thongchai Winichakul has written extensively on Thai national identity and internal geopolitics since the 70s. His book Siam Mapped (originally written in English) is pretty much required reading for anyone who wants to understand how Isaan became a part of Thailand and, more generally, Thailand's "unique situation" beyond what you hear on the news and from crazies on the internet like me.
"But panomyong," I hear you say, "I googled Keyes, Streckfuss and Thongchai and they're all anti-coup/pro-red shirt! Why don't you link some balanced sources?" (somebody is going to say it so I'll just type this up now)
The answer is that they're aren't any and there's a very clear cut (but complex!) reason why. In a broad sense, Thai history is caught between two competing and irreconcilable narratives - the official one that is taught in schools and views Thailand as exceptional, and the one everyone else believes that looks at Thailand within the framework of the rest of the world. To accept one is to reject wholesale the other because they have almost nothing in common and the first relies on verifiable falsehoods.
The first views Thailand as modernizing the people of Isaan and bringing them into the warm embrace of Thainess, the second sees Isaan as an ethnically distinct region that has been continually exploited by different kingdoms throughout history. To accept the first requires a Thai nationalist view of history, to accept the second requires the opposite and never the two shall meet. You don't want to read the nationalist stuff about Isaan, it's boring and wrong.
You've probably figured out where I'm going with this, but rejecting the nationalist version of history usually means rejecting the coup and its justifications which means that you get called a red shirt and a Thaksin-lover. That is purely a result of propaganda conditioning - these guys have been saying the same things for decades. For example, you might read this article by Thongchai and think "thaksin lover!!" (I think somebody actually described him as a 'red shirt academic' when that was posted) but he wrote Siam Mapped in 1988 and it's exactly the same stuff. If you read some opinion pieces from the 1973-76 liberalization (they're all in Thai and I don't even know how you'd find them) you'd probably start wondering if Thaksin could time travel.
I agree, but understand the context; there was the equivalent of a My Lei massacre every week of the war and even conscripts were heavily involved in murdering of civilians there:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/vietnam_was_even_more_horrific_than_we_thought/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War_Crimes_Working_Group_Files
http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/0805086919
The American people were more aware of what atrocities American forces were committing during the war and unfairly took that out on the veterans wholesale, but there was a reason why they did it other than just being dicks. Most of the vets weren't to blame for what was going on, but the litany of horrors and atrocities that were going on were horrifying and were in the same category of what the German army was doing in Russia in WW2 (not the Holocaust part, but the massacres of civilians suspecting of supporting guerrilas and the torture and murder of prisoners).
I recommend starting with the works of Ho Chi Minh.
You can find a copy of selected writings from 1920-1966 here.
Uh. shit tons. Use google/amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Bear-Went-over-Mountain-Afghanistan/dp/0788146653
https://www.amazon.com/Enemy-Friend-North-Vietnamese-Perspective/dp/155750881X
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0824822331/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=FVE05FBF41SXSXF0A30X
https://www.amazon.com/Chinas-Road-Korean-Jian-Chen/dp/0231100256
ect ect
Anyone downvoting Kropotki seriously needs to read Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam by Nick Turse.
The US military had a policy of "punishing" units that had a low kill ratio (including sending them on land mine clearing duty considered the most dangerous work) and rewarding units with high kill ratios with things like crates of beer and extra R&R time.
The policy led to soldiers killing civilians to boost up there kill ratios. Why the US lost the war it was against the "Winning hearts and minds" counter insurgency strategy.
If any of you ever get the chance and come across this book, give it a read! Ho Chi Minh's writings are part of what made me as ardent of a Communist as I am.
A History of Modern Indonesia Since c. 1200: Fourth Edition by M.C. Ricklefs, Amazon Link
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0805086919/ref=nosim/?tag=tomdispatch-20
I haven't read this yet (it's on my list) but it seems like one of the few books on the vietnam war that actually outlines the atrocities. I'm definitely curious to hear from anyone who has read it and their thoughts.
> I sort of wish Ken Burns would do a documentary on Vietnam. A lot of the feature length stuff about it just seems over dramatized.
Have you seen Vietnam: The 10,000 Day War or Vietnam: A Television History?
Both are extensive examinations and outstanding in their depth and breadth. Vietnam: A Television History also has a super thorough companion book called Vietnam: A History written by journalist/historian Stanley Karnow. It's perhaps the best single-volume history of the Vietnam war.
You are correct, got my VN battles mixed up. There was speculation that Khe Sanh was a diversion for the Tet Offensive, which Hue was a part of. This is a great book on the subject if you're interested:
​
https://www.amazon.com/Hue-1968-Turning-American-Vietnam/dp/0802127002/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_img_0/138-7381523-0850412?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=A47R6QEBPB0VJZGVXCWH
I haven't read this one yet, but I've heard A Better War is really good on the last few years of Vietnam.
If you'd like to go down the Kristol rabbit hole, The Neoconservative Persuasion is a collection of his essays on the subject.
I would recommend--
Fiction:
Non-fiction:
It's much bigger than communism, and goes back further. In James C. Scott's classic anarchist work The Art of Not Being Governed, he discusses a problem that States have had since antiquity: keeping their subjects' activity legible. Legibility in this context means visible, and therefore taxable.
So in The Art and the particular context of pre-colonial Southeast Asia, "legible" meant irrigated rice farming. The State and its enforcers can clearly see how many rice paddies there are, and therefore can tax the farmers, and plan their military campaigns accordingly.
You know what fucks all that up? A bunch of people who go run for the hills, plant their own crops and hide them from the State. Totally illegible. Does not compute. Must ban!
I'm gunna buy it. I need other book suggestions to make it $25 for free shipping.
Here are some of my suggestions to others:
>The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual (Paperback)
>by John A. Nagl
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226841510
>Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam (Paperback)
>by John A. Nagl
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226567702
>War is a Racket: The Antiwar Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier (Paperback)
>by Smedley D. Butler
>http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0922915865
>Cultivating Exceptional Cannabis: An Expert Breeder Shares His Secrets (Marijuana Tips Series) (Paperback)
>by DJ Short
>http://www.amazon.com/Cultivating-Exceptional-Cannabis-Breeder-Marijuana/dp/0932551599
Highly recommended reading based on the Battle of Hue
Most books pertaining to the American war in Vietnam trace its origin in the French conflict, though. If that leaves one longing for more, Street without Joy and Hell in a Very Small Place were recently reprinted, and Fredrik Logevall's Embers of War fills any holes left by Bernard Fall, really.
