‘Still an open wound’: damning docuseries revisits Vietnam war 50 years on
Netflix series Turning Point: The Vietnam War goes back to retrace a devastating history from multiple perspectivesThis Wednesday, 30 April, marks a full half century since the fall of Saigon. The takeover of the South Vietnamese capital, renamed Ho Chi Minh City, by North Vietnamese forces reunited a country riven by a decades-long civil war that killed more than 3 million civilians – a triumph of one vision of Vietnam’s future at the violent expense of another, with many caught perilously in between.For the US, the fall of Saigon was an indisputable humiliation and the end to what was then its longest war, one that killed more than 58,000 servicemen, divided a nation and has only grown more ignominious with time. Fifty years on, the picture is clear: the Americanization of the Vietnam war was an unfathomably costly, poorly run, incomprehensibly horrific folly based on political lies and dubious intelligence. It is taught as a brief but upsetting chapter in American schools – if it’s taught at all. Continue reading...
Netflix series Turning Point: The Vietnam War goes back to retrace a devastating history from multiple perspectives
This Wednesday, 30 April, marks a full half century since the fall of Saigon. The takeover of the South Vietnamese capital, renamed Ho Chi Minh City, by North Vietnamese forces reunited a country riven by a decades-long civil war that killed more than 3 million civilians – a triumph of one vision of Vietnam’s future at the violent expense of another, with many caught perilously in between.
For the US, the fall of Saigon was an indisputable humiliation and the end to what was then its longest war, one that killed more than 58,000 servicemen, divided a nation and has only grown more ignominious with time. Fifty years on, the picture is clear: the Americanization of the Vietnam war was an unfathomably costly, poorly run, incomprehensibly horrific folly based on political lies and dubious intelligence. It is taught as a brief but upsetting chapter in American schools – if it’s taught at all. Continue reading...
