Re: i take back some of my praise for fire in the lake
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Well, if this is the case, why didnt the Americans just go in and make friends with Ho Chi Min?
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The Vietnam war started out as a was for independence from France. The US was essentially non involved untill France was pushed out which occured after the revolution had turned to the communists for help.
[/ QUOTE ]The American policy in Vietnam is mi sometimes labeled as short-sighted, im´pying some kinda "mistake". It was not. The policy was quite purposeful. (It was also disastrous for American interests, aside from any moral consideration.) When the French packed it in, the United States had the opportunity to support the nascent liberation movement of the Vietnamese and, in the process, turn it from a communist-dominated movement to a truly nationalist one. This would have been also helped by the deep animosity, running centuries back, between China and Vietnam.
But the United States was set on a policy of agggressive roll-back of anything that smacked of socialism, world-wide, and an Asian policy of hegemonism. Hence, Washington chose confrontation -- in the case of both Cuba and Vietnam. Those two revolutions were first and foremost patriotic, liberation affairs, and secondarily socialist. (Same thing happened in Nicaragua some twenty-five years later, when Washington's stance and its help for the murderous contras radicalized the regime.)
Those freedom fighters in Vietnam and Cuba were not going to their death for the dictatorship of the proletariat. No, sir.
Mickey Brausch
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