Irresistable forces and immovable objects.
When they clash, best solution is just to watch... :D
However, two minor points. Re: the "...the hard fight the South and anti-communist Vietnamese put up" -- while there were a few Dedicated Infantry Commie Killers in the South who fought hard, the vast majority of southerners did no more than they were forced to do. The so-called "hard fight" was promoted and sustained by the US for our own purposes, initially to boost the US domestic economy. It was all part of Kennedy's disastrous deficit spending and allow inflation economic strategy to break out of the recession. That strategy failed miserably on all counts. On Viet Nam, 'fighting Communism' just served as a cover rationale for the US masses -- and Congress...
Just as Iraq as threat to the US was hype; fighting Communism in Viet Nam and the domino theory were hype. Dayuhan's right, our meddling from Truman on was a bad idea that did little to no good at great cost. Not least because Communism will always die of its own accord unless it is given a tiff in which to get involved and from which to draw sustenance to live a little longer as the nominally Communist leaders hype the 'threat' to their nation.
Secondly, not only the Chinese but the Russians and even our 'friends' the British, French and Israelis among many others spy on us and play cyber games -- as do we upon and with them. Way of the world... ;)
A small historical diversion
Dayuhan in Post 180 writes:
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Ask yourself, honestly... if the British hadn't assured the return of French rule in 1945, or if the Americans had not stepped in after the French defeat and forced the division of Vietnam in 1954... would that not have led to a Vietnamese solution to a Vietnamese problem?
Over the last few years with my irregular reading on post-VJ Day allied military action, including the USMC expedition in Manchuria, I have always been puzzled by the logistics of the period.
I understood that imperial allies such as the British Empire, the Dutch and French after VE Day and VJ Day relied upon American shipping, not only for national survival (food), but also to fight Japan and restore imperial rule. If true and to my knowledge neither France nor the Dutch had large serviceable merchant fleets, maybe not the British, then French and Dutch troops reached Indochina and what is now Indonesia on US ships.
Yes, Roosevelt was again empires and colonialism. Not so sure about Truman.
Just asking if anyone knows.
Communism is not a form of government
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Originally Posted by
carl
It is true that communist regimes will eventually fail. But I think they fail faster if opposed. That increment of time covered by "faster" means a lot of people not suffering as much as they otherwise would have. And of course, if those regimes are never installed at all, it normally means even less suffering.
Maybe a little terminological clarification would help. Communism is an economic theory. Perhaps your point would be better made by referring to totalitarian regimes.
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Originally Posted by
carl
Everybody spies on everybody else. That is true. But a difference in degree can be a difference in kind. That is the case with Red China's state sponsored effort to steal everything. The Russkies it seems to me are criminals covered by the state. The Israelis are sort of like the Russkies but on a smaller scale and with a bit more state direction. We spy on the French and they try to figure out what we are going to do. All normal stuff. But what the Red Chinese are up to goes way way way beyond that. The state not only tries to get all the skinny on the F-35 and whatever new sonar the Navy is dreaming up, but the state sponsors stealing whatever new manufacturing process TRW comes up with for brakes or the Blackberry keyboard. This is the biggest spy operation and organized state sponsored and approved theft of intellectual property in the history of the world. What the Red Chinese are up to is unprecedented.
Everybody does it in the private sector too. Check out these guys . Competitive intelligence is a nice cover phrase for economic or corporate espionage. Although such practices are illegal in the United States, that does not preclude folks in the private sector from conducting "business intelligence" every day. I can't count the number of non-disclosure agreements I've had to sign to protect the proprietary information of companies competing with each other for Defense contracts. You can bet that Boeing, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin are all using competitive intelligence (nice euphemism for "spy on" )to determine what IR&D the other two are working on to get a leg up in winning business from Uncle Sam.
The difference is that in China, the state (since it practices a form of communism) is the holder of the means of production and is, therefore, the company/corporation that is conducting business or competitive intelligence.
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Originally Posted by
carl
That the Reds would do this shouldn't be a big surprise. Mass murder is a normal part of their behavior so thievery on a behemoth scale isn't such a shock. What gets me is we know it is going on and we don't do anything much about it.
How do you feel about this alternative rewrite of your paragraph that could well have been written about a significant "shadow government" that existed in the US in the Prohibition era or almost any time since?
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That organized crime/the Mafia would do this shouldn't be a big surprise. Mass thievery is a normal part of their behavior so murder on a behemoth scale isn't such a shock. What gets me is we know it is going on and we don't do anything much about it.