South Vietnam, Iraq, and the Democrat Doves

The Democrat Doves are doing to Iraq what they did to South Vietnam - handing it on a silver platter to the enemy; THAT'S RIGHT: we didn't "lose Vietnam"; the Democrat Doves gave it to the communists YEARS after we left the war.

Here's what they did to the good people of South Vietnam: 

US troops were completely out of Vietnam in March, 1973:

Vietnam War Timeline: 1973 - 1975

1973

15th Jan.

Nixon announces a halt to all U.S. offensive action against the North

27th Jan.

It is estimated that there is 145,000 NVA troops in South Vietnam

27th Jan.

Peace Pact is signed in Paris. End of military draft announced

10th March

ROK Capital Division returns home to South Korea.

18th March

Major Floyd Thompson is released by North Vietnam, he was captured in March 1964

28th March

1st Aviation Brigade leaves for home and is the cut of date for the award of the Vietnam Service medal and Campaign medal

 

29th March 

MACV HQ is disbanded and the 18th MP Brigade leaves Saigon.

The withdrawal of all U.S. troops from South Vietnam is complete and release of 590 U.S. POW’s held by communist forces in Vietnam are completed.

WIKI:

During his confirmation hearings in June 1973, Secretary of Defense James R. Schlesinger stated that he would recommend resumption of U.S. bombing in North Vietnam if North Vietnam launched a major offensive against South Vietnam.

On 4 June 1973, the U.S. Senate [CONTROLLED BY DEMOCRATS] passed the Case–Church Amendment to prohibit such intervention.[257]

The South Vietnamese government stood on its own - with US financial aid and military advice for two years.

The Democrat Doves - leftist's all, like USSR, Cuba, and El Salvador appeaser AND "peace" activist John Kerry - cut off all aid in 1975 (WIKI):

 The Viet Cong resumed offensive operations when the dry season began and by January 1974 it had recaptured the territory it lost during the previous dry season.

... [IN VIOLATION OF THE PARIS PEACE ACCORD]... 

After two clashes that left 55 South Vietnamese soldiers dead, President Thieu announced on 4 January that the war had restarted and that the Paris Peace Accord was no longer in effect.

There had been over 25,000 South Vietnamese casualties during the ceasefire period.[258]

Gerald Ford took over as U.S. president on 9 August 1974 after president Nixon resigned due to the Watergate scandal.

At this time, Congress cut financial aid to South Vietnam from $1 billion a year to $700 million. The U.S. midterm elections in 1974 brought in a new Congress dominated by Democrats who were even more determined to confront the president on the war.

Congress immediately voted in restrictions on funding and military activities to be phased in through 1975 and to culminate in a total cutoff of funding in 1976.

So, instead of confronting the USSR backed communists of North Vietnam when they violated the Paris Peace Accord, the Democrats abandoned the small "d" democrats of South Vietnam.

And that's why South Vietnam fell in April 1975 (WIKI):

Chaos, unrest, and panic broke out as hysterical South Vietnamese officials and civilians scrambled to leave Saigon. Martial law was declared.

American helicopters began evacuating South Vietnamese, U.S., and foreign nationals from various parts of the city and from the U.S. embassy compound. Operation Frequent Wind had been delayed until the last possible moment, because of U.S. Ambassador Graham Martin's belief that Saigon could be held and that a political settlement could be reached.
Schlesinger announced early in the morning of 29 April 1975 the evacuation from Saigon by helicopter of the last U.S. diplomatic, military, and civilian personnel.

SAIGON FELL IN APRIL 1975 - TWO YEARS AFTER THE LAST USA CONBAT TROPP LEFT VIETNAM.

THE NORTH VIETNAMESE COMMIES DID NOT WIN THE WAR; THE DEMOCRAT DOVES OF CONGRESS WON THE WAR FOR THEM!

JUST AS THEY AND OBAMA ARE DOING NOW!

The Obama and the Democrat Doves - (which NOW includes Kerry in a more prominent role now than in 1975) - took power in the USA in 2009 and immediately signaled they would not do a damn thing to help Iraq stay secular and stable:

Obama then failed to sign a renewed status of forces agreement. According to David Filkens of the New Yorker:

[E]very single senior political leader, no matter what party or what group, including Maliki, said to them privately, we want you to stay. We don’t want you to fight. We don’t want combat troops. We don’t want Americans getting killed, but we want 10,000 American troops inside the Green Zone training our army, giving us intelligence, playing that crucial role as the broker and interlocutor that makes our system work. We want you to stay.

Filkens told NPR that James Jeffrey, an American ambassador, said he “got no guidance from the White House.”

On top of that Obama and the Democrat Doves released Abu Bakr - the leader of ISIS, the group that's instigated the crisis in Syria and which is also now in control of the Sunni region of Iraq - from Camp Bucca jail in Iraq.

Now, after 

• abandoning Mubarak, and 
• abandoning back-stabbing POS Kaddafy (who - it must be mentioned - at the time of his overthrow was aiding the West in out war against islamic extremists), and 
• abandoning the "red-line" he drew in Syria, 

Obama's abandonment of Iraq is having its ENTIRELY PREDICTABLE EFFECT.

And the same effect the Democrat Doves had in South East Asia in the 1970's.

We predicted this before Obama was elected in 2008.

The only thing that can stop us from worse disasters is electing a GOP Senate.

Vote in November for the GOP.

It's November or never.

In fact, November might be too late....

REPRISE: THE IRAQ-VIETNAM ANALOGY - wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong...

Yesterday, Harry Reid said that Iraq was worse than Vietnam. He is abso-effin-lutely WRONG.

The Vietnam War cost us the lives of 50,000 US troops. Iraq by comparison is peaceful. But the analogy doesn't just fail there - IT FAILS COMPLETELY, except in so far as the Left wants us to lose, and is doing EVERYTHING in its power to make sure we lose - NO MATTER THE CONSEQUENCES.

In 1975, the consequences were the collapse of the SVG and the invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam - in flagrant violation of the Paris Peace Treaty.

This led directly to 2 MILLION refugees - the Boat People, and the Pol Pot regime which murdered 4 MILLION in Cambodia. And the enslavement of 60 MILLION Vietnamese to a Marxist tyranny for 30 years.

This is NOT the first time the Left has put forward the Vietnam analogy - they do it ALL THE TIME. Here's what The Astute Bloggers posted on this FALSE ANALOGY almost TWO YEARS AGO:

Saturday, August 27, 2005 -

THE VIETNAM-IRAQ ANALOGY

From a letter to the WSJ via BETSY'S PAGE (who credits THE ANCHORESS via Cartago Delenda Est):

Iraq is just like Vietnam except:

We occupy Hanoi. We've captured Ho Chi Minh. The North Vietnamese have just held a free and democratic election. The North Vietnamese are working on a new constitution.

Yes, Iraq is just like Vietnam.

And er um .. to further the "analogy" : it's only 1967!

There is one analogy that does translate from Vietnam to Iraq: the Left is actively aiding the enemy and undercutting our efforts to spread democracy and halt the spread of totalitarianism. I KNOW: I WAS ON THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY IN THE 1960's-70's: I WAS AN ANTI-VIETNAM LEFTIE, THEN! BUT REAGAN PROVED ME - AND THE ENITRE LEFT WAS WRONG.

# posted by reliapundit @ 1:14 PM

I was right then; and it's still right. Iraq is NOT like Vietnam AT ALL:

our casualties are low; Saddam is DEAD; the Iraqis have a democratic government and a constitution.

Reid and Schumer and Teddy are trying to make us lose now as the Lefties did then - and they care not one iota about the horrific consequences. They are shameless Lefties who serve the enemy now as they did then. Treasonous traitors who actively push policies which ONLY help the enemy.