It's a phase he's going through. Trying to separate himelf from the other "slopes" and "gooks" by trying to identify as just "murican".
He will learn that no matter how much red, white and blue he bleeds, when veneer is scratched most muricans will view him as a slant eyed perpetual foreigner/perpetual outsider.
And murica is #1 bc they have/had the military tech to rape farming based countries back around the world and steal their resources for pennies on the dollar.
I'd recommend u suggest he reads up "Kill anything that moves" https://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/0805086919
and articles/books about the pheonix program https://theinternationalreporter.org/2016/02/08/the-cias-phoenix-program-in-vietnam-and-the-war-on-terror-review-of-doug-valentines-book/
I'd also try to point him to the fact that the murican invasion of vietnam was a continuation of the viet vinh freedom fighters trying to liberate themselves from the white french colonizing them.
I'd hint to him that vietnam was invaded/occupied/colonized by white french and that Ho Chi Minh was a freedom fighter who idolized murica and her "Bill of Rights" until the US president at the time used him to fight the japanese and threw him away like garbage after WW2.
Also the French tried to get murica to drop a nuclear bomb on Hanoi to help their colonial occupier asses out.
And how after murica "liberated" France from the big bad Nazis, Murica then helped/armed/funded the French to reinvade/occupy Vietnam.
I'd try to say , "you know, one of the reasons the richest most influential ethnic group in murica got to where they are because they live by a motto:NEVER FORGET.
They remember their history and teach their kids their history. And from that history they draw an unrivaled strength & drive to succeed in murica".
http://www.amazon.com/Learning-Eat-Soup-Knife-Counterinsurgency/dp/0226567702
Great book about how the British were able to counter the Malayan insurgency while also highlighting how the US was unable to learn any of the tactics that were so successful for the Brits. TL;DR: It's hard as fuck to beat guerrilla tactics militarily.
Peter Hessler's writings on China are great reads for people who are interested in the region. I particularly enjoyed River Town and country Driving, but Oracle Bones (which I haven't read) is a more historical outlook.
South East Asia is a big and varied region, is there a particular region or specific area in history you're interested in? In 20th century history there are many great biographies on Gandhi and also a lot of informative non-fiction on the Vietnam conflict
True Theravada would be practice in accordance with scripture and traditions that are in accordance with scripture, that scripture obviously being the Pali canon. Aren’t the teachings I’ve related against the Vinaya? Of course they are, you should know that or read some Vinaya good sir. I’ll show you proof of the cultish nature https://youtu.be/JraSg2its7w. That video wasn’t asking hard questions either. It’s Buddhist televangelism on steroids. I don’t hate the devotees many are good people. They’ve just been convinced you can get some quick https://www.amazon.com/Nirvana-Sale-Buddhism-Dhammakaya-Contemporary/dp/1438427840.
https://www.amazon.com/Eden-East-Drowned-Continent-Southeast/dp/0753806797/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1487366545&sr=8-2&keywords=eden+in+the+east
I really like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Thailands-Political-History-Century-Recent/dp/9749863968/ref=tmm_pap_title_0
It's a bit dry in some areas, contradicts the standard Thai "We're militarily awesome, especially against Burma," but drives home how ridiculously lucky/skilled Thais have been with diplomacy. Takes a lot of the myths out and replaces them with more realistic scenarios.
If I had to choose one single book to recommend about Vietnam it would be Neil Sheehan's superb A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam
Also essential:
Hope this helps!
By coincidence I just finished A Better War by Lewis Sorley. It's an excellent examination of the Vietnam war from the Tet Offensive to the end. He points out that most histories of the Vietnam war give the vast bulk of their coverage to the war up until Tet, and then skip to the final NVA victory over the south, ignoring what is probably the most important aspects of the war itself.
Vietnam: A History, by Stanley Karnow.
It was made into a PBS series in the 1980's, and is in my opinion the best account of the country, their history, and the war.
https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473
13: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10588308/US-secretly-backs-rebels-to-fight-al-Qaeda-in-Syria.html
14: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/22/british-paper-u-s-is-secretly-funding-syria-rebels-fighting-al-qaeda/
15: http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-is-loosing-its-covert-syria-war-us-sponsored-al-nusra-rebels-defeated-by-syrian-armed-forces/5334827
16: http://www.thenational.ae/world/syria/cash-boost-for-syrian-rebels-to-pressure-assad
17: http://time.com/24077/syria-death-toll/
18: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/15/us-syria-crisis-toll-idUSBREA1E0HS20140215
19: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-purchase-oil-libyan-rebels-thus-funding-flickers-al-qaeda
20: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/africa/06diplo.html?_r=0
21: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-libya-usa-assets-idUSTRE72E79X20110315
22: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/libya-war-died_n_953456.html
23: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-libya-death-toll-as-high-as-30000/
24: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/28/sri-lanka-startscountingthecivilwardead.html
25: http://warwithoutwitness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:death-toll-at-the-end-of-the-sri-lankan-conflict-was-30000-to-40000-gordon-weiss&catid=38:reports&Itemid=61
26: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy
27: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/
28: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/defendiraqPR67.html
29: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-deaths-survey-2013/
30: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/better-stab-estimating-many-died-iraq-war-68419/
31: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html
32: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/afghanistan-war-death-toll_n_1926668.html
33: http://costsofwar.org/article/afghan-civilians
34: http://costsofwar.org/article/pakistani-civilians
35: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-drug-war-toll-47500-killed-in-5-years/
36: http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/economic_causes_of_the.php
37: http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/gulfcrisis/c5.html
38: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar1.html
39: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar2.html
40: http://old.post-gazette.com/nation/20030216casualty0216p5.asp
41: http://www.globalresearch.ca/gulf-war-syndrome-ptsd-and-military-suicides-u-s-government-s-message-to-america-s-vets-drop-dead/20186
42: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-genocide-against-iraq-1990-2012-killed-3-3-million-including-750000-children/5314461
43: http://wars.findthebest.com/q/65/2021/How-many-people-died-in-the-Iran-Iraq-War
44: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4260420.stm
45: http://kurzman.unc.edu/death-tolls-of-the-iran-iraq-war/
46: http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/vietnam-war-killed-38-million-vietnamese-not-21-million/
47: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#cite_note-USd.26w-19
48: http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Laos-Martin-Stuart-Fox/dp/0521597463
49: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10086&page=102
50: http://www.globalresearch.ca/agent-orange-continues-to-poison-vietnam/13974
51: http://rense.com/general77/hdtage.htm
52: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-americans-died-in-korea/
53: http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war
54: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1999.tb00330.x/abstract
55: http://books.google.com.tr/books/about/The_Cuban_Revolution.html?id=r0GHscf95qQC&redir_esc=y
56: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9110916
57: http://www.medicc.org/resources/documents/embargo/The%20impact%20of%20the%20U.S.%20Embargo%20on%20Health%20&%20Nutrition%20in%20Cuba.pdf
58: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/logos/v003/3.4hidalgo.pdf
59: https://www2.bc.edu/~kearneyr/pdf_articles/pl86217.pdf
60: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
61: http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/13/4/343.refs
62: http://www.amazon.com/Violence-Reflections-Our-Deadliest-Epidemic/dp/1849850658
63: http://hnn.us/article/7302
64: http://espressostalinist.com/genocide/native-american-genocide/
65: http://www.mobilization2-21.com/missing.htm
66: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/11/nearly-5-million-children-died-of-preventable-diseases-worldwide-in-2010/
67: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/17/italy.food.summit/
One of the best books I ever read was about the French in Vietnam.
