Vietnam is a great example of what happens when you quit and let the bad guys win.
They're forgetting the complete teardown and rebuild of Japan and the rest of the Axis powers, plus South Korea, and the successful intervention in several South American countries.
Good to see ya Presidio.
Right. Vietnam is such a terrific country now thanks to the communist 'victory' in the war. People are just flocking in DROVES to go live there!
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Vietnam was not defeated and occupied, like Iraq. Now take those we did defeat and occupy, like Philippines, Japan, Germany, Italy, France (well, scratch that one) and we did a good job.
Vietnam started as a French work in progress, so you might want to lay the blame there.
For liberals the only causes worth dying for are Euthanasia and Abortion.
I've seen fish refuse to be wrapped in the Murky News.
All Vietnam proves is that a Communist State is not sustainable, and so the Communists had to look elsewhere, just as China and Cuba (to a lesser extent) have done. He would have probably written a similar article about Castro's Cuba, because many of the tourist enterprises are truly advanced, while the rest of the country stagnates.
Iraq is different for two reasons: Oil and the ruthlessness of its dictatorship, whose only serious competitor in that regard is North Korea. Neither Iraq nor North Korea could have been defeated from within, because the secret police are too powerful. This is why the leftist argument that we should have left the Iraqis to do their own revolution doesn't hold water.
Equally to the point, there were horribly wasted decades as Vietnam came to grips with Communism. If we had won down there, there would have been much freer society which woulud have prospered instead of stagnating. The best comparison is probably South Korea, which started as a strongman state but made its way to Democracy. The same would have happened in Vietnam if we'd kept control over it.
D
I forgot the name of the man to attribute this quote:
"The Vietnamese are the hardest working people in SE Asia. If it wasn't for the communists, Vietnam would have been the perfect model for pure capitalism. As it is, they are steadily throwing off communism because communism is not their national character."
The Vietnam War (both French and American versions) is the 'cause and effect result' of government intrusion in a military theater of operation. There were too many government suits thinking they were generals and too many generals thinking like government suits. We never lost a battle in Vietnam.
That is a lie. America has been propping up Vietnam (and unfortunately it's ugly Stalinst government) for at least the last decade.
$3 to $5 billion is wired from Vietnamese-American refugeees to their families in Vietnam every year (I heard that in 2003 it was $3 billion during the Tet holiday alone). This massive yearly infusion of American cash is the engine that has pulled Vietnam out of Hanoi's economic swamp. The only reason Hanoi allowed "doi moi" economic reforms in 1989 was to gain access to some of that cash without risking jail.
The implication that communist Vietnam would have cruised along blithely with its Marxist economic model, and its Stalinist social program, it utterly and completely false. Every year Hanoi gives up more and more of its control to gain a piece of the economic pie.
No one in Vietnam believes in Marxism or certainly communism, except perhaps the demented old fogies in the Hanoi Politburo.
But everyone south of the 17th parallel understands America's contribution to Vietnam's economic improvement. Everyone. (To be fair, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore have also helped, but not without regular, unabashed, and repeated public upbraidings of the thickheaded Hanoi government).
The Easter Offensive of '73 is proof US might can build a Nation. "Project Purse Strings", the "Watergate Congress", and Kent State proved the anti-war movement/DNC wasn't about peace, but communism
This is the truth of this article. Go into any provisional hospital, even in the poorest sections of Issan, in Thailand and compare with the best that Vietnam has to offer and you can get a idea of where Vietnam could have been if not for our surrender there. Cambodia, Laos and Burma are monuments to the "wonders" of socialism as well. If you are using the quality of life for the individual, Vietnam is hardly the example to use for success. Hopefully, the future will bring better days to Vietnam, however, to go much beyond where they are today, the will have to throw off the "foreign" influence of communism.
What a stupid article. Vietnam's not the only place that doesn't look so bad anymore, now that the SOVIET UNION HAS FALLEN. But what the hell did this author think the world was like when there were still Reds in Red Square?
This article is so nonsensical at so many levels that it really only constitutes proof of nothing but the increasing senility of the pop-left. How can he know what Vietnam would be like if we, rather than his Stalinist friends, had won the Vietnam War? According to this author, Vietnam is a great success (which it isn't) without US help (which it does in fact receive) so it is therefore impossible for US assistance to achieve anything positive. The premise is a lie, and the conclusion would be a non-sequitur even if were true. By this logic, driving to work is impossible because someone else has successfully ridden a bike and we therefore don't need oil. Oh, wait a minute, that's an actual lefty claim too.