POLLING, FAIR-WEATHER HAWKS AND THE OVERALL POPULARITY OF THE IRAQ WAR

About 35% of the American public are committed hawks; about 30% are committed doves; about 20% blow any which way that day's or week's news is blowing: if news is good then they are pro-war; if news is bad, then they are anti-war. And about 15% never care enough to decide what they are.

Any analysis of the SALIENT ups and downs of the first three years of the Iraq War proves this: when Baghdad fell; when Saddam was caught; when good elections were held - then the war went up in overall popularity. This is because the fair-weather hawks decided that because of that week's news the war was okay. When these folks think the war is going badly they become doves.

The RELENTLESSLY one-sided and deliberately negative reportage of the MSM has made these fair-weather hawks more negative than ever - and turned them into doves, for the time being. This is EXACTLY how the MSM skewed the American public to feel negatively about the Vietnam War (after the Tet Offensive, which we WON). We were also WINNING the Vietnam War and Vietnamization was working, and we were also fighting for completely noble and extremely important geopolitical reasons. When the doves of the Democrat Party voted to cut off funding of the South Vietnamese government in 1975 - two full years after the last US combat troop has left Vietnam - it led to the treaty-violating invasion of South Vietnam by North Vietnam, 2 million Boat People, Pol Pot's genocide of 3.5 million Cambodians, and the collapse of Laos. Had we just kept advisory and support troops in South Vietnam and kept up our financial aid these horrible things WOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. Our RETREAT from Southeast Asia encouraged the USSR to invade Afghanistan, and the jihadist to overthrow the Shah. So you see, our dovish Left-wing anti-Vietnam War policies had horrible long-term ramifications - for the entire Free World.

Our combat troops will be needed in Iraq for between one and two years more - according to most analysts, with a perhaps tens of thousands to remain there, on base in Iraq, in order to assist in a continued training and advisory capacity for as long as needed - JUST LIKE IN WE DID IN SOUTH KOREA. This is a reasonable outcome for Iraq, JUST AS IT WAS FOR SOUTH KOREA.

From the position the doves of the Left now advocate for Iraq - "no surge, and withdrawal on an arbitrary timetable" - it is reasonable to feel that these doves do not care about Iraq or the region or the Free World. Advocating these polices for Iraq is like preferring it if we had abandoned South Korea and had let it fall under Stalinist tyranny for the last 50 years. That's just what they're saying now: they wouldn't mind it if Iraq descended into a Taliban-like or Iran-like jihadist tyranny. They'd rather just leave - and stick their heads in the sand.

I for one feel that we can and should make the same opened ended commitment to Iraq as we made for South Korea - and Japan and Western Europe.

Those who claim we don't have the resources are flat pour wrong: we began to fight and eventually won WW2 while mired in a deep DEPRESSION, while unemployment was at its worst. We remain committed to Western Europe from 1946 to 1950 even though our efforts to rebuild it had ALL FAILED UP TO THEN: YUP: The Marshall Plan was not enacted until 1950. There FOUR FULL YEARS OF LACKLUSTER RESULTS UNTIL 1950, BUT AMERICA DID NOT BUG OUT - AS THE LEFT WOULD NOW HAVE US DO!

We can and should do whatever it takes to make sure Iraq doesn't collapse under al Qaeda or Iranian hegemony. It's in in our national interest, the interest of the region, and the free World. Those who decry these goals as unfeasible are wrong, amoral and myopic doves who should be ignored. We must ignore them now; we mustn't repeat the errors of Vietnam.

OBAMA PAL AND ARCH LIB NICK KRISTOFF ADVOCATES PULLING THE PLUG ON PAKISTAN LIKE THE DEMOCRAT CONGRESS DID TO SOUTH VIETNAM IN 1975

FACT: THE LAST COMBAT USA TROOP LEFT VIETNAM ON 3/29/73.

March 29, 1973 - The last remaining American troops withdraw from Vietnam as President Nixon declares "the day we have all worked and prayed for has finally come."

America's longest war, and its first defeat, thus concludes.

MORE...

September 1974 - The U.S. Congress appropriates only $700 million for South Vietnam.

This leaves the South Vietnamese Army under-funded and results in a decline of military readiness and morale.

• THAT'S RIGHT: THE LAST US TROOPS LEFT IN 1973.
• AND SAIGON DIDN'T FALL UNTIL 1975.
• THAT'S RIGHT: 1975 - LESS THAN A YEAR AFTER THE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT DOVES OF CONGRESS PULLED THE PLUG ON FINANCING THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE GOVERNMENT.

  • Historians have directly attributed the fall of Saigon in 1975 to the cessation of American aid. Without the necessary funds, South Vietnam found it logistically and financially impossible to defeat the North Vietnamese army.
    

  • Moreover, the withdrawal of aid encouraged North Vietnam to begin an effective military offensive against South Vietnam.
    

  • Given the monetary and military investment in Vietnam, former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Armitage compared the American withdrawal to “a pregnant lady, abandoned by her lover to face her fate.” 2
    

  • Historian Lewis Fanning went so far as to say that “it was not the Hanoi communists who won the war, but rather the American Congress that lost it.” 3

• ONLY THEN DID THE NORTH VIOLATE THE TERMS OF THE PEACE TREATY AND INVADE ON TOPPLE THE SOUTH.

FAST FORWARD.... NOW - 2008: NYTIMES COLUMNIST NICHOLAS KRISTOF --

• A LONGTIME SUPPORTER OF OBAMA - (WHO ONCE WROTE A COLUMN INN WHICH HE QUOTED OBAMA CALLING THE MUSLIM CALL TO PRAYER ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SOUNDS IN THE WORLD, AND THEN PROCEEDED TO SING IT BY HEART! A COLUMN NOW CONVENIENTLY DELETED FROM THE NYTIMES' ARCHIVES!) --

• YES: NICHOLAS KRISTOF - WHOSE COLUMN SPEAKS FOR THE DOVES WHO PULLED THE PLUG ON SP8TH VIETNAM, AND WHO CONTROL THE CONGRESS ONCE AGAIN - IS NOW ADVOCATING THE USA PULL THE PLUG ON PAKISTAN!

QUOTE: "First, we should slow the financial flow to Pakistan’s government and military."

YUP: KRISTOF WANTS US TO SLOW AID TO AN ALLY ON THE MOST IMPORTANT FRONT IN THE WAR!!

• THE DOVES OF THE LEFT THEY NEVER FUCKIN' LEARN. ASSHOLES. IT'S AS IF THEY WANT PAKISTAN'S NUKES TO FALL INTO JIHADISTS' HANDS.

• THE FALL OF SOUTH VIETNAM LED TO 4 MILLION DEATHS: 3.5 MILLION AT THE HANDS OF LEFTIST POL POT AND 500,000 WHO DIED FLEEING SOUTH VIETNAM AS IT FELL UNDER NORTH VIETNAM'S LEFTIST TYRANNY.

• ALL FOUR MILLION OF THESE DEAD - ALL THEIR BLOOD IS ON THE HANDS OF THE DEMOCRAT DOVES OF THE CONGRESS OF 1975.

• IF THEY DO THE SAME THING AGAIN - IF OBAMA TAKES KRISTOF'S ADVICE - THEN TODAY'S BLOODBATH IN SOUTH ASIA WILL MAKE THE ONE IN SOUTHEAST ASIA IN THE LATE 1970'S LOOK LIKE A PIN-PRICK.

• HOW SAD AND SENSELESS, HOW UTTERLY UNNECESSARY. HOW TYPICAL OF THE LEFT: UNABLE TO LEARN FROM HISTORY.

IF YOU REALLY WANT PEACE, THEN YOU SHOULD BE A HAWK BECAUSE PEACE IS A BY-PRODUCT OF VICTORY.

WE NEED TO CRUSH THE TALIBAN AND AL QAEDA, NOT FINANCIALLY SQUEEZE OR ABANDON OUR SHAKY ALLIANCE WITH THE PAKISTANIS.

