The answer is more complicated. These were children from the Democratic south which was allied or puppeted by the US. So their parents were more likely killed by the North Vietnamese.
The bigger issue is many of these children were not even orphans and were placed in orphanages due to poverty. Many had living relatives that intended to take custody after the war.
And of course the modern Vietnamese government opposed the action as they were the winners of the war. I'm really struggling to find the sources on if the South Vietnamese government had an opinion, although at this point it was probably whatever the USA says.
Cold war proxy wars were a fucked period for sure.
Not to mention the first flight of Operation Babylift was a complete disaster, the second accident and first fatal accident of a C-5 Galaxy. Caused by explosive decompression from poor maintenance of the rear cargo door, 78 children were killed in the ensuing crash. It remains the third deadliest accident involving a US military aircraft.
The adoption agency Holt International, along with a number of service organizations including, Friends of Children of Viet Nam (FCVN), Friends For All Children (FFAC), Catholic Relief Service, International Social Services, International Orphans, and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, petitioned the government to help evacuate the orphans residing in their facilities in South Vietnam.
So the US Military motivation was "yeah sounds good, we were already evacuating 50,000 people anyways".
I'm curious, what should they have done? Would these kids have had a better life in Vietnam after/during the war or in the US?
The US committed many atrocities and the country is kakistrocratic oligarchy masquerading as a democracy that continues to fuck up the world to this day, but let's consider, what would've been best for orphans in Vietnam at that time?
A lot of these kids weren't actually orphans but were placed in these orphanages temporarily by their parents due to instability with the intention of later retrieval.
However for the Amerasian children (25% of these roughly), I agree that they should have been evacuated. As I mentioned elsewhere on the post, the discrimination and racism they faced after the war in Vietnam was awful.
I've been suspicious that I'm not seeing all comments and now I know it's true, so thanks for the proof. Not sure if it's a federation thing or Boost so I'll have to do some digging.
Its more like going to the rapist who took the rape baby after the rape and saying that they really shouldn't have raped that person and though the issue with stealing the rape baby is bad a good solution would have been to not rape.
If America didn't invade, no orphans. Really weird you'de equate not invading Vietnam with raping a person
Edit: to clarify, no, the other person didn't say "just don't get raped" or the equivalent. The analogy was wrong. This is my point
A solution to a problem can't be "travel back in time and prevent yourself from being in this situation" that's not a solution, it's pointing out the obvious source of the problem.
I agree, but that person did not say "just don't get raped." The analogy doesn't work, and is weird to say while being destructive to the conversation.
That comment I replied to made this equivalancy which is table flipping, fuck you I'm going to paint you in the worst light, type behavior.
No, the guy didn't say "just don't get raped" he said "we shouldn't have been raping"
Ok, solution wasn't the proper word, the commenter was talking morality. Taking the babies was wrong and America shouldn't have done it, nor should they have gotten involved afterwards.
this take was badly expressed. i woke up in the middle of the night to piss and wrote it between walking from the bathroom to the bed. Point I was trying to make was it is a clumsy metaphor that directly casts america as the victim.
Do you have anything to offer that's actually possible to do, a real answer to the question, or do you just feel like being a contrarian little shit today?
No, they also evacuated about 50,000 adults because the USSR sponsored North Vietnamese Troops were as bad or worse than the US troops which is saying a lot.
You are writing this as if I am claiming US is the only evil side in this story. States big or small go drunk in their own power and ideas all the time, major powers do so more often. Almost always the story is also more complex then how it is portrayed 50 years later.
It was more a joke than a political statement and also perhaps a dark reminder of very bad things that happen to immigrant orphans.
You jokingly implied the US Military stole 3,000 infants for sex slavery, tbh idk if your attempt to salvage your reputation is going to have any results, pal.
Clearly you've been hanging out with Russian and Chinese state sponsored psyops like on ML and Hexbear. If you oppose the Epstein class you should cut them off because they're Trump supporters.
I don't need to salvage my reputation from anything and I have no sympathy for ML or hexbear. You should probably sit and think hard about about why making such overreaching conclusions from a single message is very ridiculous and infact very ML and hexbear like lol.
For your information it is a quite common occurence for orphaned immigrant children to be sold to sex slavery or otherwise. Ofcourse if you claim that the US army was a shining beacon of virtue that would have definitely prevented this, well there is a community in Lemmy that does that for Russia and China too.
