Free Republic

The social network was blocked several times earlier this month The Vietnamese government restricted access to Facebook Inc inside Vietnam for several days this week as part of a broader crackdown on human rights and political dissidents during a visit by President Barack Obama, two activist organizations said on Thursday. Officials of Access Now, a digital rights organization, and Viet Tan, a Vietnamese pro-democracy group, said the social media site was restricted and at times blocked inside Vietnam from Sunday to Wednesday, citing reports from people inside the country on Twitter TWTR -0.76% and to Access Now’s digital security help...

In an address to the people of communist-ruled Vietnam on Tuesday, President Obama made a case for the importance of upholding human rights, prefacing it by saying that the United States, too, “is still striving to live up to our founding ideals.” “No nation is perfect,” he said at the National Convention Center in Hanoi. “Two centuries on, the United States is still trying to striving to live up to our founding ideals.” “We still deal with our shortcomings – too much money in politics, and rising economic inequality,” Obama continued. “Racial bias in our criminal justice system. Women still...

Barack Obama has wrapped up his historic visit to Vietnam by throwing down some beats for a Vietnamese rapper. The President was taking questions at a town hall-style meeting in Ho Chi Minh city when a young woman introduced herself as a hip hop artist before asking her question. Mr Obama immediately invited her to show off her talent, asking "do you need a few beats?" The woman, named Suboi and renowned as Vietnam's "queen of hip hop," then serenaded Obama with Vietnamese lyrics about whether people are really happy if they have lots of money. Seemingly delighted with the...

Littoral Combat Ships and F-18 Super-Hornet jets will probably top Vietnam’s shopping list for US-made weapons now that President Barack Obama has lifted Washington’s 50-year-old arms embargo on Hanoi, former US diplomat Jim Jatras told Sputnik. WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Obama announced in Hanoi on Monday the lifting of the US embargo on Vietnam during his three-day visit. "Among the systems Hanoi reportedly is interested in are Lockheed Martin’s F-16 jets, Boeing’s F/A-18 Super Hornet jets, competing littoral combat ship designs from Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, and precision-guidance munitions from Raytheon and Boeing," Jatras said on Tuesday. Jatras dismissed Obama’s...

More than four decades after the fall of Saigon, Washington is still holding on to various classified details about its fight in Southeast Asia. Among the Pentagon media arm’s still-secret records are photos and video of updated World War II-era bombers the U.S. Air Force sent to hit Laos. In May 1966, pilots and crews from the 603rd Air Commando Squadron brought eight B-26K Invaders from their base in Louisiana to Nakhon Phanom Air Base in Thailand. Desperate to stem the flow of troops and supplies flowing down the Ho Chi Minh Trail from North Vietnam, the flying branch had...

HANOI, Vietnam — The United States is rescinding a decades-old ban on sales of lethal military equipment to Vietnam, President Obama announced at a news conference in Hanoi on Monday, ending one of the last legal vestiges of the Vietnam War. “The decision to lift the ban was not based on China or any other considerations,” he said, with the Vietnamese president, Tran Dai Quang, standing stiffly by his side. “It was based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving toward normalization with Vietnam.”

This to me, is a total disgrace to America and our Veterans that served during Viet Nam. We have a wall with names of fallen Veterans that served this Country for it's freedoms and making it safe, and this President goes there and offers them weapons and other things... Maybe I am upset because a lot of people I knew served there, people I grew up with, boys that I dated, men that I rode with, that never came back home... I was privledged to see the "Viet Nam Wall" when I went with the Rolling Thunder out of PA....

....Obama has announced that the United States is fully lifting the ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam, which has been in place for decades. In a joint news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Obama said that the removal of the ban on lethal weapons w

President Obama is visiting Vietnam today and paused for a picture with communist party President Tran Dai Quang in front of a bust of Ho Chi Minh. Perhaps it’s just me, but given the nature of the diplomatic relationship this specific optic seems rather inappropriate.

In a move that is raising concerns among some Vietnam War veterans, President Obama will discuss selling more U.S. arms to Hanoi during his visit to Vietnam that began Sunday night. Top White House advisers said Mr. Obama hasn’t made a decision whether to lift the partial U.S. embargo on sending military equipment to Vietnam, where more than 58,200 U.S. soldiers were killed before the fall of Saigon in 1975. But the administration sees advantages in easing the embargo, both as a warning to expansionist China and as leverage to compel the communist regime in Hanoi to improve its record...

