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Comment by wahnfrieden | Hacker News Reader

Many here would have said it's a complicated both sides issue (such as framing it as terrorists vs colonizers) and that neither side can be supported, given their current stances evident in this thread. Do you condemn the Viet Cong? Did their choice to use violence justify America's violence against them?

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America’s entry into Vietnam was based on manufactured consent and lies like the Gulf of Tonkin incident.

Heck, Laos wasn’t ever involved as a “bad actor” yet ended up the most bombed country in the history of the world. You can thank Kissinger for that.

In short: America was the bad guy.

No kidding lmao. That’s my point. But even with how bad a reputation that war has, growing up in America I seemed to learn points that demonized the resistance, painting their tactics as evil terrorism, their government as corrupt terrorist-leaders, their civilians all implicated as terrorist fighters, etc

Indeed, all of that is part of the formula of which you speak. It is, in my mind, all the more reason to take with distrust anything any nation state says about its needs, goals, and “self defense.”

Palestine, for instance, is an invaded nation. If one can claim Ukraine deserves to defend itself, one has to also claim Palestine has the same rights.

But… marketing and prop/agitprop makes one believe otherwise.

Imagine cheering and thanking the US for a ceasefire in Vietnam without sending anyone home

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