"Hell in a Very Small Place"
They were airdropping in troops into a DZ that had been encircled by Vietnamese forces. They learned that it was better if the paratroopers were going on their first jump versus second/third jump as they would be less likely to seize up.
http://www.amazon.com/Hell-In-Very-Small-Place/dp/030681157X
I'd recommend "Thailand's Political History: From the 13th Century to Recent Times" by B. J. Terwiel. I really enjoyed it -- it's a solid page turner. I picked it up on my first visit and has done wonders for furthering my understanding of the country.
One of the best historiographies ever composed on USA involvement in Viet-Nam:
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Lake-Vietnamese-Americans-Vietnam/dp/0316159190/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505052020&sr=1-1&keywords=fire+in+the+lake+by+frances+fitzgerald
Pretty good:
https://www.amazon.com/Embers-War-Empire-Americas-Vietnam/dp/0375756477/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505068806&sr=1-1&keywords=embers+of+war+logevall
Pretty good:
https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473/ref=sr_1_1_twi_pap_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505068845&sr=1-1&keywords=vietnam+a+history
Hi, well, yes, you guessed well. I read Thailand's Political History: From the 13th Century to Recent Times recently and liked a lot. I've read others as Andrew McGregor Marshall or Paul M. Handley's The King Never Smiles.
I just wondered if you had a book that could recommend to someone who doesn't know anything about Thailand.
I’d like to add Bury Us Upside Down by Don Shepperd and Rick Newman
As well as Tiger Force by Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss
John Nagl's Learning To Eat Soup With A Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam is a great read. Nagl contrasts the successful British counterinsurgency in Malaya with the unsuccessful US counterinsurgency in Vietnam and tries to analyze what lessons the US military can take to be more successful at counterinsurgency in the future.
An old book too.. I read it back in 2000 and I just looked it up on amazon and it was apparently published in '98.. I didn't realize it was that old! I recommend it if you can find it cheap. link
First, I would recommend two books by Bernard B Fall, a French war correspondent and historian. They are peerless historical accountings of the First Indochina War, and are essential to understanding the American debacle in Vietnam. His analysis of the failings of the French were a direct warning to the US, which were largely ignored, resulting in a predictable failure. He died in 1967 while embedded with US Marines in Vietnam after stepping on a mine.
I also recommend a book by Romeo Dallaire, a Canadian general.
>Ho didn't defend shit, his regime proudly valued their Marxist allies' aid more than morality or anything approaching people's rights if they opposed that of the state.
HCM was actually a pretty shrewd diplomat who played the Chinese off against the USSR and used both for aid while completing his domestic objective of unifying the country. Need I remind you that he appealed to the United States first before going to the socialist bloc for aid? America was too busy propping up the French and later the "Republic" of Vietnam.
Ho listened to the Chinese and used their resources to develop a "people's war" division in the form of the Viet Cong and stockpiled Soviet heavy artillery, tanks, and aircraft because they wanted him to fight a conventional land war against the RoV. By never fullying adopting one doctrine but switching between the two as time went on, the North was able to wheedle more aid out than was strictly necessary by making China and Russia compete to see who could be more influential. And as Nixon withdrew they were able to dial back the VC and ramp up the conventional combined arms conflict to crush the South.
I recommend reading Karnow's Vietnam: A History if you want the most comprehensive take on the war, with interviews from senior officials on all 3 sides of the conflict.
>Both are now backwater countries that have been superseded by their neighbors.
Which neighbors? The US leveled nearly all of SE Asia with the exception of Thailand.
> No, but it's just as corrupt as a system that instead of buying land, let's you "rent it from the state" with payouts to the appropriate cadre members. Is this really what you want for the future of Asia?
At the risk of sounding like a pot kettle attack that's how real estate works everywhere. Trump pays the mafia to develop. People in north St. Louis are going to get kicked out of their homes when the defense mapping agency moves across town. Ever since Kelo v. City of New London the Supreme Court has ruled that the government can seize your property as a taking for the enjoyment of private developers, not just in the public interest.
>Just like the unwillingness of this sub to be anything but a pro-communist echo chamber.
It's not like I even think state socialism or Mao is that great of a dude. I just don't see a lot of compelling evidence to suggest that the Republic of Korea, the KMT, or any of the other groups they fought against were that much better. If their causes were so righteous and backed by the world's preeminent superpower then how did they lose?
Some of my reccommendations
​
Anthony Beevor's books on Stalingrad and The Fall of Berlin
​
Bernard Fall's Hell in a Very Small Place about the Siege of Dien Bien Phu
​
Osprey's book on Infantry Anti Tank Tactics. I thoroughly enjoyed this and gave me some insight into tactis that I can try out in the Combat Mission games.
​
Hell In A Very Small Place: The Siege Of Dien Bien Phu - Bernard Fall
Lesson is don’t fight a war half assed.
Also, 10 million claimed to have served in Vietnam, but that is nearly 10 times the amount of actual people who did serve.
I personally served with a guy who made it less than 90 days before DUI and drugs got him kicked out of the military. To this day his FN has photos and quote acting like he did crap for his country when I’m the one who bled for this country. I will be honest and state it was a deployment injury on a rescue op, but it wasn’t a combat injury. I down play my service, and am working to get back in.
