USS Carl Vinson visits Vietnam-
From the article-
“The B-52 Victory Museum is strewn with broken pieces of fuselages and tails from downed U.S. aircraft. What’s missing are the visitors. Eighty-two-year-old Pham Hong Thuy — sitting alone watching after his grandson — explains why.
“The war ended decades ago,” says Pham, who fought the Americans at the 1968 Battle of Khe Sanh. “People around the ages of 20, 30 or under 40, they do not know much about the war, they don’t care about the war,” he says.
“The U.S. and the Vietnam are good friends now,” he adds. “And the war is in the past.”
The arrival of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, at Vietnam’s port city of Danang is a reminder of that growing friendship. It’s the first visit by a U.S. aircraft carrier since the end of the war in 1975, and it comes amid rising tensions in the region over China’s aggressive territorial expansion in the South China Sea.
A communist state scared of another communist state sees old enemies become friends. Communism is a funny bedfellow.
China’s expansionism and their increasing military and economic power are driving other Asian nations into America’s arms.
Yes, on paper Vietnam is ruled by Communists – However, the Vietnamese Reds seem to have evolved into national socialists – and with importance placed on “nationalists” – which means being for your country above all – a country that borders on an increasingly aggressive national socialist China – a country that has occupied Vietnam in the days of the Chinese empire.
Thus the “enemy of my enemy” is the USA – a country that supported the losing side in the Vietnamese civil war – and speaking as one who lives in a city where one section of the city has been named “Little Saigon” – who knows many former South Vietnamese citizens – the long civil war of 1945 to 1975 is pretty remote to older generation and unknown to current generation.
So the former friends and enemies of America have come to agreement that America is an ally today – and the former ally of the Communist side in the long Vietnam War era – China (and Russia) – are now the enemy.
I guess the next evolution in the American-Vietnamese alliance will be a return of the U.S. military to Vietnam…maybe even the base I was stationed at back in 1969?
We ended up walking a long bloody path to arrive at the same place.Both Ho and Giap were Communists,but not in the Soviet die.Agrarian communism was attractive to them since it’s basic tennants mirrors that of the Vietnamese social structure which was largely communal in nature.
Our biggest mistake in Vietnam was backing the French in the 50’s.Had we not done that and instead backed the Vietnamese I doubt the war would have ever happened and we would have had a welcome seat at the table all these years.
http://www.historynet.com/ho-chi-minh-and-the-oss.htm
I have friends in the local Vietnamese community,some recent arrivals and others that fled after Siagon fell.They have moved past the war long ago and today the kids in Vietnam want no part of communism outside of their traditional culture.
Very good post Darin – I agree!
I’ll bet that the late-teens Uni students from Vietnam could run rings around the foolish naive starry-eyed “communism is great” Western students in a debate. Not that Western students even *have* debating skills but anyway……….