The Great Pumpkin Pie Caper

By John E. Carey
Published in The Washington Post
November 22, 2006

I guess this story has to start with the fact that I am married into a very beautiful and loving Vietnamese family. East meets West is a daily occurrence for us. Most of our lives are blissfully happy but the cultural differences between us do sometimes make for awkward moments and strange situations.

Thanksgiving is a very special American holiday but you have to remember it is a distinctly American holiday. It is practically a holiday without reason to others.

Jesus Christ (can we still mention Him in the newspaper?) didn’t cause this holiday. In fact, if I remember correctly, Abraham Lincoln caused Thanksgiving. So just explaining Thanksgiving to my Vietnamese family takes a long time and too many words.

My sister in law once said, “And you eat a bird on this holiday? A big bird nobody wants? Why?”Don’t even try to explain cranberry sauce. “If it is so good, where is it the other 364 days?” I have no clue.

And also from my in-laws last year: “What the heck are yams and what do you do with them?”

I, of course, knew the answer “Yams are tuber, like potatoes. They grow underground and you can make pie from them!”

The response: “Not in this house.”

I have speechless moments in my family. American culture makes sense to us but to others it is sometimes mysterious.So, last year, I volunteered to prepare the entire Thanksgiving dinner. I had my bird, my stuffing, and all the trimmings. And I attempted pumpkin pie.

There is no way I am about to make a pumpkin pie from scratch. So I recalled how my Mom did it when she was running out of time. Canned pumpkin, pre-made crust, and Voila! Pie! Hot from the oven.

Except that there are two types of canned pumpkin: concentrate (which needs to be thinned with milk) and “ready to go” (which is, as it says, “ready to go.”)

I did not know this.

I bought the “ready to go” but I thought it was concentrate. I thinned it with milk.

My pies were runny.

Not just runny.

My pies were lakes of pumpkin soup.

My nephew “ate” his piece of pie by vacuuming off his plate with a straw.

Above: Lien Do shows the practical way to eat a pumpkin pie baked by her husband, John Carey, after his culinary efforts last Thanksgiving. (By Lemy Wood)

The Vietnamese are very respectful and nobody laughed. But there was too much conversation in Vietnamese at pie time so I knew I was in trouble.

But good news: one of the lasting traditions of Vietnamese life is this. On holidays, everyone takes food to their neighbors. So I suggested to my wife we take a pie across the street and palm it off on the neighbors. In the process, I explained, we’d get credit in heaven or wherever they keep track of good works for giving food to the neighbors.

I could see in my wife’s face that she didn’t want to go on this dingbat mission to give lame pie to trusting neighbors, but she is Vietnamese. Vietnamese woman will support their man. NO MATTER WHAT!

So, pie in hand and smiling all the way, we started across the street. I rang the doorbell and explained that the pie was somewhat runny, so I had frozen it, and I though his kids would appreciate a little Thanksgiving pumpkin pie from his Vietnamese-American neighbors.

He accepted the pie graciously and I was delighted.

Then he ruined my day.

Before he closed the door he said: “I am especially happy because I am the pastry chef at the White House and I never get to taste other people’s pie!”

I was ashen faced. Holey Smokes!

Three hundred million Americans and when I try to rid the household of a questionable pie the recipient turns out to be THE pastry chef at the White House.

As we headed for home, my wife said all she needed to say. Two words: “Proud now?”

A version of this essay appeared in The Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112101381.html

Sainthood for Hero of Vietnam?

September 16, 2007

Word from the Vatican in Rome today is that Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận has been discussed with and by Pope Benedict XVI as a potential candidate for sainthood.

Cardinal Van Thuan was a newly appointed Bishop of Saigon in 1975 when the communists captured the city. Along with tens of thousands of Vietnamese people he was sent to communist re-education. He spent 13 years as a prisoner of the communist prison system; ultimately saying “I needed to stay where God wanted me” and “I have no animosity toward my captors.”

