Reckon the difference between a tank and AAA would be lost on wifey.
Posted on 06/30/2006 9:11:56 AM PDT by Dr. Marten
One of the first things George W. Bush did as his presidency was getting off the ground in 2001was to sign a bilateral trade agreement with Vietnam. Since then, trade between the US and Vietnam has grown 400 percent to $7.8 billion last year. Last week, the US and Vietnam signed an agreement that paves the way for Vietnam to join the WTO, the World Trade Organization.
On Monday, June 5, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was in Hanoi meeting Vietnam's Defense Minister Pham Van Tra and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai. Noting that a US Navy ship will soon be visiting a Vietnamese port for the fourth time in four years, a reporter asked Rummy if the US was seeking basing rights in Vietnam.
"We have no plans for access to military facilities in Vietnam," was Rummy's reply. When diplomacy requires it, Rumsfeld can lie with the best of them. For the very purpose of his Hanoi sojourn was to discuss just such access. His meetings, and all the cooperation that proceeded it have been in preparation for one announcement.
This November, President Bush will go on a state visit to Vietnam. On November 18, he will address the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit hosted by Vietnam in Hanoi. During this visit, it will be announced that the United States Navy will once again have an operating base at Cam Ranh Bay.
Cam Ranh Bay was the major port facility of the US Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. It is one of the finest seaports in the world. After communist North Vietnam conquered South Vietnam in 1975, the Soviets moved in to establish there the largest Soviet naval base in the world outside the Warsaw Pact. In a little noticed prelude for this November's announcement, Hanoi kicked the Russians out of Cam Ranh Bay in 2002. Now we're going back in.
The Left may still be stuck in ‘Nam, but GW isn't. Our loss there is history and he doesn't dwell on it. He knows that war with America is a short blip on Vietnam's historical screen - a war that lasted a few short years while for over a thousand years Vietnam fought to gain its freedom from China.
Various tribes known as Viet had established a kingdom in the Red River delta back in the 6th century BC. In 111 BC, Han Chinese troops invaded and conquered the Viet kingdom. Over the centuries, the Viets refused assimilation and periodically rebelled against Chinese colonial rule. Finally, at the battle of Bach Dang in 937 AD, the Chinese were defeated and Vietnam became free once again.
After 1,048 years of colonial enslavement, the Vietnamese have hated the Chinese ever since. Today they are far more worried about Chinese imperialism than American imperialism - especially since Red China claims their entire front yard, the South China Sea, as Chinese territorial waters.
Cam Ranh Bay looks out upon the South China Sea. The US Navy based in Cam Ranh Bay along with the increasingly powerful Indian Navy is what Vietnam needs to protect itself from China.
I first gave you a heads-up on this a year ago last June in The Indo-China Con. It will give you all the background, plus the appropriate maps. GW has been planning this for a long time. It's a good example of his geopolitical genius. In our anger over his seemingly inexplicable faults regarding our borders, government spending and the like, we can blind ourselves to his virtues. This we must not do.
Bush had a containment plan for China from the beginning of his presidency, a series of military alliances surrounding China. It's working with Japan and India, it hasn't worked with Putin's Russia. Now it seems that an alliance with Vietnam is falling into place. If there is ever a military confrontation between China and the US, it will be somewhere between the Formosa Strait and the Spratly Islands (see the map in The Indo-China Con).
The best way to head off such a confrontation is a strong US Navy presence in the region at the ready. The place to have it is Cam Ranh Bay. Such a base is the best way to prevent war, not provoke it. Is America ready to accept a military alliance with Vietnam, still governed by the Ho Chi Minh Commies? If you react in disgust, still bitter about our loss to them, then just think about how much this will mind-screw the Left.
The Vietnamese Commies in an alliance with America against Red China? It will rattle the Left's cage like you can't believe. Bush will have turned the Left's great victory over America in Vietnam into a victory for America. The Left won't be able to use the trauma of defeat in ‘Nam as a weapon any more. The Vietnam War will at last finally be over, and the Left will have lost it.
