Vietnam suffered about 2-4 MILLION casualties inthe Vietnam War. They LOST nearly every battle, INLCUDING the Tet Offensive. Their only successful strategy was getting the Left to get the American public to abandon their ally - the emerging democracy in the south - by withdrawing the US troops and ending financial and military aid to the SVG. On this front - and only on this front - they succeeded, in LARGE measure due to TRAITOROUS activities by people like John Forbes Kerry. The Vietcong generals have ADMITTED this fact; (Google General Giap).
US troop level was only about 69,000 in 1971, and only 50,000 troops in 1973, and by 1975 and the SVA was ALONE; (in fact, US TROOPS HAD LEFT ENTIRELY BY MARCH 29, 1973). Yet, the SVG was able to hold off the Vietcong with only American advice and some air support.
BUT IN 1975, the DOVE-DEMOCRATS who controlled Congress cut off financial support for the SVG, and they fell. This led DIRECTLY to" 2 million boat people fleeing Vietcong totalitarianism, (with 500,000 perishing in boats along the way!); 1 MILLION in "re-education camps" inside Vietnam; the fall of Cambodia to socialists who MURDERED 3.5 MILLION of their own; AND IT LED TO THE VIETNAMESE PEOPLE - 65 MILLION OF'EM - living under tyranny for 30 years!
But regardless of how they got the Congress to abandon a U.S. ally and emerging democracy, the Vietnamese socialists MUST NOW ADMIT THAT THEIR WAR AGAINST THE USA WAS A COLOSSAL, IF NOT TOTAL, WASTE.
Why? Because for the last decade all the Vietnamese commies have done is BEG to get American DOLLAR$$$ and American CAPITALISTS and American TOURISTS and AMERICAN BANKERS and AMERICAN FACTORIES into Vietnam!!!!!!! (See here and here and here and here.) Sheesh. If they had just surrendered in 1965, then they'd have had all this American investment & aid FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS!!!!!!! And they'd probably be richer now than South Korea, instead of being nearly as impoverished and backward and as "UN-FREE" as North Korea! Sheesh.
YUP: THAT PROVES THAT Ho Chi Minh - and the socialists who followed him - WASTED THE LIVES OF MILLIONS OF THEIR FELLOW COUNTRYMEN!
Why do I blog this NOW?! For two reasons. (1) Leftists today still think that the anti-Vietnam War movement was their greatest success - (or at worst tied with Watergate). In fact, it was the lowest moment in our nation's history. (2) Leftists persist in trying to get the rest of the public to see the Iraq War as "Vietnam Redux" - as if our involvement in Vietnam was bad, and our involvement in Iraq is bad. But the fact is, the ONLY parallel is that in BOTH wars the Left allies itself to tryanny and against democracy - and tries to get the USA government to abandon an emerging democracy.
THE LEFT WAS WRONG THEN, AND IT IS WRONG NOW. (And I was part of the anti-war Left, then - so I KNOW!)
There's value in making the comparison on one other level, too: just as Ho Chi Minh wasted the lives of Vietnamese by ordering them to resist democratization and capitalism and free markets, so too do OBL and Zarqawi waste the lives of their adherents. Muslims all over the world shoud embrace democracy.
"WHY?" the Left asks; "ISN'T THIS MERELY 'CULTURAL HEGEMONY?!' WHO ARE WE TO 'IMPOSE OUR VALUES' ON ANYONE ELSE?!"
The answer is simple: Freedom is good for EVERYONE because it is NATURAL TO EVERYONE, for ALL humans, EVERYWHERE - just like FDR said in his FOUR FREEDOMS speech. Democracy is concomitant with freedom because democracy is the only way for free individuals to form a consensual government. And freedom and democracy are better for all people in all cultures and all societies because increasing prosperity enhances the quality of life for everyone, and prosperity is a by-product of liberty.
