So as I said, O'Neill's prediction is correct, even if he was off by a number of years. Vietnam is not North Korea.
On the other hand, it does seem determined to meddle in Laos. I don't know what that's about. I don't want to paint a rosy picture, just a realistic one.
I'm glad to hear that things are better now. Thanks for explaining.
Kerry Exploits Vets for Hanoi (I promised no more Kerry articles. This one is well written though)
www.insightmag.com ^ | By J. Michael Waller
Posted on 03/05/2004 1:56:11 PM CST by bogdanPolska12
For Kerry, politicizing the nation's war effort for partisan purposes was the right thing to do, in contrast to the violent revolutionary designs of colleagues who were out to destroy the system. Kerry didn't want to take down the establishment. He wanted to take it over. His aborted, monthlong 1970 congressional campaign was a victory for him politically, as it landed him on television's popular Dick Cavett Show, where he came to the attention of some of the central organizers of the antiwar/pro-Hanoi group known as Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW).VVAW was a numerically small part of the protest movement, but it was extremely influential through skillful political theater, the novelty of uniformed combat veterans joining the Vietniks, and a ruthless coalition-building strategy that forged partnerships with the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), its Trotskyite rival, the Socialist Workers Party, and a broad front that ranged from pacifists to supporters of the Black Panthers and other domestic terrorist groups.
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Kerry was the star of the political theater that historic week, angry that the law forbade political protests at veterans' graves in Arlington National Cemetery and angrier that President Richard Nixon enforced the law and that the Supreme Court upheld it. He led an illegal encampment of veterans and people who dressed as veterans on the Mall in downtown Washington and used the services of Ramsey Clark - a former Johnson administration attorney general who by that time openly was supporting the enemy in Hanoi - to fight a federal order to disperse. According to the Daily World, which published a page-one photo of Kerry passing Clark a note during the march, the protesters converged on the White House chanting, "One, Two, Three, Four - We Don't Want Your F- - - - - - War."
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He seemed to want it both ways in the protest movement. While claiming to "hate" the communists, he decried any attempt to marginalize them within the movement. Once, when questioned about his political alliance with supporters of the enemy, Kerry said that any attempts to push out Hanoi supporters might result "in seriously dividing and weakening the movement, and making it less effective."That didn't sit well with some VVAW members beyond the Washington Beltway...
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Yet for all his want of the spotlight, Kerry avoided public debates with other veterans. On seven occasions, by July 1971, he had refused to allow other veterans to challenge him publicly on television, even when CBS and NBC offered to host formal debates. He relented only when Dick Cavett, who had made him a national figure not long before, agreed to terms Kerry found advantageous. Even then, with Kerry holding all the advantages, Boston Globe political columnist David Nyhan observed, his "scrappy little" opponent, John O'Neill, "was all over Kerry like a terrier, keeping the star of the Foreign Relations Committee hearings ... off balance."
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Having lost the ['72 House of Rep.] primary in humiliation - his brother had been caught trying to wiretap an opponent's office[!!!] - Kerry went to Boston College Law School. Later, he was appointed assistant district attorney, then was elected lieutenant governor under Mike Dukakis in 1982. Two years later, he ran for the U.S. Senate - dusting off his veteran's credentials by standing in front of the black Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington to shoot a TV campaign ad, defying regulations that the memorial not be used for political purposes. The ad "was filmed illegally against the wishes of the National Park Service," according to the Boston Globe. Kerry authorized its broadcast anyway.
~~~~~ etc...
WASHINGTON, DC, March 15, 2004 -- The Vietnamese government is using drug injections to torture minority ethnic Hmong Christians into abandoning their faith, according to new documentary evidence released today by Freedom House’s Center for Religious Freedom.
The Center has received a letter dated January 30 that details the plight of Hmong Christians who are forced to deny their faith in Na Ling Village, Song Ma District, Lai Chau Province in Northwest Vietnam. The letter, written by Zong Xiong Hang, a Hmong Christian, describes the use of painful drug injections administered by Vietnamese military personnel in order to force Hmong in Na Ling Village “to not believe in Jesus.” Those injected reported experiencing chest pains, headaches, and numbness in their limbs.
“Pain-inducing drug injections are a horrific violation of the integrity of the person,” said Center Director Nina Shea. “This shocking form of torture has been used in some of the world’s most sinister regimes, including Nazi Germany and the USSR.”
According to the letter, Christians in Na Ling Village also faced expulsion if they did not abandon their religious beliefs..........
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end of excerpt.
Nice that your daughter could visit the Potemkin Vietnam. Unfortunately, she didn't visit the real country, as it is.
They are, but it took an awful long time to get there. And in fact Hanoi finally recognized the end of the "American War" by allowing the USS Vandegrift to dock in the Port Of Saigon last November, and US Navy sailors were even given shore leave in Saigon (what a sight!).
But let's not forget what it took to get there: a decade of land seizures and reeducation camps (in which many died or were permanently crippled), and the subsequent fall of Cambodia, which is where the real bloodbath occurred (2 milllion dead).
I found it remarkable that during the Cavett debate, Kerry was very much aware of those potential consequences, and calmly accepted not only that "we can't win in Southeast Asia", but that the outcome of our withdrawl probably would be the fall of the entire region to Communism. He actually said that, as if it were just inevitable.