Bombing of north Vietnam's dams.

The US army's problem was that people back home didn't like the fact that it was over there, blowing shit up. Adding more blowing-up-of-shit will not change this at all.

A majority of Americans supported the war until 1968. There's no reason to think they wouldn't have supported a more aggressive war effort in 1965.
 

Dure

Banned
Dam breaking is a war crime under the Geneva conventions. How would demonstrating unambigously to rest of the world that its president, government, army and airforce were all war criminals with no respect for human life help the USA win the war in Vietnam? What would the youth of the USA thought about this? They were already solidly against the war, even many in the army, would they be left with any respect for thier government at all? 1968 could have been very different to what it was historically.

Furthermore. The de facto arrangements over the respective levels of involvement with the Soviets and the PRC would be off. If the Soviets and PRC move serious numbers of troops into Vietnam then the USA has lost unless President Johnson wants to raise the stakes still further by taking the battle to the Reds elsewhere. That sort of escallation ends with MAD. Johnson was not that sort of fool.
 

Susano

Banned
A majority of Americans supported the war until 1968. There's no reason to think they wouldn't have supported a more aggressive war effort in 1965.

Fact remains that the bombload the USA dropped was already several times the one used against the Axis Powers in WW2. The USA were not beaten due to lack of bombings.
 
If this is true, I wonder whether someone in the US could've done something , if they had known about this (which I guess they didn't). Hindsight, 20/20.

I made a tread about it a while back but it brought little interest. Anyway, I think the best time doing this was during the Paris talks when the talks stalled over the table shape (silly, I know). Basicly, VC wanted a seat at the table and the US refused. I think the US should have dragged VC into it and tried to divide them and North Vietnam. Even if it doesn't work, it keeps up the apperance of the US beeing flexible and doing what it can.
 
Dude, as was emphasised on the SECRETS OF WAR episode on the Vietnam War, American commentators way misjudged the level of support in Communist China for the PRVN, given their centuries of animosity & hostility to each other- take a look later down the track too with the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War over Cambodia. In this light, fullscale Red Chinese intervention on hanoi's side wouldn't have been a foregone conclusion.

China was undergoing its tumultuous "Cultural Revolution" at the time. Are you sure they would have been able to intervene to save North Vietnam?
 
Dam breaking is a war crime under the Geneva conventions.
Which geneva? Because I remember dam-bombing missions being done in WW2, and I'm fairly sure in Korea as well.

How would demonstrating unambigously to rest of the world that its president, government, army and airforce were all war criminals with no respect for human life help the USA win the war in Vietnam?
So, apparently carpetbombing North Vietnam, agent orange, napalm raids, internationally reported atrocities including some very famous photos shot on the ground, and highly publicized atrocity testemonies to congress by such notables as John Kerry weren't unambiguous enough? I'm failing to see why bursting a few dams would be so much worse in the public mind than, say, bombing the shit out of Hanoi. Or "sometimes you have to destroy the village to save it." And lord knows there were still plenty of people and countries who preferred the US to East during and after Vietnam.

I mean, everyone knew that the US didn't value enemy human lives. That's hardly new information.

What would the youth of the USA thought about this? They were already solidly against the war, even many in the army, would they be left with any respect for thier government at all? 1968 could have been very different to what it was historically.
Why would it have been? There wasn't just the counter-culture movement in universities, there was also the counter-counter-movement.
 
Really evil idea from America:Bomb the dams with POISON bombs. Once the pop. gets to the water, they are poisened. Although Geneva may outlaw that.
 
Vietcong? Why should Ho Chi Minh screw them? And how? Do you have a reliable source for that?

Ho was a figurehead in Viet Nam by then anyway. Nevertheless, he was a national hero in 1956, in both the North and South. What was done to the that country by the United States is inexcusable. The hardline policies that followed the war are a direct function of the US involvement in Viet Nam.
 
Ho was a figurehead in Viet Nam by then anyway. Nevertheless, he was a national hero in 1956, in both the North and South. What was done to the that country by the United States is inexcusable. The hardline policies that followed the war are a direct function of the US involvement in Viet Nam.

Jello_Biafra

Any evidence for that? Judging by the flood of refugees after the conquest the hard-line policies were required to keep the south under control. [Apart from being fairly automatic for most dictatorships of course;)].

