13 Comments

What. The. Puck??? That's a completely insane list. I really, really want the wars to stop. Big money people play games with people they see as little soldiers on a chessboard. There is no humanity involved. Makes me sick.

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We have troops in Vietnam? How long has that been going on?

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For awhile now. It's nothing new, their proximity to China is of interest to us.

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I get why we'd want to be there, it's just hard for me to understand why they'd want us there. Pragmatism, I suppose. It really does highlight how idiotic all that "domino-theory" bullshit was.

I do wonder how that plays into their domestic politics though. Are there political factions that are opposed to our presence there? Is this something the Vietnamese public is concerned about? I'm sure disputes with China are far more significant to most Vietnamese.

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For a taste of the future in the region, go to SAM.gov, the official US federal government procurement site and do a few searches with terms like "pacific deterrence" or "indo-pacific." Looks like they're gearing up for a helluva lot more. Found 3 construction contracting vehicles alone that are allegedly going to be good for $3Bn+ each. And that was just the US Navy.

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@JH Smith

As self absorbed as we are with how Vietnam seemed to US, it's difficult to understand that to the Vietnamese, we were just part of the second to last phase of a VERY long sequence of wars. China, France, Japan, France again, USA/Australia, China AGAIN.

And China is still their scariest neighbor, who they have been invaded by more than once and do not love. The present day Vietnamese don't love us any more than post "Winter War" Finns loved the Germans who provided them support against USSR ca. 1939 - 1944. Neither will they refuse to make use of us now merely because of our previous history there.

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MIA or operatives who didn't get the memo the War is over

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I think it's about joint training with the Vietnamese in the context of China as a perceived threat

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USA has also sold Vietnamese navy some ships, USN trainers are part of that transaction.

(Edit)

Looking further, USA actually just GAVE Vietnamese several types of coastal/riverine patrol craft! Apparently we want them to be our "besties" now???

Plus others: USMC embassy guards, US Army casualty recovery teams trying to find, ID & repatriate MIA remains, certainly some secret squirrels as well.

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Stable Shadow provides "false credentials to operate in sensitive assignments both in the U.S. and overseas"

Can't we just call them the SS?

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A country named Diego García?

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Vietnam? Angola? Botswana? 70 and 50 years ago we were trying to prop up horrific colonial projects in these places, the former on a domino theory that cost Johnson the presidency and the war on poverty and the latter two apartheid like Gaza today that Reagan lost when we last had a Congress with a conscience. See Haiti and Syria are on the list but not Sudan, so proxies aren’t included.

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Israel's influence in America is astounding. Remarkably, the demonstrators on campus against Israel are mostly Jewish Americans and Palestinian/Arab Americans. These two groups make up possibly 4% of the American population. I am not a member of either group but I strongly support them and turn out at demonstrations to show it. What bothers me is the overwhelming majority of Americans, the other 96%, don't seem bothered at all by Israel being the tail that wags the dog that is Uncle Sam.

That Israel is not even named in the frenzy over foreign influence is as solid proof of its influence as there can be. People are completely intimidated, afraid to speak up because the antisemitism label is quickly applied.

And let's not forget Jonathan Pollard, who spied on the US for Israel. Reagan's Secretary of Defense, Caspar Weinberger thought that Pollard should have received the death penalty for his spying, but Israel kept up the pressure to have him released, eventually he was and returned to Israel to a hero's welcome. Uncle Sam, the world's only superpower and the world's #1 fool, proving it at this very moment with all the hand wringing over stopping Netanyahu, something that could be done right now and could have been done long ago. For some reason this doesn't frighten most Americans, and he even gets invited to speak to Congress. Are we asleep?

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