Ah yes, it's been all downhill for the US capitalist imperialist running dogs and their western allies since 1968. Following the Vietnam defeat, the Soviet Union won the Cold War; East Germany and North Korea out-competed West Germany and South Korea; China demonstrated that Maoism works; Kampuchea took the moral lead in human rights; the feminist Taliban regime was elected to power in Kabul, millions of poor people illegally crossed the border from the US into Mexico... It can surely only be a matter of time now before the people of the world embrace socialism.

Interesting to note that Kampuchea under Pol Pot took their "moral lead" at the UN supported by the "beast" still lurking in its lair, the PR of China, Maggie Thatcher and the British SAS, and Thailand, and seeded Cambodia with minefields to continue the Vietnam war. And that the "beast" happily countenanced the Chinese invasion of Vietnam in 1978, just when the Vietnamese army was liberating Cambodia in answer to three years of Cambodian, Chinese-sponsored raids into Vietnam. History shows strange bed-fellows. Socialist beasts and capitalist beast all happily fornicating together.

I probably shouldn't dignify that ignorant comment by Saunders but against my better judgement I will. The comment is based on the premise that opponents of US imperialism are invariably in the former Soviet camp or are Stalinists of some form or other. Well, Saunders, plenty of leftists have also opposed Russian imperialism - didn't you read Passants comments on Russia's defeat in Afghanistan? And maybe you should read Socialist Alternative because it challenges the assumption that to be a socialist you have to support Soviet-style state capitalism (are you familiar with that term? If not, read Tony Cliff's work State Capitalism in Russia. Think outside the CIS box).

Whether you can pinpoint the Tet Offensive as the beginning of the end of the US as dominant force in world politics I think is questionable. What you can say is that it is likely that US economic and political dominance can't last forever and may well go the way of the Soviet empire and the British empire before it - based on statistical probability.

What twaddle.

So we are intended to believe that since Tet, the US has gone downhill? Are we also supposed to believe that Vietnam was NOT converted to a backward, broken-down totalitarian state - I suppose that isn't going backwards, whereas astonishing economic success and cultural penetration is?

We should recognise treason where it is sown. The media after Tet misrepresented the war as lost, and perjurers (like John Kerry) brought the Vietnamese people to failure and oppression, by self-defeating internal information warfare in the US.

“It is not often you can pinpoint the decline of a great empire. For the US January 30, 1968, 40 years ago, is a worthy contender.”

You know I could suggest similar points in history for the moment of decline of the USSR and socialism.

I could suggest the point was when the Berlin wall fell but that would obviously be wrong, more like it was when the Berlin wall was erected.

However, I could go back further and suggest it might have been when Hungary was invaded.

Or back further, when Stalin, through Molotov, made a pact with Hitlers nominee, Ribbentrop.

Actually the point which started the decline of Soviet tyranny was not even when Stalin came to power but when Lenin starved millions to sate the Bolshevic evil obsession with power.

In comparison, if someone were to suggest the decline of the British Empire was marked by the loss of the American colonies (1777), I would possibly agree and point out that whilst in “decline”, Britain was still expanding into colonies like Australia (1788).

As for “For the US there will be more and more Tets, not just politically but, as Iraq and Afghanistan show, militarily as well.”

And for USSR there will be no more anything. That plague of the politically aberrant and the infections it spawned, like Vietnam, is dead.

Thinking that some perverse miracle will overwhelm libertarianism and democracy to force it into some sad socialist cesspool, where no one is allowed to develop beyond that potential prescribed by the state, is not going to happen any time soon. Such fixations are the nightmares of the chronically deluded.

Peter Saunders, succinctly put.

David JS “US economic and political dominance can't last forever”

Nothing lasts for ever. However, the politics of “democratic libertarianism” has certainly outlasted by a factor of more than three, the politics of communism (240 years to 73 years) and the insipid aspirations of socialism which has still to find a proper place, despite 150 years of the intelligensia masturbation of itself.

vietnam was a temporary setback, soon rectified, think of the brilliantly successful campaign against grenada.

a better measure of a nation's health is to look at the budget. unlike other large nations, the usa spends more on defense than the rest of the world. combined. this may explain why they spend so little on schools, education, health care, and physical infrastructure.

they have been importing educated people for a long time now, it's cheaper than educating americans. i suspect the principle will be extended to importing ignorant labor soon. for the army. americans won't pick fruit for the wages offered and it's getting to the point they won't sign up to spread democracy anymore also, even though everyone makes sergeant if they get through basic.

an american 'foreign legion' will have many good points for politicians. no relatives complaining about casualties for instance. and some day the general commanding can look forward to being chosen president. by his troops.