Re: Dan Rather

[<SDonell73@aol.com>]

In a message dated 8/12/02 5:52:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time, Home@DanSources.com writes:


> Vietnam itself was never Communist. BUT they were Nationalist. And why we would never win the war.  In fact after we quit and they got South Vietnam. Vietnam and China went to war.  


Communists have been fighting Communists since Lenin died. Ho Chi Minh was a Communist and the country is now run by Communists, but Communism isn't a monolithic bloc. China and Russia have gotten it on IIRC, along the border with Siberia. Tito stood against Stalin in the late 1940s. The Viet Namese have hated the Chinese for hundreds of years. They were forced to form a sort of partnership during the War in Viet Nam. It seems like nationalism is a wild card in the war of the isms.

After WW's I and II, Ho Chi Minh attempted to get the United States to bring Viet Nam under its wing, as a territory, "like the Philippines," to get out from under France's colonial system, but on both occasions his letters were ignored in Washington.  

Sandy