Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Brumar89 who wrote (107560)	7/26/2003 1:18:32 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The problem with Googling on an insufficient information base is that you can’t tell when you’re looking at rubbish. I’ve no problem with your first citation, but the second… well, I wouldn’t bookmark it. A few things you might not pick up on the first search…. The French had a considerable military force in Indochina at the start of WW2, larger than that of the British or any other colonial power. The troops were there to keep the Annamites in their place. France had seen some agitation for independence, and been forced to send a few hundred people to the guillotine without trial, and watch a few thousand more die in prison, pour encourager les autres. When Japanese invasion became inevitable, the French colonial government declared itself with the pro-Nazi Vichy government. They agreed to give the Japanese full run of the country, but they kept their army and their responsibility for civil administration. French and Japanese administrators collaborated in some quite profitable business ventures. In 1944 virtually the entire rice crop of Northern Vietnam was shipped off to China and sold at inflated prices. This was a very useful way of squeezing out the last bits of hidden Chinese loot, but over 100,000 Vietnamese are believed to have died in the resulting famine. Ho Chi Minh used that famine as his launching pad, organizing around a slogan usually translated as “seize back the paddy stocks”. Vietnamese informants tell me that a more appropriate translation would be “take back the rice”. It was a line that worked rather well with hungry people. When it became clear that the Japanese were losing, the French decided to change sides again, and began plotting a move against the Japanese. The plotting was inept, the kempei tai were on it from day 1, and in March 1945 the Japanese rounded up the plotters and terminated French rule. Vietnam was declared an independent state, and formal leadership was bestowed upon the ever-pliable Bao Dai, puppet to many puppeteers. In fact, the country was a satellite of the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the Japanese were in complete control. At this point the Americans became involved. Military planners knew nothing about the atom bomb, and were working on the assumption that Japan would have to be invaded. Japanese forces in the Pacific were being decimated, but large and well-rested Japanese armies were in occupation roles in China and Indochina, and they could have been brought back to aid in the defence of the homeland.. The American apparatus in China, which consisted of an OSS group and Gen. Stilwell, a masterful general without troops to command, was ordered to do anything possible to tie these troops down and try to prevent or delay any move to bring the armies back to Japan until American air and sea power could force their isolation. These orders were to encourage American contact with communists in both China and Indochina; that was in turn to have unfortunate consequences. The OSS and Stilwell's staff were enormously frustrated by Chiang Kai Shek’s refusal to fight the Japanese, and their initial contacts with the Communists were reported with huge enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was mainly driven by enthusiasm for their mission, and pleasure at finding soldiers who actually seemed ready to fight, but it was later interpreted as enthusiasm for the communist cause. We lost the services of some good people that way. The OSS plan for Indochina called for commando raids to destroy rail lines leading north, and the encouragement of native resistance. The manpower was to come from a pool of a few thousand Frenchmen that had escaped to the north, and a number of Vietnamese resistance groups. To implement this plan, a young OSS officer named Archimedes A.L. Patti was brought in from Europe. The son of immigrants from Greece, Patti had been snatched up by the OSS early on in the festivities, on account of his linguistic skills. They parachuted him into occupied Greece to organize American aid to Greek partisans, and two years later he was a Lt. Colonel managing the receiving end of American aid to resistance groups all over the Balkans. Patti is often described as a starry-eyed young officer who was duped by Ho Chi Minh. The only evidence usually cited to support this view is the fact that he was 24 years old at the time. I have doubts: war is a fairly Darwinian activity, and the people who survive and rise in that environment don't do so because they were naive. I’ve read the guy’s book, and a few other things he’s written, and his evaluation of Ho seems entirely realistic. Certainly he had no illusions about Ho’s goals. His main point was that the French were finished, and that if the US supported a nationalist government, that government would be entirely dependent on the US, and that this dependence could be used to move that government in a desired direction. His essential argument was that it is better to try and gain influence over a ship that floats than to take command of one that’s sinking. He makes a pretty good case for it, and later attempts to describe him as a communist mouthpiece do not seem at all consistent with his writings. How this opinion formed, and what happened between Patti’s arrival and the return of French authority, is a fascinating story, but I think that’s enough for now. Let me know if you would care to discuss it further.