Bring America Back !!!!

****Our benign so called, leaders, never listened to the French who strongly advised the US NOT to enter Vietnam !

****Our malfeasant, negligent, corporatocracy failed to heed our ally Russia's advice NOT to enter Afghan.

The result is the absolute MESS described in this article, and which is the total Insanity of global position which we are subjected to by a runaway Military Industrial Complex.

"Those who do not heed the lessons of the past, are condemned
to repeat them !!! OUr so-called leaders are mentally incapable of learning those lessons.

Mr. Landau notes that "most people ... don't even write letters to the troops." If I were to write a letter to one of the robots I would urge him or her to see the documentary Sir! No Sir!. If he or she did that then that person should then realize he is being lied to by his government just as I was those many years ago in a place called Vietnam. I would urge that person to engage in some critical thinking by having that person realize that he is part of an occupying force that has illegally and immorally taken over that country.

U.S. soldiers-do the right thing by deserting from your units. As former Marine Dan Felushko, who deserted from his unit, wisely noted in the book Desertion and the American Soldier 1776-2006 by Robert Fantina that:

"I did not want 'Died, deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone."

That same statement, of course, would apply to those soldiers who are also stationed in Afghanistan.

Great analysis by Saul.

We like to use the term "enemy" in describing the Taliban, but nobody likes to remember Colin Powell hand-carrying a check for $40 million to them in April 2001.

The War On Terror is a fraud.

Behold a marine, such a man as an American government can make, or such as it can make a man with its black arts -- a mere shadow and reminiscence of humanity, a man laid out alive and standing, and already, as one may say, buried under arms with funeral accompaniments. ---Thoreau

Voltaire says to tend your own garden. Forget about changing the world. Put your own world in order instead. Make a few raised beds with 2 x 12s and fill with amended dirt. Use Vermiculite, compost, peat moss, and whatever dirt you can scrape up from the rocks. Add to it regularly by composting all kitchen refuse (and vetch). Mulch it heavily with straw or hay. If you live where frost is a problem, plant your seeds in cold frames and set out after the last frost date. Nurture your plants organically, cultivate them, watch them daily for bugs, water them when they need water.

Keep a hive or two of honeybees.

Watch the sky. Fight off the night creatures who want to eat your fruit.

Enjoy your food. Live long and prosper.

Years after Vietnam was over a US officer had a chance to speak with a Vietnamese officer. The US told the Viet how they had never won a single major battle. The Viet replied "that is true, but it's also irrelevant."

quote from author: "
In the 1950s, the Geneva Accords called for a vote for president
in Vietnam. Even Dwight Eisenhower, in his memoirs, conceded that
Communist leader Ho Chi Minh would quote:" have won that election
with more than 80 percent of the vote. To avoid this result, the
United States and some NATO allies created the Republic of South
Vietnam and chose Ngo Din Diem as president. Among Diem's promoters
were defense intellectuals, the neoconservatives of their day,
as well as Cardinal Spellman and the Kennedy family.

Diem, a Catholic president of a newly created Buddhist country,
knew that he must watch his generals — mainly non-Catholics —
very carefully. As U.S. military advisers pushed the Vietnamese
military to fight aggressively against the Viet Cong, the communist
guerrillas in the South, Diem urged the generals to keep casualties
limited—meaning no aggressive campaigns." end quote.

===

This is misinformation! An insult to Vietnamese people.

There are large Vietnamese American communities in
Washington DC, Los Angeles, San Jose, San Franciso, Houston,
Seattle, Boston, Atlanta, Mineapolis, Columbus, Toronto,
Montreal areas, etc... Who do have experience with president
Diem in the South, and Ho chi Minh in the North.

And the author should have made contact with Vietnamese people
inside as well as outside Vietnam to learn more about president
Diem as well as Ho Chi Minh.

It has been 35 years since 1975, there are lots of informations,
declassified informations about this war have surfaced.
All one needs is to look at it with a fair mind if he or she
wants write something that worths a read from readers.

