What did we want in Vietnam?

[TNDemo]

Why did the US consider it important enough to fight that war? Obviously wasn't oil.

[Cuban_Liberal]

1. The "Domino Principle"

It was a Cold War 'war' to stop the spread of Communism, allegedly.

[SheepyMcSheepster]

2. it was to stop the godless commies

from taking over the world or something tot that effect. :silly:

[Feathered Fish]

3. Officially:

To stop the spread of Communism in Southeast Asia.

[eallen]

4. Fear of expanding communism. Very real at the time.

It's interesting to think on why the Korean War was such a success, while the Vietnam War was such a failure. (If you don't think the Korean War was a success, think hard on the difference between South Korea, which is now one of the more free and wealthier nations on earth, and North Korea, which is an impoverished, brutal state.)

[chelsea0011]

10. Agreed. This was the ICBM age and communism had to be curtailed

But Korea was a UN war. Vietnam was US and all US. The anti-war crowd correctly saw that this was not the place to make a stand. The domino effect was a bogus lie (ala WMD).

[ctaylor]

63. why not

"The anti-war crowd correctly saw that this was not the place to make a stand."

Seriously. What was different about Vietnam that we should not have fought communism there? Terrain? South Vietnamese gov't too corrupt to fix?

And considering how the anti-war crowd affected domestic political decisions, was this a self fulfilling prophecy?

[keith the dem]

11. Korea may have been the model,

but was not Vietnam more of a civil war which was misread as a communist expansion.
I think Ho chi Min came to us first before turning to the USSR.
I may be a little fuzzy on the history, so feel free to correct me, I do know however, that Canada did not send troops.

[shrike]

20. Ho Chi Minh did approach us first

If you don't mind long books, read "A Bright Shining Lie," by Sheehan. He goes a little easy on the Viet Cong (who were pitiless, though very, very smart, and they knew their people) but the VC has been so vilified for so long I suppose his take is a tipping of the scales somewhat.

He paints a rather positive picture of Ho Chi Minh, at least at the beginning. He was an admirer of American ideals.

[K-W]

21. It wasnt even a civil war.

Ho Chi Minh was not a communist, he was a nationlist and his movement was one to take over vietnam for the vietnamese. There were communist strains in that movement, but that isnt really suspicious.

So he was fighting a war against the French who occupied Indochina, and the French were losing. The US first sent the french money and supplies and then 'advisors' under the guise of fighting communism, but it was in fact France putting down a nationalistic insurgency. But France could no longer fight so they pulled out. At the time, Indochina was seperated, and vietnam was split into two TEMPORARILY.

The south and the north were supposed to have unification elections, but the southern government, which was tied to the occupation forces refused to participate in unification. So the US is claiming that the Southern Vietnamese government is legitimate and that they are there to defend it from the north vietnamese agressors. This was absolute hogwash. There was no North and South vietnam. There was just occupied territory, territory in conflict, and territory controlled by the vietnamese nationalists in what was a direct continuation of French colonial occupation.

[Igel]

35. I learned something today.

The 1954 treaty was between the French and Viet-Minh (Dem. Rep. of Vietnam). http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/genevacc.htm

Also "The reunification of Viet-Nam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means on the basis of discussions and agreements between North and South Viet-Nam, without coercion or annexation by either party, and without foreign interference. The time for reunification will be agreed upon by North and South Viet-Nam." But that was 1974. http://www.gruntonline.com/TheWar/peace_accord1.htm

[keith the dem]

43. Thanks for the correction

The knowledge and wisdom of the people on DU is amazing!
Thanks again!

[theboss]

15. Except South Korea was a pretty brutal state for 35 years or so

It wasn't exactly the difference between East and West Germany there. South Korea only started moving towards democracy about 15 years ago.

[K-W]

16. Yah the evil empire was threatning the forces of good.

Go hawk your philosophical religious conspiricies to some neocons. There was no communist expansion threat. In vietnam we fought a nationalist movemement that was leftist, but that Isnt a crime. They, of course, turned to America's enemies to help them fight a war WE STARTED WITH THEM.

