Saigon

Tragic First Year Foreign Policy Nothing New In American Presidency!

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The tragic events in Afghanistan continue a tradition that in most Presidencies, first year, there are events which affect the historic role of Presidents in American history.

We have the Bay of Pigs Fiasco (Cuba) in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy.

We have the conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam, and the sudden tragic exit from the embassy in Saigon in 1975 under President Gerald Ford.

We have the attack on the World Trade Center, and the tragic exit from terrorism in Somalia in 1993 under President Bill Clinton.

We have the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon under President George W. Bush.

And now we have the horrifying situation in Kabul, Afghanistan going on under President Joe Biden, similar in many ways to the exit from Vietnam in 1975.

A Massive Loss Of Quality Journalism In Just Two Days: Brian Williams, Jon Stewart, Bob Simon!

Ronald 3 Comments

American journalism has suffered a tremendous loss in just two days—the six month suspension of Brian Williams from NBC News; the announcement that Jon Stewart, the brilliant anchor of the Daily Show on Comedy Channel is leaving later this year; and the tragic death of Bob Simon of CBS News and Sixty Minutes in an automobile accident.

In a time when quality journalism is hard to find, and we have so many ignorant, stupid, biased so called “journalists” on Fox News Channel who lie on a regular basis, it is tragic that Brian Williams, a good guy, well liked by many, has been dealt a six month suspension without pay, and yet based on so far only one confirmed blunder.

It is also sad that Jon Stewart, the best comedian in the business, is leaving his path breaking show that was the major way most young people received their news of the day, and Stewart was brilliant in exposing the hypocrisy of politicians on an everyday basis for 16 plus years.

And worst of all is the tragic death of Bob Simon, a true professional, who worked for CBS for nearly 50 years, and was always highly admired for his vast experiences in news gathering. He survived captivity in the Gulf War, the fall of Saigon, and Middle East conflict, to end up dying in an accident on the West Side Highway in New York City.

All three will, of course, be trashed by the right wing, because all three were liberals, who really cared about people and would not be afraid to expose the truth about what was going on in the nation and overseas.

But no attacks by anyone at Fox News Channel in particular, and conservative talk radio as well, will take away from the reality that these are a few of the very small number of quality journalists still working, at a time when propaganda, hate, and deception are the norm much too often!

40 Years Since End Of US Involvement In Vietnam

Ronald 6 Comments

40 years ago today, after what was then the longest war in American history, the United States finally withdrew its armed forces from South Vietnam, after the Paris Peace Accords signed in January of 1973.

58,000 Americans had been killed in a war propping up a corrupt regime under different Vietnamese generals, a war that could have been ended in the first year of the Richard Nixon Presidency, but he was not going to be the President under whom we lost a war.

Instead, sadly, it was lost two years later, during the administration of Gerald Ford, when North Vietnam broke the agreement, and attacked and took over South Vietnam at the end of April 1975, unifying the nation under the Communist government that would now be known as the “People’s Republic” of Vietnam, with Saigon, the old South Vietnamese capital, being renamed Ho Chi Minh City.

America would normalize relations with Vietnam in 1995, and we have trade and normal diplomatic relations with our former adversary now, but the memory of the loss of those 58,000 still haunts survivors of that conflict, and the families who still mourn their sacrifice, and the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, DC, is our monument of respect to their commitment to our nation!