Remember:

President Ngo Dinh Diem to Vietnamese people (then and now)

is like president George Washington to American people.

Lies can not make truth go away.

No amount of propaganda make truth go way either.

Truth is always there!

Madame Nhu was Diem's sister-in-law, not his widow.

Cicero: "Freedom is participation in power."

The true nature and purpose of these Bush/Obama colonial wars is a natural extension of the Unitary Theory of unlimited Executive wartime power. The extra-Constitutional "Unitary Theory of Executive Powers" during wartime is clear: Any president subscribing to this rogue State lawlessness believes that their powers are UNLIMITED during "wartime"--regardless of whether or not a president has chosen to wage a war in violation of international law and regardless of whether or not the U.S. government has hard EVIDENCE of a "clear and present danger" posed to the U.S. by a known or perceived enemy.

The Bush Doctrine changed the U.S. war trigger from EVIDENCE of "clear and present danger" to SUSPICION of a threat to national security. Suspicion of a threat can be easily fabricated by any presidential maladministration or gaggle of corrupt Congresspersons fronting for corrupt corporate and/or military-industrial/CIA interests.

The illegal assassination program as I understand it also targets American citizens based on suspicion of a threat (including hearsay) and I am unclear as to what standards of evidence, IF ANY, this program also might or might not take into account. Either way it is still un-Constitutional and a blatant violation of international law as well. No nation has the right to declare the entire planet a battlefield and even the most insane of Roman emperors never dared proclaim such madness as the Bush Doctrine, which declares endless American global military supremacy that will never brook any challenges anywhere in the world. The Supreme Court, even such as it has been since 2000, has twice rebuked the Executive Branch to say that presidential powers even during wartime are not unlimited and the Executive Branch since Bush continues to ignore these rulings--another clear sign in a long list of many that the U.S. is now a rogue State.

The criterion that rogue Unitary Theory presidents like Shrublette or Obysmal refer to to make decisions regarding the extra-legal assassination(s) of American citizens is SECRET CRITERION, which means it can be altered at any time in any way to suit any political or economic purpose. Just as our nation's war trigger of SUSPICION is an all-purpose legalistic tool to "fix the intelligence and the facts around the policy" any time any rogue president wants to massage a corrupt Congress (with dozens of complicit members as we saw during the Bush/Cheney Junta) into going to war.

Several years ago I was doing research on the origins of this mysterious "Unitary Theory of Executive Power" and discovered that the shysters who fabricated it were very possibly influenced by Nazi "judicial theory" that used marshall law powers extended to Reichschancellor Adolph Hitler as the basis for granting him unlimited powers based on the idea that what mattered most during wartime was not the rule of law, BUT THE EXCEPTION TO THE RULE OF LAW. The condition of wartime itself, regardless of its justness or legality, became the all-purpose exception to the rule of law for the nation's leader.

One major difference in the relationship between the Nazi Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW) establishment and military-industry and their infamous Reichschancellor, and our rogue presidents and the U.S. military-industrial complex and Pentagon culture is that many senior German generals believed that to even dare to question der Fuhrer would be to dangerously interfere with the sublime self-confidence that he needed as a naturally gifted dictator to effectively rule Nazi Germany with absolute authority. In our post-2000 Unitary Theoretical misgovernment, the presidents dare not ever question the military-industrial complex and its most powerful adherents in the Pentagon and Congress.

The MIC and its presidential and Congressional toadies are insisting on the present illegal wars in Afghanistan and Iraq despite the salient facts that (1) They have about a fifth of the troops they need to wage a victorious counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq or Afghanistan according to the numbers laid down in the book written on counterinsurgency (COIN) strategies and tactics by the Army's expert on counterinsurgency warfare, General David Petraeus (now in command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan where he has 120,000 troops and needs around 600,000 to do the OFFICIALLY STATED job), (2) The official policy formulation for "victory" in Afghanistan states that to be successful, the U.S. must have a responsible and fully engaged partner in the Afghan government, when, in point of fact, Hamid Karzai and his "administration" have always been riddled with corruption, ties to the illegal drug trade, and Karzai himself has early, consistently and publicly opposed the U.S. administration to state his support for negotiations with ALL the Taliban (which he is now said to be conducting in secret).

