Vietnam, then and now

Do you remember the Vietnam war protests? I do...

Vietnam War protest, Hawaii AUG 1967
...well maybe not that one...a bit too young...


San Francisco end war protest, 1967 (API)
...nor that... but somewhere in there things did start to get through...


Jane Fonda, John Kerry at rally
...certainly by this next one, yes.


VVAW Rally, 1971, Cambodian and Vietnamese flags
Yes there were folks waving the flags of those we were fighting, right here in America. Strange that... took awhile to take in... then I understood! We were NOT capturing enemy territory!

Very simple! Every single war film I had ever seen at that time really did get to something like that or ending the enemy's ability to get YOURS.

And their threat to your troops.

And their threat to innocents.

That was pretty obvious, then! These people wanted the war ended because we weren't fighting to win it!

Right?

No.


Photo: Univ. of Michigan
Well, these folks wanted the US to stop fighting, and the President did that.

And South Viet Nam collapsed.


Then we started to find out what it means when US troops leave innocents to the enemy.


Photo: Suffering of Vietnamese Boat People
Do you remember the Boat People?


Photo: UNHCR via Guardian
Folks fleeing from South Vietnam and, soon, neighbors who had also been overthrown by Communism. The ones that we gave 'peace' to, by leaving? Do you remember them?


Photo: Boatpeople.org
Surely you remember these innocents left to the tender mercies of a totalitarian society?


Photo Courtesy Iowa State
We left there because many decried those that were dying due to fighting when we were there. Remember that? The US was the cause of those deaths, right?


Photo: Boatpeople.org
Apparently when we left the fighting didn't stop. Something was wrong in this 'peace' ideal.


From Davids Mediencritic,
villager remains after North Vietnamese offensive
But we left with the very BEST of intentions! To SAVE LIVES... or so they said... remember how earnest people were about it?


Photo Louisiana State University Archives
But then those were American lives. An easy point to sell, that. While those lives that would be "saved" overseas? How was *that* going to happen without those wanting 'peace' going there to 'make peace'?


End of the Hmong, Newsweek, 27 AUG 1979
If the US was the *cause* of the war and the *cause* of the conflict and the *cause* of the killing it should have STOPPED once we left. Or those who wanted 'peace' should have put their lives on the line to go and make what they sought for. No one forced these people to protest for 'peace'. And their consciences would not force them to back up their fine ideals, either.


Photo Elmhurst College Archives
Right? Say, this 'Peace' thing that all these folks marched about... how many actually went out of their way to WORK for it? Not in America... apparently ending war is not the same as creating peace.

How many of these vaunted thousands actually did 'something' that was not protesting, not dropping acid, not tuning out, not yelling, not screaming and not flipping the bird at authority?


Pa Ndau story cloth hill tribes flee Laos for Thailand, Courtesy UC Irvine
Where did all those folks for 'Peace' go?


Photo: Killing Fields, Cambodia, courtesy CNN
Didn't they care about Cambodia becoming Kampuchea? Or was this 'making peace' business that they espoused and took up just grand sloganeering? Just a cheap way to say: "Its not my war and to HELL with the those that depend upon me. I am more important than keeping faith with my Nation's commitments."


Pathet Lao revenge on the Hmong, Painting Cy Thao, Photo David Kern
Who would step up to 'make peace'? Or stop the revenge being inflicted upon the Hmong who helped the US?


Pathet Lao revenge on the Hmong, Painting Cy Thao, Photo David Kern
Apparently, actually WORKING for 'peace' was too much to expect. How easy to mouth the words against war. How hard it was to put your life on the line to go and take up the responsibility you wanted when the Nation left those that needed us. So easy to forget that when it is not your war, and you want it ended, then you are the holder of that self-same 'peace'.

Photo: Courtesy Lehigh University, Pol Pot's Killing Fields
And so the 'brave' anti-war protesters delivered up a different sort of 'peace' to those that relied upon the US to support an ally in a far off land.


Photo: History Place, Pol Pot's Genocide
Well they were, after all, foreigners. Useful as a pawn to talk about, but nothing compared to American lives as a selling point. These 'peace' protesters did give them 'peace', these people who depended upon us in a far-off land.

The 'peace' of the grave.

And today? How do those that survived in the aftermath feel?


Photo Drew Anderson, University of Texas

Electrical engineering senior Phuoc Tran hangs a former Democratic South Vietnamese flag decoration at the Socialist Republic of Vietnam flag protest on the University Center mall. President Spaniolo decided to hang the current Vietnamese flag in Nedderman Hall, and the Vietnamese Student Association wants it taken down.

Apparently a few still hold fast to what was left behind.

Demonstrators protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House, Friday, June 22, 2007, as Nguyen Minh Triet, the president of Vietnam was to meet with President Bush. The first visit of a Vietnamese president to the White House since the Vietnam War comes amid harsh criticism by U.S. lawmakers of the communist-led nation's human rights record. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
h/t: Gateway Pundit

Yes, all those lovely protesters back in the war days... used their freedom... so others could lose theirs. And their sons and daughters get to protest that loss.

Demonstrators protest in Lafayette Park across from the White House, Friday, June 22, 2007, as Nguyen Minh Triet, the president of Vietnam was to meet with President Bush. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
h/t: Gateway Pundit

That is so 'empowering', I am sure that this is *exactly* what those fine anti-war protesters of yesteryear wanted... No?


Photo Courtesy: Mark Rightmire, The Orange County Register
So where are all the 'peace' protesters today?

Hoi Pham, 73, of Westminster, says he wants freedom and democracy for Vietnam. He waves the American and former South Vietnamese flags.
(Photo: Allen J. Schaben / LAT)

For there are some that do remember what that 'peace' gave them.

So before decrying the wages of a war you see as wrong... remember the wages of an unjust 'peace' that the absence of war can bring.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

Andrew Jackson