We had no right to be in vietnam, we had even less of a right to stay in vietnam. Arguing about communist expansion as we tried to force a french colony to be loyal to the US is the height of hypocrisy anyway.

[Toots]

22. How does that compare to Vietnam which is becoming very influential

in the world markets. Vietnam is a very industrialized country and not backward at all. It is also quite free. Tourists go there from all countries and Vietnamese travel to other countries at will. Not even close to conditions in North Korea. I would say we really lost the Korean war because of the conditions many Koreans still live in. Vietnam came out not to badly considering how much we destroyed there.

[K-W]

25. The government was proven soundly wrong.

The Viet Cong wanted a unified independent vietnam. Thats what they were fighting for. To remove an illegal US occupation.

[leesa]

50. THIS is why we attacked them....they were becomong a power and shutting

out western corporatists. Same reason we launch every war....that, and it makes people like the Bushes super-wealthy selling war toys.

[leesa]

49. Nonsense...purely economic. They were developing as a power and

shutting out France and the US.

[tralfaz]

52. You do understand

that North Korea never did attack the U.S., so why did we go to war in Korea?

[bryant69]

5. It was the Domino theory I think

More than anything. And then after a while it was United States Prestige. We couldn't afford to lose.

I'm not sure there was a firm day when we decided to go to war in Vietnam. I mean the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, yeah, but we were already there and had been there for years when that was passed.

That's one of the sticklers in Iraq right now--People who think it is all about oil probably discount to much the importance of maintaining United States Prestige to the Bush Adminsitration.

Bryant
Check it out--> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Inland]

6. Was there, at the time, a debate, or was it like this Iraq war

where the troops are just sort of sent on the decision of the president and thereafter the argument becomes "can't pull out now without a bloodbath/losing face/encouraging enemy/betraying allies"?

If not, then you can't say why "the US' did it. It is why Johnson did it.

[aden_nak]

7. A nation close to the eastern USSR where we could set up bases (nukes).

The same thing the USSR wanted of Cuba.

[TNOE]

8. I think the bottom line was really $$$$$

as is always the case with war. I think the bankers and the war machine wanted it personally. I doubt it had a whole lot to do with communism, just a convenient cover.

[Wright Patman]

9. Military-industrial complex

from what I recall just wanted to have a huge honkin' war in Southeast Asia to rake in big bucks. The rationale presented to the public was that it was to prevent a "domino effect" of nations in that region falling to communism, but it never made much sense to me.

There is a great deal of speculation that JFK was on the verge of de-escalating right before he was assassinated. LBJ, the story goes, was then so terrified of the forces who wanted the war that he decided to go ahead with it full-bore or maybe he bought into the rationale also, but by 1968 his heart was no longer in it and he knew it had destroyed his political career.

Incidentally, a Houston-based subsidiary of Halliburton called Brown & Root, which was also an early and major backer of LBJ's political machine, made more profit off the Vietnam War than practically any corporation, with the possible exception of the weapons manufacturers.

[tabasco]

36. That's it!

Forces of war profiteering industries are always pushing for war !

Eisenhower warned us but we failed to listen:

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

[Jacobin]

57. Bingo. We have a winner

For over ten years we blew up people and jungle for nada. Generals made some stars (why, I believe Colin was one!), military got to test its new toys and MI complex made gazillions.

[sam sarrha]

12. making money making weapons, making money shipping and using and fixing

and throwing away weaponds..Lots ans LOTS of money.

Why did me make all those Nuclear Weapons we couldn't use...Simple, there was no other way anyone would let anyone make that much plutonium other than a cold war.. the plutonium is produced and stored at taxpayers expense in the warheads till it will be used to run Nuclear Power plants to avert the fake Oil crisis..plants built at taxpayers expense to use the fuel made a taxpayers expense to be sold to us at a PREMIUM because of a fuel Crisis that could have be averted if Bu$h hadn't canceled the solar project that could have produced up to 70-80% of the daytime energy..

the answer is always ..."they are screwing us and getting richer".
repeat that 10 times every time you get confused over the stupid things they do.. that is the Mantra for the 21st Century, learn it and use it often. It will bring you peace while they ship your children to foreign lands and kill them.. while they take your jobs, you lose your homes, and end up living in your car that you cant afford to put gas into before they tow it off the street in crack town.

