that the United States would begin selling weapons to the Communist nation of Vietnam.
--
The Vietnam War ended 41 years ago. The Vietnam of today isn’t the same as it was. I was in Vietnam 1969-1971. Today Vietnam has internet and Skype and Nike and Reebok factories and they make the Lumia smart phones.
Also, for as many times as China has invaded Vietnam, the Vietnamese have always driven them out successfully. It would be nice to know how they do this.
Send Bergdahl and Hanoi Jane.
This is a far superior method of containing China than committing US forces. There is no love between China and Vietnam. By selling them arms, we make money while achieving a geopolitical objective, and no US lives are put on the line, and no taxpayer money is spent to make it happen.
It’s such a sensible move I’m surprised it’s coming from Obama.
I find it humorous that the leader of the party is trying to send guns to Vietnam while they have been talking themselves blind trying to take ours away,
red
I am a Viet Nam veteran-68-69 with TDYs back until summer 70. I feel absolutely zero of this bitterness the NYT is selling. America has no better friend than the Vietnamese people. The government and the nation are up against the Chinese Wall and it is very much in American interests to keep China from making a no-access lake out of the East Sea. It is in all western nations’ interest to prevent that. Viet Nam, because it is a bureaucratic authoritarian system, which we are rapidly becoming in the USA without the Communist label,it maintains a huge army of men. We need that army there and we need that army to be well equipped. We need Cam Ranh which Viet Nam has been trying to lure us back to for 20 years. There is no better port and base from which to oppose China’s ambitions in SEA. The government is nominally Communist and is organized in that way but the Vietnamese, even the Party people are practical people, unlike the Russians a few decades back. They need the USA and the USA needs Viet Nam. They look also to Australia but Australia doesn’t really have the economy to support the role in SEA that is needed. Letting China do its will in the East Sea will make international trade much more expensive because a very large portion of the world’s shipping goes through there or very near there. China could shut all that off or charge exorbitant prices for passage if we let them have it. President Obama doesn’t like VN because VN keeps trying to be a friend of America, a protectorate of sorts even. Obama doesn’t like countries that see anything good in America. He has cut off most of the influence for reform that accomplished a lot in the Clinton and Bush years. Yes Bill Clinton did some good there. I think he thought he was sticking his thumb in Republican eyes but his opening to VN was a good move. He and Bush leaned on Ha Noi to reform and VN back off its heavy handed approaches to a lot of things. There has been some backsliding because those reforms were of a sort that Obama abhors and he has not kept up the pressure at all.
“Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia.”
— 1984
ping
that the United States would begin selling weapons to the Communist nation of Vietnam.
--
Obama is planning to bring in Jane Fonda as Secretary of State to handle the matter...
Our soldiers have acquitted themselves on the battlefield in every war including those, such as Vietnam, that our politicians subsequently lost. Our cause, which is freedom, will eventually win, even if we fail. We, the Americans, if we embrace our greatness, can be friends and allies of all other nations in the world. If we achieve, through vigilance, economic advantage and diplomacy, a victory that our politicians squandered, it honors those who made the ultimate sacrifices during that war, as we never sought to conquer Vietnam, but to enable the people of that country to be free.
“Bitter irony”?
How about “outright betrayal”?
Obama is trying to undercut Richard Roper.