drsimon@watlion.UUCP (Daniel R. Simon) (03/27/86)
In article <109@gilbbs.UUCP> mc68020@gilbbs.UUCP (Tom Keller) writes: >In article <1720@ihlpg.UUCP>, tan@ihlpg.UUCP (Bill Tanenbaum) writes: >> > The US mistakenly >> > supported the French in trying to regain Indochina as a French >> > colony- the results? Decades of war and a Communist dictatorship. >> --------- >> Supporting French colonialism was a mistake. However, it is highly >> probable that the Communist dictatorship would have >> resulted anyway. > > Oh really? On what information do you base this higly amusing conclusion, >Bill? The fact is that Ho Chi Mihn and his followers tried for years to >avoid associated with the communists, in their fight for *FREEDOM* AND >*INDEPENDENCE* from France. They were finally forced (as were the Sandinistas) >to turn to Moscow to avoid being obliterated. The fact is that had the US and >the UN not supported France in their murderous attempt to maintain their >colonial power in VietNam, there would now be a reasonably stable democracy. > >tom keller > If I understand you correctly, then your claim is that Ho Chi Minh and his followers were dedicated to democracy and freedom, but that in the course of their fight against the colonial French, American hostility and Soviet generosity caused them to turn to Moscow to help. Why, then, did they continue to ally themselves with the Soviet Union after attaining power in North Vietnam? Why did they not simply evict the Russians (it's been done, by Egypt and Somalia, for example) and establish democracy? Why did they instead support the Viet Cong, which never had any goal other than the extension of Communism to the South? For dedicated-freedom-lovers-turned- support-hungry-pragmatists, they certainly proved more faithful to their pragmatic allies than to their ideological ones. After all, Mr. Ho could have established democratic institutions and relinquished his power to the electorate at any time, but, despite his supposed love of liberty, he chose not to. Did he, like a spiteful child, cling to totalitarianism to avenge the West's neglect? Did he take up Communism reluctantly at first, out of necessity, and then become a convert upon being exposed to its merits? Or, just possibly, was his commitment to democracy less than solid from the start? I have heard similar justifications for the continued absence of democracy in Cuba. But what is preventing Mr. Castro from sending the Soviets packing today, and cashing in on the kind of aid (several billion dollars a year) that President Sadat of Egypt obtained without so much as an election, and that would certainly be forthcoming if a free vote were to be held in Cuba? Somehow, the alleged former democratic fervor of dictators is always a little tough to swallow. Daniel R. Simon "Quotations at the end of postings should always be anonymous, never attributed." -D. Simon