After his imprisonment he was selected by the Pope to serve in the Vatican. He was received by John Paul II into the Vatican, and ran the Pontifical Council of Justice and Peace, handling issues such as Third World debt.

During the Jubilee Year 2000, the John Paul II invited him to preach the annual retreat for the Pope and the members of the Roman Curia between March 12 and 18, 2000.The Pope asked Archbishop van Thuan to speak of his experience as one who could well be called a living martyr, a witness to the Faith.

The retreat talks were part of the daily e-mail dispatches of an international news agency.

Through this retreat, the world began to know Van Thuan and to hunger for his message of hope.His talks were later published under the title of Testimony of Hope. The title is appropriate, for his talks all speak of joy and hope, even in suffering and beyond the fear of death.

Background

Van Thuan was born on April 17, 1928 at Hue, Viet Nam. Van Thuan came from a family of martyrs. From 1885 to 1888, tens of thousands of Catholics were killed by the van than militia, and among them were Van Thuan’s relatives from the village of Phu Cam. Warned of an imminent attatck, the Catholics of the village fled to their church to pray. Van than surrounded the church and set it ablaze and almost the entire community of Catholics died that night, including the family of Thuan’s grandfather. Among the survivors were Thuan’s great-grandmother, grandfather, who were not in Phu Cam that night, and one great aunt who escaped the inferno.

Cardinal Van Thuan’s mother played an important role in his formation. He said of her, “She taught me stories from the Bible every night, she told me the stories of our martyrs, especially of our ancestors; she taught me love for my country. She was the strong woman who buried her brothers massacred by traitors, whom she sincerely pardoned.”

In 1941, Thuan joined An Ninh Minor Seminary and was ordained on June 11, 1953. After six years of further studies in Rome, he was successively faculty member and rector of the Seminary of Nha Trang between the years 1959-1967.

He was appointed deputy archbishop of Saigon April 24, 1975. Within days of his appointment, Saigon fell to the communist Viet Cong and a few months later, the new bishop of Saigon was targeted for his faith as well as his family connection to Ngo Dinh Diem, the assassinated South Vietnamese president. He was jailed by the Communist government and spent 13 years in a communist ”re-education” camp, nine of them in solitary confinement.

He was never tried or sentenced. Speaking again of his mother, Van Thuan said, “When I was in prison, she was my great comfort. She said to all, ‘Pray that my son will be faithful to the Church and remain where God wants him.’”

During that time in prison, the bishop sought to console his people by smuggling out messages to his people on scraps of paper. These brief reflections, copied by hand and circulated within the Vietnamese community, have been printed in the book The Road of Hope. Another book, Prayers of Hope, contains his prayers written in prison. The bishop fashioned a tiny Bible out of scraps of paper. Sympathetic guards smuggled in a piece of wood and some wire from which he crafted a small crucifix.

Above: The last Bishop of Saigon before the communist take over in 1975, Bishop François Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan, was held in confinement for almost 13 years (9 years in solitary confinement) as a prisoner of the communist prison system; ultimately saying “I needed to stay where God wanted me” and “I have no animosity toward my captors.” He was never tried or sentenced.

How he survived the horror of that time is described in a little book Five Loaves and Two Fish, made up of talks he gave to young people. He not only survived, but emerged as a man of transparent integrity, calm serenity and joyful hope. In his book The Way of Hope, Thoughts of Light from a Prison Cell, Thuan wrote: ”In our country there is a saying: ‘A day in prison is worth a thousand autumns of freedom.’ I myself experienced this. While in prison, everyone waits for freedom, every day, every minute. We must live each day, each minute of our life as though it is the last.”

Van Thuan was freed on November 21, 1988 and forced into exile. He was received by John Paul II into the Vatican.

Van Thuan was created a cardinal deacon on February 21, 2001 and received the red biretta and deaconry of S. Maria della Scala. Within a week, Viêt Nam’s Foreign Ministry eased restrictions and the Cardinal could enter his native country with only routine immigration procedures and was afforded all the privileges normally given to overseas citizens.

