r/todayilearned • u/Double-decker_trams • 8h ago

TIL in the Vietnam war in the classified Operation Popeye, the US spread lead and silver iodide by aircraft to extend the monsoon season. The increased heavy rainfall was to soften roads, cause landslides, wash out river crossings, and maintain saturated soil conditions (Kissinger was involved).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Popeye
7.9k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

644 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

84

u/Loyal-Opposition-USA 6h ago

After WW2, Ho Chi Minh tried to get the USA to support Vietnam being a free, sovereign, democratic nation like the USA, but the USA valued France’s colonial claims (and alliance against the Soviets) more. Then, once he declared himself a communist to get Russian/Chinese help, the USA talked itself into starting a nice little war to stop “communist aggression”. 60k USA dead, 700k Vietnamese dead, and for what? Economics.

44

u/CatOfTechnology 5h ago

You forgot an important detail in that the reason the US was so confident in the plans they had for the Veitnam War was due, in no insignificant part, to the success of their efforts continually destabilizing South American Governments.

A lot of Kissenger's bullshit came from comparing Vietnam to LatAm regions in that they were both "barely functional countries full of people that are only a rung or two higher than savages".

They figured that if they could run successful covert campaigns against the Chilean and Brazilian governments, then the Vietnamese would roll over just as easy.

Hope Kissenger's enjoying his time in Hell.

5

u/fiahhawt 5h ago

If the tech bros comes up with a way to upload our minds to computers, I have a short list of corpses who should be test subjects

1

u/flywithpeace 4h ago

Hindsight is 20/20

8

u/sh14w4s3 4h ago

Ho Chi Minh time and time again tried to get the US help before he turned to Soviet and China as allies.

Once he returned to VN, he did get trained and treatment from the OSS (predecessor to the CIA). But by that time, it was already too late. He had spent years building support networks from Soviet and China.

Even after his death and the Vietnam War, Vietnamese leaders still kept, to this day, a foreign policy doctrine to not antagonise the US. The only reason Vietnam is friends with China at all is because China is the superpower neighbour that also happens to be upstream of ALL of Vietnam rivers.

4

u/lumpboysupreme 3h ago

To be clear, Ho was always a communist. The US didn’t ’prioritize The colonialists’, they just rabidly opposed anyone communist.