Vietnam (etc.) Redux

A posting I wrote to celebrate Vietnam's Liberation Day on April 30 has led to a spirited exchange of comments with a reader who seems to have majored in The Myths Of Modern History.  I have decided to bring this to a posting because some of the points I want to make deserve more light than the dark closet of commentland.

My post of April 30 was a celebration of the rights of self-determination that Vietnam won after more than a generation of, first, anti-colonial, and then civil, and finally, anti-imperialist war.  The commenter apparently doesn't like the idea of self-determination for any group with which he (?) disagrees.  He began his arguments with some bad history and when I corrected that, he has tried to shift the basis of the debate.  He suggests (a) that South Vietnam had as much right to exist as any other country; and (b) even if that was not so, I have no right to be supporting what he calls a "murderous and brutal" regime.  These points deserve a response.

With regard to South Vietnam's supposed right to exist, I would note that Vietnam is the country we are talking about and it surely has a right to exist.  The regions of South and North Vietnam were established by the Geneva settlement as nothing more than truce placeholders required to bring about a cease-fire after the French were booted.   Neither "country" was supposed to exist beyond the nationwide elections that were promised in the agreement.  The regime in the south refused to carry out that promise because they knew that Ho would win the election -- thus firmly establishing their anti-democratic credentials.   The civil war began as a direct result of the southern regime's refusal to honour the Geneva agreements.  I am not aware of any legitimate historian who disputes that.  South Vietnam's "right to exist" was based on a fraud.

Second, and more important to me, is the suggestion that I somehow support communist or socialist regimes.  No genuine reader of this site will be under any illusions that I am anything but an anarchist.  I do not support socialist or communist governments (which are in reality state capitalist enterprises) anymore than I support the faux-democracy that rules in the west (where in a mockery of "free enterprise" public money is used to support private profit).  Both sets of government are odious and anti-human in my view.  A pox on both their houses! 

As for "murderous and brutal", I would ask my sparring partner why his favoured government indulged in massive chemical warfare in southeast Asia, supported the death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala (to mention just two instances of hundreds), and currently supports -- economically and militarily -- the brutal oppression of the Uzbek people?  It sounds like he prefers selectivity over consistency.

In passing, our commenter remarks that "the 'puppet regimes' of South Korea and Taiwan are prosperous democracies, and have been for years. The same can’t be said for 'united' Vietnam." This shows that the fellow not only gets history wrong, but he can't even keep up with today's news.  Contrary to his remarks,Vietnam's economy is booming.  According to that well-known Communist mouthpiece, USA Today, Vietnam has one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. CNN agrees.  The Economist states:

Vietnam ... boasts Asia's best-performing economy. It has grown by an average of 7.4% a year over the past decade and is likely to achieve a similar figure this year. Better yet, the boom has lifted many Vietnamese out of poverty. As recently as 1993, the World Bank considered 58% of the population poor. By 2002, that had fallen to 29%.

This, of course, is in contrast to the United States where poverty continues to increase and where the divide between rich and poor widens daily.  I could go on and on about the depravities of the western capitalist system, but that's enough for today.