They're just the Holden Bloodfeast meme, but for China. Not sure there's another user on Lemmy that has expressed more zeal for the extermination of China.
Given that the major arguement otherwise was that the USA committed gEnOCiDe in Vietnam, probably not.
And look, thr USA committed some crimes in Vietnam, nobody should ever deny that, but Operation Babylift definitely isn't one of them because the North Vietnamese would have turned these kids into slaves or soldiers, at best they might live a somewhat normal life in an autocracy.
wow you're so right, I must be duped for siding with anti-colonialist emancipation over genocidal imperialism. Surely it couldn't be the enlightened centrist, equating the two with 'both sides bad' in response to a laundry list of genocidal war crimes
They didn't bomb the runway until after operation babylift was completed, so your edit is false, although I don't disagree that at least for roughly 25% of the children who were fathered by Americans, they should have been evacuated. Amerasian children faced extreme discrimination and racism after the war in Vietnam, so much so that eventually America made the Amerasian Homecoming Act.
58 replies
Babies whose parents were killed by the US during the Vietnam War being trafficked to the US to be bought, 1975.
There, headline fixed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Babylift
The answer is more complicated. These were children from the Democratic south which was allied or puppeted by the US. So their parents were more likely killed by the North Vietnamese.
The bigger issue is many of these children were not even orphans and were placed in orphanages due to poverty. Many had living relatives that intended to take custody after the war.
And of course the modern Vietnamese government opposed the action as they were the winners of the war. I'm really struggling to find the sources on if the South Vietnamese government had an opinion, although at this point it was probably whatever the USA says.
Cold war proxy wars were a fucked period for sure.
You say were as if they were over.
The Cold War is definitively over. What we have now is a new series of proxy wars.
Of course many do ultimately relate to actions from the cold war.
Still proxies, new motivations.
Well, these Babies were in South Vietnam, so if the parents were killed by the US it was friendly fire. More likely, North Vietnamese killed them.
Not to mention the first flight of Operation Babylift was a complete disaster, the second accident and first fatal accident of a C-5 Galaxy. Caused by explosive decompression from poor maintenance of the rear cargo door, 78 children were killed in the ensuing crash. It remains the third deadliest accident involving a US military aircraft.
Jesus fucking christ
Yeah my days fucked now
Only one time?
Does slaving count?
Um, yeah. By definition.
Sorry, dropped a /s
I'd be interested in learning more about the motivations, spoken and unspoken.
The adoption agency Holt International, along with a number of service organizations including, Friends of Children of Viet Nam (FCVN), Friends For All Children (FFAC), Catholic Relief Service, International Social Services, International Orphans, and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation, petitioned the government to help evacuate the orphans residing in their facilities in South Vietnam.
So the US Military motivation was "yeah sounds good, we were already evacuating 50,000 people anyways".
Whaddya mean "did"? They sure as shit still "do".
I'm curious, what should they have done? Would these kids have had a better life in Vietnam after/during the war or in the US?
The US committed many atrocities and the country is kakistrocratic oligarchy masquerading as a democracy that continues to fuck up the world to this day, but let's consider, what would've been best for orphans in Vietnam at that time?
A lot of these kids weren't actually orphans but were placed in these orphanages temporarily by their parents due to instability with the intention of later retrieval.
However for the Amerasian children (25% of these roughly), I agree that they should have been evacuated. As I mentioned elsewhere on the post, the discrimination and racism they faced after the war in Vietnam was awful.
I don't see another comment from you in this thread, so not sure what's going on there.
https://lemmy.world/comment/25256898
I've been suspicious that I'm not seeing all comments and now I know it's true, so thanks for the proof. Not sure if it's a federation thing or Boost so I'll have to do some digging.
Not killing their parents would definitely go a long way for these children. Not going to war and not committing atrocities would also help.
"What do you do with an unwanted pregnancy that's the result of a rape?"
"Don't get raped in the first place."
Its more like going to the rapist who took the rape baby after the rape and saying that they really shouldn't have raped that person and though the issue with stealing the rape baby is bad a good solution would have been to not rape.
If America didn't invade, no orphans. Really weird you'de equate not invading Vietnam with raping a person
Edit: to clarify, no, the other person didn't say "just don't get raped" or the equivalent. The analogy was wrong. This is my point
much better put than i did
A solution to a problem can't be "travel back in time and prevent yourself from being in this situation" that's not a solution, it's pointing out the obvious source of the problem.
