Vietnamese leader's visit elicits powerful emotions

[realFedUp]

(Vietnam, just another slave labor market for Bush Inc.)

http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/story/13107079p-13951775c.html
(free reg. needed)

Vietnamese leader's visit elicits powerful emotions
The historic meeting solidifies Bush's free-market move but could alienate exiles in U.S.

By Lesli A. Maxwell and Thuy-Doan Le -- Bee Staff Writers
Published 2:15 am PDT Wednesday, June 22, 2005

With Tuesday's historic meeting at the White House with Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai, President Bush at once may have burnished his free-market credentials and alienated some Vietnamese Americans who feel betrayed by the United States' expanding relationship with its former enemy.

snip

Chan Tran, a human rights activist also known as Minh Thi on her Sacramento Vietnamese radio talk show, just returned from Seattle, where she protested Khai's visit. Tran said she and other Vietnamese American journalists were rebuffed by Khai when they asked about his regime's treatment of anti-communists and dissidents.

Tran said she is outraged by Bush's willingness to expand economic ties without demanding human rights reforms first. The Bush administration has regularly linked the expansion of a free market with the drive for personal freedoms.

"In his inauguration address, he emphasized that he would be with the people living under oppression and to achieve the freedom and democracy," Tran said. "If he does not follow through with his promise, he will be held accountable for supporting an oppressive regime like Hanoi. He would go down in history as a person who doesn't follow on his promise."

continued

[ckramer]

1. All these just tell us: War is most the wasted thing to do

Vietnam is a good example, hundreds of thousands Vietnamese and Americans' lives combined wasted for nothing.

NOTHING.

How stupid it is!

10 - 20 years from now, we'll all know the lives that were wasted in Iraq war would be good for nothing because they might have gotten another Saddam there after the US withdrawal.

[realFedUp]

2. especially when one's agenda is to remake a country in our image

not the smartest way to go about it.