I have vacationed in Vietnam several times. And in Laos and Cambodia.
Three of the greatest places anyone could wish to visit. THE nicest people on earth and SO forgiving of the atrocities inflicted on them largely by Americans.
As to anyone saying the Vietnamese slant on the war is biased you are kidding right?
You ARE kidding right???
Lets see how you in the USA would feel one day if someone dropped
75 MILLION litres of the most carcinogenic, mutagenic, Dioxin defoliant liquids on earth onto you -
Agent Orange.
USA (and also Australian) military that even went NEAR those sealed canisters are still suffering. Skin diseases, horrible baby deformities, all kinds of terrible medical side-effects - 30 years on.
Imagine how it was like to have this evil stuff
indiscriminately dropped on your HEAD? By a scared US military - a good % of whom were so off their face with Heroin addiction they did not know or care what they were doing to whom. On your crops you ate, on the animals you ate and milked? And all this on mostly innocent farmers?
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by MRKEY:
75,850,000 tons of bombs of all kinds were dropped over Vietnam plus 75,000,000 liters of defoliants-including dioxin-were sprayed over croplands, farmlands, forestlands and villages in the southern part of this country.
In World War two, the US had dropped 2,057,244 tons of bombs over different battlefields. According to the figures made public by the US government, 325 billion dollars were spent for the Vietnam war.
In North Vietnam bombs and bullets destroyed or heavily damaged 2,923 school buildings-from primary schools to to colleges - 1,850 hospitals, wards, nurseries, 484 churches and 465 temples and pagodas.
Nearly 3 million Vietnamese were killed, and 4 million others injured, according to incomplete figures.
Over 58,000 American army men died in the war. Yet long-term consequences have not been completely determined in the Vietnam war. </font>
Craig6Z is correct ... on my first visit, a long time back that is what the Museum was called.
And
"American War Atrocities" was a very apt name IMHO.
Anyone who has been to Laos and seen first hand the insane carpet bombing done there will not be too forthcoming with their comments.
Unexploded USA ordinance is still a massive problem in the countryside, killing and maiming hundreds of innocent Laotions each year. Same in Cambodia. But they are not Americans, so they do not count of course.
Some notes on my second visit to Vietnam (+ Laos) and Cu Chi tunnels etc:
http://www.glenstephens.com/indochina.htm
And do not forget neighbouring Cambodia where the USA secretly funded the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot to wipe out a third of the entire population by genocide "as those guys are better to have in our pocket and so not join the Viet Cong commies".
http://www.glenstephens.com/cambodia.html
That year Henry Kissinger - who secretly approved all this won the
Nobel Peace Prize in 1973 right in the middle of all this. Go look it up.
www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,900496,00.html
http://laughingmeme.org/archives/000180.html
Adolf Hilter was a nominee in 1938 of course for the Nobel Peace Prize, so history does sometimes tells us strange things when you look back on it.
My tip in Vietnam ... spend a few days in Hoi An in the centre of the country, near Hue or Dan Dang. Each time I go I get about 20 vietnamese silk shirts hand made. A few $$ each. A special kind of silk that is impossible to crease. Superb for travelling.
Must be time for another trip actually ....
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Try and make it down to SYD for "OZ FEST 2004" - May 21-23
~
Glen ~ sipping bubbly from UA 747-400 exit row 15A near you SOON!