Ken Burns' "Vietnam"

September 19th, 2017 at 2:42:17 PM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: FrGamble
Oh believe me so far in this doc I seem to be fighting off a tendency to be rooting for the communists. They do seem to be restoring dignity to the people,


Did you read my post about good Catholic
Tom Dooley, who's exaggerations and lies
in his books from the late 50's is a major
reason we got into Vietnam? And he was
up for sainthood in the 70's, till they found
out he was Gay.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
September 19th, 2017 at 2:56:22 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Hang down your head Tom Dooley.....

A lot of travel writers never even visit the areas they write about. Some people visit a country and never learn the first thing about it. I know one man who spent months in Nigeria writing to his girlfriend frequently but since he never 'dashed' the mail man she never received a single one of them. When he returned to America his Nigerian expertise was much valued, but I don't see why. He had not learned the most important thing about Nigeria: you MUST dash.
September 19th, 2017 at 7:44:23 PM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
As usual Bob's posts are full of exaggerations and falsehoods. From all I've ever heard Tom Dooley was a excellent man, they still give out awards at the University of Notre Dame in his honor and there is even a nice statue of him in the famous grotto. I haven't heard his name mentioned in the documentary and I don't think he was a major reason we got into Vietnam. I also hope that Bob doesn't think that the atrocities on behalf of the communists were all lies. There are many more witnesses and testimonies about awful evil things done by the communists during that time than just Tom Dooley reported on. Also it is just plain silly to say that he was up for sainthood, I'm so tired of Bob's willful ignorance about all things Catholic, and his the lack of progress on his cause to sainthood was not because he was gay.
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (
September 19th, 2017 at 8:23:51 PM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Saw episode three just now.
The major point was the "turnstyle" southern government and the constant lying to the American people.

Can't run, can't hide,,, can't make it stop. But don't want to be seen to be running away.
September 19th, 2017 at 10:36:44 PM permalink
rxwine
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 188
Posts: 18633
Quote: FrGamble
I'm so tired of Bob's willful ignorance about all things Catholic, and his the lack of progress on his cause to sainthood was not because he was gay.


I read this as, you being tired of EB's willful ignorance of all things Catholic and his(EBs) lack of progress on his cause to sainthood, because (EB) was gay.

The thought of EB trying to achieve sainthood -- I almost blew a lung out LOLing. That and the gay reference.

(I read a lot of things from the last sentence backward. Often from the habit of perusing the final paragraphs of online articles to find conclusions (or the point) before reading the entire article -- saves time. Here it just provided some hilarity ...for me anyway)
You believe in an invisible god, and dismiss people who say they are trans? Really?
September 20th, 2017 at 12:35:36 AM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: FrGamble
As usual Bob's posts are full of exaggerations and falsehoods.


LOL! Dooley was a fraud and a charlatan. His lies
about the atrocities, mostly written at the
urging of his CIA buddies, were a major reason
we looked at getting into Vietnam. He was
a puppet of the CIA, who did what he was told.

On sainthood:

"Father Kegler’s quest to establish Dooley’s sainthood—technically, church certification that a dead person is now in heaven—is far from over. He may possibly have to prove that Dooley is responsible for two certifiable miracles, then must submit his entire case to Vatican-appointed “devil’s advocates” who will attempt to pick it apart. Kegler remains confident."

This is part of a long article that appeared
in the LA Times in the 90's.

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-12-15/magazine/tm-868_1_tom-dooley

"Dooley, an ambitious dreamer, soon had visions of parlaying any resulting publicity into a position as Navy surgeon general. And the Navy was prepared to distinguish his accounts with an official imprimatur. But they were not prepared to deal with the discovery that he was a homosexual.
That discovery, and the Navy's threats to expose or censure him, would turn Dooley into a frightened pawn of U.S. policy-makers who were laying the groundwork for U.S. military involvement in Vietnam. Together, the Navy and Tom Dooley would create a great American hero--and a great American deception."