• WE CAN DEMAND MORE AND MORE, BUT NOT THREATEN THEM - THAT WOULD BE LIKE CUTTING OFF OUR OWN NOSE.

• OBAMA AND THE LEFTIE DOVES OF CONGRESS ARE PROBABLY GOING TO FOLLOW KRISTOF'S ADVICE AND GET TOUGHER ON OUR ALLIES WHO ARE ON THE FRONT LINES IN WW4, (IRAQ, AFGHANISTAN, PAKISTAN - EVEN ISRAEL) AND APPEASE THE ENEMY.

IT'S A RECIPE FOR DISASTER. ONE THE LEFTIE DOVE OBAMA IS LIKELY TO REPEAT...

*******MORE ON THIS HERE.

"NOBLE DREAMS" : Ignatieff, Vietnam and Iraq

Libs just can't help themselves: they MUST mention Vietnam every time they discuss Iraq.

Michael Ignatieff (Carr professor of human rights at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard is no exception) - and like most libs, even contemporary lib-hawks (many of whom seem to be getting wobbly lately -- "when the going gets tough the Left gets packing!") - and in his NYTIMES article he writes the following:

It would be a noble thing if one day 26 million Iraqis could live their lives without fear in a country of their own. But it would also have been a noble dream if the South Vietnamese had been able to resist the armored divisions of North Vietnam and to maintain such freedom as they had. Lyndon Johnson said the reason Americans were there was the ''principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania,'' the right of people to choose their own path to change. Noble dream or not, the price turned out to be just too high.

Well, well, well: Ignatieff may not have intended it, but he has revealed the one and only true connection between Vietnam and what the Left is trying to do now. HOW? Well, by ADMITTING that Vietnam "WOULD HAVE BEEN" a NOBLE DREAM but foe the fact that the SVG failed to hold off the North Vietnamese totalitarians.

BUT, Ignatieff elides the CRUCIAL FACT: that the SVG ONLY FELL AFTER THE DEM/LIB CONTROLLED CONGRESS CUT OFF FINANCING FOR THEIR FLEDGLING DEMOCRACY. AND THIS WAS 1975, A YEAR AFTER MOST US TROOPS HAD ALREADY BEEN WITHDRAWN! It was the LEFT-WINGwhcih forced the US to CUT & RUN, and then shamelessly cut off our allies at the knees - condemning the Vietnamese people to 30 years of tyrnanny and poverty! (Not to mention giving rise to Pol Pot and theBoat People!)

And the Left wants to do the SAME EXACT THING TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE. THIS IS THE TRUE VIETNAM/IRAQ PARALLEL!

The Left does NOT have a NOBLE DREAM - and even if they did, they do not have the COURAGE to stay the course. Proof of this is the fact that so many lib-hawks have gone wobbly on Iraq just as we are entering a new and great AND NOBLE PHASE. And just as the Sunnis are entering into the political process.

Ignatieff argues that the price of Vietnam was too high. HE IS WRONG. The cost was not too high; there were just too many appeasing liberals in Congress. If Bush had the same immoral liberal-Democrat Congress today GERALD FORD HAD IN 1975, then he'd be unable to override a bill to cut-off funding to Iraq. And we'd have the same type of disaster.

Which is why we should never EVER trust the Left with the defense of the USA or the free world.

The sad thing is that uber Dem-lib FDR would've endorsed what Bush is doing; in fact, by today's standards FDR WOULD BE A NEOCON! (Just check out his FOUR FREEDOMS speech if you doubt me!) Which illustrates again how the Left has become the focus of reactionary ideology in the Western politics.

CLOONEY: A DUPE WHO IS WRONG AGAIN

CLOONEY spits out more Left-wing nonsense in a post at HUFFINGTON, titled "I Am a Liberal. There, I Said It!" In it he attacks Democrats who voted for the resolution authorizing Bush to attack Saddam. Essentially, he calls their vote for the resolution a "profile in cowardice."

And I'll give this much to Clooney: he might very well be right about most Democrats; they might truly be doves who were too cowardly to vote that way. And Clooney deserves credit for saying this and then forthrightly proclaiming himself essentially a Leftie appeaser and a dove (though he calls himself a liberal).

In fact, he opens his post by proudly asserting that he's a "liberal" - and then he ties his attack on the cowardly Democrats and on Bush and the War in Iraq to previous, historical Leftist attacks which he thinks were good and noble.

By doing this, he unknowingly proves that the Left was wrong then, and they're wrong now. Here's what he wrote:

"... that McCarthy was wrong, that Vietnam was a mistake. And that Saddam Hussein had no ties to al-Qaeda ..."

WRONG. WRONG. WRONG. Here is the truth:

1 - The Vietnam War was NOT A MISTAKE, abandoning our South Vietnamese allies was a mistake. The truth is, the Vietnam War was a noble war - and one we were winning.

The South Vietnamese were fighting largely on their own when the DEMOCRAT LIBERALS in Congress pulled the plug on them in 1975 - that's TWO YEARS AFTER ALL U.S. TROOPS HAD BEEN WITHDRAWN!

This financial ABANDONMENT of the emerging democracy in South Vietnam led to their collapse against an INVASION by the North Vietnamese Marxist tryants - in violation of the Paris Peace Accord. This led directly to 2 million Vietnamese refugees - The Boat people - fleeing Marxist oppression. Another 500,000 South Vietnamese were put into "re-education camps" - (real "GULAGS," not like Gitmo). And, the collapse of South Vietnam led directly to the victory of Pol Pot in Cambodia and to the 3.5 MILLION people murdered there by Pol Pot's Marxist tryanny - THUS PROVING THAT THE DOMINO THEORY WAS TRUE.

(YUP: THE DOMINO THEORY - A MAJOR REASON FOR OUR INVOLVEMENT IN THE VIETNAM WAR, WAS TRUE. AND AFTER VIETNAM FELL, SO DID OTHER NATIONS IN SE ASIA, AND SOON AFTER, SO DID AFGHANISTAN. AND THEN, THE JIHADOTERRORISTS TOOK OVER IRAN, AND THE LONG WAR BEGAN. ALL WERE THE RESULT OF THE DOVES AND DOVISH APPEAEMENT OF THE USSR. ONLY THE HAWKISH POLICIES OF REAGAN REVERSED THAT. I OPPOSED THEM AT THE TIME, BUT LOOKING BACK, I CAN SEE THAT REAGAN WAS RIGHT.)

If we had stuck by our allies in the South of Vietnam - the way we have our allies in South Korea, then today the South Vietnamese would be as rich and as free as South Koreans instead of being as tyrannized and as poor as North Koreans!

NEED MORE PROOF THAT WE WERE RIGHT? HERE:

The Vietnamese communist tyrants - who TODAY still throw people in jail for just trying to exercise their human rights, like freedom of expression! - are now BEGGING for USA investment. YUP: the Vietnamese now WANT THE USA TO INVEST IN VIETNAM!

Well, if - instead of fighting us for a decade - they had let us and our allies in the South redevelop Vietnam, then they'd have had THAT INVESTMENT FOR THE LAST 40 YEARS - and 2 million Vietnamese wouldn't have died in the war.

YUP: if the Vietnam War was a mistake for ANYONE, it was a mistake for the North Vietnamese - who now beg for the very same capitalist investments that they fought against from 1963-1975. What a waste. And it proves that THE NORTH VIETNAMESE MARXIST WERE WRONG, NOT US.

I KNOW ALL THIS STUFF BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS; I was a teenage dove then - against the Vietnam War and a Leftie. AND, NOW I CAN ADMIT THAT ME AND THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT WERE WRONG, AND WHAT WE DID WAS BAD. Clooney should grow up and admit it , too.