The Afghan war, even more than the Iraq house of cards, is being deliberately run as a militarily half-assed and therefore endlessly self-protracting, oil & pipeline operation (part of Rumsfeld's "Long War") with with U.S. and mercenary forces bribing local Taliban not to attack critical road checkpoints, bridges, intersections, etc., so they can keep the operation going--in lieu of actually rebuilding the country or its economy to create legitimate jobs, or establishing a secure government that need not be run as a garrisoned colony. A lucrative colony needs armed colonizers and Obama is already back-pedaling from his 2011 "withdrawal" lip-service because the MIC and Big Oil have told him to.

Voltaire says to tend your own garden. Forget about changing the world.

There was an election here in California a few weeks ago. For the first time in well over twenty years, I refused to vote. Didn't bother me at all. F*ck the Democrats and the Republicans. The United States government and military are tantamount to a public lavatory that hasn't been cleaned in years, yet is still being used every day by a nation that pretends said lavatory is as clean as an operating theatre. The majority of the people of this immensely sad, anarchic, hopelessly corrupt nation KNOW they are being had from every degree on the compass, yet they continue to vote to destroy themselves and their children. They are the people who need a fundamental change of heart. Instead, they keep saying, through their votes, that no one . . . no one . . . will be allowed to mess with this system that allows them the microscopic possibility of becoming rich and celebrated. Yes . . . forget about changing the world, much less the United States.

Nice article, but I am left with one qualm:

"We have had little success exporting our order to developing nations. . .'

This implies that the US has shown some interest in exporting its order and has made some attempt to do so.

Not so.

That would have meant allowing other countries autonomy and independence. With few if any exceptions, US interventions (and interventions in general) are meant to stop that.

To export US order would also mean setting up the satellite states as seats of economic empire - obviously not the intent.

The trouble with adopting familiar terms like this is that they come with familiar myths attached, in this case the myth of American good intentions, which may apply to some Americans that get themselves caught in the military and in various hellholes, but has never been a major driver of government policy.

The US wanted to force the Vietnamese to the equivalent of making Nikes, and today the Vietnamese make Nikes. I am sure American generals would have liked a more convincing victory, a victory on a battlefield, at least. But Nike's not much hurt over it, and probably when the Vietnamese underbid the Thais, that has more to do with poisoned hillsides and the despotism forced on them by years of war than it does with any particular affection for Americans.

I do not mean to pretend that the Vietnamese did not with the war. They kicked the US troops out and achieved sovereignty at a price they never had a choice over. But the struggle continues.

Its great how the author has a crystal ball
"The Vietnamese won and now love doing business with us. But here the analogy with Vietnam breaks down. The Iraqis and Afghanis (and many in Pakistan as well) will not claim victory. Rather, they — the families of those killed by U.S. troops, bombs, and drones — will likely cultivate hatred for the United States for decades to come."
I've personally meet quite a few people from Afghanistan as well as Iraq, Iran too.

A good many of them are rather fond of the US, they can distinguish between the actions of the American government and the American people. Just listen to the stories of those who ran out when the Soviets invaded, unlike a great deal of CD posters they have no delusions of all the chaos being America's fault.

Plus a good amount of you posters are trying to convince the Vietnamese guy he's wrong about president Diem being respected by Vietnamese people in the US. All because Howard Zinn gave you this wonderful book called a Peoples History of the United States in which the evil capitalist empire tired to stop the great communist....

How about thinking about all the refugees who left there home countries, which is a very very hard thing to do. Came to a foreign land, and have done pretty well. Think about why they left after the glorious communist victory... Around 1.4 million people left there homes in South East Asia to come to the US...there must be a very good reason. Too bad most of you posters don't want to hear why.

