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| Ho Chi Minh (standing, third from left) and Vo Nguyen Giap (in a white suit) are shown with an OSS team in 1945 - United States Army |
Comment from Bruce got me started:
"It was later I learned Ho had approached the US and asked for help establishing an independent country based on the US constitution."
Whoa, what? Never heard this before, which triggers my Google reflex and off I go. Several sites have the story, the version I found on the TheWorld seems fairly even handed.
Ho Chi Minh did admire the United States, but he had been an ardent communist since 1920. His collaboration with the OSS during WW2 was aimed at defeating the Japanese (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), but after WW2 the French came back in and that was the beginning of the war.
The State Historical Society of Iowa also has a page which includes an image of Ho's telegram to Truman that comes from the US National Archives.
From your link, “And however much he may have liked America's anti-colonial history, he could never have been a sincere partner for the US.”
ReplyDeleteA sincere partner? We couldn’t peacefully coexist with a country that had a communist system of government?
Russia was (is) an aggressive dictatorship, so is China, and North Korea. They are a far cry from the pre WW II communist movement Ho subscribed to, that was organized to escape colonialism. But then the US Military-Industrial Complex Ike warned us about, had to keep the pressure on. Divide the world into “fer us” or “agin us” even if the “fer us” were dictators, which they often were. Sincere partners as long as we sent guns and money to keep them in power.
Before the Vietnam War I was I love America, period. I still do but embarrassed by the dirty shit we’ve pulled and want it to stop. Sure at this point Russia, China, and North Korea won’t stop being the enemy, but we could clean up out act in South America, the Caribbean, Africa, SE Asia.
OK, I’ll shut up now.
I'm afraid the jackasses that are preaching war won't shut up until somebody bigger and stronger shuts them up. It's like whoever brays the loudest gets the most followers.
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