2 - McCarthy was NOT wrong, and he was not on a "witchhunt".

McCarthy was ONLY trying to expose communists, and communist sypathizers in the State Department and the US Army. AND GUESS WHAT? There were Soviet agents in the Army and the State department. Since the collpase of the USSR, this has all been proved. Hiss WAS a spy. The Rosenbergs were SPIES. And so were all the other people McCarthy exposed.

Contrary to what Clooney, and other misinformed Lefties think, McCarthy had NO INVOLVEMENT in the Hollywood "blacklist" or any other Congressional effort to combat the American communists. McCarthy was NOT even on the House Un-American Activities Committee. REMEMBER: he was a SENATOR! And remember: witchhunts are bad because there's no such thing as witches. But there were communists infiltrating our government. Soviet agents in our Army and State Department were a real threat. People - like Clooney - who call the hunt for these Soviet agents a "witchhunt" are wrong.

3 - Contrary to what Clooney and othe Loony Lefties think, Saddam had numerous ties to al Qaeda and other jihadoterrorist groups. This has been proven over and over again.

SURE: SADDAM HAD NO PROVEN TIES TO 9/11 - BUT THIS IS A LEFT-WING SMEAR AND A RED-HERRING: Bush NEVER SAID SADDAM HAD TIES TO 9/11.

NEED PROOF?! Well, Bush asked for - and got - a SEPARATE RESOLUTION TO ATTACK SADDAM. (This is the resolution which many Democrats supported - at the time - and this is the resolution which Clooney says they should have voted against, and would have if they had the courage of their convictions.)

BUT, IF BUSH HAD REALLY ASSERTED SADDAM WAS CONNECTED TO 9/11 - (AS CLOONEY INSINUATES) - THEN BUSH DID NOT NEED TO GET A SEPARATE RESOLUTION TO ATTACK HIM; HE COULD HAVE JUST USED THE SEPTEMBER 2001 AUMF WHICH AUTHORIZED THE POTUS TO ATTACK THE PERPETRATORS OF 9/11 AND THEIR AFFILIATES.

And if Clooney and other Leftie doves actually bothered to read the 2002 Iraq War Resolution and Bush's speech to the UN General Assembly in September of 2002, then they'd discover that WMD's were only one of nearly two-dozen reasons to attack and depose Saddam.

And these reasons are nearly all "classically liberal" - which is to say "neo-con"; that is, based on the idea that all people EVERYWHERE deserve to be free. This is what we're fighting for in Iraq. And this is what classical liberals like FDR and Truman and JFK believed in - and, they all believed that sometimes you have to fight a war over it.

YO CLOONEY, LOOK AT IT THIS WAY: if it was right for "liberals" to support Rosa Parks and send freedom-riders into the south (to demolish segregation and the KKK, too) - in order to help Blacks win their rights, then it is right to help ALL other people - yup, ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE - win their rights, too. In fact, it's our duty.

Sound too radical to you, George? Too neo-con? Well, it's what FDR said in his most famous "liberal" speech - THE FOUR FREEDOMS. I suggest you and you liberal/dove friends read it - or listen to it. It's a neo-conservative speech if ever there was one! In fact, it could have been delivered by Bush YESTERDAY!

Clooney - like most on the Left - is misinformed, a victim of Left-wing propaganda. Propaganda which fails to pass any test of logic and any fair reading of the EVIDENCE, AND THE FACTS IN THE RECORD.

Clooney is at best useful idiot and a dupe, and like other anti-war dupes - his anti-war idiocies serve the enemy. CLOONEY SHOULD SHUT UP AND ACT.

THE REAL DANGER IS THIS:

If DOVES like Clooney (and Kerry and Kennedy) EVER take over the Congress or the White House, then they'll do to the Iraqis and the Afghanis what they did to the South Vienamese: abandon them. And they'll appease the jihadoterrorists the way they appeased the USSR.

(Doves are doves are doves are doves. Doves didn't defeat Hitler, or the USSR. They won't win The Long War, either.)

THAT'S WHY WE MUST NEVER LET THE LEFT WIN THE WHITE HOUSE OR CONGRESS.

PS: HEY GEORGE (regarding the Civil Rights Movement and Rosa Parks): a higher percentage of GOP members of Congress voted for the US Civil Rights Act then Democrats did - FACT!

Turning Iraq Into Vietnam

London Calling. The Times Online has an article by the author of "Sideshow", William Shawcross, about how Iraq could turn out like Vietnam. (Bolding by your ed.)

At the end of 1975 I went to the Thai-Cambodian border to talk to refugees. Their horrific stories of people with glasses being killed as “intellectuals” and of “bourgeois” babies being beaten to death against trees were being dismissed as CIA propaganda by the anti-American Western Left, but it seemed obvious to me that they were true. I wanted to discover how the Khmer Rouge had grown and come to power; I wrote a book called Sideshow, which was very critical of the way in which the United States had brought war to Cambodia while trying to extricate itself from Vietnam.

But horror had engulfed all of Indo-China as a result of the US defeat in 1975. In Vietnam and Laos there was no vast mass murder but the communists created cruel gulags and, from Vietnam in particular, millions of people fled, mostly by boat and mostly to the US. Given the catastrophe of the communist victories, I have always thought that those like myself who were opposed to the American efforts in Indochina should be very humble. I also think it wrong to dismiss the US efforts there as sheer disaster. Lee Kuan Yew, the former longtime Prime Minister of Singapore, has a subtler view. He argues that, although America lost in IndoChina in 1975, the fact that it was there so long meant that other SouthEast Asian countries had time to build up their economies to relieve the poverty of their peasants and thus resist communist encroachment — which they probably could not have done had IndoChina gone communist in the 1960s.

That long view seems to me to be the one that has to be applied to Iraq. I still believe the overthrow of Saddam Hussein was the correct thing to do — and it was something only the United States could have done. For all the horrors that extremist Sunnis and Shias are inflicting on each other today, the US rid the world of the Pol Pot of the Middle East. So long as the vile Saddam family regime remained in power there was no hope of progress in the region. There is still hope — if we do not abandon the Iraqi people.

That is pretty much the key.

We must not abandon the Iraqi people the way we abandoned the people of South East Asia. I supported the abandonment at the time because I believed John Kerry, the Communists, and their American supporters. So I get the humble bit. In fact it is a stain on my soul. The best I can do now is never forget.

H/T Powerline via Instapundit

And for my e-mail buddy linearthinker who thinks this is very important. It is. It may be that the Revisionism of Vietnam is finally going to get revised. About time.

Cross Posted at Power and Control and at Classical Values

THE LEFTIE DOVES WHO RUN THE DEMOCRAT PARTY ANNOUNCE THEY WILL ABANDON IRAQ

... JUST LIKE THEY ABANDONED SOUTH VIETNAM. AND THEY BRAG ABOUT IT!

THE HILL - (VIA INFIDEL BLOGGERS ALLIANCE):

... when pressed on how he could stop the war even if Democrats control the House during the last years of President Bush’s second term, Rangel [WHO WOULD BECOME CHAIRMAN OF THE POWERFUL HOUSE HAYS AND MEANS COMMITTEE] paused before saying, “You’ve got to be able to pay for the war, don’t you?”

Rangel’s views on funding the war are shared by many of his colleagues – especially within the 73-member Out of Iraq Caucus.

Some Democratic legislators want to halt funding for the war immediately, while others say they would allocate money for activities such as reconstruction, setting up international security forces, and the ultimate withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“Personally, I wouldn’t spend another dime [on the war,]” said Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D-Calif.).

Woolsey is among the Democrats in Congress who are hoping to control the power of the purse in 2007 to force an end to the war. Woolsey and some of her colleagues note that Congress helped force the end of Vietnam War by refusing to pay for it.