Nguyen Van Thuan died of cancer on September 16, 2002 in a clinic in Rome. He was 74.

Van Thuan had appeared on lists of possible successors to Pope John Paul II, particularly by those believing the next pontiff could come from a poor, non-European country. Vietnam still has the largest Roman Catholic community in Asia after the Philippines.

The funeral took place on September 20, 2002, at 5:30 p.m., in the altar of the Confession of the Vatican basilica. Pope John Paul II presided and preached the homily, the Ultima Commendatio and the Valedictio. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, secretary of State, concelebrated the mass together with other cardinals.

The first step in the process toward sainthood would be canonization. Canonization is the act by which a Catholic Church declares a deceased person to be a saint, inscribing that person in the canon, or list, of recognized saints.

In the Roman Catholic Church, the act of canonization is now reserved to the Holy See at the vatican and occurs at the conclusion of a long process requiring extensive proof that the person proposed for canonization lived, and died, in such a way that he or she is worthy to be recognized as a saint.

See more at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguyen_Van_Thuan

http://www.nguyenvanthuan.com/main.html

Ten Rules of François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận

• I will live the present moment to the fullest.
• I will discern between God and God’s works.
• I will hold firmly to one secret: prayer.
• I will see in the Holy Eucharist my only power.
• I will have only one wisdom: the science of the Cross.
• I will remain faithful to my mission in the Church and for the Church as a witness of Jesus Christ.
• I will seek the peace the world cannot give.
• I will carry out a revolution by renewal in the Holy Spirit.
• I will speak one language and wear one uniform: Charity.
• I will have one very special love: The Blessed Virgin Mary

**

One of our favorite books by Francis Nguyễn Văn Thuận, last Bishop of Saigon before the communist take-over in 1975. He spent 13 years in a communist prison; nine of them in solitary confinement. “I prayed for my captors,” he said. He also wrote “Epistles” to his various parishes. Many of his writings, sermons and epistles were saved and can be read by us now.

Granny fights Vietnam’s culture of bribery

Feisty 88-Pounder is “Incredibly Brave”

July 5, 2007
Associated Press

HANOI, Vietnam — Most Vietnamese cower when a cop squeezes them for a bribe. Le Hien Duc, a 75-year-old grandmother, fights back.Four-foot-nine and weighing just 88 pounds, she’ll take on anyone, from lowly bureaucrats to high-level officials. She e-mails, phones, tracks them down at their offices, confronts them at their homes.

”Corruption is definitely an evil, and it is ruining my beloved country,” said Duc, a former school teacher.

Corruption is perhaps the most vulnerable spot in the country’s single-party Communist state — from the traffic cops who pull drivers over for $3 bribes to the officials accused of gambling $13 million in public money on British soccer matches.

In Vietnam, where people respect authority, few dare challenge the system. But many turn to Duc.

”Most of us tremble when we have to deal with police,” said Doan Van Hung, a delivery man. ”She is incredibly brave.”

Hung’s ordeal was typical — a policeman stopped him for speeding and threatened to seize his motorbike unless he paid a $3 bribe.

Duc tracked down the officer who harassed Hung and filed a complaint with the Hanoi chief of police. The officer was promptly demoted.

Vietnam and China: See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

By John E. Carey
OnlineOpinion.com
Australia and the World
July 3, 2007

Presidents are often accused of selective blindness. Hero of the US Civil War General U.S. Grant became President of the United States and was considered, by most men of his time including Mark Twain who published the president’s memoirs, an honorable man. Yet Grant filled his government with corrupt and crooked men who almost destroyed him.

In the last century, some leaders hailed Adolph Hitler during the 1930s for building an economic resurgence of miracle proportions in Germany. After 1945, they claimed to deny the holocaust or said that they were just following orders.

