Talk:Vietnam War

Spain?

Hello,

I've seen that Spain was added as supporter on the side of the anti-communist forces and the note says: "Spain sent a medical team to Co Gong Province in 1965." with this source: http://www.history.army.mil/books/Vietnam/allied/

The same source also says that the following countries sent medical teams to Vietnam: Japan, Iran, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Canada

Should they be added? Else Spain should also be removed.

What do you think?

Best Regards

91.45.24.67 (talk) 15:39, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

If it's a source and it says these countires were there too, yep they should be added.Slatersteven (talk) 10:24, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Hi,

can someone add them? The article is protected, so I can't.

Thanks and Regards

91.45.19.196 (talk) 22:13, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Viet Cong founded

I don't have a problem, with this edit, but it not true that the Vietcong was founded in 1960. The first citation for this word in OED is dated 1957. The thing has to exist before there can be a word for it. The Vietcong leaders traced the origin of the group to the Saigon-Cholon Peace Committee, which was founded in 1954. The group did change its name in 1960, but it also changed its name on several other occasions. Kauffner (talk) 15:26, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

AFAIK, there were anti-Diem resistance forces since day one of the partition. I think a source of confusion is the fact that the name "Viet-Cong" for these forces predates the founding of the National Liberation Front in 1959 or 1960. AFAIK, the National Liberation Front was new in that it was a common front meant to gather all resistance to the South Vietnam government, not just communists (though still under the command of the Vietnamese Communist Party). But IIRC there was non-communists fighting alongside the communists against Diem even before that (some religious group whose name escapes me at the moment that had its own militia) so the situation is a bit confusing.--Sus scrofa (talk) 15:55, 7 November 2012 (UTC)

North Korea in support role

This is arguing more techical lines than anything. Should North Korea be counted as taking direct action rather than support? Because there is evidence that the NKAF took direct action against allied forces.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.24.73 (talk • contribs)

Could you provide an example and a source for this?--Sus scrofa (talk) 10:34, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Right on the page of nation who took sides, it clearly says North Korean sent 200 pilots with fight squads and AA crews in North Vietnam. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.12.24.73 (talk) 14:47, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, I should of course had checked the article first, before asking for sources. You are correct and I'll change NK from "supported" to "active" momentarily.--Sus scrofa (talk) 17:03, 23 December 2012 (UTC)

Edit war

OK take this to ANI or another notice board. If the pair of you (Mig an Times) don't resolve this I will report it to ANI.Slatersteven (talk) 16:00, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

If I understand the dispute correctly, the main problem is with this sentence:

"In the north, the Viet Minh ruled as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and engaged in a drastic land reform program in which more than 100,000 perceived "class enemies" were executed.[94][95][96]"

and subsequent information. Unfortunately, this text is based mostly on non-peer-reviewed sources. I would recommend to look at three articles:

1. D. Gareth Porter, The Myth of the Bloodbath: North Vietnam's Land Reform Reconsidered (Ithaca Cornell University IREA Project, 1972). A shorter but more reliable version of this paper was published in The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars, Vol. V, No. 2, September 1973, pp. 2-15.
2. Edwin E. Moise. Land Reform and Land Reform Errors in North Vietnam. Pacific Affairs, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 70-92.
3. Balazs Szalontai. Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955–56, Cold War History, vol 11, no 2, May 2005, pp. 155-195.

These sources are top quality reliable sources, and the information from them would allow us to resolve the dispute.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:44, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

PS. I re-wrote the disputed paragraph using the sources listed above and Margolin's chapter from the Black Book of Communism. I removed odd web sites, Cold war era sources, and conservative sources (such as Hoover Institution). In my opinion, the sources used by me are best quality reliable secondary sources that reflect contemporary mainstream viewpoint. I hope that will stop the edit war.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:17, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

I am puzzled with this revert, especially with the edit summary ("There needs to some discussion on the talk page Siebert, before such drastic changes to the paragraph like these can be done.") If discussion is needed, why didn't Stumink join the discussion I started. In particular, it would be interesting to see the reason why best quality peer-reviewed secondary sources appeared to be replaced back with highly questionable and obsolete non-peer-reviewed sources. I am waiting for explanations, otherwise I'll restore my edits.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:57, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

The normal figure for land reform is in hundreds of thousands and is common and reliably sourced. You cannot just completely remove all mention of this range of figures and only mention some incredibly low figure. Why is this mathematician Edwin E. Moise's 5,000 figure more reliable than all the other estimates from University professors, analysts or defectors etc. Also you say you removed cold war era sources but two of the sources above mentioned are from the 70's. Stumink (talk) 01:58, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

We should mention the range of figures.Slatersteven (talk) 11:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

A range could work. Stumink (talk) 12:02, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Let's review some of the evidence for mass killings.

• According to Lam Thanh Liem, a major authority on land issues in Vietnam: "Vo Nhan Tri, at the request of the Hanoi government, wrote a book, Croissance économique de la Répubique démocratique du Vietnam (Economic Growth in the Democratic Republic of Vietnam). Having been given this task, the author was allowed to access the documents in the Prime Minister’s archives, where he "found and read a top-secret report on the number of communist cadres falsely accused and executed: 15,000." Ho Chí Minh, in an attempt to hide the truth, reduced this number to 10,000 when he addressed an assembly of Party members, confessing to having killed a number of “innocent victims." "Of course, this number of so-called ‘innocent victims’ would be much greater," according to Vo Nhan Trí.