THESE LEFTIE DOVES GET THE FACTS AND DATES WRONG, BUT THE GIST OF WHAT THEY SAY ABOUT VIETNAM IS ACCURATE - Wikipedia:

American combat troops were involved from 1959, but not in large numbers until 1965. They left the country in 1973.... [THAT'S 1973!] the war ... ended on April 30, 1975, [THAT'S 1975!] with the capitulation of South Vietnam. ...

In December 1974, the Democrat majority in Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act of 1974, which cut off all military funding to the South Vietnamese government and made unenforceable the peace terms negotiated by Nixon.

THE CONCLUSION IS INARGUABLE:

South Vietnam would be as free and prosperous as South Korea today (instead of almost as tyannized and poor as NORTH Korea) if the doves of the Democrat party hadn't ABANDONED them in 1975, (effectively).

And they are publicly proclaiming they will do the same thing to the Iraqis. I feel they won't stop there: They will abandon the Afghanis. And then Israelis; (FACT: a majority of Dems polled by the LAT felt that our current foreign policy is biased in favor of Israel!).

MORE HERE - in a must read/RTWT - CFR ARTICLE BY MELVIN LAIRD; excerpt:

Summary: "During Richard Nixon's first term, when I served as secretary of defense, we withdrew most U.S. forces from Vietnam while building up the South's ability to defend itself. The result was a success -- until Congress snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by cutting off funding for our ally in 1975. Washington should follow a similar strategy now, but this time finish the job properly."

THE LEFTIE DOVE DEMOCRATS ARE PROMISING THEY WILL NOT FINISH THE JOB PROPERLY!

THAT'S WHY WE MUST NOT ALLOW THEM TO GET A MAJORITY IN THE HOUSE.

THE VIETNAM WAR WAS A COLOSSAL MISTAKE - MADE BY THE VIETNAMESE SOCIALISTS

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 DEEP FEAR OF ABANDONMENT" - or: "WHY THE ANTI-VIETNAM WAR DOVE KERRY IS UNFIT FOR OFFICE"

The war in Vietnam ended in 1975 - two years after American forces withdrew.

The war ended when the North Vietnamese communists invaded and over ran the forces of the South Vietnamese government.

The South Vietnamese forces were overrun because the Democrat controlled US Congress had ended all financial support for them.

The Left-wing anti-War movement led by John Kerry and Jane Fonda and Democrat Party doves in the Congress believed that the South Vietnamese government was a puppet of US hegemony, and no longer deserved support - either military or financial.

The result of the fall of the South Vitnamese government was (a) the largest refugee airlift of all time, and (b) 2 million Boat People fleeing (only 1.5 million surviving their trip), and (c) 500,000 Vietnamese put into "re-education" camps, and (d) th fall of Cambodia to the communists lked by Pol Pot and the genocide of 3 million Cambodian - the Killing Fields, and (e) the 35 year long suffering of the Vietnamese people under communist tyranny and poverty. [ASIDE: if I recall correctly, not many people flocked INTO Vietnam for free health care!]

If we had NOT ABANDONED our allies in the South of Vietnam, it is likely that they would be living as well and as freely as the South Koreans (whom we never abandoned) are, instead of living impoverished and tyrannized lives that have more in common with North Korea.

The abandonment of South Vietnam is - in the light of these FACTS - the lowest point in all of American foreign policy history - barely beating out our abandonment of the Shah and of Iranians (in 1979 when Democrat President Jimmy Carter allowed the Jihadofascists led by Ayatollah Khomeini to take over), and our abandonment of the mujahadeen to the Taliban.

To this day, the Left still considers their anti-War stance - and their abandonment of the South Vietnamese to be their crowning achievement (along with allowing the SHah to fall, and forcing Nixon to resign).

They still DON'T GET IT --- those were low points!

That's why I am so concerned about the possibility of a Kerry victory in November.

Kerry is an unrepentant left-wing dove.

In his 20 year career in the US Senate, he consistently voted against ant increase in Defense or Intelligence outlays - in fact proposed cuts, supported the Nuclear Freeze, supported the communists in Nicaragua and opposed the Contras; he even voted against the first Iraq/Kuwait War in 1991.

This - along with his ambivalence in the current Iraq War, makes me believe that - should the going get tougher - Kerry would abandon the fledgling governments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

And maybe even abandon Israel - let’s say, perhaps, after Israel were to unilaterally and preemptively destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities (as they did Iraq’s ).

A pattern of moral equivalence, appeasement of, accommodation to, withdrawal and retreat from - or AT BEST AMBIVALENCE IN THE FIGHT AGAINST the forces of tyranny is NOT what we need in the president - ever; we especially do not need that in a time of war.

We need a man of resolute decisiveness who knows the difference between tyranny and freedom and who is willing to put the USA squarely on the side of freedom.

That’s why I could never ever vote for Kerry.

His Left-wing Dove record indicates that he is likely to abandon the emerging democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq -as soon as the going gets tough, and to withdraw from the war against Jihadofascism when the costs and casualties begin to mount.

If FDR had been as timid in the face of casualties and costs as Kerry, then he would have withdrawn from WW2 on June 10th - for on and after D-Day the USA took its heaviest losses of the entire war. But FDR - and Churchill - knew that the war had to be won, and that any losses along the way would be worth it -IF WE WON.

Only defeat makes the losses of war meaningless; only defeatist appeasers like Kerry can make the losses we have suffered to date seem in vain.

At least the British had the good sense to leave Cburchill in power until AFTER WW2 had been won.

I hope the American people show the same good sense.

I pray we do.

And if my prayers are answered, then Bush will win reelection, and we will win the war against Jihadoterrorism. Which is the most important thing we do.

NOTE:

Let no one - not a single one of you out there - think for a minute, or single second that Kerry will not abandon Karzai and Allawi, and their compatriots, if the going gets tough.

The signs are EVERYWHERE he will do just that:

1 - Neither Kerry or Edwards deigned to attend the historic speech Allawi gave a special Joint Session of Congress; in fact, Kerry followed it by castigating Allawi, and his Senior Spokesman Joe Lockhart called Allawi a puppet.

This harkens back to the Left’s similar charge about the South Vietnamese government and the Shah.
Like their insane rants about Iran, they claim all the USA wants is the oil in Iraq; they chant: "BLOOD FOR OIL" as if everything would be hunkie-dorrie if and only if the USA would stay out of the affairs of other nations.

Can one among you truthfully say that the Vietnamese are better off now - or for the last 35 years - under communist tyranny!? Can anyone say wioth a straight face that we fought in Vietnam for their oil!? NO. But it was said then.

The "PUPPET TALK" - and the idea that the USA only fights wars to expand our empire, our hegemony - is knee-jerk Left-wing jargon; it is false, and it only serves to bolster our enemies and the enemies of democracy.

2 - The same knee-jerk jargon is rampant in the Left’s discussion of Afghanistan: they call Karzai "the mayor of Kabul", and claim alternately that we fought in Afghanistan for a GAS PIPELINE, or for the poppy crops.

This talk is ridiculous - Iraq and Afghanistan are better now then under Saddam or the Taliban.

They have a true chance at self-rule. That makes our efforts there NOBLE.

The Leftist Dove knee-jerk talk is dangerous, too.

It's a harbinger of future abandonment.

If we let them.

Don't let them.

Vote Bush.

Updated and Bumped - IRAQ: STANDING AT THE CROSS-ROADS

Ba'athist Party loyalists are waiting like vultures for America's defeat with one eye on signs of Coalition weakness and the other on the Iraqi seat of power. No wonder they are being compared to the notorious Khmer Rouge of another era. A disaster for both America and Iraq would deliver a huge psychological victory directly into the hands of the Defeatocrats. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out why Hillary is calling for the withdrawal of the troops and the removal of the present Iraqi government.

