VLVL 4: Vietnam

[pynchonoid]

RJ:
> > I wasn't comparing the Vietnam War with the
> invasion of Iraq.

Otto:
> I'm glad to hear that 'cause that's been Doug's
> argumentation.

By ignoring the obvious parallels (noted by many more
observers in addition to me -- oil, the need to
contain a popular international movement with
political and cultural ramifications that the US could
not abide, lies and propaganda used to justify the war
and manipulate US citizens and a handful of allies
into supporting it, racial prejudice/fear of the Asian
Other, & etc.), Bush has led the US into another
foreign policy nightmare.  Sorry you can't see that,
Otto, especially given the clarity with which you look
back to understand the Vietnam War. In 30 years or so,
maybe you'll be able to see that, as so many people
now understand what was really going on in Vietnam. 

First-generation Vietnamese immigrants, especially
those in the first wave of people who got out with
money, do have a difficult time seeing the bigger
picture, as Otto says and as RJ ignores, and as I know
from my own involvement in the SF Bay Area Asian
community over the past 25 years or so (working with
my wife at a non-profit that offered psychological
counseling services to Vietnamese, Cambodian, and
Laotian refugess in San Jose, CA, & etc.).  But the
children of those immigrants have a better chance of
understanding the truth of the way the US prevented Ho
Chi Minh's reunification of Vietnam in the wake of the
French then Japanese colonial project -- talk about a
generation gap! 





__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software
http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com