In South Vietnam, Nguyen Van Canh, a former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Information and Amnesty (1969-70), sought an answer to this problem by interviewing returnees from Chieu Hoi programs and interrogating POWs, including communist cadres, soldiers, and officers from the North. These interviews and interrogations produced a great deal of valuable and reliable information. Ultimately Nguyen Van Canh was able to generate an estimate of 200,000 victims, which he divided into 2 main categories:

— 100,000 accused and murdered during the period before 1955, excluding another 40,000 victims who were sent to various concentration camps in the mountain areas. Here most of them died of malaria or other epidemic diseases.

— 100,000 killed during phase 5, the last phase of the reform campaign, known as the Dien Bien Phu General Offensive, which ended in summer 1956. Thousands of others, most of them rich farmers and land owners, were sent to concentration camps for "reeducation."

Of more than 200,000 victims executed, 40,000 (20%) were communist cadres, according to Nguyen Van Canh."

• Liem also notes: "According to official statistics, the outcome of the land reform was an award of more than 800,000 hectares of land and rice paddies, plus 100,000 cows and water buffalo, redistributed to 2 million farmers. Nearly 150,000 houses and huts were allocated to new occupants. These estates had been in the possession of people classified as "indigenous oppressors, reactionaries, or traitorous elements." These figures are quite significant in relation to the number of murdered victims. Another estimate for the period 1952-6 was about 150,000 executed."
• According to RFA: "More than 172,000 people died during the North Vietnam campaign after being classified as landowners and wealthy farmers, official records of the time show."
• According to Anita Lauve Nutt and Gerard Tongas, 10 people per village were designated as guilty in advance.
• "To set [the] ratio at 5.68 percent of the population as landowners is ‘far too high to compare with the actual situation,’" according to an official publication, The History of the Vietnamese Economy, Vol. 2, edited by Dang Phong of the Institute of Economy, Vietnamese Institute of Social Sciences, and published in 2005. The book describes eight phases of mass mobilizing and five phases of land reform launched in 3,314 communes with a total population of 10 million. It says 700,000 hectares were confiscated from landowners and distributed to about 4 million farmers: a total of 44.6 percent of total cultivated land.
• PaulSiebert has some nerve to attack serious historians like Robert F. Turner for being conservative, while citing actual communist genocide deniers in his rebuttal. Still, even some left-wing experts, like Douglas Pike, have acknowledged a death toll in six digits.

What is PaulSiebert's evidence that this massacre never took place? After all, dissident publications, communist defectors, and foreign witnesses are all in agreement as to what occurred. In short, PaulSiebert is attempting to combat reality with official reality:

• Gareth Porter is a communist genocide denier who praised and enthusiastically supported both the North Vietnamese communists and the Khmer Rouge. If he is accepted as a credible source in this instance, then we must also accept his "estimate" that the Khmer Rouge killed a few thousand people. I have read Porter's denial propaganda (the Stalinist crank Grover Furr posted it online), and--like Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution--it relies almost exclusively on communist sources (such as Nhan Dan newspaper) to challenge the claims of a bloodbath. Porter also denied the Hue Massacre and called Hoang Van Chi a CIA agent for accepting a grant from the Congress for Cultural Freedom. He could barely speak the language he was accusing others of mistranslating.
• Edwin E. Moise relied on official sources such as the Communist Party newspaper. These sources, he wrote, were "extremely informative" and showed "a fairly high level of honesty" (Moise, "Land Reform and Land Reform Errors in North Vietnam," Pacific Affairs, Spring 1976, pp70-92). His approach – comparable to writing a study of Soviet crimes based on reports in Pravda–resulted in massive blunders such as denying the Chinese role in the land reform. (On the Chinese role, see Qiang Zhai, China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950-1975, University of North Carolina Press, 2000.)

This is what passes for scholarship on the "anti-imperialist" left.

• Finally, there is MiG29VN, who persists in adding large chunks of material selectively copied from other Wikipedia articles while refusing discussion, and who I will soon revert. Please read Nutt's article for a thorough debunking of MiG's main argument.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:24, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

If you think, the sources are unreliable raise it at RSN.Slatersteven (talk) 14:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I'll note that MiG has continued to make large changes without engaging in discussion. Regarding the reliability of Moise and Porter: Porter has no training as a historian and no expertise on Vietnam. However, the more important point is notability. Moise might technically be a reliable source, and he does not hide the fact that he relies on official communist sources; he actually defends this practice. However, I'm not convinced that his views are particularly notable, much less that they supersede all other sources entirely.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:20, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

And it appears that others disagree, take it to appropriate notice boards. No one has a right to state that a source is wrong.Slatersteven (talk) 15:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

"supersede all other sources entirely" - Remember, I didn't remove any TheTimesAreAChanging's source. The reader will decide to belive who's source. May be you don't belive them, but you haven't authority to remove valid sources (sorry i can not speak Eng good)MiG29VN (talk) 15:43, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

No one owns a page, and no one user has a right to determine what are and are not acceptable sources. I have asked you both to stop editing and one has refused by actions and one by words, I have now reported this to ANI.Slatersteven (talk) 15:47, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

"No one owns a page, and no one user has a right to determine what are and are not acceptable sources" - I agree, and i will stop if TheTimesAreAChanging will not remove my valid sourceMiG29VN (talk) 15:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Stumink writes: "The normal figure for land reform is in hundreds of thousands and is common and reliably sourced." I would like to see those sources, because the source provided by me (Moise) say that

"Most accounts published in the West have described the land reform as a bloodbath, though there has been a great range of estimates of the number of people killed. The highest, by Richard Nixon, is that 500,000 were executed and another 500,000 died in slave labor camps. What might be called a "standard" estimate, by Bernard Fall, was that about 50,000 were executed."

