IMO, the U.S. was not without the resources to accomplish a lot of things in Vietnam that it did not. To win, first there must be a will and then, of course, sufficient tools (including half a brain).
Not defending that war. We started losing it long before we were ever in it. Backing the the French (regardless of the cause) never seems to turn out as well as hoped. Prickly bunch, that crowd.
HST made a dopey call to get the ball rolling but, IMO, JFK, LBJ and RM deserved hanging for what they did (which is not to say I wouldn't also have found the sound of Jane Fonda's pretty neck snapping deeply satisfying).
An aside -- I'm always a bit amazed at the degree of blame heaped on Nixon for our involvement. He was entirely faithful to his campaign promise of "Vietnamization". Maybe he was just a real hard guy to like. Didn't help that he arrived in office about the time the draft went to a lottery system -- fair as it may be, taking "deference" away from a privileged sector can lead to interesting consequences.
Regardless of suffering by many under the guise of "anti-communism", I'm not willing, as an American, to take the rap. The Cold War may have given a convenient excuse to many governments for adopting a "round-up-the-usual-suspects approach" to dealing with opposition. No way will you convince me they wouldn't have easily found other excuses to do the same things.
The whole world of foreign aid and foreign loans is Wacky Land. The alternative is a sort of hegemony or neocolonialism that I doubt you would accept. I sort of favor these approaches but realize they are going nowhere. Hey, I'm all for annexing Mexico tomorrow! If we're going to end up with all the people, why not grab the natural resources and beachfront property while we're at it :-)
If you care to comment, what is your idea of properly "not ignoring" the Philippine people now that the cold war is over? |