The current President of Vietnam, H.E Nguyen Minh Triet, spent last week in the United States transmitting a message of economic prosperity and growth for those that do business with Vietnam. But what he was told, by the President of the United States and several congressional leaders, was that he had to address what Amnesty International has called widespread abuse of human rights in Vietnam. “Harassment and threats against leading dissidents increased and attempts were made to ensure that they could not meet or talk with foreigners,” Amnesty International reported on May 23, 2007.
President Triet didn’t hear any of this.

More than 70 per cent of the US and western media reporters that filed stories on President Triet’s visit to the US discussed the issue of human rights in Vietnam. President Triet and his advisors did not see any of this.

We know this because in the Washington Times, President Triet spelled out his myopic vision of the future for the Vietnam and US relationship. It is a wonderful fantasy of economic wealth not unlike Adolph Hitler’s 1930s promises. It makes no mention of Vietnam’s ugly, largely unseen, repression of religious freedom, denial of free speech and free elections, near genocide of ethnic minorities such as the Hmong, and other human rights abuses like human trafficking.

The President of the United States says he mentioned these abuses to President Triet. But reading President Triet’s account of his trip to the US reveals an additional crime of selective listening.

President Hu Jintao of China suffers from the same psychiatric ailments that inflict President Triet of Vietnam.

President Hu and the rest of China have agreed to be completely oblivious to what President Bush and others in the world community call the genocide in Darfur.

There are a few small glitches, though, in President Hu’s current myopia which Peace and Freedom calls the “Blindness to Darfur” strategy. The UN condemns it. The EU condemns it. NATO condemns it. Everybody condemns it. Both the Canadian Prime Minister and the King of Sweden and his PM spoke to Hu about it in the course of ten days in June 2007. But President Hu is on a course to blow off the entire world, which he has been doing for some time. One small fly in the ointment: Hollywood stars that are starting to refer to the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics as the “Genocide Games”.

President Hu has also watched a series of interesting scandals erupt inside China during the last few months.

China has slavery hidden in the outlying regions far from the prying eyes of the western media. Children are used as slaves in mines and in brick making. Child labour is a problem too. Children were found manufacturing Beijing Olympics 2008 memorabilia. China has exported to the United States, and the world, tons of food, pet food and digestible health care products like toothpaste which are laced with poisonous substances prohibited for such uses in the west.

China has brutally subjugated Tibet. China arms terrorists via Iran. China has overtaken all other countries to become the world’s number one polluter.

The list of President Hu’s and China’s embarrassing tactics and practices is growing to become an endless condemnation of the communist system he espouses.

And the two communist regimes of President Triet’s Vietnam and President Hu’s China share many things besides economic prosperity: a lack of freedom of religion, a lack of free elections, a lack of freedom of speech and the media, and a propensity for human abuses including child labour, slavery and human trafficking.

So, like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others like those of us at Peace and Freedom, I just wanted to mention to the myopic leaders of Vietnam and China: the world will not swallow your arrogant lies forever. Human rights are meaningful and important. You cannot trash the earth and abuse your fellow man without consequences.

Even though President Triet of Vietnam and President Hu of China are partially blind; others in the world see fairly well.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6045

Mike Benge on Vietnam:
‘Big Lie’ lives in Vietnam

See also our Commentary in Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IF27Ae01.html

And in The Washington Times:
http://washingtontimes.com/article/20070622/
COMMENTARY/106220020/1012/commentary

Another War on the 4th of July 40 Years Ago

National Public Radio reporter John Ydstie had a reminder of the Vietnam War 40 years ago at 4th of July time.  That year, 11,000 American soldiers were killed, the anti-war protests incraesed, and, by early 1968 and the Tet Offensive, it looked to many on TV that the war was lost.

Listen to John’s report from the July 2, 2007 “Morning Edition” at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11650210&ft=1&f=1003

Some National Cultures More Tolerant of Death?

By John E. Carey
July 2, 2007

In any state; what is the relationship to the state and the individual and how is death viewed? Do different cultures seem to collectively deal with death differently?

After losing a friend to Taliban action in Pakistan recently, a Vitnamese friend said, “He knew the risks. He was in a war.”

Most Americans might respond in a vastly different way.

