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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (12183)	8/28/1998 12:16:00 AM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

<<Communist practice has always been about raw power, not about a happy populace.>> Agreed. My point is that in 1945 that ideology was confined to a small number of leaders. If at that time we had come on board and provided the ordinary Ho with a viable and available alternative, that small group would have had a much more difficult time expanding its power. The resistance against the French provided the communists with exactly the platform they needed to spread their influence. When fighting against an occupying invader, it is easy to present ruthlessness as a virtue. In times of peace it is more difficult. I'm curious - what do you think we should have done in 1945? Everyone familiar with the situation knew that the French were going to lose, with any amount of American help. Was there any alternative between siding with a hopeless loser and trying to deal with Ho? <<There were no examples of a communist government holding elections and being voted out of office.>> Nicaragua is perhaps the exception which proves the rule? Today we are seeing both Vietnam and China decommunizing at a deliberate but very real pace. I think in ten years they will be communist only in name, and in another ten they'll drop the name. War need not be involved. I still think that a policy of constructive engagement, implemented at the close of WWII, could have brought this same process about. Communist flexibility is not the issue. By challenging communism on the military and political front, we presented a situation where their inflexibility became a virtue, and contributed to their longevity. Engagement on an economic front, I believe, would have turned their inflexibility against them. I think your mistake lies in assuming that I'm sympathetic to communism. I'm really not. I just think that the means by which we've chosen to fight communism have been wildly and unnecessarily destructive, and have in many cases encouraged what they sought to destroy. Steve