The facts are that if you were a Vietnam Vet, you are less likely to have debilitating PTSD and less likely to be homeless.
Stolen Valor : How the Vietnam Generation Was Robbed of Its Heroes and Its History https://www.amazon.com/dp/096670360X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zkwdBb94NM207
Honestly, it’s the same with my buddies in Special Operations. I’ve seen PTSD from deployments, one of my dearest friends had lost his career over it. But every single one has gotten through it and become a productive member of society, including one becoming an NP. On the other hand, I have seen guys claim PTSD from a bad jump. Typically they haven’t done a damn thing in their career.
PTSD diagnosis for the last 10 years was an easy way to get money if you got kicked out of the military. They gave it for guys breaking a bone in training. I was forced out (trying to get back in should be able to in 90 days, but you can find the story on my past posts). The VA tried to get me to claim PTSD for my injury deployed right where those 4 operators were killed in Niger/Nigeria. I literally jumped in the region and have the video and photos to prove it.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/news/amp/Unmasking-Phony-Vietnam-Vets-Fakes-big-factor-2913179.php
Quick summary: I filed for custody and my ex claimed I beat her and was violent. Old Captain backed me. Ultimately the State and the Army found out she makes up stories and is a 2 time felon. I was good and continuing my career. New Captain shows up and she is all upset I was arrested for DV. Showed her the paperwork that it was a false arrest. Refused to sign my re-enlistment. I received Honorable with an RE-1 code. Recruiter is working the paperwork as we type to get me in the Guard. If I move out of my state, I lose my daughter to my abusive ex, because the court suck.
Because you simply repeat the same thing over and over again, without any sources, you make such ridiculous statements, saying the cubans need to die because of a leader they chose. A leader who has done more for Cuba than any imperialist nation ever has, and is retired now. You have no understanding of how capitalism shapes everyday life and world events, judging from your inability to see the basic connection between capitalism and imperialism. You say the native deaths were "Indirect" but if those don't count, then neither should the inflated death counts of the famines from communism. Also note that great numbers of people died whenever there was any shift in economic system. This can be observed from the shift from slave society to feudal society, the shift from feudalism to capitalism, and attempted shifts from capitalism to socialism.
Anyways, since you have such a good understanding of communism (Hint: you don't.) Can you please educate me to what communists advocate? I don't even advocate a soviet-style state. I'm an anarcho-syndicalist, I don't think there should even be a central planning power, or even a state, but the achievements of socialists are undeniable.
Here is the sources for my claims:
1: http://www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/homosexuals.html
2: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261
3: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/homo.html
4: http://www.holocaust-education.dk/holocaust/sigojnerne.asp
5: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kewLQwngUSkC&q=passed+through&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=passed%20through&f=false
6: http://archive.freecapitalists.org/forums/t/26853.aspx?PageIndex=1
For more information on Rummel, see: http://www.crappytown.com/2011/12/why-rj-rummel-shouldnt-be-taken.html
7: Le Monde, 14 November 1997
8: http://llco.org/mim-review-of-the-black-book-of-communism/
9: Getty, J Arch (Mar 2000), “The Black book of Communism: Nazism & Communicsm have the same totalitarian roots” (text), The Atlantic Monthly (Boston: Hackvan) 285 (3): 113.
10: http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/Tauger,%20Chapter%20for%20Roter%20Holocaust%20book%20b.pdf
11: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/obama-drone-program-anniversary_n_4654825.html
12: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/23/more-than-2400-dead-as-obamas-drone-campaign-marks-five-years/
13: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10588308/US-secretly-backs-rebels-to-fight-al-Qaeda-in-Syria.html
14: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/22/british-paper-u-s-is-secretly-funding-syria-rebels-fighting-al-qaeda/
15: http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-is-loosing-its-covert-syria-war-us-sponsored-al-nusra-rebels-defeated-by-syrian-armed-forces/5334827
16: http://www.thenational.ae/world/syria/cash-boost-for-syrian-rebels-to-pressure-assad
17: http://time.com/24077/syria-death-toll/
18: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/15/us-syria-crisis-toll-idUSBREA1E0HS20140215
19: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-purchase-oil-libyan-rebels-thus-funding-flickers-al-qaeda
20: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/africa/06diplo.html?_r=0
21: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-libya-usa-assets-idUSTRE72E79X20110315
22: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/libya-war-died_n_953456.html
23: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-libya-death-toll-as-high-as-30000/
24: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/28/sri-lanka-startscountingthecivilwardead.html
25: http://warwithoutwitness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:death-toll-at-the-end-of-the-sri-lankan-conflict-was-30000-to-40000-gordon-weiss&catid=38:reports&Itemid=61
26: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy
27: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/
28: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/defendiraqPR67.html
29: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-deaths-survey-2013/
30: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/better-stab-estimating-many-died-iraq-war-68419/
31: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html
32: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/afghanistan-war-death-toll_n_1926668.html
33: http://costsofwar.org/article/afghan-civilians
34: http://costsofwar.org/article/pakistani-civilians
35: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-drug-war-toll-47500-killed-in-5-years/
36: http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/economic_causes_of_the.php
37: http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/gulfcrisis/c5.html
38: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar1.html
39: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar2.html
40: http://old.post-gazette.com/nation/20030216casualty0216p5.asp
41: http://www.globalresearch.ca/gulf-war-syndrome-ptsd-and-military-suicides-u-s-government-s-message-to-america-s-vets-drop-dead/20186
42: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-genocide-against-iraq-1990-2012-killed-3-3-million-including-750000-children/5314461
43: http://wars.findthebest.com/q/65/2021/How-many-people-died-in-the-Iran-Iraq-War
44: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4260420.stm
45: http://kurzman.unc.edu/death-tolls-of-the-iran-iraq-war/
46: http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/vietnam-war-killed-38-million-vietnamese-not-21-million/
47: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#cite_note-USd.26w-19
48: http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Laos-Martin-Stuart-Fox/dp/0521597463
49: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10086&page=102
50: http://www.globalresearch.ca/agent-orange-continues-to-poison-vietnam/13974
51: http://rense.com/general77/hdtage.htm
52: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-americans-died-in-korea/
53: http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war
54: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1999.tb00330.x/abstract
55: http://books.google.com.tr/books/about/The_Cuban_Revolution.html?id=r0GHscf95qQC&redir_esc=y
56: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9110916
57: http://www.medicc.org/resources/documents/embargo/The%20impact%20of%20the%20U.S.%20Embargo%20on%20Health%20&%20Nutrition%20in%20Cuba.pdf
58: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/logos/v003/3.4hidalgo.pdf
59: https://www2.bc.edu/~kearneyr/pdf_articles/pl86217.pdf
60: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
61: http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/13/4/343.refs
62: http://www.amazon.com/Violence-Reflections-Our-Deadliest-Epidemic/dp/1849850658
63: http://hnn.us/article/7302
64: http://espressostalinist.com/genocide/native-american-genocide/
65: http://www.mobilization2-21.com/missing.htm
66: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/11/nearly-5-million-children-died-of-preventable-diseases-worldwide-in-2010/
67: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/17/italy.food.summit/
Michael Sallah and Mitch Weiss won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for reporting on "Tiger Force," an anti-sniper platoon deployed in the "free fire zone" -- specifically, for reporting the first-hand confessions by soldiers from Tiger Force that the entire platoon participated in war crimes and did so on a regular basis. The details are pretty stomach-turning, basically rape, murder, and torture of women and children in hopes of blackmailing the men in that region into identifying the snipers who were attacking US forces and then hiding among the civilian population. The same article series and eventual book cites the task force's senior officer and his superiors as denying the whole thing. See Sallah & Weiss, Tiger Force: A True Story of Men and War.