China’s huge populaion and large number of wartime casualties in World War II, Korea and other wars has perhaps numbed the leadership to death.

China has a huge incidence of accidental deaths by flooding and drowning, mine accidents and industrial accidents.

When the communists took over in Vietnam in 1975: the individual was eliminated.  It was forbidden to say “me” or “I.”  One always had to say “us.”  The collective is superior to the individual.

Communism tends to deemphasize the individual and emphasize the collective or group.  This makes the loss of one individual “more tolerated.”

One reason Americans have a low tolerance for death in war is our preoccupation with the individual. Our nation is built on the rights of the individual.  Even when you are arrested, the police “read you your rights.”

In war, we seem to ‘tolerate” death less than other cultures and certainly less than we once did. In 1967 alone in Vietnam, American lost 11,000 men.  Today the threshhold for what we will stand for is smaller.

For a moment lets look at automobile safety in three leaders in death by car accident: China, India and Vietnam.

A report from the World Health Organization in October 2004 estimated that more than 600 lives are lost and more than 45,000 people are injured on China’s roads every day. This makes China the top ranking country in the world for both the death toll and the death rate. And the figure is accelerating by an estimated 10 per cent every year.

China has more accidental deaths by car wrecks than any other nation in the world. Some 1.2 million people die every year on roads around the globe, about 20 percent of them in China and the percentage is rising.

China has a population of 1 billion 300 million.

“It was a little ironic as the overall number of vehicles in China is far smaller than that in Western countries, while the death rate from road accidents is much higher,” said Professor Wang who was quoted in the China Youth Daily earlier this year.

“According to our research, the death toll and death rate per 10,000 automobiles here is eight times more than that in America,” he said.

“The huge road toll in China is just a part of a global epidemic of road traffic accidents that accounts for the deaths of some 1.2 million men, women, and children each year,” said the WHO.

Tim Johnson covers China for McClatchy Newspapers. On June 26 he wrote a piece on automobile safety for China’s newly minted cars.

“The Brilliance BS6 sedan was hoping to enter the European market this year as a premium-style sedan. But the 40 mph crash test left damage on the automobile that the blogger described as catastrophic.

Most Europeans now won’t be caught, er, dead in one of these vehicles.

Back in 2005, China’s Jiangling Motors tried to market its Landwind SUV in Europe. But sales evaporated after the SUV failed this kind of crash test miserably.

Will China’s auto industry some day produce a safe and reliable vehicle for export? Yes. Are they ready now? No.”

India also has tremendous loss of life on its roads.

Because India has no functioning ambulance system, a victim is often taken to a nearby village hospital in an auto-rickshaw – a slow, three-wheeled taxi, known affectionately as a tuk-tuk, for the spluttering noise made by its engine.

International Herald tribune reporter Amelia Gentleman wrote in an article on April 12, 2007, “Anyone traveling on India’s highways soon becomes familiar with the sight of crumpled, upturned trucks abandoned by the roadside. These accidents are a routine feature of modern life, as car sales soar and India’s roads become more perilous.”

Last year around 95,000 people died on the roads in India, ranking India currently second only to China in terms of annual fatalities. Safety experts predict that because China has begun to introduce effective measures to reduce its traffic casualties, India will this year overtake it to occupy first place.

Vietnam reports one of the world’s highest road death tolls, with 33 fatalities a day, resulting in more than 12,300 victims last year, according to the National Traffic Safety Committee.

Vietnam has a population of 85 million.

There are about 18 million registered motorbikes on the streets of Vietnam. “Vietnam needs to make helmet use mandatory on all roads and effectively enforce it,” said Hans Troedsson, WHO director in Vietnam, considering it one of the most significant measures to reduce human loss and head injuries.

About 40 percent of the country’s total severe road traffic crashes have been caused by youths aged between 15 and 24, who account for 20 percent of the population, he added.

