No, Neocon, I don't assume that most Vietnamese were Communists. I assume that most Vietnamese were Nationalists. Just as although most Iraqis aren't Saddamists, they're not Americanists either. There seem to be many subtle distinctions that escape you.
One thing that is clear, your view of foreign, third world populations, and our ability to herd them into enclosures of our choosing, seems based on faith rather than experience or history.
To think that "most people will bet on us if we do not falter, and will help us pacify the country in order to get on with their lives........." is to ignore the history of our experience in Vietnam, the French experience in the Sudan and the Russian experience in Afghanistan. We cannot hold their lives hostage, increasing the chaos, suffering and loss in their lives and then expect them to "help us pacify [their] country. You give them too little credit for resolve, courage, anger and revenge. When the community is perceived as having been attacked, the members of the community normally act to defend it with near total disregard for their own lives. It's a survival factor that's embedded deep within us.
But then you don't WANT to hear that, do you? |
