America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests. Henry Kissinger
When he was in Vietnam a couple of days ago, President Barrack Obama announced that the U.S. has fully lifted its arms embargo on that country. 41 years after the end of the Vietnam War – using the fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975 as the end date – we are going to sell weapons to the country that killed over 58,000 thousand American servicemen.
That is one of the things we do very well, make and sell weapons to kill people. We do it officially as in selling Harpoon Anti-Ship Missiles to Egypt for $143 million, or advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles to Indonesia, and unofficially to our own people. Jimmy Carter, who we all consider a moral anchor, even sealed the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty by selling military equipment to both of them.
Over 2 million people died in the US/Vietnam War and, in the end, it changed nothing. We tell ourselves that we are a force for good in this world but, increasingly, I don’t think so. According to Henry Kissinger – whom [Gail?], during the first or second debate Hillary said is one of her mentors, morality should not be part of the equation. It makes me sad.
Nope… Not me.
Ahh, I meant “is that the right form of ‘who’?”
Another thing we [collectively] seem to do very well is deny history; wasn’t there a war in Vietnam [the “American War” they call it over there] once upon a time wherein we, the Americans, were piling weapons [and our own humans] into Vietnam [South Vietnam] as a buffer against Chinese Communism? That one didn’t work out very well…so fifty years later we’re sending weapons to Vietnam as a buffer against Chinese Capitalism, or something.
Shit, I’m pretty sure we even sold weapons to China, to help contain Russia (or something).