[LiberalEsto]

13. It WAS oil

Back during the Vietnam war years, as an anti-war activist, I remember somehow coming across a map of offshore oil-drilling territories in the South China Sea, and the names of the US oil companies that had some claim on each territory in Vietnam's offshore. Shell. Mobil. Etc.

I immediately understood that this was what the war was about: keeping a US-friendly puppet government in Vietnam so that our oil companies could drill for oil in those offshore territories. If Vietnam had become a united nation under Communist rule, it likely would have rejected these offshore oil claims and nationalized them or leased them to a Communist country such as China.

Everything else, the "domino theory," the need to bring democracy to Vietnam, was just a smokescreen to cover the real goal.

It's exactly the same thing that's going on today in Iraq -- control of one of the world's largest petroleum reserves, at a time when existing oil wells are being tapped out.

[poe]

23. bingo

:think:

[sweetheart]

60. Yes, natural resources

(rubber as well). Oil, though certainly.

[AP]

61. I have a friend who was in college in the early 60s who was selected...

...by his university to attend a seminar run by the pentagon (or some such fed agency). Other college students attending were from the Naval Academy, Yale, etc.

At the seminar, the pentagon made a "mock" argument for invading Vietnam. They said it was for oil.

At the end of the seminar, a kid from the Naval Academy stood up and said that that was the most ridiculous pile of pants he'd ever heard and that it was outrageous to invade a country for oil. My friend said the attack was extended and withering and the presenters had no defense.

My friend's perspective on this thing was that the feds were testing marketing strategies and discovered that "we're doing this for oil" failed miserably, and that's why subsequent justifications for the war bore no resemblance to what my friend witnessed.

My friend had not opinion about whether oil was the real reason (or whether the domino theory is a lie or the truth). All he knows is that he never heard the oil argument again.

[Carl Brennan]

14. We were provoked: Gulf of Tonkin incident.

If you believe that I got an Iraqi bridge I'd like to sell you.

Since we now know that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was bogus and the Operation Northwoods mentality of the time was willing to promote such incidents to further the agenda of the Military Industrial complex it stands to reason that it was about something besides, or in addition to, the Domino Theory.

Ike warned a few short years before of the growing threat of the MIC. Kennedy was a threat to the MIC's and the CIA's business as usual.

BTW: Kissinger promoted business as usual with US involvment (profiteering) off of the Russian Gorki vehicle factories that supplied N. Vietnam.
http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/best_enemy/chapter_03.htm

He would do the same for Gorki in the Soviet--Afghanistan conflict. We supported the Afghan resistance while profiteering off of Soviet vehicle production used in the conflict.

[mikelewis]

54. LOL - Funny thing is, we're buying the Iraqi bridge with our taxes

God, I hate Bush

[hector459]

17. We just had to beat those Communists!!! Nevermind about co-existence

and the fact that we are now dealing with the biggest Communist nation on earth. The US must always have someone to look down on. Not communists now, but Muslims, Arabs of all stripes and, of course, we "liberals."

[K-W]

27. And that the viet cong werent communists.

Some of them were, but thier movement was not specifically communist, it was specifically nationalist.

[hector459]

18. And guess what, we are pretty friendly with Viet Nam these days.

Ain't that a bitch? I lost relatives and lots of classmates to that dastardly war. And for what? Just the military-industrial-comoplex. If we don't have an enemy we will make one or begin fighting ourselves.

[bigtree]

19. Nixon's actions were a mirror of the contradictions in that war

He explained in his 'Silent Majority' speech that North Vietnam, with the logistical support of communist China and the Soviet Union, had a campaign to impose a communist government on South Vietnam by instigating and supporting a revolution.

