although all the stuff on here about GI revolts is really interesting and important information, was it the major factor in the US pulling out of vietnam? is seems like the US knew they were never going to win, and were just happy to blow up vietnam instead
Sep 4 2013 03:56
Sep 4 2013 04:54
i meant win as in destroy the peasant based NLF in the south, and so continue controlling south vietnam , as happened in a similar situation in el salvador
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Salvador_Civil_War
but as you point out they sort of did win ain a way, even though they were humiliated
my question was basically , did the GI mutinies stop the war?
Sep 4 2013 13:38
The GI mutinies made the ground war into a basically unworkable mire though I suppose the air war could of probably continued indefinitely.
I think that the GI mutinies, probably more than any other working-class rebellion at the time, really scared the shit out of the U.S. elite. I think its an important point to bring up next time you're talking to a protester from that generation who is insisting they stopped the war by bumblefucking about in a sub-culture. Tell em' to piss off.
Sep 4 2013 13:54
bozemananarchy wrote:
The GI mutinies made the ground war into a basically unworkable mire though I suppose the air war could of probably continued indefinitely.I think that the GI mutinies, probably more than any other working-class rebellion at the time, really scared the shit out of the U.S. elite. I think its an important point to bring up next time you're talking to a protester from that generation who is insisting they stopped the war by bumblefucking about in a sub-culture. Tell em' to piss off.
Yes, it's certainly interesting and revealing how the largely impotent domestic anti-war movement is a staple of mainstream depictions of the 60s in the US, but the mass soldier mutinies have been virtually erased from the pages of American history.
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What did it really mean for the US government to "win" in that situation? Even if it lost its client state in South Vietnam, it did demonstrate quite vividly what would happen if those nearby states that had much more valuable markets (e.g. Indonesia) tried to block off the access of American capital via nationalization.