The latest racist flag
This was bullshit four times over: first, because in every other conflict in human history, the release of prisoners had been something settled at the close of a war; second, because these prisoners only existed because of America’s antecedent violations of the Geneva Conventions in bombing civilians in an undeclared war; third, because, as bad as their torture of prisoners was, rather than representing some species of Oriental despotism, the Vietnam Communists were only borrowing techniques practiced on them by their French colonists (and incidentally paid forward by us in places like Abu Ghraib): see this as-told-to memoir by POW and future senator Jeremiah Denton. And finally, our South Vietnamese allies’ treatment of their prisoners, who lived manacled to the floors in crippling underground bamboo “tiger cages” in prison camps built by us, was far worse than the torture our personnel suffered.
Wtf?
1) No, in fact, damn near every conflict in human history has had a negotiation for or actual exchange of prisoners of war.
2) Technically a police action instead of a war, but goddamn there are about a trillion assumptions in that accusation, not to mention that fact you'd have to ignore the countries helping the North and specifically single out the US for helping one side.
3) The Vietnamese had their own traditional forms of torture and imprisonment (like every other culture in the fucking world) way before the frogs showed up.
4) Sure the South was brutal to the POWs from the North. The same way the North was brutal to them. And you can suck history's dick if you think the Hanoi Hilton was a less harsh place to get sharp objects shoved under your fingernails than [insert South Vietnam prison camp here].
Edited By Malcolm on 1439485728
Diogenes of Sinope: "It is not that I am mad, it is only that my head is different from yours."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."
Arnold Judas Rimmer, BSC, SSC: "Better dead than smeg."