Nixon:

"In response to the request of the Government of South Vietnam, President Eisenhower sent economic aid and military equipment to assist the people of South Vietnam in their efforts to prevent a communist takeover. Seven years ago, President Kennedy sent 16,000 military personnel to Vietnam as combat advisers. Four years ago, President Johnson sent American combat forces to South Vietnam."

"For the South Vietnamese, our precipitate withdrawal would inevitably allow the Communists to repeat the massacres which followed their takeover in the North 15 years before."


At the end of decades of war, and thousands of American lives sacrificed, North Vietnamese forces took Saigon in 1975. Communist forces occupied the South, renaming Saigon Ho Chi Minh City.

[K-W]

24. EMPIRE wake up people, it was about crushing nationalistic movements

Indochina was a French Colony in rebellion. The French told us it didnt have the will to hold onto it, and we didnt want it becoming an independent nation because we, like all of the western countries who were exploiting colonial and quasi colonial systems didnt want to see a wave of nationalistic revolts against western control and influence that would turn south east asia from the exploitable property of europe and the US into self determining nations who might be very open to economic sales pitches from non-western nations.

ITs the same reason we feel we have to stop Chavez in Venezuala. Our economy is dependent on many nations around the world accepting exploitive trade arrangements with us. We cant let anyone succeed in bucking us and staying in power. We have alot of power but if all these countries just rebelled, what could we do?

[poe]

28. It is an old dream-world domination

Se rebeller est juste, désobéir est un devoir, agir est nécessaire !

[TNDemo]

30. I guess we are the Walmart of the world.

Do business our way or die.

[poe]

26. oil

The US promoted destabilization, using tribalism or religious fanaticism or whatever worked wherever popular resistance to corporate power appeared in the world

will post more later on this if interested. Their is also much to be said for the vast drug trade control of supply and transit routes in this part of the world. one of the best books on earth to understand the drug trade is "The Politics of Heroin" by Alfred McCoy, a classic and most oft cited book.

[soleft]

29. Proxy war against Soviets

[K-W]

32. Bullshit

They would never have had to turn to communist nations for help if France and the US hadnt illegally occupied them.

The soviets didnt really have a dog in that fight. The chinese had regional interest certainly, but I think thats understandable.

[soleft]

34. What is it exactly do you think I meant by my comment

[K-W]

41. I thought you meant that we wanted a proxy war with the soviets.

Was I mistaken?

[soleft]

62. Along the lines of the domino theory

I think people on the side of the war told themselves that they were battling evil communism the way people try to convince themselves fighting Iraq is part of the war in terrorism. And for a lot of Hawks, since we couldn't militarily take on the Soviet Union, it was a way to wage an actual war against an ideology. Maybe I used the wrong phrase.

[K-W]

64. That was the propaganda reason,

it wasnt the actual reason we went to war. Its an overgeneralized nonsense reason that was easy to sell to people who already bought the rest of the cold war mythology.

The entire official explenation was a ball of lies. We were trying to stop vietnamese independence, plain and simple.

[MadHound]

31. A multitude of reasons,

Though the official reason wasn't even applicable. Officially, we were preventing the Communists from getting a toe hold in SE Asia. In reality we were protecting the interests of the oil companies who were salivating at the possiblities of the Gulf of Tonkin. There was also Western Anglo Saxon pride at stake, since the colonial French were kicked out, the country just couldn't be allowed to go back to those folks that we considered inferior. There was also the opium crop to consider, which the CIA was heavily involved in. And then there was the issue of money. The military industrial complex needed a venue in which to expend all of those new shiny expensive weapons in, in order that they could make more, and since nothing else was really available, they fired up Vietnam.

So really it boils down to the same ol' same ol' reason that all wars of empire are started, greed. Greed for land, greed for resources, greed for the money that a beefed up military machine requires. And here we are, forty years later fighting another war of greed. Some things never change.