(Not that this qualifies as a defense, but it's worth pointing out that those snipers were, themselves, violating the Geneva Conventions by participating in military action while wearing civilian clothes and by hiding among civilians. But it's unclear to what extent the Geneva Conventions apply to partisan forces resisting a military invasion; certainly no such cases have ever been prosecuted.)
US Special Operations troops and CIA field officers are also generally acknowledged to have participated in the kidnapping, torture, and execution of tens of thousands of suspected communist sympathizers, see any good source on the Phoenix Program. The official US line continues to be that neither the US Army nor the CIA knew that the victims of Phoenix were innocent civilians nor that they were tortured; no historian that I know of takes this claim seriously.
Just going to add. There's another, very good book that was released a few years back by Mark Bowden of Black Hawk Down fame. It covers it from all sides including this story, although obviously not as detailed given the focus.
Michael Mann is directing a docu on FX on this book which will be interesting. It will likely be in the mould of look at everything from all angles documentary-style that Ken Burns and Lynn Novick revived, rather than the guitar-riff and exaggerated adjective heavy style.
Vietnam: A History by Stanley Karnow is the best non-fiction book I have read regarding the war.
As far as fiction goes, if you are looking for an idiosyncratic, unconventional, and hilarious analysis of the conflict, I highly recommend Norman Mailer's Why Are We In Vietnam? Note: at first glance it may seem like this book has NOTHING to do with Vietnam (in fact, the word "Vietnam" appears nowhere in the text itself) but bear with it! It provides an amazing critique of American culture and foreign policy during the fifties and sixties. One of the best and most decisive works from the greatest war writer of all time.
For a general history, A History of Indonesia since 1200 by Ricklefs is a pretty solid work, as is a History of Modern Indonesia by Vickers.
About the PKI specifically The Rise of Indonesian Communism by Ruth McVey is the classic on that topic that most other historians would cite. It's quite old, I think it was originally written in the 1960s but there hasn't really been a work that surpassed it for the overall story of the PKI.
This is an American book about the phenomenon you are experiencing.
Nick Turse has written a book called Kill Anything that Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805086919?*Version*=1&*entries*=0
It is based on archival records and makes the point that the My Lai massacre was not an aberration at all.
Here's a book written by a Vietnamese Government official about North Viet Nam's Perspective during the Viet Nam Civil War.
If America was justified in fighting WWII, what sense is there in crushing one colonizing autocracy only to hand the now-bloody terrain over to another totalitarian ideology with a history of suborning and enslaving other states?
The West managed to split Korea and Germany, but of course, France was not in Korea (and Japan, which annexed Korea in 1910, was happily deprived of any say) but had a vested interest dividing Germany. Neither the RoK nor the BRD created a perfect society (indeed, RoK has suffered the usual zany government hijinks), but they beat the Red Fascists hands down.
https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/lost-victory-by-william-colby/
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/30521-Review-Of-Ken-Burns-Vietnam-PBS-Series.html
https://www.amazon.com/Better-War-Unexamined-Victories-Americas/dp/0156013096
I would "blame" Vietnam on, first, the Communists (Ho Chi Minh, Mao and Stalin), second, the French, trying to maintain their SE Asian colony (or truly blind to the optics). America is the last in blame: they aided the French after only 1949 (when the CHICOM victory allowed the Soviets to arm the Viet Minh, a Nationalist umbrella movement dominated by the Communists, not unlike Castro in Cuba) but they should have forced one of three options:
The American people were exhausted by a Vietnam war that began in 1945, not 1964. I think anyone would have lost patience.
Street Without Joy describes the French experience fighting in Vietnam. By the time the US entered the war France had already learned the lessons it would take the US a decade to learn for itself. US leaders were arrogant fools to get involved in Vietnam as French experience clearly demonstrated.
