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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (754656)	11/20/2006 12:41:04 PM
From: GROUND ZERO™	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769667

You make some excellent points, and, hopefully, we all benefit from 20/20 hindsight... GZ

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (754656)	11/20/2006 1:13:07 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769667

Re: "I have been told that Ho Chi Min had been a huge supporter of America and the Constitution, but felt betrayed by the fact Vietnam was turned over to the French after WWII." He was a local war hero from the fight against the Japanese in WW II, (and the French Colonialists before and after). He fought to resist Chinese incursions and domination. Essentially, he was a nationalist --- which seems to be the dominant political motif of the 20th. Century, the rise of modern nation-states. After WW II the French Colonialists (who had been kicked out of their cozy little colonial empire in South East Asia by the Japanese) wanted their old empire back. (Possibly feelings of inferiority after their WW II experience?) But, the problem was that they were totally BROKE. They had no money to reconquer their old Empire. Then, the US Marshall Plan money came along to 'rebuild war-torn Europe', and to build a strong wall of allies against the Soviet Union. Germany (wisely), spent their Marshall Plan money in building shinny new factories, in civic engineering efforts (Autobahn, anyone? :-), etc., and soon became the 'miracle economy' of Europe. France (after having asked the US for, and receiving special permission) spent their Marshall Plan money reconquering and tamping down nationalist resistance movements in Vietnam and in Algeria. (They, of course, ultimately LOST both parts of their 'Empire'....), instead of rebuilding in France... and fell further and further behind Germany's economy. The US --- very unwisely --- chose to abandon all it's high-faluting Wilsonian words of support for the principles of Democracy, and for the rights of national self-determination... and came down in a knee-jerk kind of reaction supporting the 'white man' (the French) in their wars of re-conquest against the 'brown peoples' in these lesser-known parts of the world. ESSENTIALLY, we were SNOOKERED by a French song and dance (although the decision was a close call) --- that we needed to support their war of Colonial reconquest, because it was really a 'war against Communism' --- into financing their disaster. (At the time, of course, I'll bet that if you could have grabbed up 100 Vietnamese at random, and asked them to explain 'Communism' to you, I doubt more then two or three could have. :-) After the French Army was thumped, they FURTHER SNOOKERED us into taking up their colonial struggle (all those there-too-for profitable rubber plantations...) as our own 'war against Communism', the Domino Strategy. An early ignominious beginning for this was when we VETOED the UN scheduled general elections in all of Vietnam (because we knew that Ho would win in an open vote....), and caused the split of Vietnam into Northern and Southern parts.