[Rapcw]

33. for the rubber and tin and rice? oh nvm, nvm n/t

[LoneDriver]

37. We were busy selling our wheat to the Russians

In the early 70's we were selling about 25% of our wheat production to the USSR. And we certainly didn't want any competition from some pesky rice farmers.

[firebee]

38. Rubber trees, oil and a proxy war of the cold war

[K-W]

45. Sure and Iraq is a proxy in the war on terror.

While most americans did believe it was a cold war conflict, it really wasnt. It was about protecting US economic interests just like Iraq.

Then again the entire cold war was alot more about isolating those nations who chose to reject the US/European model for international economics where they sit at the top and reap the profit.

[Stirk]

55. Yep- there are government documents from the late 50's-early 60's

describing the opportunity in Vietnam, in terms of resources and corporate expansion. State Department and congressional stuff, as I recall. There was no mention of communism, or the ludicrous "Domino Theory", or any of the after-the-fact rationalizations.

Much like Iraqi "democracy".

[blue agave]

39. The Opium Trade !

Google the Vietnam War and Opium Trade and you will find extensive research and first-hand reports on this subject.

1. The Golden Triangle - the convergence of Burma, Loas and Thailand - is one of the two largest opium production regions in the world. One of the most convenient access routes to the triangle is through Vietnam.

1. The early English and French colonial trading companies bought opium from the golden triangle and used it to purchase silk and tea from China.

2. The French colonized Vietnam in the mid 1800s and by mid 1900s they were relying on the opium trade to finance their very expensive military operations. In 1954 the Viet Minh guerrillas finally defeated the French, ending the colony of French Indochina.

3. "In the 1950s, the U.S. preoccupation with stopping the spread of Communism led to alliances with drug producing warlords in the Golden Triangle. The U.S. supplied the drug warlords and their armies with ammunition, arms, and air transport for the production and sale of opium. The result was an explosion in the availability and illegal flow of heroin into the United States and into the hands of drug dealers and addicts. During the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) set up a charter airline, Air America, to transport raw opium from Burma and Laos. During this period, the number of heroin addicts in the U.S. reached an estimated 750,000."

<http://www.intheknowzone.com/heroin/history.htm>

The U.S.'s attempt to colonize South Vietnam ended in 1975.

[poe]

40. Here are a few reasons

The military had stockpiled vast supplies of weapons and munitions on the island of Okinawa. Some sources claim that with Vice-governor Laurence Rockefeller's assistance most of the armaments were sold to the leader of Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh, for something like one U.S. dollar and Ho’s "goodwill." One might wonder why these expensive and critical military supplies were "given" to the North Koreans.

     To answer that question we have to go to an almost unknown study in the 1920's prepared by a man named Herber Hoover, later to become President of the United States. The study showed that one of the world's largest oil fields ran along the coast of the South China Sea right off French Indo-China, now known as Vietnam. This was before offshore drilling had been invented and before a man named George Herbert Walker Bush was to become the CEO of a world-wide offshore drilling company.

"In the 1950's a method of undersea oil exploration was perfected which used small explosions deep in the water and then recorded the sound echos bouncing off the various layers of rock below. The surveyor could then determine the exact location of the arched salt domes which hold the accumulated oil beneath them. But if this method were used off the Vietnam coast on property Standard didn't own or have the rights to, the Vietnamese, the Chinese, the Japanese and probably even the French would quickly run to the United Nations and complain that America was stealing the oil, and that would shut down the operation.

"In 1964, after Vietnam was divided into North and South, and the contrived Gulf of Tonkin incident, several U.S. aircraft carriers were stationed offshore of Vietnam and the 'war' was started. Every day jet planes would take off from the carriers, bomb locations in North and South Vietnam, and then using normal military procedure when returning would dump their unsafe or unused bombs in the ocean before landing back on the carriers. Safe ordnance drop zones were designated for this purpose away from the carriers.

