I'm not the one making the charge. In fact I think it's justified (war IS hell). But with the backlash against the war coupled with broadcast images of women and children starving to death due to military action, let's not pretend this will be reported as anything but baby killing writ large by a military losing the war.Bombing civilian infrastructure and causing floods, disease outbreaks, and likely subsequent famine that result in millions of deaths isn't bordering on a war crime, it is a war crime.
You realize many Koreans are not happy about that, right?Should note that the US and British busted many Dams in WWII and Korea with zero repercussions
You realize many Koreans are not happy about that, right?
By the by, obliterating crude infrastructure of an agrarian state we should be curb stomping with ease is vastly different than attacking the means of production of an industrialized fascist supporter of dystopic paradise.
What I got from Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland is that Bush, Sr., stopped denying we had bombed the dikes after meeting with UN Sec. Gen. Kurt Waldheim. In fact, Bush was even quoted in the book as saying the best thing he (Bush) could do now was to shut up, or words to that effect.NBC Evening News for July 25, 1972
https://tvnews.vanderbilt.edu/programs/465265
(NYC) [BUSH - told Waldheim there is a massive North Vietnam propaganda campaign on United States bombing of dikes. Bush convinced that Waldheim did not mean to lend credibility to view that United States was deliberately bombing dikes.]
I'm not the one making the charge. In fact I think it's justified (war IS hell). But with the backlash against the war coupled with broadcast images of women and children starving to death due to military action, let's not pretend this will be reported as anything but baby killing writ large by a military losing the war.
We were trying to liberate South Vietnam. Flooding North Vietnam wouldn't mean that we're killing people to liberate them from communism.Justified under what doctrine? Certainly not the one the politicians were trying to sell to the public back home. To liberate people from communism we will achieve that by killing them?
Guess what?In 1969, China would not declare war to USA. They didnt have ICBM's at this moment. Unless, they want to turn 60% of their own country into a nuclear wasteland, and lose 450.000.000 population at minimun
We were trying to liberate South Vietnam. Flooding North Vietnam wouldn't mean that we're killing people to liberate them from communism.
The fact that Kissinger wasn't willing to do it shows you how extreme it would've been.Better dead than red.
In all seriousness though, if the US can spin it correctly from the start, it becomes a Korea redux for the public. Hell, you could even hold back a lot of the really cool toys, and antagonize the North until they try an invasion. And then procede to cruely mangle their arm with a sledgehammer when the world sees them reaching into the cookie jar.
Would almost take literal Emperor Palpatine at the helm to pull it off, but there's no technical limitations standing in the way. And I'm sure there's SOME suitably evil US politician.
If you don't mind further inflaming the countryside against the government
and giving Americans a reason to want to distance themselves from something bordering on a war crime.
Nazi Germany. Comparing genocidal maniacs to a people trying to shrug off the colonial yoke is a stretch.Bet there is a North/South difference in that
And replying to yours, also has this tidbit
which would be.....?
Undermining an enemy's warmaking ability if you wish to continue the doctrine of WWII thought as well as halt the drop of dominoes. Limited/defensive war against an enemy who refuses conventional rules will never win. You either need to win the propaganda war or crush their ability to fight.Justified under what doctrine? Certainly not the one the politicians were trying to sell to the public back home. To liberate people from communism we will achieve that by killing them?
What is the point in winning without legitimacy?Would the South Vietnamese countryside be affected by this?
That's the point.
Once Saigon saw the writing on the wall, would it care?
Not losing? If the US had bombed the dikes and somehow the South Vietnamese turned into a credible state that triumphed no one would care. Victory excuses a lot of sins.What is the point in winning without legitimacy?
Not losing? If the US had bombed the dikes and somehow the South Vietnamese turned into a credible state that triumphed no one would care. Victory excuses a lot of sins.
What is the point in winning without legitimacy?
When survival is at stake, one tends to overlook certain details.