Respect to hoangkybactien, but you'd make more progress telling a brick wall to move.

During the Vietnam war, a book called "The new legions", written by Donald Duncan was published. I have that book and will re-read it. Meanwhile, this web site, http://www.vietnamese-american.org/b10.html is a good place to get a reference.

Refugees from the USA's wars of agression tend to be collaborators, far right and/or capitalists.

Not to ignore the many who are fleeing a ravaged nation just for survival.

In Afghanistan the USA supplied the Landlords and Foundamentalists rebelling against the socialist government implementing land and gender reform, with weapons in a deliberate attempt to create a "Vietnam" for Russia.

Obviously the Soviets took the USA's bait.

Then after the Taliban pacified Afghanistan after a decade of post Soviet Civil War.

The USA invaded creating the present bloodshed.

Now, how is the USA not responsible for the Afghan debacle?

And Iraq went from a wealthy secular nation, where women enjoyed many rights, to by some accounts the worst place on earth to live, under the USA's Policies.

"During the Buddhist Crisis in 1963, all the delegations to the United Nations organization in New York received from the Overseas Vietnamese Buddhist Association a Remonstrance of 49 pages in which were exposed in detail the violations of human rights and the discrimination against the Buddhist population by the regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. At the end of September, 1963, another document of nearly 100 pages was sent to the United Nations. It consisted of petitions, depositions, reports on forcable arrests and persecution of the Buddhist population.

"According to this document, there were seven cases in Quang Ngai province where Buddhists were forced to receive instruction in the =personalist= doctrine of Roman Catholicism, eight cases of the misuse of public power to force the Buddhist population to convert. - - In the province of Phu Yen there were fifteen cases of forced conversion. Two resisting Buddhists were buried alive in the same tomb." --Lotus In a Sea of Fire, p 28.

Ngo Dinh Diem was either a fascist Catholic or a Catholic Fascist - take your pick - but there are no other historical alternatives. It would be understandable that some refugee Vietnamese Catholics, or Catholic Vietnamese refugees would have positive regard for his "memory". But so what? No doubt some Catholics in Spain had fond memories of Dominican inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada, who gave Jews the opportunity to convert before or after torture, but, they were going to convert.

Buddhists were quite aware of that history, and in order to avoid escalation to that level, several Buddhist monks sacrificed their lives by setting their bodies on fire. I will not remain silent here while their sacrifice is trashed - nor the comparable sacrifice by eight Americans who followed the monks example, e.g. Alice Herz, Norman Morrison, Roger LaPorte.

President John F. Kennedy, himself a Catholic, ordered the assassination of Diem and destruction of their fascist family Dynasty. Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge played key roles in carrying out this directive. Lodge knew it had to be done.

The author says of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan:

"But we do suffer long-term negative effects from those bloody adventures."

The US economy survived the waste of billions of dollars in Vietnam because 40 years ago the US was still a manufacturing giant.

The US economy will not survive the current waste of trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan because the US is now a hollowed out second-rate kleptocracy.

Argue all you want about the moral implications of running an empire, but these stupid wars are a luxury that can only be afforded by wealthy nations.

The US is a zombie now, dead but still walking around for a little while.

Once again, the need of of a young Democratic president to look tough is leading thousands of Americans, and countless citizens of other lands, to their deaths.

According to David Halberstam in "The Best and The Brightest," John F. Kennedy began to shift resources to Viet Nam after the Bay of Pigs debacle, to show that he was not weak when it came to confronting "the world communist threat." Although he appears to have had doubts about the commitment in mid-1963, he was killed before he could make any decision about de-escalating the war that would consume 70,000 American and a million Viet Namese lives.

Similarly, Obama has chosen Afghanistan as the place to show he is not weak when it comes to confronting "the world terrorist threat," and it now appears likely that his war will continue until a future Republican president finally ends it, as Ford did with Viet Nam.

Of course, there was no world communist threat back then any more than there is a world terrorist threat today. But there was a real danger that Kennedy would not win a second term - the same danger facing Obama.