 After the dust had settled from the war, Vietnam divided their offshore coastal area into numerous oil lots and allowed foreign companies to bid on the lots, with the proviso that Vietnam got a percentage of the action. Norway's Statoil, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell, Russia, Germany and Australia all won bids and began drilling within their areas. Strange it was that none of them struck oil. However, the lots which Standard Oil bid for and won proved to have vast oil reserves. Their extensive undersea seismic research appears to have paid off.

If you want to rule the world, you need to control oil. All the oil. Anywhere."

Monopoly, by Michel Collon
Money laundering is another factor in the relationship between the narcotic and precious-stone trades. Even those of us with decades in this business know how difficult it can be to place a value on a gem. When that stone is in its raw form, multiply the difficulty a hundred-fold. A single valuable piece can make or break a mining operation.
    Those in the narcotics business face a different problem. Their goods have both a specific market price and high demand, bringing in barrels of cash, but they must find a way to turn those profits into legal income. What better way than to invest in a gem mine – a cash-and-carry business if ever there was – where a quick appearance of funds can easily be put down to the discovery of a new pocket or even a single stone. And so this is what is done, particularly at the jade mines in Burma’s Kachin State. Narcotics traders don’t mind sinking huge sums of money into losing ventures, because the money that comes out is now clean, and can be re-invested or banked without fear.
    All of this is done with the wink and nod of various bankers and government officials, who, with palm extended, turn bad money into good. The involvement of some of SE Asia’s largest banks and trading houses in such activities is fairly well documented (see Seagrave, 1995; Booth, 1999). It is a business that knows no political enemies, a trade where religion, race and politics are immaterial. Such laundry services often find heroin dealers queued next to Mafia dons, beside intelligence agents from the CIA, Mossad, along with terrorists and a plethora of other people from the dark side.

Further reading
• Booth, Martin (1996) Opium: A History. London, Simon & Schuster, 1st English ed., 381 pp.
• Booth, Martin (1999) The Dragon Syndicates: The Global Phenomenon of the Triads. New York, Carroll & Graf, 358 pp.
• Castillo, Celerino & Harmon, Dave (1994) Powderburns : Cocaine, Contras & the Drug War. Mosaic Press, Oakville, Canada.
• Cockburn, Alexander and St. Clair, Jeffrey (1998) White Out: The CIA, Drugs and the Press. New York, Verso, 408 pp.
• Collis, Maurice (1946) Foreign Mud: Being an Account of the Opium Imbroglio at Canton in the 1830’s and the Anglo-Chinese War that Followed. New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 300 pp.
• Conason, J. (2001) The Bush pardons. Salon, Feb. 27.
• DiNardo, John (1991) Interview with Michael Levine. Undercurrents.
• Hitchens, Christopher (2001) The Trial of Henry Kissenger. Verso Books, 160 pp.
• Hopsicker, Daniel (2001) Barry & ‘the Boys’: The CIA, the Mob, and America’s Secret History. Mad Cow Press, 518 pp.
• Hunt, Linda (1991) Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists and Project Paperclip 1945 to 1990. New York, St. Martin’s Press, 340 pp.
• Kwitny, Jonathan (1987) The Crimes of Patriots: A True Story of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA. New York, W.W. Norton, 424 pp.
• Irrawaddy Magazine (2000) Report: Burmese business tycoons, Irrawaddy Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 6, June, 2000.
• Lee, Martin A. and Shlain, Bruce (1985) Acid Dreams: The Complete Social History of LSD: The CIA, the Sixties and Beyond. New York, Grove Press, 345 pp.
• Leveritt, Mara (2001) Asa and me, Arkansas Times, May 25.
• Lintner, Bertil (1994) Burma in Revolt: Opium and Insurgency Since 1948. Boulder, CO, Westview Press, 514 pp.
• McCoy, Alfred W. (1972) The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. New York, Harper & Row, 472 pp.
• McCoy, Alfred W. (1991) The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Brooklyn, New York, Lawrence Hill Books, 635 pp.
• Parry, Robert (1999) Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth.’ Arlington, VA, The Media Consortium, 304 pp.
• Seagrave, S. (1985) The Soong Dynasty. New York, Harper & Row, 532 pp.
• Seagrave, Sterling (1995) Lords of the Rim: The Invisible Empire of the Overseas Chinese. New York, G.P. Putnam's Sons, 354 pp.
• Stich, Rodney and Russell, T. Conan (1995) Disavow: A CIA Saga of Betrayal. Hallmark Publishers, Reno, NV, 392 pp.
• Stich, Rodney (1998) Defrauding America : Encyclopedia of Secret Operations by the CIA, DEA, and Other Covert Agencies. Diablo Western Press.