I agree, but that person did not say "just don't get raped." The analogy doesn't work, and is weird to say while being destructive to the conversation.
That comment I replied to made this equivalancy which is table flipping, fuck you I'm going to paint you in the worst light, type behavior.
No, the guy didn't say "just don't get raped" he said "we shouldn't have been raping"
Ok, solution wasn't the proper word, the commenter was talking morality. Taking the babies was wrong and America shouldn't have done it, nor should they have gotten involved afterwards.
Vietnam was at war before the USA got involved, it would have just been a one sided slaughter by the North.
Unfolding the anology would mean "US is the victim here. "
this was the first thing i noticed, too
this take was badly expressed. i woke up in the middle of the night to piss and wrote it between walking from the bathroom to the bed. Point I was trying to make was it is a clumsy metaphor that directly casts america as the victim.
Do you have anything to offer that's actually possible to do, a real answer to the question, or do you just feel like being a contrarian little shit today?
Sure, want to undo all the evil humanity has done since its evolution too?
That would be loud taking off, ngl.
is this when the Epstein ring originally started?
To be fair, the Epstein ring was associated with nepophila so I guess it checks out.
No, they also evacuated about 50,000 adults because the USSR sponsored North Vietnamese Troops were as bad or worse than the US troops which is saying a lot.
You are writing this as if I am claiming US is the only evil side in this story. States big or small go drunk in their own power and ideas all the time, major powers do so more often. Almost always the story is also more complex then how it is portrayed 50 years later.
It was more a joke than a political statement and also perhaps a dark reminder of very bad things that happen to immigrant orphans.
You jokingly implied the US Military stole 3,000 infants for sex slavery, tbh idk if your attempt to salvage your reputation is going to have any results, pal.
Clearly you've been hanging out with Russian and Chinese state sponsored psyops like on ML and Hexbear. If you oppose the Epstein class you should cut them off because they're Trump supporters.
I don't need to salvage my reputation from anything and I have no sympathy for ML or hexbear. You should probably sit and think hard about about why making such overreaching conclusions from a single message is very ridiculous and infact very ML and hexbear like lol.
For your information it is a quite common occurence for orphaned immigrant children to be sold to sex slavery or otherwise. Ofcourse if you claim that the US army was a shining beacon of virtue that would have definitely prevented this, well there is a community in Lemmy that does that for Russia and China too.
TBH, good for them. Couldn't be worse than leaving them in Vietnam after the dictatorship won the civil war.
EDIT: I see the Tankies have arrived, reminder that the Northern Vietnamese troops bombed the shit out of that runway while this was going on.
I think there is quite a wide political spectrum finding your comment distasteful way before we arrive at tankie territory...
Huh, who could disagree with my [support-for-genocide]? Nah, only tankies could have an issue there.
They're just the Holden Bloodfeast meme, but for China. Not sure there's another user on Lemmy that has expressed more zeal for the extermination of China.
Given that the major arguement otherwise was that the USA committed gEnOCiDe in Vietnam, probably not.
And look, thr USA committed some crimes in Vietnam, nobody should ever deny that, but Operation Babylift definitely isn't one of them because the North Vietnamese would have turned these kids into slaves or soldiers, at best they might live a somewhat normal life in an autocracy.
The genocidal U.S. invasion, bombing and occupation of Vietnam and the surrounding region, killed more than 4 million Vietnamese people and hundreds of thousands of Cambodians and Laotians.
Declassified papers show U.S. atrocities in Vietnam went far beyond My Lai
Lmfao
There weren't any good sides in Vietnam, Tankie dupe
wow you're so right, I must be duped for siding with anti-colonialist emancipation over genocidal imperialism. Surely it couldn't be the enlightened centrist, equating the two with 'both sides bad' in response to a laundry list of genocidal war crimes
Anticolonial Leninists?
LMFAO
holy shit dude.
hexbear must be leaking
They didn't bomb the runway until after operation babylift was completed, so your edit is false, although I don't disagree that at least for roughly 25% of the children who were fathered by Americans, they should have been evacuated. Amerasian children faced extreme discrimination and racism after the war in Vietnam, so much so that eventually America made the Amerasian Homecoming Act.
The operation was cut short because the airport was no longer operational, so no.
The final operation babylift flight was on April 26, 1975, and the runway was made non operational on April 29, 1975.
It was the final flight for sure, because they bombed thr shit out of the runway.
Do you vote?
The Vietnamese didn't.
Great answer!
Ah there it is.