Steve
 
Ho was a figurehead in Viet Nam by then anyway. Nevertheless, he was a national hero in 1956, in both the North and South. What was done to the that country by the United States is inexcusable. The hardline policies that followed the war are a direct function of the US involvement in Viet Nam.

So the US somehow forced Ho and his successors to be evil and totalitarian?

And Hitler was a national hero in Germany. That didn't stop the US and the Russians from utterly curb-stomping and obliterating Germany during WWII.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Dam breaking is a war crime under the Geneva conventions. How would demonstrating unambigously to rest of the world that its president, government, army and airforce were all war criminals with no respect for human life help the USA win the war in Vietnam? What would the youth of the USA thought about this? They were already solidly against the war, even many in the army, would they be left with any respect for thier government at all? 1968 could have been very different to what it was historically.

Furthermore. The de facto arrangements over the respective levels of involvement with the Soviets and the PRC would be off. If the Soviets and PRC move serious numbers of troops into Vietnam then the USA has lost unless President Johnson wants to raise the stakes still further by taking the battle to the Reds elsewhere. That sort of escallation ends with MAD. Johnson was not that sort of fool.

Neither were the Soviets. Vietnam, much like Afghanastan a decade later, was an opprotunity to cause the enemy great harm at minimal cost. It was a wonderful opprotunity to observe the enemy in action, his command & control, pick up some gear for intel, even interview some prisoners. It wasn't a place that you were going to fight in to end the world. Even basic reaserch into Soviet policies makes this obvious.

The PRC, on the other hand, HATED the Viets in general, DESPISED Ho, and would happily have watched Giap be slow roasted on a spit. They extracted a HUGE tarrif from the Soviets for every supply train they allowed across their territory as a price for letting the Soviets supplky Hanoi

You Geneva Convention comment is also dead wrong.

You are probably referring to this from Article 54 (All quotes are from the 1977 protocol):

2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as food-stuffs, agricultural areas for the production of food-stuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or for any other motive.

Unfortunately for your position Paragraph 2 is over ridden by the following paragraph of Article 54:

3. The prohibitions in paragraph 2 shall not apply to such of the objects covered by it as are used by an adverse Party:
(a) as sustenance solely for the members of its armed forces; or
(b) if not as sustenance, then in direct support of military action, provided, however, that in no event shall actions against these objects be taken which may be expected to leave the civilian population with such inadequate food or water as to cause its starvation or force its movement.

And by this section of Article 52:

2. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage


or perhaps you meant this part of Article 56

Art 56. Protection of works and installations containing dangerous forces

1. Works or installations containing dangerous forces, namely dams, dykes and nuclear electrical generating stations, shall not be made the object of attack, even where these objects are military objectives, if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population. Other military objectives located at or in the vicinity of these works or installations shall not be made the object of attack if such attack may cause the release of dangerous forces from the works or installations and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.

However, as is the case in Article 51, the following paragraph of Article 56 states:

2. The special protection against attack provided by paragraph 1 shall cease:
(a) for a dam or a dyke only if it is used for other than its normal function and in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if such attack is the only feasible way to terminate such support;

(b) for a nuclear electrical generating station only if it provides electric power in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if such attack is the only feasible way to terminate such support;
(c) for other military objectives located at or in the vicinity of these works or installations only if they are used in regular, significant and direct support of military operations and if such attack is the only feasible way to terminate such support.

This would, of course include power generation and access to roads which allow the rapid movement of forces.

None of this is really relevant to the issue under discussion since the Protocol did't go into effect until January 8, 1978 (six months after the affirming documents were submitted)

Of course, while we are on the subject of the Geneva Convention, perhaps you would care to comment on North Vietnam's application of this part of the Convention (which WAS in effect since 1949)

Art 13. Prisoners of war must at all times be humanely treated. Any unlawful act or omission by the Detaining Power causing death or seriously endangering the health of a prisoner of war in its custody is prohibited, and will be regarded as a serious breach of the present Convention. In particular, no prisoner of war may be subjected to physical mutilation or to medical or scientific experiments of any kind which are not justified by the medical, dental or hospital treatment of the prisoner concerned and carried out in his interest.

Likewise, prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.

Measures of reprisal against prisoners of war are prohibited.

Art 14. Prisoners of war are entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour.

and in Article 17

No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.

or

Art 22. Prisoners of war may be interned only in premises located on land and affording every guarantee of hygiene and healthfulness. Except in particular cases which are justified by the interest of the prisoners themselves, they shall not be interned in penitentiaries.