[bemildred]

42. Noam Chomsky in What Uncle Sam Really Wants

On Foreign Policy: US historically opposes Third World nationalism and rights

US planners stated their view that the threat to the new US-led world order was �nationalistic regimes� that are responsive to �popular demand for immediate improvement in the low living standards of the masses.�

The planners� basic goals, repeated over and over again, were to prevent such �ultranationalist� regimes from taking power-or if they did take power, to remove them and install governments that favor private investment of domestic and foreign capital, production for export and the right to bring profits out of the country.

The US has been willing to tolerate social reform only when the rights of labor are suppressed and the climate for foreign investment is preserved. We�ve consistently opposed democracy if its results cannot be controlled. The problem with real democracies is that they�re likely to fall prey to the heresy that governments should respond to the needs of the people instead of those of US investers.

http://www.issues2000.org/Archive/Uncle_Sam_Wants_Noam_Chomsky.htm

[JackRiddler]

44. The threat of a good example...

Colonies should not gain independence by military success against the colonizer. The US moved to take over the collapsing French and British empires after the war.

Once set in motion, a war venture never dismantles itself but finds more and new reasons to stay in, and more avenues of profit (in the Indochina conflict: the drug trade).

The geopolitical reasons always come into play, no matter what part of the world we're talking about there will be an angle. Vietnam has oil deposits offshore.

And the Cold War, of course, which made no sense at all in the case of Vietnam, which initially wanted to align WITH THE UNITED STATES.

I love this quote:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

The Vietnamese declaration of independence: July 4, 1946!

Ultimately, because empires once committed to victory by military force never feel they can afford to back down. It's encouragement to other rebellious provinces. It will appear weak.

Domestically, the population cannot bear that its sacrifices were for anything less than the most noble reasons, and can be kept in line for 10 years despite the protests, as we saw.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

46. LBJ wanted to show that he was tough on "defense".

A man who could have been a truly great president threw it all away so he could be "electable".

[Lydia Leftcoast]

47. "Stopping Communism" was the cover story, but

I'm sure there was more to it than that, since our government didn't send full military force into, say, Cuba, which would have been much easier to take over than Vietnam (NOT that I think it would have been a good idea, mind you.)

[K-W]

51. Since there was no threat of communists taking over vietnam,

it had NOTHING to do with communism.

It had to do with US economic control over former european colonies in southeastern asia.

[leesa]

48. Chomsky said it was because VietNam was beginning to

become an economic threat. Probably in much the same way Venezuela is today. They were shutting out corporate France and America, therefore we needed to blast them back to the stone age.

Had NOTHIN to do with communism...that was only the bogus escuse, like "terrorism" was the excuse to carpet bomb Afghanistan (pipeline and heroin trade) and Iraq (oil, water and military foothold). Both communism and terrorism are completely bogus reasons.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

53. to show russia that we are willing to sacrafice 58,000 for NOTHING......

just to try and scare them!

[wadestock]

56. Thje similarities are endless....#1 they thought it would be easy....

To at least secure the south, hoping then to establish a foothold against the commis.

They had no idea guerilla warfare could bring down a modern, military power.

See any parallels?

There's only one real lesson to learn from this.
War doesn't make sense.

The Soviets grew up to realize this....why haven't we?

[bobthedrummer]

58. There it is.

eom

[leftofthedial]

59. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

big $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$


and something about a game of dominos with the russians