Vietnam’s Overdue Alliance With America

New York Times ^ | July 11, 2014 | By TUONG LAI

[Brad from Tennessee]

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — OURS is a small country. We Vietnamese cannot and must not entrust our future to anyone, but we urgently need strategic allies at a moment in history when our priority is to defeat our present-day enemy: China.

China’s move in May, to place an offshore oil rig on the Vietnamese continental shelf, and its arrogant statements in June, at an Asian security summit meeting known as the Shangri-La Dialogue, exposed China’s sea piracy to the world. These developments should alarm anyone in Vietnam who still clings to the myth of brotherly love between our nation and China.

We cannot fight Chinese encroachment alone. Political isolation in a globalized world is tantamount to committing political suicide for Vietnam. And the key ally for Vietnam today is the United States — an alliance that the Vietnamese liberation hero Ho Chi Minh ironically always wanted. . .

[Carry_Okie]

Now this is the height of irony.

[GeronL]

China is the regional bully and the US is weak-willed in DC.

If the US were strong Vietnam wouldn’t need us as an ally, because China wouldn’t dare.

Now, if they ask Barry what they must do to be allies, instead of saying democracy, civil rights and all that - he’s going to tell them to build mosques and gay bath houses.

ugh

[Brad from Tennessee]

[Now this is the height of irony.]

From Wikipedia:

[In 1946, future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and Ho Chi Minh stayed at the same hotel in Paris, and became very friendly.[36][37] Ho Chi Minh offered Ben Gurion a Jewish home-in-exile in Vietnam.[36][37] Ben-Gurion turned the offer down, however, telling Ho Chi Minh: “I am certain we shall be able to establish a Jewish Government in Palestine.” . . .]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Chi_Minh

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

You made your bed.

Now, if you want to change your bed, overthrow communism and dictatorship, change HCMC back to Saigon, apologize for war crimes by the VC as well as NV and purge the perpetrators etc., then we’ll talk.

[jtal]

No thanks

[Reaganez]

Viet Nam gave the Russian Navy rights Cam Ranh Bay in 2013.

They don’t feel protected by the Ruskies?

[chessplayer]

Now, if you want to change your bed, overthrow communism and dictatorship,

---

Yeah, right. And the S. Vietnamese hated our guts for supporting a “democracy” that was even worse than the communists.

[2ndDivisionVet]

[UnbelievingScumOnTheOtherSide]

Yes, especially the mainly Catholic government’s oppression of the Buddhists. How’d that work out for them?

There is a pattern that every government is more “corrupt”, “dictatorial”, “warmongering” etc. until the communists actually take over.

[GeronL]

That is a nice pic

[Celtic Conservative]

From what I’ve read in a national geographic article most everybody ignores the name change and still calls it Saigon. It’s only referred to as HCMC in official documents and maps.

CC

[98ZJ USMC]

Now this is the height of irony.

It does seem that way. I was ruminating this, in my mind last month, the contention that, we won the War in Vietnam, both militarily and politically. There is no question that we won militarily. Had we gone back in, their armor would have been squashed on the open roads. But, as it turns out we won politically, also.

The Vietnamese despise the Chinese with every fiber of their being. They always have. Far worse than they thought of the French and they really never "hated" us. Now, we are becoming very good friends and could very well be on the brink of a security pact. A "Marriage of Convenience"? Perhaps, but a great many long standing and close friendships have started that way.

The Left simply delayed the process and ruined this nation for no gain. The Left lost.

[Forgotten Amendments]

THEY destroyed Pol Pot. And the Reagan administration sided with Pol Pot in the UN.

[GeronL]

And the Reagan administration sided with Pol Pot in the UN

??

They have many votes at the UN. The US even voted along with the USSR sometimes.

[sickoflibs]

In 1975 our ‘allies’ the South Vietnam arm fought about as well as our ‘allies’ the Shia running Iraq are now.

Running away fast as hell leaving the weapons we gave them behind.

Helicopters flying off the embassy roof.

[Forgotten Amendments]

You don’t remember that? Well, I don’t blame you.

Instead of tracking down Pol Pot & his cronies and stringing them up, we were campaigning to have them restored as the “legitimate” rulers of Cambodia (or whatever it was called then).

I couldn’t stomach it then. You probably can’t now. So, let’s all toss it down the memory hole! ;)

[Brad from Tennessee]

[In 1975 our ‘allies’ the South Vietnam arm fought about as well as our ‘allies’ the Shia running Iraq are now.]

The ARVN fought back two invasions by North Vietnam. In 1975 Congress, led by a cabal of Democrat traitors, cut off all funds to South Vietnam and forbade the U.S. military from lending naval or air support. Financed and armed by the Soviets, the NVA finally overwhelmed the South Vietnamese.

U.S. involvement in Vietnam was about tying up Communist resources on one battleground, affording time for the non-communist Asian states—many of them just emerging from colonial rule—to develop stable governments, economies and armed forces that could cope with local communist insurgencies. To this end the war was a success.

[kearnyirish2]

We achieved none of our goals in Vietnam; we lost. The communist victory didn’t fix their country, but they controlled all of it (and had their vengeance against our former allies). Nothing to view as a victory there.

[kearnyirish2]

“Instead of tracking down Pol Pot & his cronies and stringing them up, we were campaigning to have them restored as the “legitimate” rulers of Cambodia (or whatever it was called then).”

Are you talking about the coalition government that was supposed to be formed by the three sides in Cambodia (the monarchy, the Khmer Rouge, and the puppet government of Hun Sen (installed by the Vietnamese to stop the bodies from washing down the rivers into Vietnam)?