In other words, we have an authoritative opinion (I believe noone doubts the article published in peer-reviewed scholarly journal is a top quality reliable source) that 50,000 was a standard estimate by 1976 (the date of publication). BTW, the same figure is provided by Margolin (who, along with Werth, is considered the best contributor to the Black Book of Communism). The same figure is reproduced by Szalontai (see above). All those sources are good quality reliable sources, and all of them (except Margolin) have been vetted by scholarly community. In addition, we have a good article authored by Porter, whose conclusions are supported by Moise and Szalontai, and who confirm that the most plausible number of executions was below 10,000.

In connection to that, let's compare these sources with the sources the article is currently based on.

1. Rummel's personal web site
2. Turner's old book published by Hoover Institution, which is known to be "influential in the American conservative and libertarian movements." (i.e. politically non-neutral)
3. RAND corporation (non-peer-revieved) report. This organisation is financed by the US government and it is hardly neutral.
4. Radio Free Asia article. The radio station was founded by the US Congress, its publications may reflect (or be affected by) US official viewpoint, and they are not peer-reviewed.
5. Rosefielde is a good scholar, but he is a specialist in Soviet history[1]. His data on Vietnam seem to be taken from publications of others.
6. Documents prepared for the US government (from [2]). A non-peer-revieved publication that seem to reflect US viewpoint.
7. Turner's article in American conservative magazine.
8. Lam Thanh Liem's opinion (I would like to see the same opinion in some peer-reviewed publication, or to see neutral review on Lam Thanh Liem himself).
9. Rummel's personal web site again.
10. An article from the popular magazine Life - hardly too reliable.
11. Porter's article (meets RS criteria)
12. Christine Pelzer White's book (meets RS criteria)

In connection to that, I have to ask three questions:

1. Why the claims about 100,000+ executions are supported mostly by popular magazines, politically biased publications of the sources having more or less tight connection to the US government or Congress?

2. Why really good sources provided by me appeared to be removed?

3. Why criticism of Porter is added to the article, whereas two articles that provide strong support for his thesis have been deleted (that seems to be especially weird taking into account that the article supporting Porter were published in scholarly journals, whereas the criticism was published in the magazine having a bias towards a right side of opinia spectrum)?

Regarding the sources provided by me, TheTimesAreAChanging argued "However, I'm not convinced that his views are particularly notable, much less that they supersede all other sources entirely". Firstly, the very fact that these sources are peer-reviewed publications implies notability. Secondly, Porter's conclusion was supported at least by two independent peer-reviewed publications (one of them is very recent). Thirdly, these sources are arguably the only peer reviewed sources used in this sections: other sources are garbage as compared to them. However, if you disagree, you may ask the same question at WP:RSN.

Regarding usage of Communist data, that argument is weak: we cannot decide by ourselves which methodology is correct or not. If you have any reliable good quality source that criticises Moise or Szalontai, please, present them, otherwise, your argument is totally unsupported. I would say the opposite: the US official sources are much less reliable, because the US were a party in the war, and they needed some arguments to justify their intervention. In contrast, classified Communist sources, which were not intended to be used for propaganda purposes, are much more trustworthy, simply because NV authorities needed to know a real picture.

And, last but not least, I strongly object against providing a range of estimates from various sources, because the data from good quality publications have much more weight than questionable or biased sources.

Please, address this criticism properly, otherwise I'll have to restore my edits.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

PS Re "The reader will decide to belive who's source." It is incorrect. We are not doing our job well if a reader has to decide which data are more trustworthy. Out policy requires us to indicate the relative prominence of opposing views. --Paul Siebert (talk) 19:13, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, classified communist sources state that 6% of the North Vietnamese population was targeted for persecution, that quotas for killings were set in advance, that 172,000 people were executed, and that roughly the same number of houses were given to new occupants. This is supported by foreign witnesses, communist defectors, and dissident publications. Porter and Moise relied on propaganda in official communist party newspapers, a novel approach that also led Porter to deny the Cambodian genocide and Moise to deny the Chinese role in the land reform. Are you intentionally lying? Or did you just skim what I wrote? Fall's conservative estimate was by far the lowest common at the time and referred only to executions (not camps, slave labor, suppression of rebellions, or famine), and Turner's "old" book came out after some of the sources you are citing.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:44, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Before noticing the edit war about NV executions, and I had no idea about their scale (so you may assume I was unbiased: it was equally ready to learn 1,000, 100,000 or 1,000,000 were executed). To familiarise myself with the subject, I did simple things: (i) I opened google scholar; (ii) in the dialogue box, I typed "north vietnam" "land reform" executions and (iii) I looked at the sources published in peer-reviewed journals. The results were as follows:

Moise's article was first in this list. The next relevant article (#4 in the list) was Gavin W. Jones (Population Trends and Policies in Vietnam. Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 783-810 ) it says:

"According to Fall, probably close to 50,000 North Vietnamese were executed in connection with the land reform, and at least twice as many were arrested and sent to forced-labor camps: Bernard B. Fall, The Two Vietnams: A Political and Military Analysis (London: Pall Mall Press, 2nd rev. ed., 1967), p. 156. A more recent analysis, however, concludes that executions could not have been above 2,500 and may have been as low as 800; excesses were the imprisonment of the inno- cent and the unjust distribution of property and bureaucratic status"

(you can see the same figures: 50,000 earlier estimates and less the 2,500 according to the newer data).

The next relevant reference was Porter (my university has no subscription for The Washington Quarterly, so I skipped J Desbarats, KD Jackson's article).

The next relevant article in the list was Szalontai.