President Bush's recent comparison between the pullout of the current conflict and Vietnam is an important one as there are some parallels that need to be considered. There is an excellent article taken from 'The Weekly Standard' which begins with the opening, 'Like a pig in muck, the Left loves to wallow in Vietnam. But only in their "Vietnam". Not in the real Vietnam war.'

The writer describes how while the U.S. Left celebrated the country's pullout from the war, in Phnom Penh, former Cambodian prime minister Sirk Matak wrote to John Gunther Dean, the U.S. ambassador, turning down his offer of the evacuation which would have saved his life:

Dear Excellency and Friend:I thank you very sincerely for your letter and for your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion. As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen liberty. You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it. You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is no matter, because we all are born and must die. I have only committed this mistake of believing in you [the Americans].

Please accept, Excellency and dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments.

S/Sirik Matak

The writer goes on to explain that "the Khmer Rouge took Phnom Penh a few days later. Sirik Matak was executed: shot in the stomach, he was left without medical help and took three days to die. Between 1 and 2 million Cambodians were murdered by the Khmer Rouge in the next three years. Next door, tens of thousands of Vietnamese were killed, and many more imprisoned. Hundreds of thousands braved the South China Sea to reach freedom.

The United States welcomed the refugees--but we were in worldwide retreat.'

This is the real reason why Vietnam is remembered as a disaster, by the defeat and aftermath. The Democrats would love us to pull out again so that the current war will be Vietnam revisited. Today Iraq has its own Khmer Rouge waiting on the sidelines, confident of moving in, exacting revenge, carrying out a blood bath, bending the country to their will and humiliating the West, in particular those countries which participated in the effort to restore order in the region by this war.

Saddam's henchmen, the Ba'athists, who are at the moment exiled in Syria are waiting in the wings for America to pull out. Their spokesman, puffing on a Havana cigar is all boasts:

"Blair made Britain a satellite for the US," said the man, who identified himself as Abu Mohammad during a rare interview in a Damascus coffee shop.

"Bush humiliated America and Blair humiliated Britain. If they [Britain] pull out they will break one wing of the occupation."

He speaks with the confidence of a man who is ready to 'pave the way' for American withdrawal (which he sees as inevitable) and who can already see himself with a position of power in a Ba'ath run Iraq.

This party is recognized as the undermining force which has been behind the attacks on the Coalition and has links with many insurgents in Iraq.

The Ba'athists, you can be sure, are every bit as bloodthirsty and vicious as the Khmer Rouge. They can taste the blood-soaked taste of power, and smell the sweet smell of resounding defeat for the Coalition.

The archetypal Conservative leader, Reagan led the U.S. out of the wilderness of the Carter era. After years of Leftist wishy-washy appeasements and the perverse and weak-willed policies of Carteresque Democratic government, Reagan was like a breath of fresh air. I close with a quote from a speech by Reagan that rocked the Left in the 1980s:

"As the years dragged on, we were told that peace would come if we would simply stop interfering and go home. It is time we recognized that ours was, in truth, a noble cause. There is a lesson for all of us in Vietnam. If we are forced to fight, we must have the means and determination to prevail."

Yes, President Reagan. We hear you loud and clear!

SOURCES: Here and here.
Cross-posted here

UPDATE: PUNDITARIAN ADDS THIS ANGLE - ASKING:

DO BARRY OBAMA & JOHNNY EDWARDS WANT MORE LETTERS LIKE THIS ONE?

In April 1975, American Ambassador John Gunther Dean invited Cambodian Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak to flee Phnom Penh ahead of the Khmer Rouge.

Sirik Matak was a cousin of the ruling Prince Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia, and while the ruling Prince was hobnobbing with the Communists in Beijing, he participated in a coup d'etat which established a pro-Western, free-market based republic in Cambodia. Norodom Sihanouk sided with the communists, and collaborated with the Khmer Rouge from his sanctuary in China.

In reply to Ambassador Dean's offer of escape, Prince Sisowath Sirik Matak sent this letter:

"Dear Excellency and Friend,

I thank you very sincerely for your letter and your offer to transport me towards freedom. I cannot, alas, leave in such a cowardly fashion.

As for you, and in particular for your great country, I never believed for a moment that you would have this sentiment of abandoning a people, which has chosen liberty.

You have refused us your protection, and we can do nothing about it.

You leave, and my wish is that you and your country will find happiness under this sky. But, mark it well, that if I shall die here on the spot and in my country that I love, it is too bad, because we are all born and must die one day.

I have committed this mistake of believing in you, the Americans.

Please accept, Excellency, my dear friend, my faithful and friendly sentiments. Prince Sirik Matak."

The Prince was murdered by the Khmer Rouge less than two weeks later, and the elimination of the nation's non-communist leaders foreshadowed the brutal and ruthless genocide of the "killing fields."

I encourage Barry Obama and John Edwards to look at the faces of the victims of the Khmer Rouge in photographs taken as they faced their executioners, here.

Then let them tell us again why "preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn't a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces" in Iraq.

RELIAPUNDIT ADDS:

THE VERY SAME DEMS WHO AGITATED FOR ABANDONING OUR ALLIES THEN ARE DOING IT NOW:

• JOHN KERRY AND TEDDY JO KENNEDY AND THE MCGOVERN/CORLISS & NED LAMONT-(DAILY KOS) WING OF THE PARTY.

THEY WERE IN CONTROL OF CONGRESS THEN. THEY ARE BACK IN CONTROL NOW.

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE IS THAT BUSH IS STRONGER THAN FORD WAS THEN, AND THE DEMOCRAT MAJORITY IN CONGRESS WEAKER, (BUT NOT BY MUCH).

IN 2008 ALL THIS COMES UP FOR A VOTE.

WE MUSTN'T LET THE KKK - THE KENNEDY-KERRY-KOS GANG - CALL THE SHOTS.

WE'LL GET THE SAME RESULTS:

• IT WILL EMBOLDEN OUR ENEMIES AND LEAD TO GENOCIDE AND DECADES OF RETREAT IN WHICH TENS IF NOT HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE WILL BE FORCED TO LIVE UNDER TYRANNY.

ONLY THE USA CAN LEAD THE FREE WORLD. AND ONLY IF WE KEEP THE DEMS OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.

MORE PROOF THAT HAWKS WERE RIGHT ABOUT VIETNAM: USA AND VIETNAM SIGN TRADE PACT

WASH POST/AP:

The United States and Vietnam were set to sign a trade pact Wednesday that removes one of the last major hurdles in Hanoi's bid to join the World Trade Organization.

The deal would knock down further trade barriers between the two countries, who saw bilateral trade rise 22 percent to $7.8 billion last year, by ending U.S. quotas on Vietnamese textiles and garments and giving American companies greater access to a growing Southeast Asian market. It also paves the way for Vietnam to reach its goal of becoming a member of the global trading body before Hanoi hosts the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in November, which President Bush is scheduled to attend.

"This is one of the last steps in the process of Vietnam joining WTO," said Vu Tien Loc, chairman of the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry, who added that Hanoi's admission to the international group would provide "a clearer roadmap in reforming the business environment and opening up the economy."

The fact that the Vietnamese communists/Marxists/socialists - (call them what you want) - now SEEK to get the USA and other captialist/industrialized/free-market economies involved in the Vietnamese economy PROVES that Leftism is bankrupt and that the North Vietnamese resisitance to South Vietnam's captialism and enagement with the USA was DEAD WRONG: to the tune of MILLIONS OF VIETNAMESE NEEDLESSLY KILLED.

Ho Chi Minh and his socialist minions might have done this very thing in 1965 and thereby avoided the entire USA-North Vietnamese conflict. The USA could have been investing in Vietnam since 1965, and the Vietnamese people could have enjoyed the last 40 years under liberty and capitalism, instead of tyranny and poverty.