George Bush understands all of this, and is doing all of this on slow methodical purpose. Even the timing of the announcement is on purpose - after the November elections. It will take a little while for the brilliance of this to sink in, and he's not about to startle the voter-horses before Election Day.
So now's a good time to begin our reassessment of George W. Bush. We've had our winter of discontent with him and winter's long gone. We're deep into spring and it's time to start thinking anew. Time to bury past traumas. Time to appreciate GW. Time to go back to ‘Nam.
PS: For those with any lingering doubts, recall the words of Henry John Temple (1784-1865), better known to history as Lord Palmerston, who observed while Prime Minister of England in the late 1850s: "Nations have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies. Only permanent interests."
Trade with VietNam = OK
Trade with Cuba = Not OK.
Anyone else see the hypocrisy here?
Irony of ironies.
One reason: Castro.
Last week, the US and Vietnam signed an agreement that paves the way for Vietnam to join the WTO, the World Trade Organization.
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Our globalist is at it again -- the sooner we get these utopian ONE WORLD elitists out of Washington, the better off this country will be. (wishful thinking, I know).
Oh, did I see Billy Jeff sticking his big nose around the corner again??
Aren't there Vietnam vacations available now?......
You sure it was his nose?
.......and a whole lot of ex-pat Cuban voters in FL.........
Yeah. Have been for at least a decade.
One will not find a greater proponent of the US trade embargo and travel ban than Castro.
Why is this taking so long? Should have been back 15 years ago.
You sure it was his nose?
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Yeah, because it was STRAIGHT!!! LMFAO !!!
I know that Vietnam is slowly moving towards free markets but unless they moved towards democracy we shouldnt be dealing with them...at all..sounds like if Vietnam trully is afraid of a Imperial China they would be more than happy to barter freedoms for protection from the USA.
1980 Mariel Boatlift..........
MI Ping
For Students of History...it's important to note that Lord Palmerton's words were a spin off of those used by George Washington in his Presidential farwell address.
In Hoc...
W is constantly underestimated...
Ping it.
This appears to be one of those stealth policies of GW that the left never realizes until it is done and too late for them.
It wouldn't be the first time, bitter enemies in wars with us became allies, like Britain, Canada, Germany and Japan.
Communist Vietnam is still revolting but in the long run, I think helping them have access to US markets will strengthen the private sector in VN. This effect will weaken the power of the state because there will be other constituency in the polity. Yes, a free and democratic Vietnam is a worthy goal.
A very practical and smart commanding officer told a group of us after the Cuban crisis, "Instead of blockading Cuba, we should send in McDonalds, Sears, Montgomery Wards, JC Penney's and American Rock and roll artists. They would end Castro's stranglehold in a few years!"
Now that I'm a little older and wiser, he was even smarter than I realized.
My suggestion is to send (even if its mothballed and they have to refit it) is to send the USS Maddox
Gulf of Tonkin Incident?
Sorry, until those slimy commie B*astards account for EVERY one of our MIA's, they remain on my SH*T list.
Communist Vietnam is still revolting but in the long run, I think helping them have access to US markets will strengthen the private sector in VN. This effect will weaken the power of the state because there will be other constituency in the polity. Yes, a free and democratic Vietnam is a worthy goal.
My BIL said the same. Back then he had to worry about the hand grenade rolling in his tent, the Coke spiked with bamboo splinters and of course the IEDs.
We should not trade with VN until all of our KIAs and MIAs are accounted for.
They could have a huge tourism industry if they offered Paintball War tours or Lasertag tours to the weekend warrior crowd, complete with arranged battles simulating the famous battles of the Vietnam War.
Husband: "Honey, how'd do you like to go to 'Nam this summer. You and the kids could hang out on the beach while I fight the Tet offensive and shoot some NVA gooks with my paintball gun. How AWESOME would that be?!!"
Wife: "Can I do the excursion where I get to dress up in the Jane Fonda outfit and sit in the tank?!!"
One Doug posted this. Looks like DaNag is nice also:
http://www.furamavietnam.com/
Re Cam Ranh: We're quietly positioning ourselves for an eventual showdown with the ChiComs.