Ahead of President Barack Obama’s first visit to Vietnam, the country voted Sunday in once-every-five-year-elections for a rubber-stamp parliament whose membership has already been largely determined by the Communist Party. Amid worries about soaring public debt, a serious budget deficit and China’s aggressive claims in nearby seas, there’s also high hope for Obama’s visit, both in the government, which wants him to lift an arms export embargo so it can better deal with Beijing, and among rights activists who want him to hold to account a repressive one-party state seen as treating its critics abysmally. […] Obama must balance a...

CAM RANH BAY, Vietnam — The ghosts of the Vietnam War have finally faded at the strategic port of Cam Ranh Bay. More than 40 years ago, US forces left this massive base where Marines landed, B-52s loaded up for bombing raids, and wounded US soldiers were treated. Now, some Vietnamese say they are yearning for the US military to return. "On Facebook, there was a question recently: What do you want from President Obama's visit?" said Vo Van Tao, 63, who fought as a young North Vietnamese infantry soldier against the United States. "Some people said they wanted democracy....

I saw an article on Yahoo Bashing SGTMAG Plumbley for being a Fake with an exaggerated record. What the hell started this?

resident Barack Obama next week will visit Vietnam, which his own State Department last month certified is still controlled -- four decades after the fall of Saigon -- by the Communist Party. "The Socialist Republic of Vietnam is an authoritarian state ruled by a single party, the Communist Party of Vietnam," says the Country Report on Human Rights in Vietnam that Secretary of State John Kerry released in April. Obama's agenda in this communist nation, according to the White House, will feature efforts to promote the deal his administration has negotiated to join the United States, Vietnam and 10 other...

China’s activism in the East China Sea is goading Tokyo to defensive measures along the southern islands, " Nansei". On the heels of new self-defense legislation, to engage in armed conflicts (for the first time since the end of World War II). Tokyo will close in on China through a variety of ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) and antimissile facilities. Key to this strategy is the Ryukyu Island Chain, which includes the Okinawa and Kagoshima.

The latest imagery update available in Google Earth shows some new developments at Vietnam’s deep-water port of Cam Ranh Bay. For starters, we get a clear view of the new international port facility that was inaugurated back in March. Space snapshots acquired by DigitalGlobe show extensive berthing areas including a 640 meter finger pier and a 500 meter quay wall. Several new administrative and support buildings were also visible since the previous update. Hanoi has been telegraphing the construction of this facility for some time in anticipation to draw foreign civilian and military ships. Upon opening, the Vietnamese press put...

Hundreds of people demonstrated in Vietnam on Sunday against a Taiwanese firm they accuse of causing mass fish deaths along the country's central coast, with some also blaming the government for a sluggish response to a major environmental disaster. Though an official investigation has found no links between the fish deaths and a $10.6 billion coastal steel plant run by a unit of Taiwan's Formosa Plastics, public anger against the company has not abated. Hundreds gathered in Hanoi holding banners that said: "Formosa destroying the environment is a crime" and "Who poisoned the central region's waters?" Others said: "Formosa out...

The Rev. Daniel Berrigan, a Roman Catholic priest and peace activist who was imprisoned for burning draft files in a protest against the Vietnam War, died Saturday. He was 94. Berrigan died at Murray-Weigel Hall, a Jesuit health care community in New York City after a "long illness," according to Michael Benigno, a spokesman for the Jesuits USA Northeast Province. "He died peacefully," Benigno said.

The imminent delivery of from Russia of two Sukhoi Su-30MK2 twin-seat versions to Vietnam will make the end of production for the “classic” version of the Flanker multirole fighter. But production of advanced “generation 4++” versions—the Su-30SM, Su-34 and Su-35—featuring markedly different airframes and more powerful engines will continue through at least 2020. Vietnam previously took delivery of 30 out of the 32 Su-30MK2s that it ordered in three batches during 2009, 2012 and 2013. Delivery of the final pair will bring its total fleet to 48, including Su-27SKs, Su-27UBKs as well as Su-30MK2s. Indonesia and Uganda were also recent...

Merchant marine decides to bring beer to his buddies in Viet Nam. True story. Great video.