Text 13585, 134 rader
Skriven 2005-06-13 20:32:04 av Ed Hulett (1:123/789.0)
  Kommentar till text 13554 av Gary Braswell (1:123/789.0)
Ärende: Hatred
==============
Gary Braswell -> Ed Hulett wrote:
 GB> Ed Hulett -> TIM RICHARDSON wrote:

 EH>> TIM RICHARDSON -> ED HULETT wrote:
 TR>>> On 06-10-05, ED HULETT said to JOHN HULL:

 GB>>>>>> We could have, before we even got involved with our own troops.


 EH>>>>> When Vern says Ho was not a man we could back, I'd believe him.
 EH>>>>> What evidence do you have that we could have backed Ho?


 JH>>>> There is none.  Despite the fact that DeGaulle was a pain in the
 GB> ass,
 JH>>>> and the French were less than enthusiastic after the war about
 JH>>>> expressing their gratitude to us for liberating their sorry butts,
 EH>> NATO
 JH>>>> was of far more importance in stabilizing Europe and countering the
 JH>>>> threat of the USSR than some semi-fanatical old man from Vietnam
 EH>> who was
 JH>>>> already at odds with the French anyway.


 JH>>>> To think that we would have chosen Ho over DeGaulle is ludicrous
 EH>> on its
 JH>>>> face.


 EH>>>> Well, I have heard Gary's claim many times. It sorta goes that if
 EH>> we would
 EH>>>> have helped out Ho (that kindly old grandfather) we wouldn't have
 EH>> been in
 EH>>>> such a quagmire in Vietnam. Yeah right. Like you said, the
 EH>> situation was a
 EH>>>> bit more complicated than that. Plus Ho wasn't the nice guy the
 EH>> left makes
 EH>>>> him out to be.


 TR>>> If the left thought Ho was such a nice guy and so good for the
 EH>> entire country
 TR>>> of Vietnam, why (oh.....why!) didn't they `back' him when they had
 EH>> the chance?
 TR>>> When Kennedy got elected they had the entire Congress sewed up, and
 EH>> the White
 TR>>> House. All they'd have had to do was withdraw support from the
 EH>> South in favor
 TR>>> of the North, and it would have been a done deal!


 TR>>> They had the power.....why didn't they do it?

 EH>> They say that Ho asked Eisenhauer for the assistance and he declined.
 EH>> You see, if Ike had been nicer to Ho he'd not have gone commie and
 GB> taken
 EH>> the other side. At least that's the claim.

 GB> Actually, its not my claim. Ho plead to Truman, via Claire Chenault at
 GB> first. Ho was French communist since the 20s. He worked with the OSS
 GB> during WWII and became enamored with the US


 EH>> The left has trouble with complex, critical thinking and would rather
 EH>> come up with simple solutions to complex problems. Ho wasn't the
 EH>> benevolent old grandfather they try to portray him as, but that doesn't
 EH>> stop them from trying to make him out as the victim of the mean old US.

 GB> First, I am not on the left.

Oh yeah, you are sitting in the middle unwilling to make a commitment one way
or the other. A "moderate" you say... yeah... ok.

 GB> Second, no one said it was not a complex situation.

But you are suggesting a simplistic solution.

 GB> The Cold War was a very complex situation. The Geneva negotiations and
 GB> SEATO were very complex situations.

Which all precluded any opportunity for us to abandon our allies and back Ho.

 GB> And I at no time was trying to make him a victim of this US, Ho that is.
 GB> He made his choice and took a road to evil.

He made that choice long before we had anything to do with him.

 GB> My point was, it may not have had to be so.

Which is a simplistic position.

 GB> What did we get out of the whole thing?

Are you saying that had we abandoned our allies and backed Ho, things would
have been just rosie?

 GB> The French, even up to the moment of Dien Bien Phu, were convinced US
 GB> troops would come in and save the day. All we did was partly pay for
 GB> their war.

Because we were their ally.

 GB> When we did not show up, our loyalty to France paid off by them
 GB> believing we had betrayed them by not coming in and helping. They
 GB> savaged us during the Vietnam war, eventually left NATO due to US
 GB> influence being too much in their opinion, etc.

The French have always disliked the US's being a world power. They were still
our allie, though.

 GB> We ended up with a war.

Which you claim would not have happened if we had just backed Ho.

 GB> Now would Ho have gone to China and Russia had we backed him against the
 GB> French, again no troops from us, just some money and not paying for
 GB> French adventures?

That's a pretty simplistic view of things.

 GB> Who knows? Maybe so, much like Fidel. But maybe not. There is little
 GB> doubt things would have been quite different.

Bulony. Ho was a tyrrant from the start. We never intended to back him. We
never had the opportunity to back Ho regardless of how much he was enamered
with us.

 GB> Heck Ike even said were there an election in Vietnam in the mid-50s, Ho
 GB> would have won 80% of the vote.

Good for Ike.

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