Clinton and Vietnam

Perhaps it is a fitting end to an era of animosity between the U.S.
and Vietnam for President Bill Clinton to oversee the “improvement in
trade and other relations” between Hanoi and Washington, announced amid
squelched enthusiasm last week.

Fitting for a number of reasons, not the least of which was Clinton’s
purposeful and successful bid to shirk his national responsibility to
serve the military he now leads as it fought against communist
aggression — good or bad, right or wrong — during the 11-year Vietnam
War.

But it is also fitting because of Clinton’s perceptible and palpable
penchant for the communist, the dictator, the socialist and the
tyranny-minded. To him, it seems, the descriptive phrases “democracy”
and “tyranny” are interchangeable.

President Clinton visits with Vietnamese diplomats in fall of 1999.

It very well may be that, 25 years after the last American flew off
the rooftops of our embassy before the fall of Saigon in 1975, it’s time
to diplomatically heal our wounds over Vietnam. It’s just that Clinton
shouldn’t be the one who facilitates the process. His involvement in any
way opens more wounds than it closes — a sort of “in your face”
reconciliation with a still-dictatorial country he refused to do battle
against so many years ago.

But that was then and this is now. Now, Clinton wants to ensure that
other young Americans will have the “opportunity” to serve in a capacity
he “loathed.”

According to Texas-based economic intelligence forecaster

Stratfor, other major powers — Russia and China — are also scrambling to cater to Hanoi. However, the intelligence firm said, “given Vietnam’s grim economic outlook, the sudden enthusiasm of these countries to strengthen relations seems rather unusual.” So, what’s up?

“Vietnam does have one priceless asset,” Stratfor.com said. “Its long coastline provides direct access to the South China Sea, the supply line to Northeast Asia. Vietnam has one of the few major naval bases directly on the sea. For the United States, control of these waters is the key to defending Taiwan, South Korea and Japan (my emphasis).”

In other words, Clinton isn’t interested in the “economic well-being” of the Vietnamese; he’s interested in exploiting Hanoi in much the same way his predecessor, one L. B. Johnson, was attempting to exploit the Vietnamese three-and-a-half decades ago. Only this time “we come in peace.”

Clinton is irony wrapped inside duplicity wrapped inside hypocrisy. And he knows no bounds.

The Vietnamese — still dodging U.S. land mines and harboring vivid images of B-52 arc-light bombing raids — may “entertain” the notion of engaging U.S. interests again, strictly on economic terms. They’ll take our money and “investment,” but they’re unsure — correctly — if they trust the presence of U.S. warships anchored (again) in their ports. You see, the Vietnamese remember; it is only Clinton who would like to forget.

Nevertheless, after concluding his March visit to Vietnam, Defense Secretary William Cohen declared, according to Agence France Presse, that he “he foresaw a day when U.S. warships will call on Vietnam’s ports.”

For now, Russia is the only nation with the kind of access the Clintonites are looking for. Moscow’s warships are using Cam Rahn Bay, once the center for U.S. naval power in Vietnam, and the South China Sea region for which it provides access.

No matter to a commander in chief with no conscience who is backed by a criminal regime. “In the upcoming months, the three countries’ competition for influence in Vietnam will likely intensify,” Stratfor.com said.

Indeed it has; last week’s “trade” negotiations with Hanoi makes the Stratfor.com analysis, written this spring, pure prophesy.

“For the United States, control of these waters is the key to defending Taiwan, South Korea and Japan.”

Welcome (back) to Vietnam, America.

What gives Clinton — in any manner — the right to make this decision, considering his hypocritical past?