Prisoners of war interned in unhealthy areas, or where the climate is injurious for them, shall be removed as soon as possible to a more favourable climate.

The Detaining Power shall assemble prisoners of war in camps or camp compounds according to their nationality, language and customs, provided that such prisoners shall not be separated from prisoners of war belonging to the armed forces with which they were serving at the time of their capture, except with their consent

and

Art 26. The basic daily food rations shall be sufficient in quantity, quality and variety to keep prisoners of war in good health and to prevent loss of weight or the development of nutritional deficiencies. Account shall also be taken of the habitual diet of the prisoners.

Further examples could, of course be provided

Lastly, lest you choose to compound your previous error by attempting to apply these articles to those held at Gitmo please remember that:

Art 4. A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:
(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict, as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

(2) Members of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a Party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied, provided that such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements, fulfil the following conditions:[
(a) that of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) that of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) that of carrying arms openly;
(d) that of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.

(3) Members of regular armed forces who profess allegiance to a government or an authority not recognized by the Detaining Power.

are the only combatants who are entitled to the protections of the Convention.
 
Power plants were bombed during the First and Second Gulf Wars as well as during Kosovo "NATO air show".

In fact there are reports that many civilians died in Serbia, after power was cut off in hospitals etc. The same was probably the case in Iraq too.
The justification for knocking out the power plants, was that power is needed to operate communications, radars, etc.

Was that a war crime?
 
Power plants were bombed during the First and Second Gulf Wars as well as during Kosovo "NATO air show".

In fact there are reports that many civilians died in Serbia, after power was cut off in hospitals etc. The same was probably the case in Iraq too.
The justification for knocking out the power plants, was that power is needed to operate communications, radars, etc.

Was that a war crime?

Quick answer: Yes, absolutely.

In context, the crime is even more appalling, given that it was committed by the most powerful state on the planet against a militarily impotent third-world nation.

I use the terms 'state' and 'nation' here to mean two different things - whether talking about Serbia, Iraq, or Vietnam, in all cases, the American citizenry (the 'nation') were never visited at home by the wars being fought by their government, (the 'state') while the citizens of Serbia, Iraq, and Vietnam (To say nothing of all the other states affected by the intervention of a great power) suffer terrible consequences during the war and for generations after. The Iraqis and Vietnamesehttp://worldfocus.org/blog/2009/01/15/agent-orange-devastates-generations-of-vietnamese/3625/ are both saddled with sky-high cancer rates, birth defects, and other illnesses as a result of the use by the United States Military of depleted uranium and agent orange, respectively.

To bring this back around to the original question of the thread, I believe that the Pentagon had already outlined the effects of bombing the dams. Mostly a ton of starvation amongst the peasantry due to the failed rice crop that would result.
 
Jello_Biafra

Any evidence for that? Judging by the flood of refugees after the conquest the hard-line policies were required to keep the south under control. [Apart from being fairly automatic for most dictatorships of course;)].

Steve

Wars that kill millions of people make leaders into hardliners, and give already existing hardliners all the ammunition they need. No country undergoing that kind of total annihilation could expect to come out anywhere near liveable, and the US policy is responsible for destroying the only mass-based organization that could serve as a counterweight to the Communist Party's apparatchiks.

So the US somehow forced Ho and his successors to be evil and totalitarian?

And Hitler was a national hero in Germany. That didn't stop the US and the Russians from utterly curb-stomping and obliterating Germany during WWII.

Do you know why Ho was a national hero? He led the fight for independence against the Japanese, and then again against the French when they took control of Indochina after World War II.

He even modeled the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence off of the US Declaration of Independence, and was an unabashed admirer of the US, seeking support for Vietnamese independence and democracy from the US after WWII, in the naive hope that the US government would live up to the ideals that it professes.

Instead, we stole the Vietnamese people's independence, funded France's brutal colonial war, and then when their's failed, we stepped in, divided the country, backed a brutal dictator in the South, and then proceeded to bomb, poison and massarcre 5 million Vietnamese, mostly civilians.