Still, what irony. Next thing you know we'll reopen Tan Son Nhut airbase and the embassy...
Vietnam is a strategic country because of it's positioning in China's back yard.
Vietnam Ping.
Reckon the difference between a tank and AAA would be lost on wifey.
I'd love to go back. Wonder if the bread is still
"crunchy"? It would be great to be "#1" again !
Having base rights at Camranh Bay would be a masterstroke.
Its the finest harbor in all of Indochina, especially
with our improvements.
What do you think about this?
Does hanging a stupid black flag outside government buildings count as doing something?
now if we normalize relations and trade with vietnam will the democrats still call vietnam a quaqmire, will they still compare vietnam to iraq?
will they begin to realize how stupid the comparision of iraq to vietnam is especially when in a few years iraq may be one of our trading partners and a great ally in the middle east?
It just happens to be a reminder that many people tend to ignore.
Yep, it reminds me everyday when walking past it at work that the very government who should be doing something about it decided instead to tell me they feel my pain.
Is it very dark in your cave?
You said it all.
JOINT POW/MIA ACCOUNTING COMMAND (JPAC)
Public Affairs (808) 448-1937
public_affairs@jpac.pacom.mil
RELEASE NO. #06-23
June 21, 2006
86TH JFA UNDERWAY: JPAC EXPERTS SEARCH FOR MIAs FROM THE VIETNAM WAR
HICKAM AFB, HAWAII - JPAC teams left this week for Vietnam to excavate sites and search for information associated with service members missing from the Vietnam War.
Participating JPAC teams include one Research Investigation Team (RIT), one Investigation Team (IT) and five Recovery Teams (RT). This is the 86th Joint Field Activity.
The RIT is made up of mostly analysts and linguists who are researching achieves in Vietnam, investigating leads and obtaining battlefield history from Vietnamese military and government officials. RIT members can generate more than 30 new leads through this research.
The IT is heading up research of possible excavation sites associated with 21 cases and to 47 unaccounted-for individuals. Typically ITs follow up on leads produced from the RIT by interviewing witnesses, conducting terrain surveys for safety and logistical concerns. Their work dictates where future recovery operations take place.
Five RTs will also participate in the JFA. RT members are searching through recovery sites for evidence to the whereabouts of unaccounted-for service members. The typical RT group of ten to 14 people includes, in part, a team leader, anthropologist, medical personnel and a linguist. In the 85th JFA, operations are associated with a total of eight unaccounted-for military members missing from two aircraft crash sites and three battle sites.
"Until they are home"
JOINT POW/MIA ACCOUNTING COMMAND (JPAC)
Public Affairs (808) 448-1937
public_affairs@jpac.pacom.mil
RELEASE NO. #A06-2
June 23, 2006
MIA REMAINS RETURN TO AMERICAN SOIL FROM TWO COUNTRIES
HICKAM AFB, HAWAII - A ceremony will take place June 30 to honor recovered remains believed to be associated with American military members missing from the Vietnam War.
There will be one transfer case containing remains from Laos and one case containing remains from Vietnam in the ceremony. A joint honor guard will memorialize the repatriation of the remains on Friday at 9 a.m. outside of the 15th Airlift Wing Base Operations Building, Hickam Air Force Base.
Following the ceremony, the remains will be transported to the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command where the forensic identification process begins.
Media are invited to attend the ceremony. For access to Hickam AFB or more information, contact JPAC public affairs at (808) 448-1937. Media must RSVP before noon, June 29, in order to receive access to the base and must meet escorts at the gate no later than 8:20 a.m., June 30.
"Until they are home"
According to the press release above, two more of our gallant warriors are coming home today. While this still leaves over 1800 Americans unaccounted for in Southeast Asia, every one who comes home is a victory.
JPAC currently has search and recovery teams combing the globe for American MIA's from every war in the 20th Century.
I hope to save up enough funds and vacation time so that in a few years I will be able to volunteer a few months to helping them comb through the thousands of pages of documents pertaining to MIA's. JPAC is always asking for help in tracking down obscure clues that might lead to identifying one of the several hundred sets of remains they are currently trying to ID.
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