"Dooley provided a compelling catalogue of horrors. But, as U.S. officials knew early on, the horrors were completely unsubstantiated. None of Dooley's correspondence, official or personal, describes the atrocities, that, in his book, he attributes to the communists. There are no corroborating accounts in the war diaries kept by Navy commanders nor in anything Dooley wrote during the operation. The many letters he had mailed home from Haiphong describe dismal conditions to be expected as a consequence of a protracted war--squalor, disease and battle-related injuries. But there was no mention of atrocities, says Lederer, who now lives in Peacham, Vt., because "those things never happened. The atrocities he described in his books either never took place or were committed by the French. I traveled all over the country and never saw anything like them."

"Much of Dooley's Vientiane clinic project was a sham. Dooley's assistants were untrained and unqualified to give him the kind of help he would need to operate a legitimate clinic. His medicine chest was full of pills and elixirs that had been donated by Pfizer, a drug manufacturer, because they had expired and were no longer legal to sell in the United States. Yet feature stories in Life, Look, Newsweek and Time presented Dooley as an ideal role model in features titled "The Splendid American," "Do-it-Yourself Samaritan" and "The Schweitzer of Asia." (According to Ann Miller, Schweitzer was not flattered by the comparison. He considered Dooley a dilettante and a charlatan.)"

"Dennis Shepard, who spent several months with Dooley as a volunteer in Laos, remembers that Dooley would round up as many of his former patients as he could whenever potential sponsors came to tour the clinic, giving the impression that he had a full and active hospital. In fact, he handled few cases, and the hospital was largely empty. According to Shepard, Miller and others, local CIA officers came by often to find out if Dooley had picked up anything about the movement of Chinese troops. They also came, Shepard remembers Dooley telling him, to ensure that the weapons Dooley had brought up with his medical supplies were well-hidden and secure."
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
September 20th, 2017 at 12:54:36 AM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: FrGamble
I haven't heard his name mentioned in the documentary


Nor will you. Ken Burns knows Dooley was
a fraud, why would he say anything about
him. What makes me angry was the Lib
establishment at the time bought all his
crap hook line and sinker and made us
read his fake propaganda books. I had
nightmares about some of that stuff
that he made up, for years. I was way
to young for them to force me to read
trash like that,
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
September 20th, 2017 at 4:57:04 AM permalink
terapined
Member since: Aug 6, 2014
Threads: 73
Posts: 11786
Quote: FrGamble
As usual Bob's posts are full of exaggerations and falsehoods. .

No kidding


Seems like Ken Burns is blaming a lot of involvement on American politics
Kennedy needs to stand tough in Viet Nam or the communists will win and he cant get re-elected
Johnson needs to stand tough in Viet Nam or he is seen as weak Goldwater might win
I think the documentary puts too much emphasis American politics as the reason we stayed in Viet Nam
Sometimes we live no particular way but our own - Grateful Dead "Eyes of the World"
September 20th, 2017 at 6:24:50 AM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Quote: terapined
I think the documentary puts too much emphasis American politics as the reason we stayed in Viet Nam
American politics is the reason we got in and the reason we constantly escalated and the reason the war was conducted with pervasive deception of the Congress and the Press.

The Joint Chiefs felt they should play a role but Presidents were more easily dealing with their Secretary of Defense and career officers.

There was far too much that was not exposed in the Pentagon Papers.

A deathbed warning "don't ever get bogged down in a landwar in asia' and LBJ goes marching in.
McNamara counted bullets but Iggy counted bodies.

Even later in the war when we tried to knock out some darned bridge losing a lot of planes in the process and finally used some million dollar laser guided bomb, they rebuilt that bridge with mud and traffic resumed in three days. Or as one person quipped when the President said Bomb them Back into the Stone Age..."what if they are already there".

I realize that our esteemed Terapined is of a certain heritage that might make him interested in Asian Politics but Asian Politics was totally irrelevant to the war.
September 20th, 2017 at 6:30:59 AM permalink
Fleastiff
Member since: Oct 27, 2012
Threads: 62
Posts: 7831
Vietnamese politics is simple:

The South was a Catholic owned repressive regime that did not want to abide by the Geneva reunification decision. Its Army was full of doubters.
The North was a Communist led repressive regime that had far fewer doubters and tended to eliminate them.

The war produced coup and coup in the South and more and more viet cong sympathizers there. Sure it produced a lot of dead Viet Cong and dead North Vietnam Regulars but there is nothing cheaper in Asia than a human life so in essence the North never had any losses, only America did.

America was a paper tiger that shed real blood.