Died With Boots On
Hollywood Elsewhere friendo Phillip Noyce (Salt, Clear and Present Danger, The Quiet American) toured around Vietnam last month to promote a Vietnamese-language edition of Ingo Petzke‘s “Phillip Noyce — Backroads to Hollywood.” He and his family visited Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and several points in-between. And there’s economic health everywhere, he says. There’s a super-rich class (plus a middle-class and lower-class), thriving industries, friendly people, beautiful jungles and beaches. Delicious food, magnificent architecture. A nice place to visit.
Why exactly did 58,000 young Americans die over there between ’62 and ’75? To keep the Communists from landing on the shores of Santa Monica? I forget.
All I know is that reality-facing political insiders knew North Vietnam couldn’t be beaten early on, we all knew the war was a lost cause by early ’68, and we stayed for another seven years until the last chopper flew off the roof of the American embassy in Saigon in ’75. And for what? 58,000 Americans, mostly blue-collar guys, ate lead and shrapnel and rose up into the sky and became droplets of water in the great eternal fountain, and for what?
Vietnam’s Wiki page says that poverty levels are now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines. According to a forecast in December 2005 by Goldman-Sachs, Vietnamese economy will become the 17th largest economy in the world in 2025, with a potential growth rate of almost 10% per annum in real dollar terms that could push it up to around 70% of the size of the UK economy by 2050. Vietnam is now the largest producer of cashew nuts with a one-third global share, the largest producer of black pepper accounting for one-third of the world’s market and second largest rice exporter in the world after Thailand. Other key exports are coffee, tea, rubber, and fishery products. There’s also a thriving tech industry.
How weird is it that the Blu-ray of DEAD CALM has zero extras? It’s not only the movie that launched Nicole Kidman, it launched Noyce. And he’s such a talker, loves to tell stories, but no commentary. Nothing.
“Ho Chi Minh City. Shit. I’m still only in Ho Chi Minh City.”
1969: America has always been at war with Communism
2011: America has always been at war with Muslim Extremism
same bullshit, different decade
And Vietnam now is producing its very own rom-coms!
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941475/
Being the son of a Vietnam vet, I’ve heard a few theories as to why we were over there. However, the one that always seems to come up is the economic interests. According to my dad, we stayed their for so long because of corporations wanting A) the rubber Vietnam produced, and B) the massive military contracts. Soldiers were not permitted to shoot into rubber plantations, and had to pay out of their own pockets for any trees they damaged or destroyed. And, of course, the military contracts had to be insane – about 15,000 Huey helicopters (plus all of the others we had), 10′s of thousands of M-16s, and the millions of tons of bombs we dropped all had to make a some companies ridiculously wealthy. It’s only fitting that Vietnam should become an economic force. And if you didn’t catch it earlier, this information and perspective is all from a few disgruntled war vets.
However, the military stayed there because, if their eyes, they were winning. We had something like a 10-1 kill to death ratio during the Tet Offensive of 1968. However, the government had been saying how the Vet Cong and NVA were weak and could never mount that kind of an offensive, and that changed public opinion. Overall, we killed about 1.1 million, a 19-1 KDR. In the military’s eyes, we were winning and doing great. However, we weren’t concerned with the welfare of the villages and people, so we lost their support, and public opinion turned back home, so we had to withdraw.
The reason we were even over there was because of Communism. Under the Truman Doctrine, the spread of Communism was against US interests, and, rather than risking all-out war with Russia or China, it was determined that it was just supposed to be prevented from spreading outside of those countries. Most people, even soldiers who were drafted, believed that Communism posed a real threat to America (those interviews during Full Metal Jacket are actually what the soldiers believed, not some crap the military told them to say). Looking back now, it was stupid, but 40 or 50 years from now, people are going to say “Really? We invaded Iraq and Afghanistan because we thought some dude who practiced another religion and wore a dynamite vest was a legitimate threat to the US?”.
We fought in Vietnam so Rashad could masturbate to superhero movies on BLuRay.
@Ryan: I wonder how much of that reflects Noyce’s continued mixed feelings about the present incarnation of the film. The ending is, of course, a well known studio imposition (and reeks of it). It would be little difficulty to trim off the offending minutes; it’s such a great film otherwise. I always thought we’d see a director’s cut at some point and am surprised to say the least that we have not. So I can only assume the studio in some way blocked that move from being made.
The Thing: good post
The parallels between Vietnam and the current quagmire in the Middle East should be obvious, but have we learned anything? Not a chance.