As you can see, the procedure I used to select sources was absolutely neutral and transparent. Gscholar gave me no references to Life or politically biased sources, and it would be quite natural to use the above listed sources. In contrast, I have no idea about the procedure you used to find sources, and I have some reason to suspect that procedure is far from perfect, so the set of sources you rely upon is very biased (that they are of questionable quality is obvious). In future, try to avoid throwing accusations you cannot support.--Paul Siebert (talk) 22:05, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Paul Siebert: This is the second time you have alleged that one of the bloodbath sources includes Life. Please stop repeating this false claim. The initial edit war was caused by me repeatedly deleting the reference to Life. If we are in agreement, I will gladly attempt to remove it again. Moise and Porter might be the two references that came up first for you, but to suggest that they are "non-political" is an absurdity. (On Porter’s record as a communist propagandist, see Stephen J. Morris, "Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot and Cornell," The National Interest, Summer 1989, pp56-60.) Porter based his estimate of 2,500 executions on propaganda in communist party newspapapers and concluded with a paean to the Vietnamese communist revolution! That Moise wrote after 1967 does not make him the most recent, up-to-date, irrefutable source. (In fact, new information about the land reform has come out of Vietnam since the 1990s.) Both Moise and Porter wrote as anti-war activists intent on promoting the North Vietnamese cause. Porter had no historical training, no experience with Vietnam, could barely speak Vietnamese, and relied entirely on communist party propaganda: He only gained prominence by telling many people on the far left exactly what they wanted to hear! We now know that the Chinese were heavily involved in the land reform, contrary to Moise's out-of-date scholarship with its massive blunders. I assume you agree with Porter's arguments in Cambodia: Starvation and Revolution and "The Myth of the Hue Massacre"?TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

BTW, this "more recent analysis" by Gareth Porter was written in 1973. So let's keep that in mind whenever Paul Siebert claims that Robert F. Turner's Vietnamese Communism (1975), or any of the other bloodbath sources, is "too old." Almost all of the bloodbath sources are actually more recent.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 00:28, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

(Sigh) I thought you would at least apologise...

I did not allege that the bloodbath source was Life, my point was that Life, along with other sources listed by me, is hardly as reliable as the sources added by me.

Regarding Stephen J. Morris, his article seems to be almost ignored by scholarly community. The only good source discussing him (B Kiernan, Bringing the Khmer rouge to justice - Human Rights Review, 2000, p. 92-108) says the following:

"The Wall Street Journal attack on the CGP was begun by Stephen J. Morris, who had met Julio Jeldres in Bangkok a decade earlier.49 Throughout the 1980s, Morris, like Jeldres and Bunroeun Thach, devoted himself to political activism in support of Cambodian factions who were allied to the communist Khmer Rouge, but whom Morris praised as “anti-communist.” In 1989, Morris complained that the democratic government of Thailand was selling out the Khmer Rouge. “It has now gone so far that Thai commanders have provided Phnom Penh’s artillery commanders with precise intelligence on the location of Khmer Rouge units.”50 In the winter of 1990, Morris addressed a meeting of Cambodians in Brighton, Massachusetts. According to witnesses, Morris “took the floor and in an impassioned speech warned Cambodians in the room that they should not do anything that would appear to support the Vietnamese backed government of Cambodia, including bringing attention to Khmer Rouge atrocities. He did not support a trial of the Khmer Rouge and attributed his inside information about the Cambodian situation to having dined with Khmer Rouge leaders.” Morris wrote, “The real Khmer Rouge military aim...is to force Phnom Penh to accept a comprehensive political settlement such as the UN peace plan.”"

"Morris had once described Cornell University’s Southeast Asia Program (America’s most distinguished such institution) as “a comfortable milieu for those fond of totalitarian dictatorship.” Morris attacked Heder, a former Cornell student, for his “pro-Khmer Rouge views” and for “propounding the moral virtue” of communism (Stephen J. Morris, “Ho Chi Minh, Pol Pot, and Cornell,” National Interest (Summer 1989): 60). But in 1995, Morris shamelessly recommended Heder as one of a team he suggested should have been awarded the State Department grant that I received to document the crimes of the Khmer Rouge (Asian Wall Street Journal, April 17, 1995)."

"This close look at the failed efforts to impede the task of the CGP enables us to see firsthand how denial and suppression of information about genocide work. Both the creation of historical memory and its erasure depend upon contemporary politics as much as history itself. Bunroeun Thach, Julio Jeldres, Stephen Morris, Congressional Republicans, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page all considered their own political agenda more important than documenting the crimes of the Khmer Rouge and bringing the criminals to trial for genocide. This agenda reflected the anti-Soviet alliance between the United States and China during the later stages of the Cold War, an alliance which often brought together conservative anti-communists and Maoist radicals."

Therefore, I doubt such author as Morris can be considered as devoid of strong political (especially, anti-Vietnam) bias.

And, more importantly, you seem to totally ignore my major thesis: the sources provided by me are the only sources that meet all best quality secondary sources criteria. In contrast, you provide mostly your speculations. I suggest you to stop and accept reality: the viewpoint you defend contradicts to what good reliable sources say.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:52, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Re "Almost all of the bloodbath sources are actually more recent." Probably, but you provided no references to recent peer-reviewed publications on that subject (RAND reports, conservative journals or state sponsored radio stations do not count). In addition, all "more recent" sources just cite old data. I would like to see fresh studies devoted to that issue. So far, I am aware only of one 2011 publication in Cold War Studies (cited above) on that subject. In the introduction, the author lists three scholars who made major contribution into the studies of negative effects of early North Vietnamese domestic policies. They are Edwin E. Moise, Georges Boudarel, Neil L. Jamieson. He also summarised our knowledge about the scale of executions (I already described that). I have no reason to suspect this description of the state of our knowledge is unadequate, and we have no reason to add some dubious sources and authors to that (especially if they make some outstanding claims). A bloodbath theory is outdated, and it is not supported by serious scholars any more. I think we can stop our dispute (unless you come out with some fresh peer-reviewed publication that refutes the Cold War Studies article.

