Actually to correct the scintillating military analysis.

The “Vietnam War” was not actually a war but more a battle and the Vietnamese were the surrogates.

The Americans picked up the mess which the French had created (yes, never trust the French to do the right thing).

Whilst the Americans withdrew in 1975, the War itself did not end until 1991 (the start of the end being 1989).

Before anyone goes around pronouncing “victory” for the Vietcong or North Vietnam, we should look at the changes which have occurred since in their major sponsors -

USSR collapses in a crumpled heap

China does a 180 degree turn on economic policy

As dearest Margaret said “Economics are the method; the object is to change the soul.”

Well Warring pre-empted the economics in this case and the attitudes have changed somewhat.

Socialism and its inevitable consequence (communism) have failed the people they were supposed to elevate and the libertarian-capitalist democracies have prevailed.

The world is a big map, larger than Vietnam or any other single nation and history does not spin on any one moment in time.

I think we have someway to go before Margaret Thatcher can put a tick against the “attitude” but I think we are closer than we were in 1975, although the pernicious nature of socialism is always a draw for the weak of will and lacking in vision (thinks, should I suggest the author of the article), so it looks like it is going to be inter-generational process before that one is finally laid to rest.

Col Rouge,

Where is your evidence that the Vietnamese were merely surrogates in a broader struggle? Every credible historian of the Vietnam War, of which I am aware understands, that the causes of the war were principally local.

If you understood the history of the conflict, you would know that in 1954 both the Chinese and the Soviets twisted the arms of the Viet Minh negotiators into signing the agreement which gave back much of what had won on the battlefield. This included, as well as 'South' Vietnam with the abovementioned 'palm-hut state', nearly all of 50% of Laos conquered by the fraternal Pathet Lao (who were themselves denied independent representation at Geneva) ("The Vietnam Wars", Young p 41).

But for this sellout, the war could have largely been over in 1954 and the Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodians would have been largely spared at least two more decades of horrific death and destruction.

In turn the Vietminh imposed the Geneva Peace accords on its own supporters. After the agreed elections were cancelled in the South, instead of resuming the war, the government in the North largely left its supporters in the South to their own devices, until 1961. Of this, one independence fighter later wrote:

(The Southerners felt) that the Party and Ho Chi Minh had turned
out to be more stupid than the French, the Americans, or even
Diem himself ... People had sacrificed heavily in the resistance
and had been told by the Party that that the Geneva accords would
be carried out.(Young,p54)

If, instead, the example of the "palm-hut state" in the South had been allowed to endure, the people of the rest of South East Asia would have, in all probability, wanted to emulate that example in their own country, and the whole course of history since 1954 would have been very different.

A rather strange way for the Soviet 'communists', supposedly bent on using the Vietnamese as surrogates in order to impose communism on the rest of the world, to behave, would you agree?

---

James Sinnamon
Independent candidate for Lord Mayor of Brisbane
http://candobetter.org/SweepOutCityHall

Vinigar Joe says:

"Comrade Passant follows the pop history analysis of picking a moment in time that defines a war, a campaign or an empire, if that is what the US really is. No more shallow than the blindly anti US chants I recall of him at Monash 20 odd years ago. Tet was a political win for the VC and the North but by any measure a complete military disaster for them. Continue banging the drum comrade Passant. And North Korean missile testing was the turning point in the war against the South Korean running paper tiger running dogs!"

Wow. John is remembered for his activities at Monash twenty two years ago! Perhaps Vinigar Joe's memory (a sweet irony in such a bitter name) was really prompted by John being one of the leaders of the successful defence of library conditions. The chanting of anti-US slogans is the usual bull the right comes out with when they can't address the issues.

If you read the article John says that the win was a political victory but a military defeat.

In one page a writer cannot explore ideas deeply. The suggestion that that day marks the decline of the US empire is a journalistic stunt to get people's attention to discuss the issues. Discussing ideas is something the right appears incapable of doing. Perhaps 11 years of suckling from JWH's teat has lobotomised most of them.

Second, Col Rouge cites a website where John wrote some years ago about Zimbabwe, and gives the impression from his half sentence quote that John supports Mugabe. I read the article. It actually called for a workers' revolution to drive Mugabe out of power.

Finally Col raises concerns about a possible left-wing radical working in the ATO. Purge the left, should we, Col? Typical of the McCarthyist right. No one can have a brain. No one can think outside the capitalist sqaure.

Instead of tendentious rubbish, why not try to address the issues John raised?

Can someone from the intelligent right please make the occasional contribution to Online Opinion?

Some have commented about John's philosophy apprently being that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I disagree with their analysis.

For example, I don't know about John, but I support the right of Kosovo to determine its own future, even though the US clearly supports an independent Kosovo for its own imperialist reasons.

Passy,” Typical of the McCarthyist right. No one can have a brain. No one can think outside the capitalist sqaure.”

ME, McCarthyism? Your claim is unsubstantiated by anything I have written.
It is simply your sad, feeble and failed attempt at vilification.

“no one can have a brain”

I have always taken it for granted that whilst every socialist has a brain, a belief in socialism indicates an option to avoid using all of it, relying on the Limbic System and having to wait until older, when the higher-order" brain centers, such as the prefrontal cortex, develop, to facilitate reasoning.

Hence the old observation,

if he isn’t a socialist by the age of 18 he hasn’t got a heart (emotion) but

if he isn’t a conservative by the age of 25, he hasn’t got a brain (or one capable of logical reasoning).

Actually capitalism relies on people thinking outside the square.

It is socialism and its goal, communism, which is afraid of people thinking for themselves and going against the “party line”.

Capitalism does not lock its dissidents in prison or psychiatric wards or force them to be “re-educated”
Capitalism rewards the "outside-the-square” thinkers for their innovation. Just count the number of Internet and video game millionaires.

Socialism / communism reduces everyone to the lowest level of subsistence to finance the failures of the five year plans and sells off the seed stock for next years crop to pay off the equipment purchased by the state for “industrialization” but fails to use the equipment to produce things people want.

“Can someone from the intelligent right”

You can always find us,

However, the “intelligent left” is an oxymoron.

“the US clearly supports an independent Kosovo for its own imperialist reasons.”

The re-unification of Kosovo back into Serbia has far more significance to Russia than an independent Kosovo has for USA.

I do see significant merit in a less belligerent and less influential Serbia but it is a merit which has more to do with the future stability of the Balkans than any aspirations which you could ascribe to USA.

Col Rouge wrote:

"if he isn’t a socialist by the age of 18 he hasn’t got a heart (emotion) but

"if he isn’t a conservative by the age of 25, he hasn’t got a brain (or one capable of logical reasoning)."

In fact what was said, whether or not we accept the validity of the observation was:

"Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head."

It was said by French Premier Georges
Clemenceau (1841-1929). Variations of this were also attributed to Disraeli, Shaw, Churchill, and Bertrand Russell. (see http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=374518 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A43103-2001Jun8&notFound=true)

So, were you trying to tell us you were a socialist at the age of 18? I would have to say that it would be quite difficult for some of us to imagine.