The "commies" who still run Vitenam now accept that they must open up their economy and have free markets and industrialization and global trade if the Vietnamese people are to enjoy lives of plenty and health. (ASIDE: Though jerks like Jose Bove still deny that capitalism, industrialization, and global trade are the roads to liberty and prosperity! YUP: Leftists within non-Leftist nations are living in total denial!)

Had the North Vietnamese chosen this route in 1965, then the 65 million Vietnamese people would be as rich and as free as South Koreans today, and the millions who were sent to die to defend Marxism (and defeat capitalism) would be alive.

Ho Chi Minh was wrong, and millions died as a result - NEEDLESSLY. The so-called "peace movement"/"anti-war" movement was just as wrong. The North Vietnamese socialists and the so-called "peace movement" has ALL the blood on THEIR hands.

The hawks were right. As usual. Vietnam was a noble cause. We were winning the battle. We had completely Vietnamized the war by 3/29/73' THERE WERE NO USA TROOPS IN SOUTH VIETNAM AFTER THAT DATE. The South Vietnamese government did not fall until 1975 - when the Democrat Doves pulled the plug on our allies and stopped sending them financial aid.

If Dean, Pelosi and Reid and the Democrat Doves get the chance, they will do the same thing again. The Democrat Doves will abandon Iraq, and Afghanistan (which is heating up again). The Doves will abandon Lebanon, and appease Assad and Iran. That's why the doves cannot be trusted with our national security.

ADDENDUM: We lost nearly as many men in Korea in three years as we did in Vietnam in TEN YEARS. We NEVER stabbed out South Korean allies in the back - as we did our South Vietnamese allies. As a result, NOT ONLY have the 65 million Vietnamese people lived under tyranny and poverty, but 500,000 were put into "re-education" camps, 2 million fled as Boat People, and Pol Pot took power next door and murdered THREE MILLION!

By ANY and ALL logical measures, the Vietnamese War was a noble cause which might have at least allowed half of the Vietnamese people enjoy what ALL HUMANS EVERYWHERE DESERVE: liberty. The surrender by the Leftie Doves was but a dark and sorry chapter.

You don't have to take my word for it, just read the news article I linked to; it PROVES that the Vietnamese have admitted that socialism was a failure, which implies that their war against the South of Vietnam, capitalism and the USA was a HUGE mistake. REPEAT: the deals they are making now are deals which they could have had 40 years ago if the North hadn't been run by Marxists and Soviet clients.

Instead, over the last 40 years, socialism has done to Vietnam what it is doing to Zimbabwe - and what it has done EVERYWHERE else it has ever taken power - limit libery and spread poverty. Which is no surprise; after all, socialism is the road to serfdom.

Well, now the Vietnamese are going back... back to a fork in that road, and turning down the road not taken, taking the road to liberty and trade and industrialization and prosperity. It's a road they could've taken 40 years ago. Pity.

SOME PERSPECTIVE ON "INSURGENCIES" AND THE DEMOCRAT PARTY

For three years the Left and the MSM they dominate - have relentlessly harangued to public with propaganda about Iraq; this is typified by their constantly calling the jihadoterrorism there (which is almost exclusively perpetrated by "al Qaeda in Iraq") an "insurgency".

Sri Lanka has had an "insurgency" for 25 years - about 3000 people are killed each year by it, on average. Yet no one calls Sri lanka a failed state - a land of chaos and despair OR A QUAGMIRTE because of this persistent violence.

And, Thailand suffers from a jihadoterrorist attack every third day, on average - but no one calls Thailand a failed state.

So why does the Left - and the MSM and Democrat Party and EU/UN-elite they dominate - treat Iraq as if it was a failed state or a phony democracy!?

It's simply bullshit.

People who REALLY support human rights for ALL humans - as Lincoln, WIlson, FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt and JFK did - should be whole-heartedly supporting Bush and the US military's efforts in Iraq and the Iraqi's constitutionally elected democratic unity government .

That the Left does not support our efforts there - and instead says that Iraq's a quagmire, and that we are failing in Irq and that we should withdraw - says more about THEM and THEIR BIASES and their HYPOCITICAL, VAPID and USELESS IDEOLOGY than it does about the war in Iraq.

The doves of the Democrat Party suspended financing for the emerging democracy of South Vietnam in 1975 - and it fell soon after --- A FULL TWO YEARS AFTER THE LAST USA COMBAT TROOPS HAD RETURNED TO THE USA.

Given the chance, the Democrat Party would do the same thing to Iraq: abandon them to terrorists and tyrnanny.

If the public votes in a Democrat majority into the House this fall, then Speaker Pelosi will lead her majority in avote to abandon the Iraqis - and allow al Qaeda to set up shop there.

This is why the most important battle in the war against global jiahd is the poltical battle right here in the USA.

IT'S SIMPLE: Vote Democrat if you want al Qaeda to win.

In the 1970's, the Democrats didn't care if the communists took over Vietnam and southeast Asia - or if the USSR took over Afghanistan and Khomeini took over Iran.

ALL OF OUR CURRENT PROBLEMS BEGAN BECAUSE OF THIS NEGLECT, COWARDICE AND APPEASEMENT.

NOW: the Democrat Party doesn't care if jihadoterrorists take over Iraq.

The results will be worse.

That's why everyone should VOTE GOP. No matter how you feel about immigration or spending: VOTE GOP.

And hey: I'm a registered Democrat - have been since 1974! A nauseated Democrat, sickened by the Left/dove take-over of my party.

Lessons From the Fall of Saigon

On the 30th Anniversary of The Fall Of Saigon - a date of rare American failure and dishonor - Stephan J. Morris has penned the MUST READ ARTICLE. (Morris is a fellow at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC.)

This article PROVES that VIETNAM WAS A NOBLE WAR WHICH OUR ALLIES WERE WINNING, and that they ONLY LOST WHEN THE DEMOCRATS IN CONGRESS IMMORALLY PULLED THE PLUG ON FINANCING THE South Vietnamese Government and their defense forces.

Here are a FEW extended excerpts; (READ THE WHOLE THING!):

Thirty years after the fall of Saigon the received wisdom among large sections of Western academia and journalism is little changed. The successive U.S. administrations that intervened in the Vietnam War are widely portrayed as foolish or immoral, while the activist opponents of the war are seen as wise and morally courageous. This simple picture is transposed to the Iraq war by many of today's antiwar generation. Yet the widely held image of the two sides is a crude misrepresentation. The Vietnam War provides few analogies for the Middle East, except as a demonstration of how so many in the West are willing to champion the cause of totalitarian states and movements that the U.S. opposes. [...]

Tragically for the South Vietnamese people, and for the South Vietnamese and U.S. soldiers who had fought so bravely, the Johnson administration's failed policies also generated a cynicism among the American public that imposed severe constraints on the foreign-policy options available to President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Yet, despite the difficult hand they were dealt, Messrs. Nixon and Kissinger did well. Their counterinsurgency policies were sufficiently successful that by 1972 the guerrilla insurgency had been defeated. Moreover, after years of training, the South Vietnamese army became responsible for all ground combat, and was able to defeat a massive North Vietnamese conventional offensive in 1972 with U.S. air and logistical support. The end of the draft and removal of American combat troops from Vietnam drastically reduced public opposition to administration policies. [...]

Lacking mass public support for their goals, but encouraged by weakening of the White House by the emerging Watergate scandal, the antiwar left took their battle from the streets to the corridors of the U.S. Congress. Guided by leaders lobbying in Washington, the small force of some 6,000 antiwar activists in major states, were able to pressure substantial number of congressmen into legislating against the military options available to the U.S. Inflamed with a hatred of American foreign policy, and a romantic infatuation with America's communist enemy, young activists like John Kerry spoke of systematic atrocities being conducted everywhere by U.S. forces, actress Jane Fonda warned of U.S. bombing North Vietnamese dikes to drown hundreds of thousands of civilians, while New York Congresswoman Bella Abzug spoke of hundreds of thousands of political prisoners in South Vietnam.