Again, if you disagree, please, go to WP:RSN.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:06, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

No, you'll have to go to RSN to remove all of the sources that don't shamelessly regurgitate communist propaganda. I don't think pro-communist Porter, writing for the communist-leaning "Bulletin of Concerned Asia Scholars" while advocating for the Viet Cong, with no historical training, no experience with Vietnam, little ability to speak Vietnamese, and no independent sources, is more reliable than every other source. Nor do I think Porter is a “serious scholar”! We may as well quote Moise, and make clear that communist party newspapers are his source of information, since he insists that they are more reliable than Western accounts, yes? I’m not sure why you quoted Kiernan's libelous personal attack on Morris. You do know that Kiernan, like Porter, originally enthusiastically praised and supported the Khmer Rouge, right? Your "scholarly" kin attempted to sweep the Cambodian genocide under the rug, just like the land reform, before suddenly, abruptly, and dramatically rewriting the "Khmer Rouge canon" in 1979. Kiernan is still trying to minimize his past sins through wishful thinking.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 01:48, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Please, remember that currently my sources appeared to be removed. However, if you want, let's go that way. Could you please do me a favor: please, list the sources that you believe are reliable, mainstream and relevant to this issue. I would like to make sure I fully understand what your opinion is based on.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:01, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I thought you were in favor of replacing all of the currently used sources with the three you listed at the beginning of this discussion. Was that an incorrect assumption? If you instead agree with Slatersteven's suggestion that we briefly describe the range of estimates, then we could trim the text and add your sources in place of MiG's. We would need to compromise on what estimates to use and how to describe what the sources say. The main difference between Moise/Porter, and the other sources, is that Moise and Porter tend to believe what the North Vietnamese newspapers have to say. I think that distinction should be stated frankly. However, you seemed to imply that everone from Morris to Rosefielde to Liem to Turner to Pike to Rummel is a CIA-sponsored Cold War era anticommunist reactionary. If that is your view, then compromise is not possible and you will need to disqualify these sources at RSN.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:34, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I am certain the sources such as Rummel's personal web site or Life should be removed. With regard to others, most of them are either obsolete or politically biased. In a situation when we have reliable secondary sources that explain what was a "standard estimate" during 1960s-70s, and which figures are currently accepted as most plausible, to provide a range, where Cold war era data are combined with newer estimates, would be unacceptable and redundant original research. I still cannot understand what reliable sources the alternative figures are based on: the only more or less reliable source is Rosefielde, but I already explained the problems with him. Therefore, I think it is premature to speak about any compromises: show your sources (I mean, really good sources), and then we can speak about compromises.

You write: "I thought you were in favor of replacing all of the currently used sources with the three you listed at the beginning of this discussion." Actually, this text listed five good quality sources. To that, I would add Gavin W. Jones (Population Trends and Policies in Vietnam. Population and Development Review, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1982), pp. 783-810 ), so I am not sure don't fully understand you. Six sources (plus, probably, Rosefielde) would be pretty sufficient. However, if you have really good sources that express alternative opinion, please, provide them.

To avoid misunderstanding, let me clarify that I do not "imply that everone from Morris to Rosefielde to Liem to Turner to Pike to Rummel is a CIA-sponsored Cold War era anticommunist reactionary." Each of them has his own issues. Rummel is a libertarian who is known to provide inflated figures. Morris seems to be politically biased. Turner's publication is hardly peer-reviewed (and seems to be ignored by scholarly community), RAND corporation or Free Asia radio are government sponsored, and so on. However, if you disagree with that, let's continue this discussion at WP:RSN, the only think I would like you to do is to create a list of sources that you believe are really good mainstream sources (I don't want to waste our time discussing garbage sources).--Paul Siebert (talk) 03:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I would not add Jones, because he is just mentioning what Fall and Porter say. We would be better off citing them directly. You have attacked Turner's book for being published by Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and for being written in 1975. But Turner clearly has far more experience and knowledge of Vietnam than Porter (1972), and far less political bias. Porter's book is pure trash: He notes that communist newspapers deny the atrocities, takes them at face value, and concludes with a paean to the Vietnamese communist revolution! Again, I presume you agree with Porter that the Cambodian genocide was simply "a myth fostered primarily by the authors of a Reader's Digest book"? Porter could barely speak the language he was accusing others of mistranslating!

The History of the Vietnamese Economy, Vol. 2, edited by Dang Phong of the Institute of Economy, Vietnamese Institute of Social Sciences, and published in 2005, states that 6% of the population was targeted for persecution. If even a small fraction of them were executed, we would easily have over 100,000 dead. What do you think happened to the 150,000 people who lost all their property and mysteriously disappeared? Why is there not a single foreign witness who disputes the claims of a bloodbath? I think all of the bloodbath sources are more reliable than Porter. We could add Hoang Van Chi's book and his response to Porter (where he demonstrates the dangers of amateur translation), but I'm sure you'll object to them, too. And it goes without saying that witnesses like Tongas wrote before deniers like Porter. So, yes, you should probably try to disqualify all of the sources you don't like at RSN.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 12:30, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Jones does not cite Fall or Porter. He refers to Frances FitzGerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), pp. 299-300. The author who cites Porter and Moise is James P. Harrison (The Endless War: Vietnam's Struggle for Independence. Columbia University Press, 1982, ISBN 023106909X, 9780231069090, p. 149). However, if we agree not to use the sources that just mention what other secondary sources say, then Rosefielde should also be removed: being a specialist in Soviet Russia he didn't do his own studies of Vietnam. Similarly, Margolin just reproduces what other sources say.

I didn't attack Turner, I just pointed your attention that his book was published by the publisher having some political bias. If he is a good and unbiased author, he probably published some of his works in some politically unbiased scholarly journal or university press. However, another his work was published in Human Events magazine, which is also politically biased. Can you provide a fre to his work published in some politically neutral journal? In that case I would support its usage in the article.

