I wrote:

>>     This is where I risk unpopularity (a contrarian speaks).  As Robin
>> Ramsay says, I may be the last supporter of American intervention in
>> Vietnam in Englnd.

    Robert Goodby wrote:

> Well, this at least is a hopeful sign;).

    I don't see it that way.  America poured vast resources into the Left,
the Centre-Left, the Centre and the Centre-Right all over the world in the
post-war period.  Two major elements of US involvement in Vietnam were the
desire to spread liberal democracy (however imperfectly), and the desire of
the US to be seen to be a credible and reliable ally.  From here in England,
when we had 40 000 Soviet tanks on the European periphery, an indigenous (if
small) contingent of Soviet sympathisers, and a vast arsenal of Soviet
nuclear weaponry pointed at this country, this seemed no bad thing.

> I would argue that US intervention didn't start with an individual--Patti
> or anyone else--but was part of a larger policy of "containing" the
> aspirations of third world countries for genuine independence, a
> necessary response for a superpower whose prosperity and power is
> contingent on the extraction of cheap resources from poor countries...

    Here is Sheehan (and my) 'take':

    "On August 15, 1945 ... Ho began asking Truman to make good on his
wartime rhetoric ... He had the Viet Minh representative in Kunming, China,
send Truman a message through the OSS station there asking 'the United
States, as a champion of democracy' to make Vietnam _an American
Protectorate_" (emphasis mine).

    As for Archimedes Patti's involvement in helping Ho into power: read
Patti-s autobiography.

    Sheehan: "The United States did not seek colonies as such.  Having overt
colonies was not acceptable to the American political conscience.  Americans
were convinced that their imperial system did not victimize foreign peoples.
"Enlightened self-interest" was the sole national egotism to which the
Americans would admit .... Americans perceived their order as a new and
benevolent form of international guidance.  It was thought to be neither
exploitative, like the nineteenth-century-style colonialism of the European
empires, nor destructive of personal freedom and other worthy human values,
like the totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and China and their communist
allies." - p. 131, 'A Bright Shining Lie.'

    I think you overestimate the support the (predominantly Chinese) HUKs
had, while underestimating Magsaysay's reforims measures and popular
support.

>> I agree, Sheehan's book is certainly worth reading. It conveys a
>> wonderful sense of the banality and moral degeneracy underlying the US
>> presence in Vietnam. It also begins, as I recall, with an impressive
>> summation of the US role as global empire and hegemon--suggesting that
>> this is what explains our presence in Vietnam, not "mistakes" or one
>>misled OSS agent.

    It's a glorious book, which can be read with enlightening consequences by
'left' and 'right' and others.  There's a good review of it in the US Marine
Corps Library ( http://www.usmc.mil ), where it's actually 'required reading'
(That is, Marines gain points by reading it.  'Only in America...' ) >:-}

> I think your depiction of Vann is off-base. He was a highly intelligent
> and complex character, by all accounts--as well as abusive, manipulative,
> sexually compulsive, etc....

    Yes, all that too...  But also a working-class social democrat.

> and an unfailing servant of an immoral and unjustifiable policy. The fact
> that he criticized the war on tactical grounds doesn't make him a hero. As
> NC has pointed out repeatedly, this just makes him a "liberal".......

    No, an _opponent_ of a _losing_ policy.  You cannot begin to measure the
damage done to American values in America and in the world, and to America's
friends of those values worldwide, by the way the War was fought.  Had the
War been fought intelligently, in a principled way, for something like a
liberal democratic society in Vietnam, _it could have been won_.


>> As we now see, the present Vietnamese Government concedes John Paul
>> Vann's case.  Vietnam is becoming -- and will be -- a liberal democracy
>> with a market economy.  Americans are welcome there (CIA Director and
>> Saigon Station Chief Bill Colby set up an investment group recently).
>> The Vietnam that John Paul Vann fought for is becoming a reality.


> Yes, this is the tragedy. Only after Vietnam (particularly the south, our
> supposed protectorate) was smashed

    By the VC and the North...

> over a million killed

    I have to differentiate between combatant and civilian deaths.

> the land soaked with carcinogenic chemicals

    Yes.  Admiral Zumwalt was prominent in campaigning over this.

> untold numbers of mines sown throughout the countryside

    <Sigh>  That's an unpleasant commonplace of warfare

> (which the US refused to provide maps for after the war's end)

    Because the Communist government refused to account for prisoners, etc.


> Again, we'll never know whether things might have turned out better for
> Vietnam had this genocidal war not been launched.

    It's a gross abuse of language to describe the war fought by Americans as
'genocidal.'  According to Lemkin's definition of genocide, the Government of
the North was embarked on a genocidal war against the people of the South.

> Liberal democracy with a market economy??

    That's what Vietnam will be.  Because of the aristocratic origins of the
Politburo, this is not happening fast, but every market economy tends
inexorably to develop into an open society and a democracy.

    Left-libertarians and others can help, by offering Vietnamese the means
to establish Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS), Information Routeing
Groups (IRGs), Internet facilities, and Grameen-style Micro-banking and
Credit Unions.  All these will help establish an Open Society in Vietnam.

    It's the least we can do for them and with them, after all they (and we)
have gone through.  Everyone's a potential friend, partner, customer,
supplier, artist etc.

    Tony