We've come a long way since Vietnam

[Xipe Totec]

Well...


Maybe not.

[Orwellian_Ghost]

1. K&R n/t

[Octafish]

2. The PHOENIX Program

Certainly things today are more, eh, sophisticated.

[Aristus]

3. Yeah, at least in the Vietnam War, we couldn't be accused of trying to plunder

their resources. Vietnam was what? The 15th largest exporter of rice in the world? Nowadays, when we start a war for no particular reason against a country that is absolutely no threat to us, we go after the world's second largest producer of oil!

And THAT, gang, is progress!

[clixtox]

6. Vietnam has come a very, very long way since 1975..

Vietnam has been the second largest exporter of rice in the world, after Thailand, for awhile now.

Vietnam is considered today to be among the top consumer markets in the whole world.

Vietnam has a larger population (86 million & counting) than any country in Europe, except Russia.

Vietnam is perennially listed among the most optimistic countries in the world, usually, in fact, Vietnam is listed at number one, as the most optimistic place of all by a wide margin.

Vietnam is currently constructing their first domestic oil refinery to better utilize their significant proven, and pumping, petroleum reserves.

Remember that Vietnam was drained of wealth and resources by the French for a very long time before we came in to continue the degradation of the people and extraction, exploitation and exportation of their resources, artifacts, historical treasures and anything and everything that was transportable and valuable they/we could get their/our greedy hands on. The USA was hoping to continue that despicable colonial tradition, but the Vietnamese people, like the American patriots had done almost 200 years before, threw out the foreign tyrants(us).

In the last, almost 4 years, that I have been spending most of the time in Vietnam everything is getting better, except the traffic. Vietnam is very organized, independent and capable although there are still some instances of limited resources persisting throughout the economy.

Educational infrastructure and qualified teachers are a crucial area requiring and receiving attention.

Some manufacturers are now leaving China, they are building factories in Vietnam because of the political stability and all of eager, capable (adult) workers. Developing the necessary infrastructure, like roads, ports, and industrial parks, is ongoing quickly.

Attracting those Vietnamese, and their progeny, who fled the country during the re-unification era, to return now and share their expertise, skills and capital with their families and friends who stayed behind is another focus here.

Tourism is another important product that Vietnam is investing heavily in. Infrastructure is being developed quickly to help share this beautiful, dynamic countries many cities and resort locations, along with historical, cultural, entertainment and lodging venues with the world. Come check it out... I did and I love it here!

[juno jones]

4. My vote is for 'Maybe Not'.

I'm currently reading a book from 1988, "A Bright and Shining Lie" by Neil Sheehan. Catching up on some recent history I'm a little vaugue on. I would bet dollars to donuts that we ae making more or less the same mistakes in Iraq as regards the realities of the culture and conflict in that society as we did in Nam. Only this time there seems to be no John Paul Vanns left in the services to try to 'keep it real'. They've all been gotten rid of in exchange for 'yes' men that will follow the party propaganda line.

I have to keep putting the book down every 10 pages or so. For example, I am currently reading how the field officers would submit maps showing territory control, the southern forces in blue, the viet cong in red. These officers would be upbraided by their superiors for the amount of red on the maps, and the higher-ups would often alter these maps before they reached even higher-ups in Washington, changing the maps to show our 'side' winning. Lies upon lies. Meanwhile the popular support for the Diem regime wilted under the imposition of the strategic hamlet program and the constant slaughter of non-combatants by high-tech devices like bombs which are dropped from airplanes and indiscriminate in their targets (among other things).

Scary book. Scary times indeed. We have learned nothing.

[unkachuck]

5. every 10 to 15 years....

....after the last war, we must play war again....it's good for corporate America, it gets the politicians elected, it let's the generals play with their toys and it helps military personnel feel superior and useful....

....God Bless America!!

[Blue_In_AK]

7. Today I found an old letter

that I wrote to my parents in May 1970 right after Kent State. So many of the words I wrote are just as relevant today. It's pathetic.

[Xipe Totec]

16. May 4, 1970 Kent State Shootings

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=385&topic_id=94689

[spanone]

8. it's a cryin' shame....

[defendandprotect]

9. Never saw that photo before . . ..

And Naomi Klein's report of our using repeated brain electroshock on Vietnamese was also news.
Of course, we tortured the hell out of those people ---
What the hell is wrong with people who want to do these things --- ???

What is wrong with THEM . . . ????

