[extropy-chat] FWD (SK) Arming the Vietnamese communists [new subj]

[Terry W. Colvin]

Anyone have sources citing the origin of weapons used by the Viet Minh
during the Dien Bien Phu period?

Terry


--- "Terry W. Colvin" <fortean1 at mindspring.com> fnarded: 
       > Your comments ignore two indisputable facts:  First, the Viet
       > Cong/Viet Minh were a large popular resistance faction that was in
       > action a long time before the CHINESE (not the Soviets as you claim)
       > began to support them.  They effectively kicked the French out on
       > their own using the weapons that had been provided them to fight the
       > Japanese.

       While this is a popular lie promulgated among the left, the truth is
       markedly different. Anyone who knows anything about Dien Bien Phu knows
       that the artillery and anti-aircraft weaponry, both of immense and
       crucial importance in the NVA victory over the French there, were NOT
       of western manufacture, they were specifically Soviet made weapons, as
       were most infantry weapons used even then. There was a very good
       documentary this past weekend on the military channel covering the CIA
       front, Civil Air Transport (predecessor to Air America) and its
       involvement in supplying French forces at Dien Bien Phu. They had
       extensive interviews with Vietnamese soldiers and officers and NVA film
       archive footage.

 
Anyone who begins a paragraph with the words "This is a popular lie promulgated
by..." anyone needs to come up with better documentation than a right-wing organ
like the military channel.  The last program I saw on that crackpot channel had
the idiot whacko Boykin showing an actual photograph of a demon from hell flying
over Mogadishu.  Haven't been back since.
 
Since you purport to know so much about it, kindly tell us specifically what 
these "specifically Soviet made weapons" were.  Since of course I can provide
upon request photographic documentation that the artillery was primarily 105mm,
of essentially the same type used by US Airborne troops through the 1970s,
you're 
going to have an uphill battle establishing their Soviet manufacture.  Same is
true of the M-1 Carbines you see the Viet Minh carrying in the famous photos.
Naturally, since Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity tell you you have to believe the
Soviets were behind everything that went wrong with your rightwing universe, it
won't change your mind, but the rest of the list will find it interesting to
watch you scrounge for
specifics.

Ed


-- 
"Only a zit on the wart on the heinie of progress." Copyright 1992, Frank Rice


Terry W. Colvin, Sierra Vista, Arizona (USA) < fortean1 at mindspring.com >
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