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

To: Neeka who wrote (154654)	12/22/2004 3:03:58 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Moenmac re: "Americans won't want to support a nation that chooses despotism or another Viet Nam like failure. We can hand them the tools necessary for self rule, but we can't choose their future.......it is now up to them." I understand the point of your post and in most aspects I agree with you. I would like to point out, however, that we should avoid short term conclusions. When you say "another Vietnam like failure," where was the long term failure? From all reports the Vietnamese are finding their own solutions, are not a problem for any other people, and are now our trading partners and constitute absolutely no threat to us or to our interests. There is now a direct flight from SF to Saigon, the country is "safe" for Americans and most Vietnamese seem to have few complaints. It wasn't easy for "them" to get there but it seems they did a lot better on their own than when we were "helping them" by killing millions of them with the sacrifice of the health and lives of many Americans and the squander of billions of dollars of treasure that could have been spent for benevolent purposes. So the question is whether these things are about "winning" in the sense of "we really imposed our will and made them roll over and show their bellies," or whether they are about long term diplomacy, intelligent planning and acting aggressively only in real self defense. Maybe we should have learned something from Vietnam? Ed