Even that is giving too much credit to the US government narrative.
There literally are all the US mainstream news outlets like CBS News who actually had reporters there at the time: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/
Also from classified US communications with assets on the ground: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING18828_a.html
Funniest thing is that "tank man" photo idiots spam on Reddit all the time. Most people in the west don't realize there is video of it, that the guy didn't get run over. Furthermore they assume he was blocking tanks heading towards the square, infact those tanks were at the time headed away from the square to avoid engaging with armed agitators (people with guns and grenades that had killed police) in a crowded environment. Dude was trying to make them go back.
The deaths that day were people who got gunned down by the "protestors" or the police who were killed when the "protestors" threw grenades (military ordnance) into police vehicles. People that were armed by the CIA as part of a color revolution operation, one that failed because it didn't actually have any support and more importantly because the PLA commander on the scene ordered his units to leave the area rather than responding in kind. The only actual protestors that day were communists having labor protests happening nearby and not the dancing libertine youth acting as the face of the US color revolution operation involving armed groups trying unsuccessfully to provoke the PLA soliders into responding to deadly attacks with deadly force in a crowded urban environment.
My personal opinion on the matter isn't that much different from yours (the biggest reason being that the media blitz about the massacre seemed preplanned... It just didn't go according to plan). The problem is that I can't prove anything, so it's all conjecture. So I typically leave that out. It's already a sensitive enough subject.
My understanding is that after the initial ambush of unarmed PLA soldiers armed PLA units were eventually able to get to the area and engage the insurgents in combat, and that the deaths were a mix of PLA soldiers and insurgents, with probably some innocent bystanders because war is hell no matter how you try to prevent civilian casualties.
Even that is giving too much credit to the US government narrative.
There literally are all the US mainstream news outlets like CBS News who actually had reporters there at the time: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/there-was-no-tiananmen-square-massacre/
Also from classified US communications with assets on the ground: https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING18828_a.html
Funniest thing is that "tank man" photo idiots spam on Reddit all the time. Most people in the west don't realize there is video of it, that the guy didn't get run over. Furthermore they assume he was blocking tanks heading towards the square, infact those tanks were at the time headed away from the square to avoid engaging with armed agitators (people with guns and grenades that had killed police) in a crowded environment. Dude was trying to make them go back.
The deaths that day were people who got gunned down by the "protestors" or the police who were killed when the "protestors" threw grenades (military ordnance) into police vehicles. People that were armed by the CIA as part of a color revolution operation, one that failed because it didn't actually have any support and more importantly because the PLA commander on the scene ordered his units to leave the area rather than responding in kind. The only actual protestors that day were communists having labor protests happening nearby and not the dancing libertine youth acting as the face of the US color revolution operation involving armed groups trying unsuccessfully to provoke the PLA soliders into responding to deadly attacks with deadly force in a crowded urban environment.
My personal opinion on the matter isn't that much different from yours (the biggest reason being that the media blitz about the massacre seemed preplanned... It just didn't go according to plan). The problem is that I can't prove anything, so it's all conjecture. So I typically leave that out. It's already a sensitive enough subject.
My understanding is that after the initial ambush of unarmed PLA soldiers armed PLA units were eventually able to get to the area and engage the insurgents in combat, and that the deaths were a mix of PLA soldiers and insurgents, with probably some innocent bystanders because war is hell no matter how you try to prevent civilian casualties.