20: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/africa/06diplo.html?_r=0
21: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-libya-usa-assets-idUSTRE72E79X20110315
22: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/libya-war-died_n_953456.html
23: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-libya-death-toll-as-high-as-30000/
24: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/28/sri-lanka-startscountingthecivilwardead.html
25: http://warwithoutwitness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:death-toll-at-the-end-of-the-sri-lankan-conflict-was-30000-to-40000-gordon-weiss&catid=38:reports&Itemid=61
26: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy
27: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/
28: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/defendiraqPR67.html
29: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-deaths-survey-2013/
30: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/better-stab-estimating-many-died-iraq-war-68419/
31: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html
32: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/afghanistan-war-death-toll_n_1926668.html
33: http://costsofwar.org/article/afghan-civilians
34: http://costsofwar.org/article/pakistani-civilians
35: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-drug-war-toll-47500-killed-in-5-years/
36: http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/economic_causes_of_the.php
37: http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/gulfcrisis/c5.html
38: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar1.html
39: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar2.html
40: http://old.post-gazette.com/nation/20030216casualty0216p5.asp
41: http://www.globalresearch.ca/gulf-war-syndrome-ptsd-and-military-suicides-u-s-government-s-message-to-america-s-vets-drop-dead/20186
42: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-genocide-against-iraq-1990-2012-killed-3-3-million-including-750000-children/5314461
43: http://wars.findthebest.com/q/65/2021/How-many-people-died-in-the-Iran-Iraq-War
44: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4260420.stm
45: http://kurzman.unc.edu/death-tolls-of-the-iran-iraq-war/
46: http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/vietnam-war-killed-38-million-vietnamese-not-21-million/
47: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#cite_note-USd.26w-19
48: http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Laos-Martin-Stuart-Fox/dp/0521597463
49: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10086&page=102
50: http://www.globalresearch.ca/agent-orange-continues-to-poison-vietnam/13974
51: http://rense.com/general77/hdtage.htm
52: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-americans-died-in-korea/
53: http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war
54: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1999.tb00330.x/abstract
55: http://books.google.com.tr/books/about/The_Cuban_Revolution.html?id=r0GHscf95qQC&redir_esc=y
56: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9110916
57: http://www.medicc.org/resources/documents/embargo/The%20impact%20of%20the%20U.S.%20Embargo%20on%20Health%20&%20Nutrition%20in%20Cuba.pdf
58: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/logos/v003/3.4hidalgo.pdf
59: https://www2.bc.edu/~kearneyr/pdf_articles/pl86217.pdf
60: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
61: http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/13/4/343.refs
62: http://www.amazon.com/Violence-Reflections-Our-Deadliest-Epidemic/dp/1849850658
63: http://hnn.us/article/7302
64: http://espressostalinist.com/genocide/native-american-genocide/
65: http://www.mobilization2-21.com/missing.htm
66: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/11/nearly-5-million-children-died-of-preventable-diseases-worldwide-in-2010/
67: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/17/italy.food.summit/
11: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/obama-drone-program-anniversary_n_4654825.html
12: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/23/more-than-2400-dead-as-obamas-drone-campaign-marks-five-years/
13: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10588308/US-secretly-backs-rebels-to-fight-al-Qaeda-in-Syria.html
14: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/22/british-paper-u-s-is-secretly-funding-syria-rebels-fighting-al-qaeda/
15: http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-is-loosing-its-covert-syria-war-us-sponsored-al-nusra-rebels-defeated-by-syrian-armed-forces/5334827
16: http://www.thenational.ae/world/syria/cash-boost-for-syrian-rebels-to-pressure-assad
17: http://time.com/24077/syria-death-toll/
18: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/15/us-syria-crisis-toll-idUSBREA1E0HS20140215
19: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-purchase-oil-libyan-rebels-thus-funding-flickers-al-qaeda
20: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/africa/06diplo.html?_r=0
21: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-libya-usa-assets-idUSTRE72E79X20110315
22: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/libya-war-died_n_953456.html
23: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-libya-death-toll-as-high-as-30000/
24: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/28/sri-lanka-startscountingthecivilwardead.html
25: http://warwithoutwitness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:death-toll-at-the-end-of-the-sri-lankan-conflict-was-30000-to-40000-gordon-weiss&catid=38:reports&Itemid=61
26: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy
27: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/
28: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/defendiraqPR67.html
29: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-deaths-survey-2013/
30: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/better-stab-estimating-many-died-iraq-war-68419/
31: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html
32: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/afghanistan-war-death-toll_n_1926668.html
33: http://costsofwar.org/article/afghan-civilians
34: http://costsofwar.org/article/pakistani-civilians
35: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-drug-war-toll-47500-killed-in-5-years/
36: http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/economic_causes_of_the.php
37: http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/gulfcrisis/c5.html
38: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar1.html
39: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar2.html
40: http://old.post-gazette.com/nation/20030216casualty0216p5.asp
41: http://www.globalresearch.ca/gulf-war-syndrome-ptsd-and-military-suicides-u-s-government-s-message-to-america-s-vets-drop-dead/20186
42: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-genocide-against-iraq-1990-2012-killed-3-3-million-including-750000-children/5314461
43: http://wars.findthebest.com/q/65/2021/How-many-people-died-in-the-Iran-Iraq-War
44: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4260420.stm
45: http://kurzman.unc.edu/death-tolls-of-the-iran-iraq-war/
46: http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/vietnam-war-killed-38-million-vietnamese-not-21-million/
47: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#cite_note-USd.26w-19
48: http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Laos-Martin-Stuart-Fox/dp/0521597463
49: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10086&page=102
50: http://www.globalresearch.ca/agent-orange-continues-to-poison-vietnam/13974
51: http://rense.com/general77/hdtage.htm
52: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-americans-died-in-korea/
53: http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war
54: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1999.tb00330.x/abstract
55: http://books.google.com.tr/books/about/The_Cuban_Revolution.html?id=r0GHscf95qQC&redir_esc=y
56: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9110916
57: http://www.medicc.org/resources/documents/embargo/The%20impact%20of%20the%20U.S.%20Embargo%20on%20Health%20&%20Nutrition%20in%20Cuba.pdf
58: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/logos/v003/3.4hidalgo.pdf
59: https://www2.bc.edu/~kearneyr/pdf_articles/pl86217.pdf
60: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
61: http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/13/4/343.refs
62: http://www.amazon.com/Violence-Reflections-Our-Deadliest-Epidemic/dp/1849850658
63: http://hnn.us/article/7302
64: http://espressostalinist.com/genocide/native-american-genocide/
65: http://www.mobilization2-21.com/missing.htm
66: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/11/nearly-5-million-children-died-of-preventable-diseases-worldwide-in-2010/
67: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/17/italy.food.summit/
http://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Force-True-Story-Men/dp/0316066354
> Vietnam was so unpopular and violent that people did whatever they could to get out of it.
People who got television cameras pointed at them on college campuses and at big city anti-war rallies and in their later careers as college professors, news journalists, artists and politicians (hello Bill Clinton and Donald Trump!) did whatever they could to get out of it.
People who weren't being paid attention to by the anti-war movement signed up and went. Less than a third of US casualties in Vietnam were draftees, compared to almost two-thirds of US casualties in WW2.
I recommend Stolen Valor for a look at Vietnam veterans that isn't exactly what you tend to see from Hollywood - or from the news media.
I have not visited a Dhammakaya temple, so I can't say. Though what I've read seems to lead me to thinking it is a cult. As for the controversy, most of it stems from money, fraud, corruption, or just plain ol' greed.
Here are a couple interesting things I've found floating around:
Nirvana for Sale?: Buddhism, Wealth, and the Dhammakaya Temple in Contemporary Thailand
Temple of Profit - Thailand
There is also a good thread on DhammaWheel with some good information.
