Wasn't it Henry Ford who said that?
I dunno, but whoever it was was pretty smart!
Paul, what the heck were you doing in Afghanistan for 7 months?
When I was in Vietnam, I made an effort to learn a little of the language and culture of the country, something that none of my peers bothered to do. I had an apartment in Saigon for a while and saw some things out my window that were amazing and disturbing at the same time.
I made it a point to learn a little about the history of the country while I was there and after I returned. What I found out shocked me.
In brief, the country had been conquered more times than Ireland. Like many Asian people in that area of the world, they had been mauled by the Chinese, the Japanese, the Siamese and everyone but the Dalai Lama for thousands of years. Prior to WW II, they were a French colony, primarily because of the latex that Michelin extracted from their plantations there. Like all peoples who live under colonial rule, the locals chafed at the French hegemony over their country. Among the upper classes, every child with an IQ of 70 or higher was sent to Paris for their education. The parts of Saigon that I saw that had not been destroyed were very European in architecture. Indeed. Saigon was often referred to as The Paris of the Orient.
Anyhoo, after WW II, Truman told the Allies to forget about reclaiming their overseas colonies. It was official American policy to forbid recolonization. Ho Chi Minh was a fervent nationalist who prayed that the French would not return, so that his country could go forward without colonial masters. But.....a funny thing happened on the way to the Forum, as they say. The world descended into the so-called Cold War era. America has always been Euro-centric and fairly racist when it comes to its view of Asians. Under Eisenhower, the idea of NATO was born, but Charles DeGaulle was having none of it. In his mind, France had won the war (sort of) and France would now be the leader in Europe, not the upstart and not too bright Americans. An impasse occurred because without France, NATO was dead on arrival. Without NATO, there was no force to counter Russian influence in Eastern Europe.
And so, Eisenhower caved to French pressure and the French were the only country allowed to reclaim their colony in Vietnam. The rest, as they say, is history.
But there is a side note. While all this was going on, Ho Chi Minh contacted US authorities to make his case for an independent country. The bureaucracy in the State Department vetted him and learned to their horror that Ho had been a member of the Communist Party while at university in Paris in the 20's.
Well, duh. EVERYONE in Paris in the 20's was a member of the Communist Party!
Including Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott FitzGerald and all the other ex-pats living there. Paris was SEETHING with Communist sympathies at that time.
But with the anti-communist feeliing gripping the US, Ho's goose was cooked and America turned a deaf ear to his plea. At the time (early 50's), there were three people in America who were conversant with the language and culture of Vietnam. None was consulted.
My old high school history teacher always said "The gates of history turn on tiny hinges." And then she would tell us the story about how the chauffeur for Arch Duke Ferdinand got lost in Sarajevo one day, which meant that they literally bumped into his assassin, who was late and hurrying to get to where Ferdinand was SUPPOSED to be!
I think history is fascinating, primarily because it so often reveals human nature in all its stupidity, treachery and cupidity.
We could learn a lot from history. If only we wanted to.........
