Wikipedia states the following:
A detailed demographic study calculated 791,000–1,141,000 war-related Vietnamese deaths, both soldiers and civilians, for all of Vietnam from 1965 to 1975. The study came up with a most likely Vietnamese death toll of 882,000, which included 655,000 adult males (above 15 years of age), 143,000 adult females, and 84,000 children.
So "nobody knows" except for dozens of accurate studies, which broke it down as follows:
164,000 civilians killed by the North Vietnamese. 130 US POWs and 16,000 South Vietnamese POWs executed. (But these are all good guys, according to people here on the DU)
South Vietnam caused 1,500 civilians casualties from relocations, about 30,000 casualties of suspected communists/non-uniformed fighters, 6,000 from shellings of Vietcong positions,... "This totals, from a range of between 16,000 and 167,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam (Diem-era), and 42,000 and 118,000 deaths caused by South Vietnam (post Diem-era), excluding North Vietnamese forces killed by the ARVN in combat."
Rummel estimated that American forces committed around 5,500 democidal killings between 1960 and 1972, from a range of between 4,000 and 10,000. (There is a strong belief that this number is much higher though, because it was easier to call a civilian a VC than to admit that they'd shot at the wrong people.)
AFTER the Vietnam war, North Vietnam killed 155,000 refugees trying to flee. Another 165,000 people died in their "reeducation" camps. While anywhere from 50,000 to 250,000 were outright executed. So tack on another 1/2 million dead due to Vietnamese atrocities - which is never spoken about by the anti-American left.
This blogger needs a basic lesson in history.
- C.D. Proud Member of the Reality Based Community
= new reply since forum marked as read