Regarding Dang Phong, all of that have too many "ifs". The fact that considerable part of population was affected by the reform does not imply any concrete number of executions. That is purely your speculations. Regarding "150,000 people who lost all their property and mysteriously disappeared", do you know what was life expectancy in NV during that time? If it was similar to that in rural China (ca 30-35 years), the very fact that 6% of population (i.e. 0.06*16,000,000≈1,000,000) was persecuted means that non-coercive deaths of persecuted population would amount hundred of thousand even if we assume that mortality rates for them were the same as for remaining population. Of course, that is just my speculation, and I by no means propose to add that to the article. The only reason I presented them is to demonstrate falseness of your attempts to connect the scale of persecutions with the scale of executions.

BTW, I am still waiting for the list of sources you believe are reliable. Do you imply Porter and Dand Phong are the only sources you propose to use here?--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:03, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Spencer Tucker, Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War (ABC-CLIO, single volume from 2001) states on pg. 1,243 that up to 100,000 "landlords" were executed. I would use either Nutt or Turner along with Porter's book--Porter is far more politically biased than either of them, and they challenge his arguments. I've already said that we could use Moise. I would also consider using Liem for a Vietnamese perspective.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:05, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War is a tertiary source that reproduces what others say. We should rely on secondary sources when possible. Regarding Nutt or Turner, could you be more specific? Can you please provide concrete references?--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:29, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

I was referring to the work by Nutt and Turner already cited in the article, because I am still not convinced by your assertion that they are unacceptable sources. Porter's book is a pseudo-scholarly polemic based on propaganda--just like Cambodia Starvation and Revolution. You are trying to discredit Nutt and Turner by their associations with the RAND corporation and Hoover institution (respectively), but neither of them ever argued that the Cambodian genocide was simply "a myth fostered primarily by the authors of a Reader's Digest book." When Porter made that claim before Congress, one Senator present correctly compared him to neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers. I guess the Cambodian state propaganda wasn't as "extremely informative" as its counterpart in Vietnam.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 23:42, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

We are discussing not people, but sources. The argument "this author denied genocide in Cambodia, therefore his work about Vietnam is wrong" does not work. We discuss sources based on their own merit, and Porter's work on Vietnam meets all RS criteria. I can admit his methodology worked poorly in Cambodian case, so his conclusions about KR were wrong, however, that is not a reason to reject all his writings. His conclusion about Vietnam have been used by many authors, and, importantly, they were confirmed independently. That is sufficient to trust it. BTW, during KR rule, the US tacitly supported them, despite the fact that their genocidal nature was obvious, simply because KR had anti Vietnamese and anti-Soviet orientation.

RAND corporation is a US government funded organisation that works for US Army. During the time when Nutt was preparing her report, this army was directly engaged in hostilities against NV. Without any doubts, that had significant impact on the overall tone and conclusions of the report. Interestingly, modern scholars seem not to trust this report.

Regarding Turner, I found only two relevant publication in gscholar: ROBERT F. TURNER. Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate World Affairs, Vol. 149, No. 1 (SUMMER 1986), pp. 35-47. In this article, he simply reproduces the thesis from his 1975 book. The second publication is Robert F. Turner. Myths of the Vietnam War: The Pentagon Papers Reconsidered. Southeast Asian Perspectives, No. 7 (Sep., 1972), pp. i-iv, 1-55. In this article he contends:

"Although no official figures were made public, the best estimates are that about fifty thousand people were executed, and several hundred thousands more died as a result of the "policy of isolation."

He further discloses the source of this information:

"The most extensive study of the land reform was made by Hoang Van Chi, a former Viet Minh official who lived in North Vietnam during most of the period. He concluded that during the program, "half a million Vietnamese (four percent of the population of North Vietnam) were sacrificed." Chi, op. cit., p. 72. The present author has interviewed a number of individuals who were involved in the campaign-including some "people's court" judges - and believes Chi's estimates to be accurate."

Therefore, his estimate adds nothing new (the figure of 50,000 has already been cited by me). Regarding his hearsay evidences, do not forget that Turner was in Vietnam as a US army officer, so the information he obtained could be significantly affected by his status. I doubt Turner, who himself wrote "After nearly a decade of daily involvement with Vietnam, I left that country during the April 1975 evacuation with a deep sense of anger and dishonor" (Turner 1986) can be considered as an absolutely neutral observer.

In any event, the only source from your list that we can use is Turner 1972, however, it does not add much to what my sources say. Interestingly, this source was cited only one time, by Michael A. Hennessy (Strategy in Vietnam: the Marines and revolutionary warfare in I Corps, 1965-1972. Greenwood Publishing Group), and not in a context of land reform. That does not adds credibility to Turner's estimate.--Paul Siebert (talk) 01:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

arbitrary break

Well, it adds an estimate for causes of death besides execution, although the figures are very uncertain. There was a "policy of isolation" which meant that entire families of targeted individuals were socially ostracized and often starved to death. Turner, at least, had actual experience in Vietnam--unlike the armchair intellectuals who denied the bloodbath. (BTW, Turner mentions estimates of "up to" 100,000 executed on pg. 142-4 of his book).

