And Hussein's coin of the velvet phrase and unchallenged claim has become cheap filthy lucre that has been devalued and debased by himself. He has no foundation and like a bubble structure designed to remain upright by air pressure, his loss of credibility has caused it to collapse.
Some say it was the lies he told about his Preacher. Others say it was the fake fainting in the audience. Others maintain that it was that people finally started asking what Hussein was "hoping" for, and if we "can," fine. But what does that mean?
I believe it has been the commonsense and the collective memories of the people in their early 50's, and older, remembering that you can't "talk" with some enemies, and who remain embarrassed even today. It has been 33 years since the feckless anti-war Left Wing Demos insured that Communist North Vietnam would have South Vietnam so the group memory is fading.
But some of us have not forgotten.
At least 65,000 Vietnamese were murdered or shot after "liberation" – the equivalent in terms of Vietnam's population at the time, of killing three-quarters of a million people in today's U.S. The new communist regime ordered somewhere between one- third to one-half of South Vietnam's population to pass through its "re-education" camps, where perhaps as many as 250,000 died of disease, starvation, or were worked to death (the last inmates were not released until 1986).
That number does not include the thousands of "boat people" who tried to flee the totalitarian nightmare of communist Vietnam, and perished at sea.
Cambodia's fate was even worse. At least one and a half million innocent Cambodians were butchered or starved to death in the Khmer Rouge's killing fields and re-education camps, put to death by a fanatical regime that believed that anyone who wore eyeglasses must have "bourgeois intellectual tendencies" and be shot.
That was what the "future" meant 33 years ago. The dumb witted Demos had plenty of "hope." And yes, they "did." They gave away South Vietnam to killers.
What they didn't have was common sense and balls.
So when Hussein ducks and weaves, ask him what "hope" means. What it is that "we can" do. And is his legacy going to be winning the war on terror, or 2,000,000 dead Americans as a tribute to his arrogant over estimation of his own abilities?
On November 21st, 1963, President Kennedy visited Houston. He met with a number of people, including the diplomatic corps. I was there because my husband was British Vice-Consul. Diplomats always know the inside politics of a country before the regular citizens of that country. We didn't know all the details but we were aware that, on Nov.1st, a coup had been prepared in South Vietnam with the help of the CIA, and that Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother had been assassinated. Maybe they were cruel tyrants but Vice-President Johnson had called Diem, "the Winston Churchill of Asia" in public; in private, "the best of a bad lot."
ReplyDeleteI've always wondered, when JFK was assassinated the next day in Dallas, if RFK, LBJ and the CIA thought of Diem, who had been promised a safe exile.
In my mind and heart, this was the first betrayal of South Vietnam. From that moment on, the war was lost. I've been so deeply saddened by all the losses, and for the American soldiers involved in that badly-led, impossible, long war.
When I hear the Democratic candidates talking of less fighting in Iraq, more involvement in Afghanistan, I worry that they'll repeat the mistakes of the past. I know so little. Except this: a war should not be left until the job is done. To go from Iraq now would betray the sacrifices done so far.I just wish other countries would help USA. We're all in danger of terrorism, aren't we? Everyday...
Take care.