On Mon, 08 Jan 2007 14:49:27 -0500, Peter Skelton
wrote:

On Sun, 07 Jan 2007 22:37:42 GMT, Jack
wrote:

Peter Skelton wrote:

...South East Asia was not going
to collapse like a pile of dominos....

You knew that then, I suppose?

SE Asia did not collapse when China fell, the dictatorships we
supported were not democracies. The Viet Nam war came from the
1956 decision not to hold elections because Uncle Ho would have
won.

It should go without saying that condensing forty or fifty years of
history dealing with complex international relationships, not just
between one or two countries but between forty or fifty into a single
short paragraph will inevitably be WRONG.

SE Asia did not collapse when China fell. But that wasn't what Kennan
was talking about when he recommended to Truman that he establish a
series of alliances globally to contain (not confront) the spread of
Communism. And, it doesn't relate to Dulles' pronouncement of the
Domino metaphor.

The war came from the recruitment and training in the Comintern of Ho
Chi Minh. His resistance of the French colonials led to partition by
the Geneva Accords of 1954. Support of insurgents in the South by Ho's
movement led to instability which reasonably led to the conclusion
that holding elections might not be very workable or result in a
government that would meet US policy goals.

Let's be sure to note that from 1954 until late in the '60s there were
several rounds of elections held in SVN. (And to be fair, lets also
note that culturally the SVN people were about as ready for
Jeffersonian democracy as the Shia' and Sunnis.)

The argument was spurious.

I think you mean specious. Of course it does appear to be
extemporaneous and thence somewhat spurious. It's definitely
suspicious, but not too precocious.

Peter Skelton

Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
www.thunderchief.org
www.thundertales.blogspot.com