Give McNamara credit for belated honesty. It is the first time I have ever heard him admit that Vietnam was a civil war and not an attempt at a Communist takeover of SE Asia.

The US failed to understand the history of the enemy. The same thing could be said about Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan.

When he was emerging as a nationalist leader, Ho Chi Minh wrote to FDR.

He outlined his aims for a free, democratic Vietnam which could only be brought about by rebellion against the French.

He said he recognised he required the support of a major power and was turning to the US, because it was a nation which gained its independence by rebelling against imperialism, and would therefore understand his aims.

Warned that Ho was a suspected Communist, Roosevelt did not reply.

Peter Freedman wrote on May 1^st, 2014 at 12:01am:


Right on. Malcolm Fraser now blames faulty intelligence for the domino theory and the belief that the North Vietnamese were little more than nationalists. As Army Minister, Fraser was in as good a place as any to make this claim. His government (and its opposition) took us in.

Interestingly, he now blames the same hardheads for the faulty intelligence that took us into Iraq. As ever, it’s not missing information or a lack of analysis that drives these wars, but silly absolutist "values" like FD’s, and the lies that back them up.

Peter Freedman wrote on May 1^st, 2014 at 7:52pm:


True, but if I was in Paris in 1946, I know which country I’d be going with.

Nylon stockings, Coca Cola, chewing gum, jazz. You’d hardly be warming to Stalin, shurely.

Only the desperate countries went with Russia - countries like Cuba, with nowhere else to turn. The smart ones - like India and Indonesia - played both sides off against the other. Nehru and Sukharno were tricky operators. The US was forced to think up an entirely new development model to bring them into the fold. Walt Rostow’s Stages of Economic Growth was a must-read during the Cold War, before Milton Friedman and Pinochet first experimented with Thatcherism and Reaganomics.

Sorry, Freeedom. Pinochet and Suharto had fun with that. Some say it creates wealth.

They are, of course, having a jolly good chuckle.

Peter Freedman wrote on May 2^nd, 2014 at 4:28pm:


I wonder though, if back then people in Ho Chi Minh's position "turned red". Politics at the time leaned much further to the left. In France during the 1930s the Popular Front, including the French Communist Party, formed government.

In the colonies, communism had formed the main resistence to the Japanese. The allies had included the Soviet Union. It was only after Yalta that the English-speaking world became devoutly anti-communist, and even during the McCarthy era, most intellectuals sympathised with communism. Many held on through the Soviet invasion of Hungary, then Czechoslovakia. In Australia, even the tame old Labor Party's affiliation with leftist unions kept it out of power for a generation with the succession of the DLP.

And Lenin had called the Australian Labor Party the party of monopoly capitalism.

I often wonder at what point a sensible person would have given up communist sympathies. The invasion of Hungary? Khrushchev's Speech on Stalin? The Soviet-Sino split? Russian tanks in Prague? The release of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipeligo?

Many thought they could tame communism, and who knows? If things had been different, maybe they could have. However, if things in the West were as "Free" as FD argues, there may have been no need for the rampant secrecy and militancy of the Western communist parties.

A fantasy, perhaps. Personally, I think communism was lost before the Bolsheviks even defeated the Mensheviks for supremacy in the Russian party. From China to Cuba to Italy, everyone around the world tried to do communism a little differently, and ultimately, they all gave up.

Capitalism is a global syatem. It can be softened by government, but not rivaled. Capitalism prevailed simply because it is.

Our own intelligence at the time could not possibly have predicted this, but they could have looked. The ultimate weakness of the old boy way of thinking is its inflexibility, its absolutism. Whenever it sees this in others, it goes in for the kill, and Fascists, communists, and US apologists are all guilty of this.

True Colours wrote on May 2^nd, 2014 at 7:08pm:


I don’t think anyone really turns against Amerikan kulture, demokracy and capitalism. Amerika is a dual-edged sword. It has all the best - and worst - of humanity in it.

If anything, the worst aspect of Amerika now is the polarized, tabloid Foxification of their media and politics.

And we only have Rupert Murdoch to blame for that.

Aussie Aussie Aussie, innit.

Many Muslims, eh?

Abu and Falah always get trotted out for what they don’t say.

I blame Mohammed.

True Colours wrote on May 2^nd, 2014 at 10:44pm:


Like the Islamic enclaves in the UK and good old fashioned Aussies shopping in Lakemba and Bankstown Square
and blocking roads to sit on them to block traffic to pray to an imaginary god whilst there is a perfectly good HUGE empty park right across the road at Lakemba. All just the thumb it to Aussies. No chaos in blocking roads just to pee people off.

True Colours wrote on May 2^nd, 2014 at 10:44pm:


Moderate hmm nah I'd go communism first. Islam to date hasn't shown tolerance at all.

Karnal wrote on May 2^nd, 2014 at 8:55pm:


Couldn't agree more.

Well said, Karnal.