Quote: (10-04-2013 04:48 PM)expectation Wrote:
One thing that bothers me about some of the obituaries that I've read was how he was a hardline communist. In the US, we've been somewhat indoctrinated with this US vs THEM mentality and so during the cold war, it was Capitalist vs Communist mentality- so for some people in the US and Overseas Vietnamese-Americans like myself, he gets a lot of hate. Him and Ho Chi Minh tried to reach out to the US when it was colonized by the French to break free. Of course, you guys know how that worked out so they did what they had to do to get any bit of resources and they went over to Communism only to gather any allies, sympathizers, manpower to gain independence.
Fact is, they were the type of men that grew up somewhat privileged and educated by the French but was so sick of getting dicked around that they sacrificed their standings and looked for any means possible to stop being bullshitted around and as ruthless as it was, you can't argue the end result of it today.
Add to the fact that he harbors no ill will against the Americans and to the South Vietnamese (such as my dad) who fought against him and had every reason to hate him. I hate to use the word "man up" but I think this is the absolutely correct time to use that term to describe the character of General Giap.
I'll give my pops a call tomorrow and I'll have some more detailed stories to share.
You need look no further than Cuba and Israel to see the simple stupidity of our post-war foreign policy.
Cuba is a natural ally of the United states. We have a shared cultural history of colonization, and a massive community of Cubans in the US. The best thing for that country was for us to keep our relationship with them strong and allow the fruits of capitalism to erode the communist influence. Instead we shut them out, creating an unnecessary schism in our own region and (for a brief moment) a nuclear threat.
Israel is a natural enemy of the United states. They are a segregationist country that has based it's national identity on race (or religion depending on how you weight it). They agitate an Islamic religious movement that causes us no end of headaches. It could be fairly argued that without the creation of Israel there is no Jihadist movement and no conflict between Islam and the Western world. And yet, these people we have chosen to be our "friends".
Why these policies came into being is debatable, but that the policies themselves are ridiculous is not.