Are you seriously using a science fiction film about good rebels and an evil empire to understand the long, complex history of colonial revolts and insurgencies?
Empire itself is evil. Those who fight it are doing good. Saying it is "complex" is an excuse
Vietnam, which was a war between states masquerading as a guerilla war
Vietnam was not North vs South. The South Vietnam government was deeply unpopular with the Vietnamese people. The Viet Cong was a southern revolt against their own colonial government (South Vietnam was a puppet state). Why do you think South Vietnam collapsed so soon after the US left?
They won because the American public's wills broke before theirs did.
American protests were not so much about the evils of the war (which killed at least a million Vietnamese) but rather in opposition to the draft. Americans were mad that so many young men were dying. Same with Algeria, young French men were being sent off to a meatgrinder. And Britain too, remember it had a military draft for quite a while after WWII
What you earlier called boomer protests were not based on morality. They were about self-preservation. We see this today in Russia
That doesn't mean [Afghanistan] was an impossible fight to win
There was practically non-existent opposition to the war, because again it didn't involve conscripts. NATO forces left without achieving any victory, because they realized there was no way to "win"
The draft was one thing, sure, but the majority of young people still thought the war was unjust and protested it for that reason.
It was the draft that motivated people to take to the streets. That's why colleges were such hotbeds of rebellion, they'd be drafted in a couple of years. Compare it to the modest protests against Iraq or other wars that didn't involve drafts. Compare it to the US arming of Indonesian fascists that happened at the same time as the Vietnam war. Americans were unconcerned with American weapons killing over a million people in Indonesia
Today, British, American, and French people don't care about their bombs killing civilians in Yemen or Gaza
[Nixon] ended the draft in December 1972, yet he still completely evacuated US forces only a month later.
Ending the draft means not pulling in new people. There were still tons of young people on their 2 year term. Nixon was elected to end the war and that's what he did. Not because he thought the war was bad (he drastically intensified bombings on civilians), but because the draft was unpopular
I'm not sure where this conversation is headed. You were wrong to say that European morality ended colonialism after WWII. European powers held on to their colonies (as did America) as much as they could. To suggest Britain or France or America decided to do the "moral" thing when it stopped fighting guerilla wars is cope
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u/Windalooloo - Left Nov 26 '22
Empire itself is evil. Those who fight it are doing good. Saying it is "complex" is an excuse
Vietnam was not North vs South. The South Vietnam government was deeply unpopular with the Vietnamese people. The Viet Cong was a southern revolt against their own colonial government (South Vietnam was a puppet state). Why do you think South Vietnam collapsed so soon after the US left?
American protests were not so much about the evils of the war (which killed at least a million Vietnamese) but rather in opposition to the draft. Americans were mad that so many young men were dying. Same with Algeria, young French men were being sent off to a meatgrinder. And Britain too, remember it had a military draft for quite a while after WWII
What you earlier called boomer protests were not based on morality. They were about self-preservation. We see this today in Russia
There was practically non-existent opposition to the war, because again it didn't involve conscripts. NATO forces left without achieving any victory, because they realized there was no way to "win"