And you're expecting anything to turn out rosy and democratic after that? Sorry, but you can't bomb your way to democracy. Every child killed, every peasant family that starved to death from American military action gave tyrants justifications to grab more power.
 

burmafrd

Banned
Biafra you fall into the liberal trap that is ALWAYS someone elses fault.
The leaders of North Vietnam CHOSE to put millions of South Vietnamese into "reducation camps" (always wondered why Jane Fonda never talked about the Reducation Camps? of course Redgrave never talked about the terrorist bombings and killings done by Palestinians either) and that choice is on THEM no one else. The VC and North Vietnamese CHOSE to torture and terrorize and intimidate people all through the war. It was their CHOICE to do that. The blame is on THEM.Now its true the south vietnamese government and military was very corrupt and certainly ws no model. But to argue that they were as bad as what replaced them is a pathetic joke. Look at all the boat people all through the last half of the 70's tells the tale better then anything else. Wonder why Hollywood and the media ignored that? what a surprise.
 
Ho was a bloodthirsty little twit even before the real war with the US began.

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/vietnam/landreform.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam_landreform-20060608.html
http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/20010129/hochi.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh#Becoming_president

Had Ho Chi Minh been killed by US treachery and someone more radical took his place, you could say that US behavior *caused* the radicalization of North Vietnam, but that was not the case.

Ho did the bad things himself.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Quick answer: Yes, absolutely.

In context, the crime is even more appalling, given that it was committed by the most powerful state on the planet against a militarily impotent third-world nation.

I use the terms 'state' and 'nation' here to mean two different things - whether talking about Serbia, Iraq, or Vietnam, in all cases, the American citizenry (the 'nation') were never visited at home by the wars being fought by their government, (the 'state') while the citizens of Serbia, Iraq, and Vietnam (To say nothing of all the other states affected by the intervention of a great power) suffer terrible consequences during the war and for generations after. The Iraqis and Vietnamese are both saddled with sky-high cancer rates, birth defects, and other illnesses as a result of the use by the United States Military of depleted uranium and agent orange, respectively.

To bring this back around to the original question of the thread, I believe that the Pentagon had already outlined the effects of bombing the dams. Mostly a ton of starvation amongst the peasantry due to the failed rice crop that would result.

Short (but correct) answer: NO.

Please READ the excerpts from the actual Convention documents. If the system is being used to support military operations it becomes a legitimate military target.
 
Biafra you fall into the liberal trap that is ALWAYS someone elses fault.
The leaders of North Vietnam CHOSE to put millions of South Vietnamese into "reducation camps" (always wondered why Jane Fonda never talked about the Reducation Camps? of course Redgrave never talked about the terrorist bombings and killings done by Palestinians either) and that choice is on THEM no one else. The VC and North Vietnamese CHOSE to torture and terrorize and intimidate people all through the war. It was their CHOICE to do that. The blame is on THEM.Now its true the south vietnamese government and military was very corrupt and certainly ws no model. But to argue that they were as bad as what replaced them is a pathetic joke. Look at all the boat people all through the last half of the 70's tells the tale better then anything else. Wonder why Hollywood and the media ignored that? what a surprise.

Those hardliners would have never had the power to do that without the Second Inochina War. I'm not absolving the North Vietnamese communists of guilt, I'm putting forth the simple truism that nothing happens in a vacuum. Even so, the crimes committed by the North Vietnamese government pale in comparison to the crimes committed by the United States, or the French before us. And we obliterated the only mass-based organization in the country that had any chance of counterbalancing the North Vietnamese apparatchiks, the National Liberation Front, erroneously called the Viet Cong.

It is pretty obvious that you think that there is some media conspiracy out there. Deep-six that bullshit right now. There is more than enough blame to go around for this travesty of justice. The US could have prevented the entire affair, but instead the government chose to side with colonial oppressors.

Funny, the left had no problems with the US bombing its way to democracy in Germany.

The United States actually bothered to help Germany rebuild afterwards. Had we not, then Germany would be just as impoverished and dictatorial as Vietnam was. And we dropped a whole hell of a lot more bombs on Vietnam than we did on Germany.

Ho was a bloodthirsty little twit even before the real war with the US began.

http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/vietnam/landreform.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/vietnam_landreform-20060608.html
http://www.time.com/time/pacific/magazine/20010129/hochi.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh#Becoming_president

Had Ho Chi Minh been killed by US treachery and someone more radical took his place, you could say that US behavior *caused* the radicalization of North Vietnam, but that was not the case.

Ho did the bad things himself.

You should really read your sources before posting them. Because three quarters of them don't even implicate Ho. They point out that Ho Chi Minh had already been sidelined, turned into a figurehead by 1956. The land reform policies were not his fault. You can thank the ruthless party apparatchiks for that one.
 
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