The issue is not with your sources but your proposed text. I suggest we use the following text and sources:

"In the north, the Viet Minh ruled as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and engaged in a drastic land reform program. Reports from some journalists, defectors, and foreign witnesses suggested that 50-100,000 North Vietnamese were executed and an unknown number were starved to death or sent to prison camps.[1][2][3][4] However, Gareth Porter and Edwin Moise argued that the death toll was probably in the low thousands and had been inflated for propaganda purposes, while communist newspapers provided a more accurate account.[5][6] Their conclusions have been supported by other scholars.[7]"

• [1]Tongas, Gérard, J'ai vécu dans l'enfer communiste au Nord Viet-Nam, (Paris, Nouvelles Éditions Debresse, 1960). For a foreign witness.
• [2]Robert F. Turner, "Myths and Realities in the Vietnam Debate," World Affairs, Vol. 149, No. 1 (Summer 1986), pp. 35-47. See also Turner, "Myths of the Vietnam War: The Pentagon Papers Reconsidered", Southeast Asian Perspectives, No. 7 (Sep. 1972), pp. i-iv, 1-55.
• [3]Jean-Louis Margolin, "Vietnam and Laos: the impasse of war communism" in The Black Book of Communism, edited by Stéphane Courtois, Nicolas Werth, Jean-Louis Panné, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, and Jean-Louis Margolin (Cambridge, MA and London: Harvard University Press, 1999), p.567.
• [4]Lam Thanh Liem, "Chinh sach cai cach ruong dat cua Ho Chi Minh: sai lam hay toi ac?" in Jean-Francois Revel et al., Ho Chi Minh: Su that ve Than the & Su nghiep (Paris: Nam A, 1990), pp179-214.
• [5]D. Gareth Porter, "The Myth of the Bloodbath: North Vietnam's Land Reform Reconsidered" (Ithaca Cornell University IREA Project, 1972). A shorter but more reliable version of this paper was published in "The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars", Vol. V, No. 2, September 1973, pp. 2-15.
• [6]Edwin E. Moise. "Land Reform and Land Reform Errors in North Vietnam". Pacific Affairs, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 1976), pp. 70-92. See also Moise, Land Reform in China and North Vietnam, (University of North Carolina Press, 1983).
• [7]Balazs Szalontai. "Political and Economic Crisis in North Vietnam, 1955–56", Cold War History, vol 11, no 2, May 2011, pp. 155-195.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 02:57, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Do we need this huge paragraph in what is already a large article I propose this

"In the north, the Viet Minh ruled as the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and engaged in a drastic land reform program in which perceived "class enemies" were executed.[94][95][96] Estimates For the number killed range from range from 1,500 [107] [104] [103] [105]to 100,000 executions[94][95][96] , with an upper limit of 900,000 deaths from executions, camps, and famine.[97][98][99][100][101][102] ."Slatersteven (talk) 11:35, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I would be fine with that as well! However, to avoid conflict, I preemptively conceded the point on the majority of Paul Siebert's objections. Thus, I eliminated the use of editorials that responded to each of Porter's arguments on a step-by-step basis because Siebert said that they were "conservative and therefore biased." (Never mind that Porter is a communist and "The Bulletin of Concerned Asian Scholars" advocated for the communist cause during the war). Regarding the 200,000 to 900,000 figure, it comes from our "Three Rs" (RFA, Rosefielde, and Rummel). They all appear to meet RS criteria, and if not should be taken to RSN, but I just removed them to compromise with Siebert. The question of RFA's reliability is an interesting one, however, and perhaps the question has come up before? In any case, the mid-value of the range they cite would be roughly equal to the 50,000 executed and 500,000 dead from forced starvation mentioned by Turner and Chi. If we do use RFA, we should note that they quote communist officials who estimate 172,000 executions (comparable to Liem's 120,000-200,000 executions). Siebert feels confident that Porter's pseudo-scholarly polemical book is the final word on the subject, so I thought my paragraph was a compromise--but I would be more than happy with yours.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 14:24, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Something like Slatersteven's version would be good, although the highest number in the range for estimated executions would be 200,000, if that is the highest reliable estimate for just land reform excecutions. I really don't think Porter is needed. Use Moise or Clark Clifford for the lower estimates. Stumink (talk) 15:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Porter's book is the key "no-bloodbath" source. There's no reason to use Clifford's article in Life as opposed to Porter's book.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 16:17, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough but I don't see much point using books that are not credible (like Porter's) there are other lowish estimates that are more credible like Moise.Stumink (talk) 19:22, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

In the book Political Violence In South And Southeast Asia, is it mentioned that some of the event in North Vietnam during the 50s was extraggated by the US and South Vietnam in order to alienate the nation. I think it should be mentioned in the article.--Zeraful (talk) 11:21, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

No it shouldn't since that would be Undue. It could however be mentioned on the Land Reforms page but not here.Stumink (talk) 15:07, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Thank you TheTimesAreAChanging for your good faith attempts to achieve consensus. Nevertheless, I cannot agree with your arguments. The reasons are as follows.

1. You propose to use Margolin, who just reproduces what others say, but you preferred to omit Jones, although he uses neither Moise nor Porter (Instead, he cites Frances FitzGerald, Fire in the Lake: The Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), pp. 299-300, a book that was characterized as "influential and highly praised" by GR Hess (The unending debate: historians and the Vietnam War - Diplomatic History, 1994, p 240.)) I am not sure I understand a reason for such a selective approach to the choice of sources.
2. You propose to use Lam Thanh Liem. However, this is English Wikipedia. Do you have English equivalent of this source?
3. You insist on usage of Turner, whereas he simply reproduces the 50,000 figure from Bernard Fall (The Two Viet-Nams: A Political and Military Analysis, revised edition (New York: Praeger, 1964), p. 156). The latter source was considered as a "standard estimate" in 1960s, and many early sources, including Turner himself, Nutt, Jones and others cite this estimate. Why did you decide to ignore Fall?
4. Finally, you seriously misinterpreted my viewpoint, as well as the sources I use. You write: "Siebert feels confident that Porter's pseudo-scholarly polemical book is the final word on the subject," which is simply not true. I don't know if you read Moise (I have serious reasons to suspect you didn't), but this author, despite agreeing that the bloodbath myth is just a myth, disagrees with Porter in many details. (By the way, you, for some reason, decided that Moise built his arguments based on Communist newspapers, however, it is clear from his article that that is not true) Briefly, his arguments are as follows:

(i) Hoang Van Chi, a major proponent of bloodbath theory (and, simultaneously, a major Turner's source of information, see above) should be treated with cautions, because he builds his arguments just based on his own observations during a 1.5 years period, mostly in his home village. However, his own early interviews he gave in Saigon contained no mentions of any bloodbath, he started to tell this story only after 1956.

