[lbo-talk] Majority Of Republicans Think Obama Didn't

[James Heartfield]

SA writes 'we're supposed to believe that US foreign policy was a machine that could no more tolerate a small country like Vietnam "withdrawing from the capitalist world system" than a PC can run Mac OSX. But in real life the people who debated foreign policy at high levels almost never talked about that stuff' and 'one argument never heard was: "Are you crazy? How will we defend the capitalist system if a small country is allowed to create a model of successful autonomous socialist development?" '

This is what Kennedy said in June 1965:

'Vietnam represents the cornerstone of the Free World in Southeast Asia, the Keystone to the arch, the finger in the dike. Burma, Thailand, India, Japan, the Philippines and, obviously, Laos and Cambodia are among those whose security would be threatened if the red tide of Communism overflowed into Vietnam' 

'Moreover, the independence of Free Vietnam is crucial to the free world in fields other than the military. Her economy is essential to the economy of all Southeast Asia; and her political liberty is an inspiration to those seeking to obtain or maintain their liberty in all parts of Asia - and indeed the world. The fundamental tenets of this nation's foreign policy, in short, depend in considerable measure upon a strong and free Vietnamese nation.'

On 26 September 'So all those who suggest we withdraw, I could not disagree with them more ... If the United States were to falter, the whole world, in my opinion, would inevitably begin to move towards the Communist bloc.'