Monday, April 30th 2007
Online now, The legacy of Vietnam
There is a new online article by a new contributor, Jessica Vu. In the article she describes what happened in Vietnam after the United States completely pulled itself out.
In the days that followed, a new era of totalitarian rule was unleashed upon the Vietnamese people. The world could only watch and cringe as the newly reinstated Socialist government began its systematic persecution of opposition political leaders and their followers. Thousands of innocents were tortured and executed in “work” camps, mere euphemisms for concentration death camps. In this society, where any deviation from the party line had severe consequences, few dared to protest.
I hope you check it out.
Better them than us.
Comment by Anonymous — 4/30/2007 @ 10:17 am
I’d refer you to Niemoller’s quote, but I doubt you’d care.
Comment by fullmer — 4/30/2007 @ 10:52 am
It’s retarded. You don’t actually believe it, do you? Some Republican you are.
Comment by Anonymous — 4/30/2007 @ 12:02 pm
What I do believe is that all of us are endowed by our Creator with a few inalienable rights, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. (I may be paraphrasing that from somewhere…)
And I do believe that the people in Vietnam are just as entitled to that as we are, so I don’t really get the “better them than us” comment.
And the main reason isn’t because of Niemoller’s reasoning, but I figured that might appeal to you more than talking about human rights and all.
Comment by jfullmer — 4/30/2007 @ 12:36 pm
You know that justification can be used to intervene in just about any conflict. Unless you support such an idiotic foreign policy, you might want to seek less of a “martyr for all humanity” justification for being war-hungry.
Comment by Anonymous — 4/30/2007 @ 5:37 pm
Okay, so now you’ve changed your tune. Now, according to you, my line of reasoning can be used by war-hungry people (presumably neocons) to justify intervention in any conflict they want to intervene in.
Sure, I’ll concede that point. But by that same token, there are a lot of very strong arguments for isolationism that can be used as justification by someone who has an ulterior motive of their own, say an anti-Semite in 1938. Anything can be used as justification. That doesn’t address the argument itself. That’s like saying we should support affirmative action because the KKK opposes it or the War in Iraq because a bunch of anti-American loonies opposed it.
Now, I don’t know exactly what your inference was regarding what kind of foreign policy I support, but seeing as you called it idiotic, I can take a pretty good guess. I’m not a down the line interventionist because 1) We don’t have the ability to intervene everywhere in the world where something bad is going on and 2) even if we did, we aren’t always able to solve things by our interventions.
So, no, I don’t support an idiotic foreign policy, at least not as I assume you define it. But I’m also not going to turn a blind eye to the sufferings of other people and say, oh, that’s okay, because that’s not us.
And if that’s not what you’re doing, then I’d clarify your original remarks.
Comment by jfullmer — 4/30/2007 @ 9:28 pm
What’s there to say about this article? She clearly has no critical knowledge of history and politics of the period.
Sure the communist government was terrible, but that does not mean South Vietnam was this great land of freedom and democracy as the author tries to paint it. The country was mired in corruption and run by a military dictatorship.
She also writes:
“Our troops must stay to keep the peace until it is certain that the peace is lasting. That much we owe to the Iraqi people.
The obligations we assume in securing stability and democracy abroad are ones that we must keep and ultimately fulfill. If we truly do not want another Vietnam to unfold in Iraq, then we cannot afford to break our promise there. Our nation must stay the course in Iraq.”
-Our troops are not keeping the peace, they are propping up one side in a multi-faceted civil war.
-Our presence is perhaps the cause of more violence than the solution to that violence.
-Iraq does not have the civil society to hold up the weight of a democracy, so even the most sincere attempts at creating democratic institutions will fail.
The promises of stability have not materialized in years and the United States is lining up its sights at Iran. Clearly, success in Iraq has been put on the back burner, as the focus has been shifted. For some reason it is necessary to bring 4 carrier groups to the region and appoint a Naval admiral in charge of CENTCOM. Those resources will do nothing to the situation on the ground.
It is the BUSH ADMINISTRATION that has abandoned Iraq first.
Comment by Ghost of Clark Kerr — 5/1/2007 @ 12:52 am
“strong arguments for isolationism that can be used as justification by someone who has an ulterior motive of their own, say an anti-Semite in 1938″
No argument would be complete without Godwin’s Law.
Comment by Ghost of Clark Kerr — 5/1/2007 @ 12:57 am
I’m sorry, but it is not the case that the communist government “was” terrible. At present the Communist Party of Vietnam is still the only legitimately governing party authority in the country. As it remains in power, it continues to repress the population and stifle political freedoms. The Party is not a thing of the past, as you say, but a monster that lives on today.