IN OTHER WORDS: POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
My understanding is that the treaty signed between the Vietnamese and the French called for national elections but those elections were cancelled at the urging of the US because the US was afraid Ho Chi Minh would win.
ReplyDeleteIf those elections had been held there would have been no Vietnam War. Vietnam also would not have turned to Russia and China for help in expelling the United States. Vietnam could just as easily have turned to the US to ensure its independence from China if the US had really supporteed democracy.
Similar to Chile, Iran, Haiti, Grenada, Venezuela and so many other places before and after the cold war where the US has decided that a US-controlled or -installed "fledgling democracy" is superior to the expressed desire of the people.
you are a dupe:
ReplyDeleteho chi minh never held any election, and never would have!
the idea is LAUGHABLE. it is idiotic propaganda!
and the commie north violated the paris treaty - and INVADED the south. that kind of scum - who ignore treaties - never hold elections, and if they do they are ether sham elections, or they ignore the results.
chavez and mugabe and Pol Pot and the rest of the socialist pantheon're all anti-democratic.
castro never held any elections. he could have anytime he wanted.
why didn't he!?
allende won with 30% and was going to confiscate private property or 100% of the peole of chile. like stalin did. and castro. allende got what he deserved.
grenada was made into a democracy by the usa as was EUROPE and japan and panama and iraq and afghanistan - and so many others.
dupes like you who believe commie propaganda can only be deprogrammed with the TRUTH.
the us doesn't care who wins elections. when schroeder won (the previous time) by running a nasty anti-american campaign it mattered not a whit; germany kept its troops in afghanistan and there were no reprisals.
in the 1980's, when the philippines asked us to split - we did.
BESIDES: almost NO commie regime EVER took power because of gaining a MAJORITY of the votes in an election.
not lenin or stalin - and they murdered MILLIONS to stay in power. not mao - he had to kill 50 milion to terrorize the chinese into SUBMISSION. vietnam had camps, as did cambodia and north korea and laos, and romania and bulgaria and just about EVERY socialist country in the world!
if castro could won an election, then he'd have one. and it would be more like one of saddam's than one of iraq's!
you have obviously been brainwashed by the Left, and believe that the USA is the root of all evil.
nothing could be further from the truth.
we liberated europe in ww2, won the cold war - liberating anoither 500 million more.
we liberated afghanistan, and iraq, and lebanon. and the others.
castro never libeated a single soul. he has enslaved cubans to socialism. he is a tyrant.
every nation/people deserve self-determination.
self-determination can ONLY be realized through DEMOCRACY; (corollary) nation which are run by tyrannies can NEVER thought of as self-determined.
iaq is self-determining its destiny now. it was NOT a self-determined nation under saddam..
why is this so?
because only the PEOPLE are soverign, and JUST governments derive their limited powers ONLY from consent of the governed. without that they are tyrannies, and do not earn the respect of free peoples. or other free nations.
we - as leadrs of the free world -have a moral duty to gain self-determination for our brothers and sisters everywhere who live under tyranny.
like fdr said.
gnite.
As for Vietnam, the treaty did call for elections. Those elections were blocked by the South at US urging.
ReplyDeleteAs for Chile, if there is a constitution in place and a socialist wins according to the rules in place democracy means the socialist gets to take office. If you don't believe in that, you don't believe in democracy.
As for Cuba, the people of South Africa believe Cuba played a major role in winning their freedom from the ethnicity-based "democracy" of Apartheid.
But as we can tell from Israel and from the Jim Crow South of the United States, the right wing has no problems with ethnicity-based "democracies."
It's ridiculous to argue about history, when the facts are available and can be checked.
ReplyDeleteHo Chi Minh was first and foremost a communist, and his vision for Vietnam has plunged his people into misery, poverty, and war. There has never been a free election in any part of Vietnam controlled by the communists or their NLF (Viet Cong) stooges.
