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Comment by ghayes | Hacker News Reader

This article seems to have a strong objective and anti-Western bias. For instance, why does an article about "Vietnam 40 years on" spend the first third discussing American tragedies during the U.S. invasion? It then discusses each problem in Vietnam in terms of Western actions and dedicates little if any space to the full spectrum of the issues the article is discussing.

That said, the facts and stories presented in the article are themselves interesting and enlightening.

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Perhaps you see it that way because you have a strong pro-Western bias and have placed the fulcrum of "objectivity" thusly. For instance you use the word "tragedies" to refer to systematic civilian slaughter by U.S. and allied forces (the article notes the U.S. secretly confirmed over 300 cases). This reveals your bias. Compare this with someone referring to Pol Pot's actions as "communist tragedies".

The history of the war is plainly relevant to Vietnam's economy today. At the very least it is crucial to supporting the article's thesis that capitalism is providing an incentive and engine for the suppression of this historical memory.

I agree. It is well-written and engaging, but its focus on American atrocities somewhat detracts from the main point (and conveniently forgets to mention that Vietcong forces were no stranger to mass executions and torture themselves). It does bring home the extent of the destruction the war inflicted, though.

Unfortunate to see Vietnam turning into a new China.

Agreed, the piece has a very distinct bias, and it's sad to see what Vietnam has become, especially considering what it could have been had history gone a little differently (South Korea is a reasonably analogous case).

It is? When was South Korea under commercial embargo? I agree that the piece is extremely biased, but it's pretty clear that the US were about as keen on helping post-war Vietnam developing its economy as they have been with Cuba.

I think what he meant was, had South Vietnam won, it would have become a second South Korea.

What are you talking about? There was no "South Vietnam"... There was Vietnam and there were places the invading forces were occupying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Vietnam

First google hit.

It existed in the sense that the Confederate States of America existed. A bunch of politicians unhappy about the countries government went into rebellion, coincidentally in the south, and then the fireworks began. But as a cultural concept, neither the CSA nor South Vietnam existed before their respective political rebellions aka they weren't "real countries". And after the rebellion was crushed they don't exist anymore in any real cultural/political fashion. If they won, they would have developed into real distinct countries eventually, but they never got the chance.

As far as invaders go, both sides invited so many vistors and advisors its hard to say who that is.

It's hard to say what a "real" country is in this case. The modern borders of Vietnam were only drawn in 1802 when Gia Long unified the country. Within 60 years, the French colonized Vietnam and split it into Cochinchine, Tonkin, and Annam. Then, in 1954, it was split again by the Geneva Accords into North and South.

As you can see, most of these divisions were short-lived and that idea that Vietnam was one unified country for a long period of time before being arbitrarily split by warring politicians is not correct.

The Republic of Vietnam (South Vietnam) was absolutely a country that had a right to its own sovereignty.

Framing the Vietnam war as a communist struggle against Western invaders is naive and incorrect. South Vietnam was governed by a nationalist but anti-communist government that sought aid from the US and others, while North Vietnam was a communist government that was aided by the USSR and China.

Well for what it is worth, Christian missionaries are flooding Vietnam.

It's well on it's way to becoming South Korea.

It is The Guardian a left leaning UK newspaper, that should give you an idea of why the article might appear unbalanced. One does not read the Guardian to get a balanced story for the very same reasons one would not watch Fox News

Tho' they don't hide their political bias, and it is often interesting reading same news stories in the Guardian (left leaning UK paper) vs lets say the Telegraph (right leaning UK paper) for differing view points and then making up ones own mind.

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