Free Republic

HANOI, Vietnam — The United States is rescinding a decades-old ban on sales of lethal military equipment to Vietnam, President Obama announced at a news conference in Hanoi on Monday, ending one of the last legal vestiges of the Vietnam War. “The decision to lift the ban was not based on China or any other considerations,” he said, with the Vietnamese president, Tran Dai Quang, standing stiffly by his side. “It was based on our desire to complete what has been a lengthy process of moving toward normalization with Vietnam.”

....Obama has announced that the United States is fully lifting the ban on the sale of military equipment to Vietnam, which has been in place for decades. In a joint news conference with Vietnamese President Tran Dai Quang, Obama said that the removal of the ban on lethal weapons w

In a move that is raising concerns among some Vietnam War veterans, President Obama will discuss selling more U.S. arms to Hanoi during his visit to Vietnam that began Sunday night. Top White House advisers said Mr. Obama hasn’t made a decision whether to lift the partial U.S. embargo on sending military equipment to Vietnam, where more than 58,200 U.S. soldiers were killed before the fall of Saigon in 1975. But the administration sees advantages in easing the embargo, both as a warning to expansionist China and as leverage to compel the communist regime in Hanoi to improve its record...