(ii) Saigon officials and mass media were unaware of any bloodbath even in late 1956. As Moise notes:

"When Truong Chinh announced his resignation as General Secretary of the Lao Dong Party at the end of October, Saigon's official press agency had difficulty understanding the fact that this had been caused by the crisis over land reform. If there had in fact been a bloodbath, Saigon would have known about it, for during the first half of the land reform, the DRV had been allowing large numbers of refugees to go to the South."

These, and other facts support the following Moise's conclusion:

"The land reform lasted roughly from December I953 to July 1956. Throughout this period, the Saigon government was pouring out anti-Communist propaganda, yet it contained remarkably little about the land reform. In November 1956, Saigon learned from international press agency dispatches that the North Vietnamese were admitting that serious land reform excesses had occurred. It was only after this that Saigon's anti-Communist tracts became filled with supposed eyewitness accounts of mass slaughter."

Therefore, your assertion that Moise relies too much on Communist newspapers is simply incorrect. He did use them, but used them with cautions.

Again, whereas Moise supports Porter's main thesis, he disagrees with him in many details. Thus, he points out that Porter misunderstood many documents, and that the number of executions was greater then Porter asserted (although it was lower then Turner claims). Therefore, by no means Porter is a last word, and I don't remember I ever claimed that.

Moise also reports about his interview with David Marr, who visited Thanh Hoa province early in 1975. Marr's data are also in accordance with Moise's estimates.

5 You also preferred to ignore a new source, Balazs Szalontai. This author uses quite different evidences (declassified archives), and he comes to the conclusion that Moise's estimates are correct. Coincidence of estimates made using different sources of information usually serves as a very good argument in science.
6 And, last but not least. The sources listed by me do not mention famine in a context of land reform. In contrast, Balazs Szalontai mentions 1954-55 famine in Mekong river delta (i.e. South Vietnam), as a result of extensive floods and scarce rainfall, as well as destruction of irrigation system during the war with the French. Therefore, I would treat the information about famine with great caution.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:02, 6 January 2013 (UTC)

Fine, let's not use Margolin. I only added him because you had done so originally. I included Szalontai.

"However, his own early interviews he gave in Saigon contained no mentions of any bloodbath, he started to tell this story only after 1956." Moise was being less than truthful, and you shouldn't have trusted him. In his 1955 interviews, Chi described North Vietnam as a terrorist state where "the village guards would dig tombs" before every trial; where "ghastly" and "barbarous" torture was used; where the communists "starve the people in order to enslave them more surely"; where dissidents were either "in the other world [i.e., dead] or in the concentration camps"; and where non-communists had been "classified as landowners" and either "sentenced to hard labour" or "shot on the spot."

Because Porter is a communist apologist and his book is unreliable, Slatersteven has proposed a different version, and you haven't gone to RSN; I'm increasingly thinking we should just mention the range of estimates.TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:21, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Frankly, if we cannot use Nutt's work because RAND is supposedly biased (based on Paul Siebert's original research), then perhaps we shouldn't use Porter either. According to its Wikipedia article: "The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars (CCAS) was founded in 1968 by a group of graduate students and younger faculty as part of the opposition to the American war in Vietnam. They proposed a "radical critique of the assumptions which got us [The United States] into Indo-China and were keeping us from getting out."[1] The caucus was held at the Association for Asian Studies convention in Philadelphia, but was a radical critique of that professional association's values, organization, and leadership....Critics of CCAS claim that its anti-establishment stance had a polarizing effect on the field, that its early members promoted Maoist doctrine uncritically, and that it made ludicrous claims such as all U.S.-government funded academic pursuits were being manipulated by the U.S. government if they were not outright forms of espionage."TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 15:41, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

Agreed about Margolin.

Moise, simply wrote that Chi didn't mention land reform. Regarding "ghastly" and "barbarous" torture, I heard similar stories about Diem's South Vietnam, as well as about many other Asian states.

I object against RAND because it is a non-peer-reviewed source, sponsored by the state that was a party in this conflict. Such an objection is not original research (you seem not to understand what original research means). In addition, Nutt's report is not being cited by serious authors: as you can see, gscholar shows only self-citations. And, finally, it is not a secondary source at all: Nutt just reviewed what other author say. In contrast, Porter seems to be cited by others [3], and that is the proof that he is reliable. Thus, in his Pacific Reviews paper, Jonathan London cites only two authors, Moise and Porter, whom he seems to regard as two experts in Vietnam land reform (The Pacific Review, Vol. 22 No. 3 July 2009: 375–399). In addition, Porter published a whole book (Porter, G. (1993) Vietnam: The Politics of Bureaucratic Socialism, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.) devoted to this issue, and you must agree that Cornell University press is among the most reliable sources according to all possible standards. Of course, I can go to RSN, but I prefer to use it as a last resort, when my opponents demonstrate blatant unwillingness to accept the obvious. I think you are prone to arguments, so we can resolve the issue without distracting other users from their usual activity.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:53, 7 January 2013 (UTC)

I have been following this discussion since it was posted to ANI. I believe the use of Porter should be brought to the RSN board as he is not a reliable source. Darkness Shines (talk) 17:31, 7 January 2013 (UTC)