I just finished [Kill Anything That Moves by Nick Turse] (http://www.amazon.com/Kill-Anything-That-Moves-American/dp/0805086919) and it was fantastic. It's graphic but it explains the policy of The US and the training of the soldiers through documents and first person interviews.
https://www.amazon.com/Better-War-Unexamined-Victories-Americas/dp/0156013096/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1524068687&sr=8-1&keywords=a+better+war
Maybe I'll buy this book and go full American tankie
Stanley Karnow: Vietnam A History
That's the book to read. It was our textbook at University.
https://www.amazon.com/Vietnam-History-Stanley-Karnow/dp/0140265473
Others in the thread have recommended some really great books. My two cents would be to add Hell in a Very Small Place looking at the siege of Dien Bien Phu, the end of the French occupation in Vietnam, and the rise of Ho Chi Min as both a military and political leader. Really good read.
Autogenerated.
I'm Patrick Winn, a radio journalist covering organized crime in Southeast Asia. My book (HELLO, SHADOWLANDS) is about encounters with meth traffickers, vigilantes, jihadis and more. AMA.
I'm the Asia correspondent for The World, a show that airs on NPR stations. I'm originally from a small town in N.C. but I've lived in Bangkok, Thailand, for more than a decade.
​
Much of my work focuses on organized crime in Southeast Asia. This region is home to some of the world's fastest-growing black markets — and yet I find that few Americans know much about this underworld. It encompasses the world's largest meth trade. The drug lords' top product is a little pink pill, packed with meth, that smells exactly like cheap vanilla frosting.
​
I've also spent time with Vietnamese vigilantes, some of whom fought with the Viet Cong. The group of men I met were defending their village against bandits intent on stealing their pet dogs. Near the China-Myanmar border, I've embedded with Baptist vigilantes. They are waging a holy crusade against drugs — and one night, I watched them invade a meth user's home, kidnap him and flog him in a secret detention center on church property.
​
Other stories I've covered: jihadis attacking red-light zones in Thailand's south, a nearly all-female crime ring in the Philippines and North Korean hostesses who sing in state-run lounges/restaurants across Asia.
​
One major theme in my reporting is pushing back against the typical "true crime" style of coverage that depicts most criminals as evil or deranged. I've met a lot of criminals. They might not be angels but almost none of them are deranged. They're usually rational actors whose decisions make perfect sense in context. In fact, I've often enjoyed their company.
​
Much of this is covered in my new book: HELLO, SHADOWLANDS — Inside the Meth Fiefdoms, Rebel Hideouts and Bomb-Scarred Party Towns of Southeast Asia.
​
Yes, promoting the book is what nudged me to do the AMA but I'm quite happy to take the conversation any direction.
Here's the book's page on Amazon.
Here's some of my recent reporting: "How North Korea's Hackers Became The World's Greatest Bank Robbers"
Thanks!
PROOF
-----------------------------------------------------------
IamAbot_v01. Alpha version. Under care of /u/oppon.
Comment 1 of 1
Updated at 2018-10-24 12:45:31.530593
Next update in approximately 20 mins at 2018-10-24 13:05:31.530616
This book
https://www.amazon.com/Hello-Shadowlands-Fiefdoms-Bomb-Scarred-Southeast/dp/1785783475
Almost anything by Bernard B. Fall.
Street Without Joy for a history of the French involvement
https://www.amazon.com/Street-Without-Joy-Indochina-Stackpole-ebook/dp/B001GIPFD2/ref=la_B000APUSOI_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505155856&sr=1-1
Hell in a Very Small Place for Dien Bien Phu
https://www.amazon.com/Hell-Very-Small-Place-Siege/dp/030681157X/ref=la_B000APUSOI_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505155856&sr=1-2
The Two Viet-Nams for the politicals
https://www.amazon.com/Viet-Nams-Political-Military-Analysis-Revised/dp/B000IVEVDS/ref=la_B000APUSOI_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505155856&sr=1-5
Last Reflections on a War -- If memory serves, he actually had at least one interview with Ho Chi Minh in that one.
https://www.amazon.com/Last-Reflections-War-Bernard-Fall-ebook/dp/B005JYXU1S/ref=la_B000APUSOI_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505155856&sr=1-4
Sources:
1: http://www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/homosexuals.html
2: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005261
3: http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/homo.html
4: http://www.holocaust-education.dk/holocaust/sigojnerne.asp
5: http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kewLQwngUSkC&q=passed+through&redir_esc=y#v=snippet&q=passed%20through&f=false
6: http://archive.freecapitalists.org/forums/t/26853.aspx?PageIndex=1
For more information on Rummel, see: http://www.crappytown.com/2011/12/why-rj-rummel-shouldnt-be-taken.html
7: Le Monde, 14 November 1997
8: http://llco.org/mim-review-of-the-black-book-of-communism/
9: Getty, J Arch (Mar 2000), “The Black book of Communism: Nazism & Communicsm have the same totalitarian roots” (text), The Atlantic Monthly (Boston: Hackvan) 285 (3): 113.