Salvador Allende was elected and did in fact take office. He was overthrown when he began disarming the military, arming communist militias, and confiscating -- stealing -- from the people of Chile. Didn't Thomas Jefferson and George Washington,inter alia, believe that it was legitimate to overthrown a government that preyed upon its own people?
Apartheid has been replaced in South Africa by more generalized inter-tribal warfare, hyper-endemic crime, and hyper-endemic AIDS. Mandela's military commander was a Jewish communist, Joe Slovo. The current regime is not as bad as Mugabe's, but it is heading in the same direction.
As for Israel, only a dyed-in-the-wool anti-semite or an hysterical leftist would claim it is an "ethnic democracy." The Arab citizens of Israel, whether Christian, Druze, or Muslim, have freedom of speech, freedom of conscience to believe and worship as they wish, the freedom to vote and to be represented in parliament, and to serve in the armed forces. More than a few of the border guards killed in gaza during the most recent terror war were Arabs - both Muslim and Christian.
And the "Jim Crow" south was created and maintained by the DEMOCRAT party, not by the Republican Party -- the party of Lincoln. A greater percentage of Republicans voted for the Civil Rights Bill than did Democrats in the legislature.
But to get back to Vietnam, it is beyond question that by 1970, the Vietcong had been destroyed. The South Vietnamese government was holding it's own against the regular armies of conquest from the North, and would have continued to do so if the Democrats in the American legislature had not deprived them of the materiel needed to continue a conventional war. And it is incontestable that the fall of South Vietnam to the communists was accompanied by the flight of as many as 3 million refugees, the murder of tens of thousands of Vietnamese patriots in concentration camps, and the condemnation of the entire nation to the bitter poverty of a socialist economy.
It is quite fair to say that a united, free Vietnam might indeed have surpassed South Korea by now. The Vietnamese are incredibly industrious, optimistic, and tough. It is a shame that the leftists in the Senate and the communist sympathizers in the streets and newsrooms of the United States managed to snuff out the flame of freedom in Vietnam.
yeah: that anonymous commenter was a blatant anti-Semite. and leftie. but these days THAT'S REDUNDANT!
ReplyDeleteif ho chi minh was right and communism worked, then why are the Vietnamese begging for USA investment!?!?!?
because socialism sucks. it makes people POORER.
and it makes people LESS FREE.
i guess if you love poverty and tyranny them it makes sense to support socialists. otherwise it doesn't.
you choose.
allende was a tyrant. he DID NOT have support of a majority of his people. he had only support of 30%.
george w bush has more support than allende ever had.
george w bush has gained the white house, and gained - for his party - seats in the congress... EVERY ELECTION. this has not happened in over 100 years!
yet if he tried to confiscate private property HE WOULD NEED TO BE OVERTHROWN.Allende did try - with less of mandate. ALLENDE WAS A TYRANT!
as allende was.
as castro SHOULD HAVE BEEN - and would have been if JFK used his balls for something besides porking mafia-molls like exner!
had we succeeded in overthrowing castro in the "bay of pigs"
invasion all that would have happended is that the CUBANS would have been living in freedom and properity for the last 42 years instead of under a tyrant and in an ever declining standard of living.
why?! easy: socialism sucks.
people who support socialism are fools and/or dupes and or irrational dissemblers living in denial.
HEY ANONYOMOUS: china was ONLY lifted out of starvation and poverty by Deng Tsao Ping's move to FREE MARKETS!
so WAKE UPO AND SMELLTHE REALITY:
when the Democeat oarty pulled the plug on the emerging democacy in South Vietnam. it was the lowest "worstest" most harmful moment in ALL of USA history - and led --- not only to enslavement and genocide in SE ASIA -- but to the USSR invading Afghanistan, and ther Shah being overthrown, and Saddam's coup d'etat. In short: to every effing problem we now face!
I urge you, anonymous, to wake up and smell REALITY. It's NOT too late for you to liberate yourself from leftist dogma and join the RIGHT SIDE in the GOOD FIGHT!