@Ray
Actually, we have. As I said in my post, we didn’t give a shit (to a certain extent) about the people of the country. We put a leader pretty only we supported, and bombed the shit out of the people of Vietnam. However, currently, we’ve done a good job of winning the hearts and minds of the people, at least in Iraq. We definitely have changed our tactics from Vietnam’s “Fuck Everything” plan to Iraq’s “Hearts and Minds” campaign. Iraqis, for the most part, love Americans, or at the very least don’t hate or dislike us. Same goes for a fair (but relatively small) portion of Afghans. A lot of the people have seen the good that we’re doing, and, since the slight change in tactics from the beginning of the war, have seen us as a kind force for the betterment of their people. Starting in around 2004 or so, we went from busting into random homes to search for weapons and information, to targeted surveillance of specific enemies with timed raids that avoid civilian casualties. But even the tactics prior to 2004 were improvements on the “blow everything up in this village” style of fighting during Vietnam.
The reasons we’re other there is a completely different story, but the military tactics we’re using are vastly superior to the ones used 50 years ago. That’s also why it seems like we’re winning 10 years after it started (or at the very least at a stalemate), rather than losing horribly 10 years after Vietnam started.
We’re not satifisied until we leave a country with the winning combination freedom of speech and starvation.
I’d like to remind Joe Banks that Communists never murdered three thousand Americans in lower Manhattan on a Tuesday. Not the same bullshit.
There is no bigger business than war. Banks, aerospace, weapons manufactors, steel, etc..war is what keeps countries going forward…
“No point asking when it is,
No point asking who’s to go,
No point asking what’s the game,
No point asking who’s to blame.
‘Cause if you’re gonna die (If you’re gonna die) If you’re gonna die,
(If you’re gonna die) If you’re gonna die (If you’re gonna die) If you’re gonna die…
If you’re gonna die, die with your boots on!”
(And yeah, the Dead Calm disc is a joke…Noyce should really consider circling around and revisiting that flick at some point. Surely the studio wouldn’t object to some tinkering 20+ years on, esp. if it could mean a couple extra sales for film buffs?)
‘but have we learned anything? Not a chance.’
Do it with volunteer forces?
What’s even more fucked up is that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was fabricated and used to get us into the war. An NSA report about this was declassified in 2005, and Robert McNamara has spoken about this on multiple occasions.
Now think about those 58,000 dead people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Tonkin_Incident
While it’s hard to think of anything good that came out of that tragic, misbegotten war, there is one tarnished silver lining: However unwillingly, the US gained ~100,000 Vietnamese refugees, who, with their children, have already contributed immensely to the country they now call home.
When the US involves itself in any foreign affairs, whether wars or coups, you should of course assume any given reason is complete bullshit Anything that comes from the Pentagon is grade A industrial strength bullshit. You should then find out what that country’s top resource is and whether US corporations have access to that resource or whether their access to it is being threatened by politics in that nation. In Guatamala it was fruit, in Vietnam as mentioned it was rubber.
This country still hasn;t come to terms with Vietnam really, Vietnam essentially bankrupted us….wasn’t the huge debt we incurred fighting it the reason Nixon took us off gold standard after the French called our bluff? Not that I’m a Ron Paul get-on-the-gold-standard enthusiast. Furthermore the bruised ego the US sustained helped Ronnie Reagan get elected, and he of course ruined the US economey but good and ushered in an era of profligate spending combined with decreased revenues in the form of tax cuts for the wealthy and the idiotic philosophy of ‘trickle down’ economics.
Oh, and The Quiet American is the single most illuminating film about Vietnam or US foreign policy in general ever made.
Hollis: “I’d like to remind Joe Banks that Communists never murdered three thousand Americans in lower Manhattan on a Tuesday.”
Yeah, they just did in enough of their own people through gulags and killing fields.
@The Thing: Good post.
Time shifs perspectives and priorities. Ecample: We watched “The Naked Gun” with our kids last night and paused the movie in the opening scene to explain why the bad guys were meeting in Beirut…
“Looking back now, it was stupid, but 40 or 50 years from now, people are going to say “Really? We invaded Iraq and Afghanistan because we thought some dude who practiced another religion and wore a dynamite vest was a legitimate threat to the US?”.”
Dude. I really hate to break it to you at this late date… but a very sizable and vocal amount of folks have been asking this/pointing this out since *2003*.
But you and – going solely from evidence of other posts of yours elsewhere – your political ilk absolutely *refuse* to learn the lessons your father has – the hard way – and are continuing to reward the very same institutions that abused your father.
Yeah – great post. Just really not a very self-aware one.
Hey – “Thing” – MY bad!! No offense intended – I was confusing you with the troll “The Truth”, who’s been polluting the weekend threads I’ve been catching up with. Sorry.
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When the US involves itself in any foreign affairs, whether wars or coups, you should of course assume any given reason is complete bullshit Anything that comes from the Pentagon is grade A industrial strength bullshit. You should then find out what that country’s top resource is and whether US corporations have access to that resource or whether their access to it is being threatened by politics in that nation. In Guatamala it was fruit, in Vietnam as mentioned it was rubber.
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