Arrogant? Racist? Normal??

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They can also get punched in the side of the head if they do things the others don't like.

 

I doubt it, given the way the Vietnam War was run by McNamara et al. They kept extensive reports of enemy casualties and war-gamed everything for a high body count, which lead chronic over-reporting of enemy deaths. The Errol Morrs doc "Fog of War" is entertaining on this...

 

Although McNamara kept (somewhat) accurate totals, he did not keep any records for Vietnam-to-Vietnam engagements. Quite frankly, the South Vietnamese inflicted many more casualties to the North than the US did. It would be impossible to accurately estimate the number of deaths because the Vietnamese (both North and South) did not keep accurate records.

I don't see how the statement shows disrespect -- it is a broad estimate because the data just isn't available for a more precise number.

 

I say this with having only skimmed the other posts:

It's one fact, then another. I have no idea how the statements are racist or arrogant. Since -- I assume -- the website has a focus on presenting American, or at least Western, history, it's reasonable that you should put the information regarding Americans first.

Really, I wonder if, had it been anyone but the Americans in the Vietnam War, we would be having this thread.

 

Fair enough guys...

This was just my personal interpretation, and I wanted to see what you all thought.

This thread has been very informative...

 

Quite possibly. My point is more to the effect that it's not unreasonable to do so, given the way it's written.

 

@Cúchulainn:

I hear you. I just hope no one on SP is seriously thinking about backing up the combat stress excuse. For his own sake.

But you can search the Alley for more and more such incidents. Myself, I've done a couple of collective posts.

That's because American is superhuman, English/Australian/Canadian is human, French/German is grudgingly human and the rest is subhuman.

Same way as some idiots called Iraq incidents "having sex with a detainee".

@Faraaz:

Most are, but not all. And you must remember that their governments' actions always have at least 40% public support (I'm pulling the number more or less out of sempiternam meam, but that's the typical division there: 40% for one presidential candidate, 40% for the other, 20% to fight for). It may not be universal, such attitude, but it can't be marginal.

@BTA:

The United Nations were against the invasion, first of all.

@joacqin:

Or gang raped. When they are 14 year old girls. And I'm using the plural because it wasn't an isolated incident. I've been making posts about those for a couple of years now.

@Dendri:

Yeah, that's how they talk about the lives taken. Wonder if gang rapes of little girls would be addressed the same way or if most people just pretended not to hear about that. When I hear justifications of gang rape of a little girl, I conclude that the journalist or whoever else the public speaker is, must either be an infinitely merciful being, or a complete chauvinist with a seriously disfigured perspective and a moon-sized hypocrisy problem.

@Fel:

I too think there probably wasn't any judgment being made while writing that. But it worries me sometimes how such things are not a matter of judgment, but one of perspective. Not the way they judge things but the way they see things. I suppose the article dealt with things from American perspective, so mentioning American casualties first came sort of natural. But they could have been more sensitive and I agree with a lot of points people make here, as you can read above.

@Oaz:

I think yes, but part of the issue is that any other comparable power on the world scene is not really claiming to be the paragon of democracy and human rights and practically chosen by God. Russia is sort-of-civilised but Tsar Vladimir isn't pretending to be a compulsive benefactor. China is, well, we know what. That leaves the US without much comparison and so the scale of operations is one of the biggest contributors to the way the problems that pop up are seen. This said, I still have the problem with many of the perspectives I've come across, all coming down to exceptionalism of some sort.

 

@Chev:

I was trying to give them the benefit of the doubt. I've come across quite a few such cases in the past, both in the US while I was visiting and over the last 3 years I've been living in Sydney so I know how that works.

Again...I really agree with what you've said here. In a way, its what I was trying to express...but you put it across a lot better than I did...

Eh..nice one!

 

That's precisely the point. You're labeling as "Western" history something that the US did in Southeast Asia - as far away from the "West" as you could get. I don't think it's racist, or intentionally arrogant, but I do agree with Faraaz that there is a certain stress on the first part of the statement - in other words the US casualties. And I disagree with Oaz - this way of presenting facts is not unique to the US. The facts are the same no matter how you present them of course, but the specific wording does influence what a casual reader would sense (maybe subconsciously) as being more important, or as being the centerpiece of the statement. While such attention to detail is unimportant in everyday statements, if you're making statements about history, you can't be objective and still stress on the fact relating to your country, and then append an "also" to the other. That's not objective history anymore.

 

It is both arrogant and racist, and we are talking about US, so it is also normal.

 

@Blackthorne TA: Maybe I am a little biased against US, but where does this bias come from? Doesn't it have any reasons? Or is the answer general behaviour of US?

 

Perhaps the article was a little lacking in a few details:

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

 

@BTA: You'll notice the thread title is "Arrogant? Racist? Normal??" and not just "Arrogant and Racist"...so yeah...I doubt that is me being unfairly biased...I was putting my opinion out there for review by all you guys.

@Da Rock: HOLY ****! 5 million civilian casualties?

 

Read it again; five million NVA/NLF casualties (I assume they mean 'fatalities').

Two to four million civilian dead in addition to that.

Actually, hold up. It says fifty thousand dead in Laos. Then it says five million dead in Laos. What gives?

Incidentally, the wiki page on the Vietnam War is, ah, rather lacking (any source which categorizes the Vietnam War as a conflict between communists and anti-communists is a source best taken with a grain of salt). Please don't rely on it.

 

There are arrogant and racist bastards everywhere, not just America.

 

Chile remembers 11 September for the US, but does the US even think about Chile's 11 September?

 

I'm willing to bet that if the US's and Chile's positions on the global scale were reversed, then no doubt you'd see a difference of memory.

That asides, do you speak for the Chilean people when you say that they remember September 11??

 

People from all around the world (even Iranians) had taken to the streets to show sympathy for the Americans during the tragedy.

Most Chileans do not hate the US (even president Bachelet, dispite the fact that she was tortured by Pinochet), however after 11 September 'x' amount of Americans wanted blood - anyones blood.