Forty
years ago this April, our nation lost the Vietnam War – a war that
America could easily have won, and should have. South Vietnam had been
invaded by North Vietnam, although the conflict was portrayed by
communist apologists as a “civil war.” The Viet Cong did fight, but the
primary enemy of the South Vietnam was North Vietnam.
The SEATO alliance pledged France, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and America to come to the aid of South Vietnam if that nation was attacked by another nation. The moral obligation of France, the colonial power that held Southeast Asia, and Britain, which held Malaya, was greater than our obligation. We had, after all, granted independence to our only possession in Asia, the Philippines, before Pearl Harbor.
North Vietnam was not just an aggressor, but a particularly brutal aggressor and a particularly evil regime. The conduct of the war by the communists in South Vietnam was calculated and sadistic terrorism, particularly focusing on threats to members of the family or the local village, who had no political views at all. Children, for example, were tortured and maimed if their parents opposed the communists.
The SEATO alliance pledged France, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, Pakistan and America to come to the aid of South Vietnam if that nation was attacked by another nation. The moral obligation of France, the colonial power that held Southeast Asia, and Britain, which held Malaya, was greater than our obligation. We had, after all, granted independence to our only possession in Asia, the Philippines, before Pearl Harbor.
North Vietnam was not just an aggressor, but a particularly brutal aggressor and a particularly evil regime. The conduct of the war by the communists in South Vietnam was calculated and sadistic terrorism, particularly focusing on threats to members of the family or the local village, who had no political views at all. Children, for example, were tortured and maimed if their parents opposed the communists.
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