[defendandprotect]

10. Another perpetual war --- YEAH . . . we overcame the "VN-Syndrome" . . . !!!

[BrotherBuzz]

11. I feel we've gone full circle

To Root Against Your Country

The radio this morning said the Allied invasion of Laos had bogged down. Without thinking I nodded and said, "Good."

And having said it, I realized the bitter truth: Now I root against my own country.

This is how far we have come in this hated and endless war. This is the nadir I have reached in this winter of my discontent. This is how close I border on treason:

Now I root against my own country.

How frighteningly sad this is. My generation was raised to love our country and we loved it unthinkingly. We licked Hitler and Tojo and Mussolini. Those were our shining hours. Those were our days of faith.

They were evil: we were good. They told lies: we spoke the truth. Our cause was just, our purposes noble, and in victory we were magnanimous. What a wonderful country we were! I loved it so.

But now having descended down the torturous, lying, brutalizing years of this bloody war. I have come to the dank and lightless bottom of the well: I have come to root against the country that once I blindly loved.

I can rationalize it. I can say that if the invasion of Laos succeeds, the chimera of victory will dance once again before our eyes -- leading us once again into more years of mindless slaughter. Thus I can say, I hope the invasion fails.

But it is more than that. It is that I have come to hate my country's role in Vietnam.

I hate the massacres, the body counts, the free fire zones, the napalming of civilians, the poisoning of rice crops. I hate being part of My Lai. I hate the fact that we have dropped more explosions on these scrawny Asian peasants than we did on all our enemies in World War II.

And I hate my leaders, who over the years, have conscripted our young men and sent them there to kill or be killed in a senseless cause simply because they can find no honorable way out for them.

I don't root for the enemy. I doubt they are any better than we. I don't give a damn any more who wins the war. But because I hate what my country is doing in Vietnam, I emotionally and often irrationally hope that it fails.

It is a terrible thing to root against your own country. If I were alone it wouldn't matter. But I don't think I am alone. I feel many Americans must feel these same sickening emotions I feel. I think they share my guilt. I think they share my rage.

If this is true we must end this war now -- in defeat, if necessary. We must end it because all of Southeast Asia is not worth the shame, guilt and rage that is tearing Americans apart. We must end it not for those among our young who have come to hate America, but for those who manage somehow to love it still.

I doubt I can ever again love my country in that unthinking way I did when I was young. Perhaps this is a good thing

But I would hope the day will come when I can once again believe what my country says and once again approve of what it does. I want to have faith once again in the justness of my country's causes and the nobleness of its ideals.

What I want so very much is to be able once again to root for my own, my native land.

- Art Hoppe , March 1, 1971

[Hekate]

12. At one point in my life I thought we had come a long way from the Nazis, too...

...then we produced some of our very own.

Hekate

[ClayZ]

13. .

:cry:

[EFerrari]

14. Somehow I have to get the courage to apologize to my children.

I don't know how to even begin.

[Xipe Totec]

15. It's amazing; the Repugs managed to roll back the clock

to try to redo the 60's, only to do it exactly the same.

[EFerrari]

17. I think it's actually worse now.

They figured out a way to treat the majority of Americans as they've always treated minorities. We're all more powerless now.

Not to be a little ray of sunshine or anything. :(

[Xipe Totec]

19. We need to remind America of Vietnam

so the 60,209 American lives lost won't have been lost in vain.

What will be the price of pride in Iraq and Iran?

[EFerrari]

20. Was it pride? I thought it was profit. n/t

[Xipe Totec]

21. Sadly, no.

There was no profit in Vietnam; we stayed to deny the communists a victory.


Profit drew us to Iraq, but it's pride that keeps us there.

[Brigid]

22. I feel exactly the same way.

Marginalized, powerless, frustrated, and ignored. And of course I will be taking my anger out on the Republicans. Not that the Democrats have been so much better since the 2006 election, but they're still the best counterweight we have to the Repubicans at the moment.

[Brigid]

18. All I can think of is this classic song . . .

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE
words and music by Pete Seeger
performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?
Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?
Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?
Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?
Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?
When will we ever learn?

[timtom]

23. You mean because of the computers and mp3's and stuff.

Yeah, we have.

[Xipe Totec]

24. Zing! nt

[Fireweed247]

25. Oh, I thought you were talking about PNAC

Their plans have been working out smashingly.

The evil powers that be figured out everything that went wrong in the 60's, waited a few years for everyone to forget, and then hit us again only this time they planted the opposition.