10: http://www.as.wvu.edu/history/Faculty/Tauger/Tauger,%20Chapter%20for%20Roter%20Holocaust%20book%20b.pdf
11: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/23/obama-drone-program-anniversary_n_4654825.html
12: http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2014/01/23/more-than-2400-dead-as-obamas-drone-campaign-marks-five-years/
13: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/10588308/US-secretly-backs-rebels-to-fight-al-Qaeda-in-Syria.html
14: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/22/british-paper-u-s-is-secretly-funding-syria-rebels-fighting-al-qaeda/
15: http://www.globalresearch.ca/america-is-loosing-its-covert-syria-war-us-sponsored-al-nusra-rebels-defeated-by-syrian-armed-forces/5334827
16: http://www.thenational.ae/world/syria/cash-boost-for-syrian-rebels-to-pressure-assad
17: http://time.com/24077/syria-death-toll/
18: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/15/us-syria-crisis-toll-idUSBREA1E0HS20140215
19: http://www.zerohedge.com/article/us-purchase-oil-libyan-rebels-thus-funding-flickers-al-qaeda
20: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/world/africa/06diplo.html?_r=0
21: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/15/us-libya-usa-assets-idUSTRE72E79X20110315
22: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/08/libya-war-died_n_953456.html
23: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-libya-death-toll-as-high-as-30000/
24: http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/28/sri-lanka-startscountingthecivilwardead.html
25: http://warwithoutwitness.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=298:death-toll-at-the-end-of-the-sri-lankan-conflict-was-30000-to-40000-gordon-weiss&catid=38:reports&Itemid=61
26: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy
27: http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/
28: http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/socialistvoice/defendiraqPR67.html
29: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/10/131015-iraq-war-deaths-survey-2013/
30: http://www.psmag.com/navigation/politics-and-law/better-stab-estimating-many-died-iraq-war-68419/
31: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/15/iraq-death-toll_n_4102855.html
32: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/30/afghanistan-war-death-toll_n_1926668.html
33: http://costsofwar.org/article/afghan-civilians
34: http://costsofwar.org/article/pakistani-civilians
35: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/mexican-drug-war-toll-47500-killed-in-5-years/
36: http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/economic_causes_of_the.php
37: http://www.socialistworld.net/pubs/gulfcrisis/c5.html
38: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar1.html
39: http://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/gulfwar2.html
40: http://old.post-gazette.com/nation/20030216casualty0216p5.asp
41: http://www.globalresearch.ca/gulf-war-syndrome-ptsd-and-military-suicides-u-s-government-s-message-to-america-s-vets-drop-dead/20186
42: http://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-genocide-against-iraq-1990-2012-killed-3-3-million-including-750000-children/5314461
43: http://wars.findthebest.com/q/65/2021/How-many-people-died-in-the-Iran-Iraq-War
44: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4260420.stm
45: http://kurzman.unc.edu/death-tolls-of-the-iran-iraq-war/
46: http://mattsteinglass.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/vietnam-war-killed-38-million-vietnamese-not-21-million/
47: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War#cite_note-USd.26w-19
48: http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Laos-Martin-Stuart-Fox/dp/0521597463
49: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10086&page=102
50: http://www.globalresearch.ca/agent-orange-continues-to-poison-vietnam/13974
51: http://rense.com/general77/hdtage.htm
52: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-many-americans-died-in-korea/
53: http://www.history.com/topics/korean-war
54: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-7093.1999.tb00330.x/abstract
55: http://books.google.com.tr/books/about/The_Cuban_Revolution.html?id=r0GHscf95qQC&redir_esc=y
56: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9110916
57: http://www.medicc.org/resources/documents/embargo/The%20impact%20of%20the%20U.S.%20Embargo%20on%20Health%20&%20Nutrition%20in%20Cuba.pdf
58: https://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/logos/v003/3.4hidalgo.pdf
59: https://www2.bc.edu/~kearneyr/pdf_articles/pl86217.pdf
60: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4068.htm
61: http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/13/4/343.refs
62: http://www.amazon.com/Violence-Reflections-Our-Deadliest-Epidemic/dp/1849850658
63: http://hnn.us/article/7302
64: http://espressostalinist.com/genocide/native-american-genocide/
65: http://www.mobilization2-21.com/missing.htm
66: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/11/nearly-5-million-children-died-of-preventable-diseases-worldwide-in-2010/
67: http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/europe/11/17/italy.food.summit/
you cant compare your need of a fascist modern state with a self organizing community, so yes, people can live without a state but capitalists/fascists will try everything to destroy it, obviously it will not last much in Europe.
I would recommend two books on the matter:
https://www.amazon.com/Society-Against-State-Political-Anthropology/dp/0942299019/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1539429544
https://www.amazon.com/Art-Not-Being-Governed-Anarchist-ebook/dp/B01N75OC23/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539429842
Read the newly released "Hue, 1968" by Mike Bowden. That'll dispel your propaganda.
https://www.amazon.com/Hue-1968-Turning-American-Vietnam-ebook/dp/B071Y87H9H/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1521304877&sr=8-1
It was heavy bombardment of Hue by Navy warships that caused the most deaths (over 10,000) in Hue. There was plenty of US firepower that mostly destroyed the Hue Citadel.
Propaganda has a way of infecting the weak minds. It takes disciplined search for facts that most people won't make. So the "Hue Massacre" was actually the massacre of tens of thousands of people in Hue by US military.
Also, the best description of the propaganda that infects the stupid has been on the web for a couple of decades now - Gareth Porter's investigation written in 1974:
https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/porterhue1.html
First two paragraphs:
>> Six years after the stunning communist Tet Offensive of 1968, one of the enduring myths of the Second Indochina War remains essentially unchallenged: the communist "massacre" at Hue. The official version of what happened in Hue has been that the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the North Vietnamese deliberately and systematically murdered not only responsible officials but religious figures, the educated elite and ordinary people, and that burial sites later found yielded some 3,000 bodies, the largest portion of the total of more than 4,700 victims of communist execution.
>> Although there is still much that is not known about what happened in Hue, there is sufficient evidence to conclude that the story conveyed to the American public by the South Vietnamese and American propaganda agencies bore little resemblance to the truth, but was, on the contrary, the result of a political warfare campaign by the Saigon government, embellished by the U.S. government and accepted uncritically by the U.S. press. A careful study of the official story of the Hue "massacre" on the one hand, and of the evidence from independent or anti-communist sources on the other, provides a revealing glimpse into efforts by the U.S. press to keep alive fears of a massive "bloodbath."1 It is a myth which has served the U.S. administration interests well in the past, and continues to influence public attitudes deeply today.
I recommend the book Kill Anything That Moves. It documents the systematic way the US has covered up atrocities on civilians and portrayed any leaks as singular events (for example, My Lai massacre). Little's changed since Vietnam. The US doesn't focus on prosecuting or preventing war crimes, it focuses on covering them up. There's no policies in place to prevent soldiers from cracking down mentally or forming a shared revenge-mentality.
In Vietnam, the Vietnamese weren't considered human and the same attitude prevails in the Middle-Eastern conflicts. There's no empathy toward "snackbars", which leads to soldiers pissing on dead corpses etc. Everyone is presumed guilty (to be the enemy) by association, and thus there's care little for civilian life. Although /u/SerPuissance got downvoted, there are couple of well-publicized instances of a soldier going on a killing spree (e.g Robert Bales). And these are cases where civilians are intentionally targeted. There a lot more cases where soldiers / the commanding officers simply do not care whether civilians get killed or hurt as collateral damage. It's a gradient scale.
The above is obviously not meant to imply that inhuman behaviour during war is exclusively an American trait. See for exampe what the Japanese did in China.