These tales were false and the reverse of reality: systematic atrocities were being conducted by the communists, and hundreds of thousands of political prisoners were rotting in the North Vietnamese gulag. But in the radicalized atmosphere of the times, many academics, journalists and congressmen inhabited a fantasy world. Many, like Sen. George McGovern, believed that the South Vietnamese government was the enemy of peace, while the North Vietnamese were merely victimized advocates of peace. Legislation to cut back U.S. aid to South Vietnam soon followed. This took place in a time of world-wide inflation, which meant that the South Vietnamese army that had repelled the Soviet supplied North Vietnamese army in 1972, was in need of more aid not less. But after the massive U.S. aid cutbacks of 1974, the South Vietnamese military could not defend its territory. Defeat in 1975 was thereby ensured. [...]

During the 1980s the cause of Third World totalitarian revolutions was transposed from Vietnam to El Salvador and Nicaragua. The congressional lobbying tactics learned during the Vietnam War were reapplied by the American left, to try to ensure communist victories in Central America. But greater world events conspired to defeat the "Sandalistas." The collapse of the Soviet Union pulled the military and economic rug out from under their friends. Democracy prevailed and the communists lost freely contested elections they wished to avoid. [...]

In the Middle East the task for the Left of finding a political cause to serve has been made more difficult by the weakness of communism and the ostensibly religious nature of so much anti-American politics. Radical Leftists prefer their utopian and messianic totalitarian movements to have a secular cast. Prosperous and democratic Israel today is the main enemy, as it was even before the expansionist settlement movement evolved. That is why the cause of some Palestinian factions has been embraced. But the bottom line for the radical Left everywhere is the undermining of American global power, and undermining rule by America's friends. If local people have to live under repressive movements or regimes as a consequence, such as the Baathists tyrannies in Iraq or Syria, this can always be rationalized or justified.

From such people policy-makers can expect no wisdom on how to pursue the war against Islamic terrorists, nor how to encourage political orders compatible with human freedom. Thirty years after the Left celebrated the American retreat from Southeast Asia, this much is clear.

More views HERE and HERE and HERE. UPDATE 5/1: AND A MUST READ HERE.

Another Troubling Kerry Pattern ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ??? OR - "KERRY & TYRANNY: natural together"

1 - In 1970 (and through 1975), Kerry returned from Vietnam and publicly, repeatedly - even famously under oath - opposed the war-time foreign policy of his own nation's duly elected president of the USA, and instead took the same exact position on the war as the communist North Vietnamese Government. Kerry parroted the NVG claims that the USA military were war criminals, and testified that he felt that it made no difference whether Vietnam went communist, or not.

Since 1975 - (when the Democrat majorities in the Congress pulled the plug on supporting the South Vietnamese government), 65 MILLION Vietnamese have lived in poverty under the tyranny of communism -- much more like the North Koreans, than the South Koreans.

(One can only wonder that if the Democrats has NOT pulled the plug on the SVG whether or not we'd be driving cars made in a democratic and prosperous South Vietnam, as we are from a democratic and prosperous South Korea - a nation we did NOT ABANDON.)

2 - In 1985 Senator Kerry opposed the foreign policy of the duly elected president of the USA - who supported the Contras, and instead publicly supported the communists led by Ortega - even visiting with Ortega before a crucial vote in the Congress (with Tom Harkin - see photo with this link).

3 - While first running for the Senate in 1984, and while in the Senate - from 1985-the collapse of the USSR in 1989 - Kerry supported the Nuclear Freeze Movement, and opposed every major weapons system and deployment during the Cold War - ONCE AGAIN agreeing with the USSR - our communist enemy - that the USA's weapons buildup was destabilizing. (Boston Globe Online John Kerry: A Candidate in the Making "... Kerry tried to stand out ... as a crime-fighting former prosecutor with progressive credentials, but also as a champion of a nuclear weapons freeze."

4 - Kerry sided with SADDAM in the 1991 war and voted AGAINST authorizing the president to use force to expel SADDAM from Kuwait. If Kerry's position had prevailed, then Saddam WOULD STILL BE IN KUWAIT! (SEE: MSNBC - What Kerry's 20 years of Senate votes reveal .Kerry voted against use of US military forces in 1991 after Saddam Hussein's army invaded Kuwait.www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4741992)

5 - NOW, in 2004 - THREE YEARS AFTER WE WERE ATTACKED BY JIHADOTERRORISTS - Kerry calls the Iraq War a sham built on lies, a QUAGMIRE and a diversion; and one of his spokesmen calls the official UN-designated interim Prime Minister Allawi a "puppet" of the USA, http://instapundit.com/archives/018015.php).

And now - in 2004 - Kerry is taking the SAME POSITION AS KIM JONG IL: KERRY AND KIM both want bi-lateral talks.

IS THERE A PATTERN HERE?

I suggest there is. I suggest it is OBVIOUS and INESCAPABLE:

Kerry consistently takes the position that American military power is bad, and that it should not be used to support DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS WHEN THEY ARE UNDER ATTACK BY TYRANNICAL FORCES, and that that USA military should NOT even be strengthened, and that our enemies - (first the North Vietnamese, then the CONTRAS, and then the USSR, and now the Jihadoterrorists who we're fighting in Iraq and Kim Jong Il of North Korea) - were (or are) in the right, and that we - the USA - are in the wrong.

(It is interesting to point out that the chattering classes, HIP LEFTIST LITERATI, and other assorted lefty luminaries from Europe and the UN also opposed the USA on each of these points; Kerry has CONSISTENTLY taken the EU's position against the USA's for his entire political career. It is also important to note that the USA was right in every case.)

YES: History has already proven that Kerry's track record on foreign policy reflects BAD judgment. But as 1-Senator-out-of-100, Kerry did NOT do too much harm, thank God.

As president, and COMMANDER IN CHIEF, he would be a DISASTER. WHY?

(A) One would reasonably expect Kerry to ABANDON IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN
as they begin their journey toward democracy and prosperity.
(B) One would expect him to weaken our military.

(AT BEST, one might hope that Kerry would keep our military at its present strength. REMEMBER: in the debates, he said he would UNILATERALLY give up our quest for bunker-busting nukes that might be able to destroy the secret undergorund WMD programs of tryannical rogue states, like Iran and North Korea! Does this sound like someone who - as president - would ensure that the USA military would be as strong as possible?!)

Kerry has been a leftist Dove his entire life - one who has DEMONSTRATED a penchant for attacking the USA and the US military while we are at war.

And he has shown an indisputable penchant for supporting tyrants.

Or at the very very very least: shying away from confronting tyrants

and from using the military to defend democracy.

There is NO LOGICAL reason to think Kerry has suddenly become a Hawk,
or to trust that if he is now a Hawk that this "election-year-conversion" is genuine.

KERRY AND TYRANNY - SINCE 1970, NATURAL TOGETHER:

Kerry & Ho Chi Minh 1970...

Kerry supported the Vietcong demand for our immediate withdrawal!

Kerry & Ortega 1985...

Kerry supported the communists in Nicaragua!

Kerry & Breshnev (ET AL) 1984-9...

Kerry aped Soviet position on arms control - supporting a freeze!

Kerry & Saddam in 1991...

Kerry voted AGAINST the first Iraq War!

Kerry & Saddam 2003...

Kerry voted against funding the second Iraq War!

Kerry and Zarkawi 2004...

Kerry and al Qaeda BOTH call Iraqi P.M. Allawi a USA puppet!

Kerry and the mullahs in 2004...

Kerry would GIVE IRAN nuclear fuel!

Kerry & Kim Jong Il 2004...

Kerry and Kim BOTH want bilateral talks!

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES:

THERE IS A PATTERN HERE.