WI: US Bombs Vietnamese Dikes

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.
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.
 
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.
 
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You realize many Koreans are not happy about that, right?

Bet there is a North/South difference in that


And replying to yours, also has this tidbit

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.

which would be.....?
 
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.]
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.

And maybe, we bombed enough dikes to make a credible threat to the North Vietnamese that we would bomb more (although this part was less clear and certain)
 
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.

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?
 

kernals12

Banned
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?
We were trying to liberate South Vietnam. Flooding North Vietnam wouldn't mean that we're killing people to liberate them from communism.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
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
Guess what?

Mods can see previous versions of edited posts.

Kicked for a week for trolling.
 

FBKampfer

Banned
We were trying to liberate South Vietnam. Flooding North Vietnam wouldn't mean that we're killing people to liberate them from communism.

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.
 

kernals12

Banned
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.
The fact that Kissinger wasn't willing to do it shows you how extreme it would've been.
 
The central issue for the VWP (north) is whether famine relief is adequate for the purposes of maintaining power and an ability to supplement (pre Tet) or replace (post Tet) PLAF forces to continue to achieve NFL/PRG political goals.

I think they are likely to be able to. Admittedly this is a new circle of hell.

Yours,
Sam R.
 
“It became necessary to destroy the town to save it” — Unnamed US Officer on the bombing of Bến Tre, February 7, 1968.​

It becomes the bombing of Bến Tre on a national scale.

From a military perspective, the North Vietnamese Army would have been massively weakened by now having to deal with this crisis.

Overall though, this would be a pyrrhic victory for the United States. The US would “win” the Vietnam War, but at the cost of entirely undermining US international credibility.

At home, the war was already unpopular at this point, and committing atrocities on that kind of scale would only inflame the anti-war movement even further.
 
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?
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.
 

Puzzle

Donor
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.
 
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.

And if the US had simply invaded North Vietnam the war would have been over.

The simple fact of the matter is that the geopolitical realities made that, and the proposed POD, impossible without turning a contained proxy war into a wider war.
 
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