U.S. Navy will make port call in Vietnam

THE WASHINGTON TIMES ^ | 12 Oct 03 | By Sharon Behn

[.cnI redruM]

HONOLULU

[joesnuffy]

Gobachev is a US celebrity
Red China has most favored nation trading status
what's the diff? whether we go to Vietnam or not?

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[U S Army EOD]

I suggest we use B52 like we did in 1972 for the visit.

[Batrachian]

That ship is there to see whether we can export some jobs to them. Kind of a reversal of Admiral Perry in Japan. Strange how things happen nowadays.

[Enterprise]

Maybe we should send the USS Missouri to give a 21 gun salute.

[em2vn]

We will be allied with Vietnam to contain Chinese expansionism in the region. Remember that Vietnam and China have been enemies for centuries. I hope their mutual distrust of one another will keep them at each others throats for centuries to come.
The Vietnamese have a long societal memory. They will never forget the thousand year Chinese reign over Vietnam. Nor do they intend to allow it to happen again.

[U S Army EOD]

Thats a long trip for an old battleship. if you are going to steam it that far, you really need to empty the magazines to make the trip worth while. 21 times would not be enough.

[U S Army EOD]

We all have to wonder if Hanoi Jane Fonda will be standing on the dock waving when the fleet comes in.

[LibKill]

This sucks!

I would prefer that we send a nuke to Hanoi, better late than never.

[Severa]

Fairly safe bet my husband's boat won't be there any time soon.

[Enterprise]

LOL! OK. Load her up and let her rip!

[tet68]

About time, maybe now we can get some real Nuc Mam, the stuff around here doesn't even have fish heads in it.

[Prof Engineer]

You gotta be kidding ping

[ThanhPhero]

The communist government, which tightly controls religion,

which likes for others to think it is able to tightly control religion...

The government is able to restrict somewhat the practice of Catholicism and has been able to keep protestant missionaries out. The Communists load all sorte of political and economic disabilities on Christians but have no control of the religion. There are more Catholics now in Viet Nam than there were before the exodus of the boat people and the doctrine has not been altered a millimeter for the Communists. There are churches everywhere and many under construction. The Buddhists organizations suffer persecution also and, like the Catholics they are unfazed. The Communists cannot seem to learn that the only way they can weaken religion in Viet Nam is to encourage it. They cannot control it.

The legal disabilities placed on Catholics have merely pushed them into starting small private blackmarket and quasi legal enterprisees so that when the lid comes off- as it msut, and soon- it is the Christians who are the best situated to prosper first.

[ThanhPhero]

The Communists are not the committed ideologues of thirty years ago. They are intelligent men and know that Viet Nam must prosper to avoid becoming the Chinese beach resort. They are, however, still communists and, as such, are still paranoid and trying to figure out how to keep their hold on power. The head honchos are trying to allow economic freedom without loosing the other freedoms. They have already lost on that score. People speak their contempt of the Communists prettyopenly. The crackdowns on religious practices and the legal/economic disabilities placed on Christians have produced escalating numbers of Catholics among the Viets and Protestants among the highland minorities and has caused the pagodas to prosper.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Let me guess, we're going to start building up their country too........Shiit..........

[ThanhPhero]

The Viets also do not have the Chinese reverence for "the Mandate of Heaven". The government is not holy. The people are loath to attack the center. Where the Communists in China can allow economic freedoms while withholding speech and religion, etc. the Vietnamses Reds will not be able to do that. At some point the people will simply take the rest of the package.They have no reverence for government.

After a half a century of war the old Vietnamese Culture is dissipated. The modern Vietnamese, in the south more than in the north, are more libertarian in their outlook than just about anyone else on the planet. One good effect of the regime is the lack of abortions. They are not legal. As a result of that and the ubiquitous use of bottled water the population is increasing rapidly and the bodies are there to staff the industrial and trade revolution that will become very visible in a couple of years.

China, on the other hand has limited its own economic miracle by aborting its children. China will cease to grow richer at some point well before it has attained anything like western prosperity. Europe is only staving off decline by immigration which is keeping the continent solvent while destroying it culturally and as the Moslems become dominant in some countries, those countries willdecline. China does not get immigration to provide the workers that its rapidly expanding economy will need.

[ThanhPhero]

About time, maybe now we can get some real Nuc Mam, the stuff around here doesn't even have fish heads in it. That's Nuoc Mam but it needs tones and diacriticals, too. You can get basic nuoc mam at any Oriental food store but to make it right you add lime juice and hot pepper and lots of other stuff to individual taste. Any more, I can't imagine a proper meal without it.