“Worst thing in my life,” Kennedy said, according to later histories of the event. “He savaged me.”The next paragraph caught me up short:
"...the young president came out of the meeting — then, as now, in a time of deteriorating relations with Moscow — determined to show his toughness, someplace. “And the place to do it, he remarked to my astonishment, was Vietnam!” Mr. Reston recalled."
 | President John F. Kennedy with the Soviet leader, Nikita S. Khrushchev, in Vienna in 1961. Credit Ron Case/Keystone Press/Hulton Archive, via Getty Images This brilliant man was woefully unprepared to meet Nikita Khrushchev, and came away somewhat taken down a peg, determined to show the Soviets that he was not a weakling. He chose to do that in Vietnam, but Khrushchev felt so emboldened by the meeting he set about sending warheads to Cuba, leading us to the brink of nuclear war. No wonder Russia-watchers at the NSC are terrified. |
Reading about cheap, easy-to-assemble strong, sustainable, steel frame houses designed for the masses by Vietnamese architect Vo Trong Nghia, I mused about the status of Korea and Vietnam, both objects of US invasions in my youth.
One war ended with a no-man's land DMZ separating North and South at the height of McCarthy's red scare mania of the 50's; the other ended after years of bloody protest in the streets fueled by the Boomer generation, 25 years after US "military advisers" landed in French Indochina.
Today Vietnam, united, is a destination for both international tourists and former GI's seeking to heal their war trauma. It is not a nuclear threat.
Eisenhower de-escalated in Korea, but US policy could not progress beyond vehement anti-Communism. We have never corrected that policy position. Hence the North sees US as an existential threat.
Kennedy escalated in Vietnam, and LBJ more so. We poured blood and treasure until we were exhausted and our troops revolted against their leaders. We underestimated Ho Chi Minh, and the youth at home revolted and refused to allow troop trains to exit from the base in Oakland. LBJ could not appear in any major city for the howls of protestors; he opted not to run for another term. Nixon sabotaged the peace process to declare a win for his own election against the Democrat, Hubert Humphrey. We were defeated; we evacuated under fire. The communist North united the country and we took in 800,000 South Vietnamese refugees, our allies.
|
 |
||
 |
|
The Korean War, which ended in 1953, took the life of a childhood friend, whose father "flew the hump" supply route over the Himalayas in WWII. More than 70 years later, the North & South are still locked in deadly conflict, as the North fears US regime change, which it blocks with nuclear poker, while the South hosts the largest US overseas forces in the world.
Our only path is negotiation. Trump is incapable of understanding the basic fact that decimating the State Dept. is lethal. Tillerson is reduced to screaming that he can't hire who he wants, but Vladimir Putin is a fellow kleptocrat & friend from the Exxon Mobil days.
Putin will not feel the need to humiliate Trump anymore than he already has, and Donald seems happy to appease Vladimir & Russia. JFK understood that Russia was our strongest foe; Donald just wants to be friends and make more money with Russian kleptocrats. Capitalism, crony capitalism, will win the day.
Capitalism, crony capitalism, will win the day.
Meanwhile, in Syria, Putin is already assigning oil, gas and phosphate-mining rights to Russian kleptocratic "security" forces, with Assad's blessing, in a move reminiscent of Sir Francis Drake's pirating days. One winner is Evgeniy Prigozhin, Putin's "chef" who also manned up the troll army against Hillary Clinton in the election.
Vlad is playing three-dimensional chess. We come with a tiddlywink champion with the emotional maturity of a miscreant child.
No comments:
Post a Comment