Another point. All individuals desire freedom, regardless of their form of government. There is no doubt that Ngo Dinh Diem and Nguyen Van Thieu, the leaders of South Vietnam, presided over a regime ridden with corruption and nepotism. But that does not hide the fact that the people of South Vietnam, or more accurately, the people of both the North and South, craved freedom deeply. Those who fled and those who stayed still crave it with all of their hearts.
Corruption in the highest levels of leadership in no way indicates corruption throughout the entire population. On the contrary, if you speak with any Vietnamese refugee, or if you read about the grassroots efforts in Vietnam today to bring about democracy, you will learn very quickly that the desire for freedom is the common thread linking them all.
Furthermore, the corruption of the South paled in comparison to the murderous totalitarian state that reigned in the North. At the very least, the Southern government still respected freedom of the press and the right to private property. In the North, under Ho Chi Minh’s rule, the government censored or blocked the publication of any anti-communist material. In its attempt to obliterate private property, it launched a class warfare campaign upon the peasantry that killed hundreds of thousands. I can quote you the numbers if you’d like.
Comment by Vududoll — 5/1/2007 @ 1:56 am
So?
Comment by Ghost of Clark Kerr — 5/1/2007 @ 10:14 am
Vududoll:
If “craving freedom with all your heart” is (as you suggest) both 1) a legitimate justification for intervention, and 2) common in all people, you essentially make the case for the US to become world police. Excuse my language, but that bullshit garbage does not belong in a supposed “conservative” publication.
Comment by Anonymous — 5/1/2007 @ 10:22 am
Okay, can you explain to me why that “bullshit garbarge” does not belong in a conservative publication?
Comment by Vududoll — 5/1/2007 @ 10:58 am
Because that is the Wilsonian foreign policy of Democrats like Billy Boy Clinton that conservatives have long been against. Remember Kosovo?
BTW, I looked you up on facebook, you’re pretty cute. Too bad your foreign policy sucks.
Comment by Anonymous — 5/1/2007 @ 11:03 am
3 reasons why this “garbage” foreign policy does not belong in a “conservative” publication.
-Interventionism only feeds the warfare-welfare state or the military-industrial complex or what ever you call it. We have runaway deficits and will have to keep our high taxes to ever get out debt.
-It is a policy predicated on fear. Fear of foreigners, not a humanitarian mission. It encourages us to give up our civil rights and invites the nanny state and the executive to interfere in our lives.
-Staying in Iraq is just plain stupid. It has been one big embarrassment after another. It is costing American lives.
James and Jessica, lets be reasonable.
….”What I do believe is that all of us are endowed by our Creator with a few inalienable rights, like life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”…
Then why don’t we invade our pal Saudi Arabia? Why do we support dictators in Central Asia? Why do we support General Musharaf? Why don’t we invade Belarus? Why don’t we take out the government of Israel and normalize life for millions of Arabs under their boot? Why don’t we invade Burma and reverse the coup in Thailand?
This list can go on and on. The US has made realist choices before and there is no impending break in policy in leaving Iraq. (And where was all this democracy talk back in the 1980’s when we supplied Saddam with chemical bombs to use on Iran and his own people? I wonder how often people in Baghdad are asking this today.)
Comment by Ghost of Clark Kerr — 5/1/2007 @ 4:46 pm
I’m really hungry and I’ve got some food in front of me so I’m gonna just respond to your “let’s be reasonable” part for now.
To answer your question about why we don’t do all that, it’s because even if we had the military capability to do so (which we don’t) military interventions don’t necessarily solve humanitarian crises. They can, and often do, but oftentimes they only exacerbate matters.
And speaking for myself, I never said I believed in the whole Wilsonian idea of spreading democracy as a foreign policy goal, nor did I ever say I was for the Iraq War (I was against it, btw).
What I was saying was that we have to consider the effect of our actions or lack thereof on other people. Jessica gave us a great example of the suffering that was visited on the Vietnamese people after our withdrawal. I think that’s something important to consider when we’re discussing our policy in Iraq.
What anonymous seemed to be saying was “to hell with the rest of the world,” let’s just look out for ourselves. That’s an idea I reject, and an idea that I hope many people besides starry eyed Wilsonian idealists also reject.
Comment by jfullmer — 5/1/2007 @ 5:42 pm
“I’m really hungry and I’ve got some food in front of me so…
Really hungry? Did you get Chinese?
Comment by Seung-hui Cho — 5/2/2007 @ 3:01 pm