Talk:United States–Vietnam relations

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Samneufeld.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 12:05, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

WTF is this?

Article:

"The Vietnamese government is still persecuting Montagnards and accusing them of being FULRO members as late as 2012 and blaming FULRO for the 2004 and 2001 riots against Vietnamese rule in the Central Highlands, even though FULRO has not existed for decades. The United States under President Obama, because of its anti-China policy and trying to lure Vietnam as an ally to the USA against China, is deliberately ignoring the persecution of Montagnards, instead only criticizing Vietnam for cracking down on a Vietnamese blogger."

Propaganda much? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7D:18CB:C900:1420:C876:BA1:206F (talk) 14:47, 20 July 2016 (UTC)

Number seems off, by an order of magnitude

"$1.5 billion ($12.2 trillion by todays standards)"

There is no evidence that the United States has undergone such inflation, found a reference for a more realistic assessment of costs and added it --161.7.89.244 (talk) 16:28, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

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Many issues

First off, the Vietnam War section doesn't cite any sources. There's like 10 large paragraphs that are completely unsourced. I'm not disputing the neutrality of this section, but there is plenty of literature and other sources on US-Vietnam relations during the war. A lot of the info comes from the main page on the role of the US in the conflict and that is cited, but this section is far too long for it to not cite external sources. I think the section should be majorly abridged and just serve as a very brief outline for the main page on this topic (which is very good).

My main problem with the article, however, is the Human Rights section, specifically the discussion of the Montagnards. It is absolutely atrocious. The lead paragraph and "Missing Americans" subsection are unsourced. As they cite specific dates/numbers, this is not acceptable.

The Ethnic and Religious Minorities subsection starts out fine, and the Cham paragraphs are NPOV and even properly use in-text attribution when referencing an obviously biased source. The last Cham paragraph is a little strange, as it claims "Vietnamese government fears that evidence of Champa's influence over the disputed area in the South China Sea would bring attention to human rights violations and killings of ethnic minorities in Vietnam such as in the 2001 and 2004 uprisings, and lead to the issue of Cham autonomy being brought into the dispute, since the Vietnamese conquered Cham people in a war in 1832, and the Vietnamese continue to destroy evidence of Cham culture and artifacts left behind, plundering or building on top of Cham temples, building farms over them, banning Cham religious practices, and omitting references to the destroyed Cham capital of Song Luy in the 1832 invasion in history books and tourist guides." Aside from the grammar error (*The Vietnamese government), this sentence is a little misleading. The source says that should the Cham raise the issue, that it "could upset the Vietnamese government." There is absolutely no reason for "Vietnamese government" to be the subject of the sentence. There is no evidence that they "fear" anything, it is, in fact, the other way around. The Cham fear that speaking out about historical influence would upset the government and may lead to further repression. This should be cleaned up.

The Montagnards part of the Human Rights takes the crown for most blatant disgregard for NPOV that I've ever seen on a major article. Like actually, WTF: "The United States under President Obama, because of its anti-China policy and trying to lure Vietnam as an ally to the USA against China, is deliberately ignoring the persecution of Montagnards, instead only criticizing Vietnam for cracking down on a Vietnamese blogger." This has 2 sources, both in Vietnamese and both actually the same exact article in 2 different formats (PDF and html). This would lead me to believe that whoever wrote this was attempting to give the appearance of well-sourced information.

Then, "Obama, Bush and American business interests deliberately ignore human rights violations and persecution committed by the Vietnamese Communists against the Montagnards as the Vietnamese government's friendship to America is desired by Obama." Aside from the awkward working, this is ridiculous speculation that has no place in an encyclopedia. The author has a very tranparent anti-Communist bias. "Vietnamese Communists" should not be used as a synonym for the Vietnamese government. It suggests, first, that it is not the government but a rogue band of communists allegedly doing these things. Second, while Vietnam officially remains a M-L one party state, whether the government still remains "Communist" is highly disputed. It's like changing every reference to the American government to the "American Capitalists". This is pure hogwash anti-Communist propaganda, plain and simple.

Now, for the worst part:

"The reason for these actions by the United States is due to the desire for Vietnamese trade by American businesses and an anti-China policy that sought Vietnam as an ally by Obama and Bush. This meant that the United States administration shows no concern and pays no attention to the catalogue of human rights abuses which are recorded by organizations like the Montagnard Foundation since the impoverished Montagnards suffer from Vietnamese policies like deforestation, mining, plantation farming, slaughter, abuse, and jail after the takeover by the Vietnamese Communists in 1975. The desire for low cast Vietnamese scab workers by American businesses plays into the ignoring of Vietnamese discrimination and human rights violations in contrast to the intervention in Libya which was enthusiastically supported by American liberals."

....what. First, the writing style here is incredibly awkward on top of all the other issues. They basically repeat an earlier sentence verbatim regarding the anti-China policy of Obama and Bush (which is disputed anyway). Apparently there is a "catalogue of human rights abuses which are recorded by organizations like the Montagnard Foundation", so, it would be logical to source said catalogue, right? Nope. No further mentions of Montagnard Foundation at all. That sentence and the next are just a gold mine of problems:

• "impoverished" Montagnards is not an appropriate modifier in the context of the sentence. Their poverty should have been discussed earlier, if it is applicable to alleged human rights abuses against them.
• "deforestation, mining, plantation farming" should not be in the same comma series as "slaughter, abuse, and jail". That escalated quickly. (There is no "policy" of any of those things anyway)
• More anti-Communist propaganda. There is no need to say the "takeover by the Vietnamese Communists in 1975". If you wish to specify the event, "Reunification of Vietnam" is a NPOV phrase, not "takeover".
• "low cast Vietnamese scab workers" is not a commonly understood term. I have no idea what that means. A Google search didn't reveal anything useful either.
• Why would a desire for workers have any effect on the "ignoring of Vietnamese...human rights violations"? This is a stretch to say the least, and would at least require substantiation.
• The comparison to Libya is not only inapplicable, it's also unnecessary, and completely unsourced that American "liberals" were "enthusiastic" about intervention.

Now for the sources. The main source here is the UNPO which will be biased by its very purpose. You at least need in-text attributions, like in the case of the Cham organization. The entire section just parrots the UNPO article (not very eloquently either). More sources, including ones that may defend the government, are necessary. The other source is literally titled "Forum: Communism’s victims today". Just wow. I read the entire article. It's worth a laugh, with a bonus of the author claiming John Kerry has a love affair with communism.

All in all, I think the ethnic cleansing subsection should be deleted altogether. It's firstly not really a subject of U.S. - Vietnam relations at the moment. More importantly, however, it's blatant and transparent partiality and bad sources are very detrimental to the fate of the alleged victims. Ethnic cleansing speaks for itself, it requires no bias. The apparent necessity of propagandizing this in the name of anti-Communism leads me to believe that perhaps the allegations aren't true. I'm sure many other readers have felt the same. Whoever wrote this did a grave disservice to the Montagnard people. Alexmunger (talk) 03:08, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Not encyclopedic at all

Most of the article especially the recent history portions, are written as an op-ed, not an encyclopedia. ScienceApe (talk) 07:07, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Agent Orange section

There's a section of the article which talks about Agent Orange, but it doesn't say anything about how it affects or has affected relations between Vietnam and the USA. Is there more to say about this aspect? If not, is the section in the wrong article? Aoeuidhtns (talk) 17:17, 27 February 2019 (UTC)