OPINION OF AN EXPERT

This post by Mr/Ms Unknown on AWV expressed some real politics that El Chino
can agree with, Unknown said that it was from the Australian military
Strategist, Carl Thayer.
Vietnam for better or for worse is part of the World of Order. While her
record in Freedom and Human Rights left a lot to be desired, She has made
enough progress
since Doimoi that one can believe the VCP is set on the Democratization
course.
It would be of the utmost stupidity to detabilize her because the result
would be a reveral to totalitatian state
Let me give you a sugguestion and some reality checks! Carl Thayer the
security expert at Hawaii university who studied, followed, and recommended
U.S foreign policy toward Vietnam said that the United States would not do
anything if Vietnam imprisoned these monks for life, executed most of them
(less than 10 disident monks), or crushed any dissent with brutality. He
said " United States won't impose any sanctions on vietnam if vietnam
conducts such measure again the oppisition, nor America interested to in
military action against vietnam to stop such measure if they take place".

Moreover, vietnam human rights bills in capital hill which are sponsored by
vietnamese opposition groups oversea are in miseral failure one after
another because they face powerful opposition in the u.s congress by
powerful figures such as senator John McCain, John Kerry, C Hegal, and many
more vietnam vet.

Instead, America is interested to have a military to military cooperation
with vietnam in the future. This is demonstrated in recent high level
military to military exchanges between vietnam and the U.S: defense
secratary W. Cohen visited vietnam in 2000, pacific commander Dennis Blair
visited vietnam in 2002,Vietnam defense minister will visit the U.S at this
end of this year, and U.S warship call to vietnamese port begining in
november. In other words, the United States would not risk angering Vietnam
by rising the issue of dissident monks because Vietnam can and will be a
valuable U.S strategic partner against American' future advisories: China,
Terrorism and North Korea. Nor American interested in a political process
that could unravel an already fragile region of southeast asia, in which
only Vietnam remains extremely stable, and the last thing america would want
is having to support some kind of a political process that could unravel
vietnam into something like the islamic chaos raging in the rest of
southeast asia.

Moreover, such criticisms against the ruling communist party of vietnam has
steady becoming irrelevant because of Vietnam 's strong economic growth
(second only after china), Vietnam's ability to reduce poverty from more
than 60% to 25%, Vietnam 's ability to improve living stardard for the
population with affluent of trade with many other countries and other
countries' support toward vietnam.

All in all, with this new Vietnam, the vietnamese communities oversea has
waged an ineffective campaign to promote democratic changes in vietnam since
1975. Their methods to promoting democratic changes in vietnam by human
rights, freedom of religion won't have any results but failures and risk
alienated the population within vietnam which they are fighting for. They
failed to take chances when it already came to mount a much more effective
campaign for democratic changes within vietnam. They failed to learn the
lesson of ruling vietnamese communist party that propelled them to victory
in 1975, that is the vietnamese communist party achieved victory with
???????

well, I will leave that question mark for someone who interested to answer.
If you answered it correct. Congratulation, you have found a magic spell to
crush the ruling vietnamese communist and bring about democratic changes to
vietnam without a loss of life, a single bullet, and everyone will benefit
in the process.
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>>>
This post by Mr/Ms Unknown on AWV expressed some real politics that El Chino
can agree with, Unknown said that it was from the Australian military
Strategist, Carl Thayer.
>>>>

I hope you was meant to say that Carl Thayer is an expert, but not me. I am
anything but an expert. Although, I admitted that I used a little common
sense when expressing my opinion.

If you have a chance to read any vietnam war book, I would sugguest you to
read "Vietnam: A history" by stanley karnow. In the book, you will find the
reality of those who call themselves righteous and the force of democracy,
but they were always acted in contradiciton to what they said they were.
What the vietnamese communist did to dissident monk(placed them under house
arrest or forbided them from travel) is much better than Ngo Dinh Diem and
South Vietnamese generals did to those Buddhist monks back in the 60s and
70s. At least, I don't recall the communist roundup thousands of buddhist
monks and machinegun a lot of them. That was why the buddhist gathering in
the tens of thousands. They protested Diem's brutality and discrimination
agaist their religious practice and ultimately ended Diem's regime. Now,
how many buddhist monks you see in vietnam protest against the ruling
communist party? If you count, the number is not larger than ten of your
fingers. Did the buddhist church support these monks? No, if they do they
would gathering thousands to go make noise in Hanoi. Did the ruling
communist party machinegun these monks just like Diem did? No, and chances
are they would never do that.

Moreover, look at how silly it is to see vietnamese oversea fight for
democracy and human rights in vietnam. Someone in this forum said iraq has
112 billion barrels of oil and it willl take more than 350 years to pump all
of these oil. Even if it takes that long to pump all the oil, but
eventually the oil will run out. However, the way vietnamese oversea fight
for democracy in vietnam will take forever, and won't have any result. What
can vietnamese oversea accomplish by staging huge protest to take down a
communist flag at this or that u.s school, or prevent this or that man from
display a picture or exhibition of Ho Chi Minh? Or sponsoring human rights
bills in washington D.C so cut off u.s aids to vietnam and imposing
sanctions. Chances are these things will back fire at vietnamese oversea
because the population inside vietnam will see that their oversea brothers
are working against them, and these human rights bills will fail anyway
because of the U.S's determination of have military to military relations
with vietnam.

"Democracy, human rights, rule of laws, freetrade" shouting vietnamese
oversea, but do they really understand what are their meanings. Chances are
they don't. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the north vietnamese military commander
won the war not because he had a mighty army, because he had the support of
the south vietnamese peasant whom he promised that the peasant would have
land to farm their rice, and have enough to eat. Now, the Vietnamese
community has an equal chance to gain support from the peasant for their
cause of bringing democratic changes to vietnam just like general Giap did,
but they squandered it. The vietnamese oversea shouted freetrade, but where
are they when the U.S imposed unfair trade practices against the vietnamese
farmer? The U.S commerce department imposed more than 60% tarriff on
vietnamese catfish. Soon, Vietnam's shrimp and clothing sectors will be hit
and millions of vietnamese farmer will go hungry. Yet, the Vietnamese
oversea remain silence about the issue on their newspapers and radio
stations. Yet, when news came that U.S forces commited genocide agaist the
vietnamese peasant during the war or agent orange and unexploded bombs still
cause health problems and continue to kill more vietnamese peasant, the
Vietnamese oversea has yet to be vocal on such issues.

Vietnam is speeding toward a better future. However, to run a little
faster, Vietnamese in and outside of vietnam need put aside their political
differences. Instead, they should show tolerance and to reconcile with the
past. They should work TOGETHER TOGETHER TOGETHER to fulfill the economic
needs of ordirnary vietnamese peasant by unite in their cause to protest u.s
unfair trade practices against vietnam's catfish and shrimp farmer.