Imagine how different our lives would have been if Truman had responded positively to Ho Chi Minh's request for help in resisting the French re-occupation of Vietnam.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/18/world/asia/henry-a-prunier-army-operative-who-helped-trained-vietnamese-troops-dies-at-91.html?_r=0

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

"One time he looked down the barrel of the mortar. I was shocked. His head could have been blown off.”"

too bad that didn't happen, or that Ho didn't die of malaria...

Yes, for colonialists those things are true.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

Sounds like a golden opportunity may have been wasted.

__________________
Sent from an agnostic abacus

2014 C250 21,XXX my new DD ** 2013 GLK 350 18,000 Wife's new DD**

- With out god, life is everything.
- God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance that's getting smaller and smaller as time moves on..." Neil DeGrasse Tyson
- You can pray for me, I'll think for you.
- When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.

Ho Chi Minh was also in Paris for the Paris Peace Conference after WWI hoping for Vietnamese independence.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

not a colonialist. I dont think we should have helped the French resecure their empire after the war. However, I suffer no illusions that Uncle Ho and his buddies were anything but ****ing slaughtering communists....

I don't think they were ****ing slaughtering communists. They were fundamentally Vietnamese nationalists. But even if they were communists, the Vietnamese have the right to be communists just like you and I have the right to be communists.

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

yeah, true, but I hate communists.... most of the last century's genocide was carried out by such people.

I wonder how many people were killed in Vietnam by communists and how many by capitalists?

__________________
1977 300d 70k--sold 08
1985 300TD 185k+
1984 307d 126k--sold 8/03
1985 409d 65k--sold 06
1984 300SD 315k--daughter's car
1979 300SD 122k--sold 2/11
1999 Fuso FG Expedition Camper
1993 GMC Sierra 6.5 TD 4x4
1982 Bluebird Wanderlodge CAT 3208--Sold 2/13

I read once that Ho was having trouble with other's in the area who did not believe he was being honest about being in with the US. Ho said he needed something to show that he was really working with the US against Japan.

So he was given a matched pair of Colt 1911's in a presentation case. He then showed these to those he was trying to recruit and they knew he must be working with the US because he would have never been able to get his hands on such pistols otherwise.

I just finished reading a Book on Korea; at the end of which the Another speculates what had happened if We had done things differently there. So there is a lot of "what ifs" to speculate on.

One of the speculations was if We had used Atomic Weapon (toward the end of the Korean War the US had developed an Atomic Artillery Shell and there was some serious discussion about using it) and that there would have been no Vietnam War if We had done so.

When you look at History you have to look at what was going on during the time.
You also have to ask yourself with the U.S.S.R. having recently taken over Eastren Europe if We could have afforded to lose France as an Ally by supporting Ho Chi Minh.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Would a Ho Chi Minh US backed dictatorshop have been better than what happend?

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Westminster, CA out here an Area where a lot of the Vietnamese Boat People settled.

I have been there to see part of the Vietnamese Military type celebration they were having there.
Vietnamese and even some Americans walking around in their Tiger Strip Cammies.
I got the impression they think they no were but still are the Nationalist.

Then there is the Vietnamese Priest at our Church that spent over 15 years in a re-education Camp. I don’t think they were trying to turn Him into a Nationalist.

The USA gave Castro some help; that did not turn out well for the US either.

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

The Nazis were also fundamentally Nationalists.

My own though is most Revolutions are betrayed and whoever takes over the leadership after the revolution is over sticks it to the People who fought for it.

In the case of the Communist and the Nazis they blatenly purged and slaughtered their own people.

How about some more interesting questions.

Would the Civil Rights movement have been a successful as they were without the Communist pointing the Finger at us and saying our "all Men were Free" was a lie?

If Communism had not been around to sort of counterbalance the Power of Capitalism what do you think working conditions and wages would be like here in the USA?

I know from a Book I read on Unions out here in California the Communist sometimes supplied Money, Food and other support like Printing Presses and so on during a time when the Companies were hiring People to bust the Heads of the Union People.

Are the Capitalist selling US out right now to gain profits from China? And, so on....



,

__________________
84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel