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Ho Chi Minh was a
Hero! 38%  38%  [ 6 ]
Villain! 31%  31%  [ 5 ]
Just display the results 31%  31%  [ 5 ]
Total votes : 16

ArrantPariah
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21 Jul 2012, 8:33 am

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjzMWumVhV8&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KhT6NUVMBA&feature=related[/youtube]

Very catchy song.

Would Ronald Reagan have called Ho Chi Minh the moral equivalent of George Washington? Both did get a major cities named after them (although Washington got a state).

Or, do my compatriots still have too much butt-hurt from our national humiliation in Vietnam to think anything nice about of Uncle Ho?

I think that Vietnam is gradually turning into a US ally, with our navy ships visiting regularly.

What say ye?



HisDivineMajesty
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21 Jul 2012, 9:44 am

Neither. I've read about Ho Chi Minh rather extensively. His political ideology was based around self-determination for Vietnam, and he turned to the Soviet Union for support because the United States would not support him. Apparently, they knew very little about him and did not trust him. As for his political goals, those were fair enough, and he led Vietnam through the most difficult time in Vietnam's history.

One book stated, however, that Ho Chi Minh the person was not the state he led. While Ho Chi Minh was known to be very pragmatic, and to be after independence primarily, the people who served below him were brutes, often more so than their South Vietnamese counterparts. They pushed through very violent land reform before the war was anywhere near over, and they kept prisoners of war in appalling conditions. One documentary stated that there was an exchange of prisoners of war between the Vietnamese and the French. The Vietnamese prisoners of war who were released by the French were well-fed and cared for, while the French prisoners of war who were released by the Vietnamese were starving and ill, with teeth falling out of their mouths.

Perhaps the best example of how the government of Vietnam ruined Ho Chi Minh's ideas is his mausoleum. He said he wanted to be cremated and his ashes spread, but they built an enormous mausoleum, seemingly copying the Soviet Union's display of Lenin, in a country still extremely poor and ruined by war.



HereComesTheRain
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21 Jul 2012, 11:00 am

The man was an anti-villain who just wanted independence for his people. He didn't care if his people were communist or capitalist, he just wanted the round eyes out of his country's affairs. It's a shame that he had to ally himself with one of the most brutal regimes in modern history to get his goal achieved.



ArrantPariah
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21 Jul 2012, 5:06 pm

HereComesTheRain wrote:
It's a shame that he had to ally himself with one of the most brutal regimes in modern history to get his goal achieved.


It was either that, or go back to being a French colony.



Raptor
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21 Jul 2012, 5:07 pm

At least hundreds of thousands (if not a million plus) of political dissidents were exterminated in or by North Vietnam under his rule and after.
If you have to wipe out that many political opponents, real or imagined, just to have your way it speaks volumes.......
BTW: This does not include enemy casualties from warfare.


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ArrantPariah
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21 Jul 2012, 7:35 pm

Raptor wrote:
At least hundreds of thousands (if not a million plus) of political dissidents were exterminated in or by North Vietnam under his rule and after.
If you have to wipe out that many political opponents, real or imagined, just to have your way it speaks volumes.......
BTW: This does not include enemy casualties from warfare.


According to Fox Noise, Vietnam switched to American-style lethal injections, and continues to execute about 100 people per year.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/18 ... criticism/

According to more reliable sources, for example

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... ries-world

Vietnam executed 5 people during 2011, compared to 43 executions in the USA.



Raptor
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21 Jul 2012, 7:40 pm

ArrantPariah wrote:
Raptor wrote:
At least hundreds of thousands (if not a million plus) of political dissidents were exterminated in or by North Vietnam under his rule and after.
If you have to wipe out that many political opponents, real or imagined, just to have your way it speaks volumes.......
BTW: This does not include enemy casualties from warfare.


According to Fox Noise, Vietnam switched to American-style lethal injections, and continues to execute about 100 people per year.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/06/18 ... criticism/

According to more reliable sources, for example

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog ... ries-world

Vietnam executed 5 people during 2011, compared to 43 executions in the USA.


I'm talking back in the day, not recently.


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ArrantPariah
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21 Jul 2012, 8:45 pm

Well, yes. Twentieth century history was generally quite aweful.



ArrantPariah
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21 Jul 2012, 8:52 pm

Interesting. They have 400 folks on death row.

http://www.ntn24.com/news/news/vietnam- ... -lac-13848

But, they can't execute them yet, because they haven't decided which lethal drugs to use.

Once that gets sorted, they will be busier than Texas.



HisDivineMajesty
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21 Jul 2012, 9:43 pm

ArrantPariah wrote:
they haven't decided which lethal drugs to use.


If they decide on LSD, I might try to smuggle some cheaper drugs there. Execution by LSD overdose - I'm alright with that.



Raptor
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21 Jul 2012, 11:36 pm

ArrantPariah wrote:
Well, yes. Twentieth century history was generally quite aweful.


What century in civilized history doesn't have it's awful parts?
Take the good with the bad.


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22 Jul 2012, 3:37 am

HisDivineMajesty wrote:
ArrantPariah wrote:
they haven't decided which lethal drugs to use.


If they decide on LSD, I might try to smuggle some cheaper drugs there. Execution by LSD overdose - I'm alright with that.


I've always been jealous of the way Aldous Huxley got to go, because it will be difficult for me to acquire LSD if I ever develop terminal illness, much less find someone willing to administer it as I'm dying.


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outofplace
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22 Jul 2012, 4:19 am

As to the original question, the answer is both. Heroes are almost always contextual. Thus, to someone who wanted his views, he was a hero. To someone opposed he most likely would have been a villain.


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BreezeGod
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22 Jul 2012, 7:36 am

You'll find that life makes a lot more sense once you stop trying to categorize people into heroes and villains.



ArrantPariah
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22 Jul 2012, 9:09 am

BreezeGod wrote:
You'll find that life makes a lot more sense once you stop trying to categorize people into heroes and villains.


Yes, but there are people who make money off of such categorizing.

Image



Last edited by ArrantPariah on 22 Jul 2012, 9:10 am, edited 1 time in total.

ruveyn
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22 Jul 2012, 9:09 am

outofplace wrote:
As to the original question, the answer is both. Heroes are almost always contextual. Thus, to someone who wanted his views, he was a hero. To someone opposed he most likely would have been a villain.


His side won. Therefore he is a Hero.

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