> >> >I asked Noam Chomsky if I had remembered correctly that he argues
> >> >that the U.S. didn't lose the Vietnam War. He responds:
> >> >
> >> >>'out, were to prevent the "virus"-"rotten apple" effect of
> >> >>successful independent development...'
> >>
> >> Now, the development of South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Malaysia,
> >> Indonesia, Hong Kong, and Singapore since 1960 has been the fastest
> >> in the world, ever. So that if U.S. policy was to stop "development"
> >> in the region, U.S. policy was a catastrophic failure. But I suppose
> >> development wasn't, in some sense, "independent"--that these
> >> countries are still clients of the United States out of which
> >> "surplus" is being pumped at a furious rate.
> >>
> >> Why should I not conclude that this is total lunacy?
> >>
> >> Brad DeLong
> >>
> >>
> >Seems to me you answered you own question. North Korea and Vietnam are
> >conspicuously absent from your list (but not the subject line). Chomskys
> >claim that preventing 'successful independent development' was the
primary
> >U.S. goal is hardly disproved by your above listing of successful U.S.
> >client states. Why should you conclude his claim is 'total lunacy'?
> >
> >John Thornton
>
> Remember: the U.S. doesn't have to intervene to prevent development
> in Vietnam or North Korea: the Stalinist development model they
> inherited does that all on its own, and does that pretty effectively.
>
> Now I understand the sense in which Honecker's and Jaruzelski's
> regimes in East German and Poland were "client states" of the Soviet
> Union. But you would have to be a real fool to think that South
> Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, et cetera
> today are "client states" of the U.S. in the same sense.
>
> Brad DeLong
Just because the U.S. doesn't run it's client states the same way the USSR did doesn't mean they're not client states. With very little exception these states do as they are told by the U.S. Independence from a U.S. led and dominated system is what Vietnam and Korea attempted and this independence is what the U.S. opposed. I don't understand your argument. Is it that Vietnam defeated the U.S. and then went on to become a country with little development while the U.S. sat by and did nothing to disrupt that development attempt? Meanwhile South Korea, Indonesia, and Taiwan underwent tremendous growth with the help of 'no strings attached' economic assistance from the U.S.? I don't want to put words in your mouth but it seems to me that is your claim.
John Thornton