He was called, by the 1930s, the Father of His Country.

I’m sure nobody in my closer family called him like this. How representative is this anyway. The biggest slaughterers in the history of mankind had fans. Mao, Pol Pot, Stalin, Sadam Hussein, Hitler, just to name a few. A small minority will always whine about the past glorious days.

to crush a rebellion that, in the 50s, was more about native freedom than planned economies.

Ho went to Russia became we turned our back on him. Imagine if we’d helped him instead. How different would the world be today?

The fact remains that instead of trying to forge alliance with diverse political groups in Vietnam against a common enemy he went and murdered their leaders. His followers, who were supposedly interested in helping the people, terrorized the population and coerced them into supporting them. When the communists came to power, a lot of people left. Obviously some found risks like drowning in the sea or meeting pirates to be worth it if they came along with the chance to escape living in a communist regime. History books are full of stories with strong leaders who united their people to fight against a common enemy. Their people followed their lead willingly, the emphasis is on “willingly”.

The label communist is another halo. The Russians have a joke that goes “Communism is better, before the Czars would run over the peasants in their horse drawn carriages. Now the Politburos run over the Proletariats in their Mercedes Benzes.

There is nevertheless a difference between these czars and communists. Both oppress(ed) the proletary or peasants, but the latter claims that it is there to protect and serve the people. Have at least the guts to say that you are a despicable parasite. This hypocritical gibberish is unbearable. Look at China. Admire the unconditional and loving caring of the millions of workers who are at the government’s disposal to ensure a soaring economy. I don’t believe capitalism is so much better, but communism wherever it has established itself as the leading type of government it has proven to be the epitome of hypocrisy.

There were no winners in that debacle. If first off Wilson and then later Truman had had the proper information and balls to tell France to back off and let Vietnam have its independence—in 1947, when the French murdered a U.S. intelligence officer who was pro-independence and blamed it on the communistis—a whole lot of ugliness might have been avoided. For our part, we were so reflexively paranoid of the very word “communist” that we abandoned our own principles to crush a rebellion that, in the 50s, was more about native freedom than planned economies.

Ho went to Russia became we turned our back on him. Imagine if we’d helped him instead. How different would the world be today?

since Bad was the only common thread linking the history of that country for almost a century

Maybe you should compare the number of people who left the country before and after the communists came to power. I’m Vietnamese and my parents are Vietnamese, none of them was eager to emigrate before the communists. My mom’s family, like many others, fled from the South to the North when the communists started taking over. Nobody wanted to stay with them. Why do you think the Vietnamese community in the States is so big?

The United States bought into the idea of Ho Chi Minh being a threat worse than Diem or Thieu, despite the fact that the people—you know, the actually inhabitants?–preferred Ho to those we kept in power artificially.

This was not Chile and Ho was not Allende. The communists supported him, but that. was. it. Leaders of opposing parties got killed, people who were against them ended in re-education camps. They were terrorizing the population and spreading fear. One day they came and took my grandfather with him, for no reason. He never came back. What had he done? - Nothing. You know what they did with landowners? They executed them for owning land. Wanna know how they did it? They dug holes into the ground, buried them with the heads sticking out and cut their heads off with the harvester. They laid bombs in theaters and movies. They taught kids to spy on their parents. My mom told me there were people who left their kids behind out of fear that their kids would betray their plans to escape to the officials.

The US were there for their own interest, but it’s not as if it was them against the whole Vietnamese population and it’s not as if the communists were the good people in this game. You should know it better than these hippie students with their Che Guevara romanticism.

It’s always difficult to argue values of freedom in a place where there never was any. Vietnam went from a fiefdom of France to a U.S. backed dictatorship of a minority group (catholics) to a hell hole of inter-village conflict to a communist regime. To try to assert on any level that these people over all are worse off than when we were regularly bombing their rice paddies is impossible, since Bad was the only common thread linking the history of that country for almost a century. It was better for some people in Saigon for a time, here and there. But it was always the kind of “better” built on the backs of the oppressed, and it doesn’t matter what economic system does the oppressing.

The United States bought into the idea of Ho Chi Minh being a threat worse than Diem or Thieu, despite the fact that the people—you know, the actually inhabitants?–preferred Ho to those we kept in power artificially.

This is not a debate over how people live, whether it’s better or worse, but over whether they had any right whatsoever to determine their own fate. By meddling, we made the transition far more painful than it should have been.

Gee…doesn’t that have a familiar ring?

OK, I am not claiming that Vietnam is a place where people are allowed unmitigated self-expression and criticism of their government. Do they have issues? Absolutely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

Had the U.S. gained control, though, you can bet that the government of Vietnam would have been at least as corrupt as it is, probably much more. That’s what happens in most places where the U.S. meddles, especially throughout Latin America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East.

What struck me is that that “war” was supposed to be justified because Vietnam was such an incredible threat to the U.S. You know, the domino theory of Communism. That theory and all the hype about the threat of Vietnam were big lies that resulted in so many deaths that it takes a huge monument to list all their names.

I’m assuming that you view the Vietnam War as a noble cause and that the U.S. should have continued that War until “victory”??

Now that we’ve been gone for awhile, however, peace reigns in Vietnam, which has become a respected trading partner of the U.S.

The silent peace of the oppressed and dead… And I just can’t help it, but “respected trading partner of the US” sounds so incredibly condescending and patronizing, as if this was the only thing a country could strive for, to do business with the US (and I’m sure the US also calls Saudi-Arabia a respectable trading partner, ha!).

I know families who have traveled to Vietnam to adopt Vietnamese orphans. I know of people who have traveled to Vietnam as tourists to admire the natural beauty. Isn’t it funny how it all got so much better after the U.S. stopped meddling?

Totally better, the communists were true saints and always had the best for the people in mind. And who has it better now, the Vietnamese people or the tourists and childless couples?

How anybody can defend communist systems is so absolutely beyond my understanding. And the praise rarely comes from people who live there. No, it’s usually the idle musing of people in free democracies with too much time at their hands which they certainly would not have if they were living in this communistic paradise with all its pleasures such as corrupt filth, oppression and poverty, just to name a few.