Hong Zhang said:
And oftentimes, backing by a foreign power is not necessarily a good thing and it tends to alienate domestic populations as has been shown on numerous occasions. I quite believe that even if US was fully committed to support KMT, they still could not have won. Look at Vietnam. And China was so much bigger and more complex than Vietnam
Hong, thanks for your comments. I have no doubt you have a different and far more informed perspective on all this then a disconnected westerner such as myself (I remember you mentioning that your parents had fled the intellectual purges, is that correct?) I would freely admit that I really dont know how the world would have turned out if the US had backed the nationalists and they succeeded in defeating Mao, but I am hard pressed to imagine it could have possibly been *worse* than the 30 million killed by mao and 60 million killed by Stalin. Especially looking at Tawain today. And South Korea fared just fine after fighting a war with a lot of foriegners involved on both sides and today it is one of the worlds freest and richest nations.
Vietnam is a seperate issue, nearly every military engagement was a victory, and South Vietnam fended off the Soviet backed north for 1 month shy of two full years after the last US soldier left. The Vietnam war was won, with only a modicum amount of support South Vietnam would be another South Korea. Recall the now oft repeated 80% voter turnout in the elections of South Vietnam in the late 70's. (cited as a reason to not be incredibly excited by the voter turnout in iraq by liberals struggling to find something negative and always struggling to connect Iraq with the Vietnam war) The democratically controlled US congress completely abandoned indochina to the communists by making it illegal to provide any aide whatsoever. Vietnam fell, then Laos, then Cambodia, and then millions died. Where were the peace activists then? The vietnam war was lost by the brainwashed anti-war activists who had been hijacked by communists (as even admitted to by Tod Gitlin, a leading anti-war activist during the vietnam war and founder of the Students for a Democractic society) See my Free Vietnam page for some telling passages by Vietnamese reporters about the war. e.g.
http://www.matus1976.com/politics/vietnam/free_vietnam.htm
Uwe Siemon-Netto's, A journalist who covered much of the Vietnam war, said in his mea culpe to the English magazine Encounter,1979
" "...today's Vietnam tragedy may have a lot to do with the way we reported yesterday's Vietnam tragedy; considering that we journalists might have our fair share of guilt for the inhuman way the world treats those who are being expelled by an inhuman regime which some of us had pictured as heroic" "
and
Former South Vietnamese native, NLF Supporter, and Anti-American protester Doan Van Toai had this to say about modern Vietnam said:
"if liberty and democracy are worth struggling for in the Philippines, in Chile, in South Korea or in South Africa, they are no less worth defending in Communist countries like Vietnam. Everyone remembers the numerous demonstrations protesting United States involvement in Vietnam and the war crimes of the Thieu regime. But some of those people who were then so passionately committed to democratic principles and human rights have developed a strange indifference now that these same principles are under assault in Communist Vietnam"
And paralleling comments above by Uwe Siemon-Netto, Doan Van Toai says in his own mea culpe "Looking back now on the Vietnam war, I feel nothing but sorrow for my own naivete in believing that the Communists were revolutionaries worthy of support. In fact, they betrayed the Vietnamese people and deceived progressives throughout the world. The responsibility for the tragedies that have engulfed my compatriots is mine."
The Korean war lasted almost as long, was with as unfamiliar a people as indochina, and saw almost as many people killed, yet it did not have anywhere near the kind of anti-war movement that the vietnam war had, and South Korea todays stands as a clear emblem to the moral legitmatcy of the korean war and what *should* have happened in Vietnam.
Incidently, April 30th is the 30th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, there will be a (hopefully) large gathering in DC in sad recognition of this date and hopefully to bring some attention to the tragedy. I urge anyone who can go and who cares about freedom to attend.
www.april30.org
Michael
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