“Traffic accidents in Vietnam have reached epidemic proportions,” said Troedsson.“Road safety is not just a public health issue, but an economic and social issue,” he said, citing an Asian Development Bank estimate that 885 million dollars is lost from Vietnam’s economy every year because of traffic accidents.

I am proud to say that one of America’s cultural strengths is  to the individual — and individual human rights.  From “Go west young man” until now, we Americans value human life and the individial very deeply.

Good to remember this on the 4th of July.

RELATED:
War’s Necessary Sacrifices

China Fighting Many Serious Scandals

–China has stonewalled the world on the genocide of Darfur
–Today China admitted it had a problem with doctors harvesting human organs from the mentally ill and prisoners (who die) and then selling them for transplants
–China has an ongoing slavery scandal
–China admitted it widely used child labor in violation of international norms
–Many of China’s “normal” practices have been condemned by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
–The U.S. FDA banned all imports of Chinese seafood due to unsafe practices.
–China imported poisoned toothpaste and other products to the U.S. and other nations
–China has the worst record on earth for automobile safety, mine safety and industrial safety
–China is the world’s largest polluter and emitter of greenhouse gasesThere’s more to write on China but not enough room here!

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OUR FORMER ALLIES FACE A TROUBLED FUTURE

Scott Johnson
Soldier of Fortune Magazine 
Sunday, July 1, 2007

U.S. Special Forces considered the Montagnard hill tribes one of America’s most loyal allies during the Vietnam War. Today, these indigenous people suffer brutal persecution in Vietnam, creating a difficult situation for U.S./Vietnam relations.

It is unanimous among Special Forces veterans that the Montagnards were not only loyal allies to the United States during the War, but they were also some of the best combat forces in Vietnam. Retired SF Major Jim Morris, with three tours in Vietnam, describes the Montagnards as “tigers” who were essential in staving off communist influence in the Central Highlands. He states, “They fought for America and wanted what we had.” The Montagnards however, would not get “what we had” – freedom, democracy or the right to exist without fear of persecution. After taking over South Vietnam in 1975, the communists would launch a vendetta against these people that looks like nothing short of genocide.

Through deliberate acts of persecution, economic mismanagement and corruption, the communists in Hanoi have brutally repressed one of the world’s oldest indigenous people for decades. The years of land confiscation, Christian religious persecution and brutality, including killings and torture, have today taken a deadly toll on the Montagnards. The war itself had been devastating enough and atrocities such as the mass murder of more than 500 Montagnards in 1967 at Dak Son should have been a warning to the world of what was to come. Unfortunately, the mass media took little notice of how hundreds of Montagnard women and children were butchered by the communists with flamethrowers.

The powers to be claim that “economic engagement” is the answer to modernizing Vietnam, yet Vietnam to date has fiercely resisted human rights reforms. Since gaining accession to the WTO last year and receiving normalized trade relations with the U.S., Vietnam has reneged on its promises of reform and instead launched a brutal crackdown on dissidents and the Montagnard population.

In the Central Highlands, Montagnard house-church Christians are arrested, tortured, even killed by security forces while calls for the U.S. State Department to reinstate Vietnam on the “watch list” of nations that are the most egregious violators of religious freedom, have gone unheeded.

In May, several hundred Montagnard exiles, members of the Montagnard Foundation, converged outside the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington, D.C., calling on Hanoi to cease the persecution of their people. The demonstrators were also calling on the United States to remember them, their former allies, in their diplomatic dealings with Hanoi. It remains unclear how seriously their calls were taken.

Today more than 350 Montagnards remain in Vietnamese prisons and the Montagnard population faces a dubious future as “economic engagement” plays out in Washington and Hanoi. The future is uncertain for the Montagnard race and although economic change is occurring in Vietnam, political changes, namely human rights and religious reform, remain stagnated in communist authoritarian rule. Unfortunately for the Montagnards, the Vietnam War never ended.

U.S. military documents indicate that at any one time during the Vietnam War approximately 40,000 Montagnards were serving with the U.S. military, while during the decades-long war an estimated 100,000 Montagnards had served in various capacities with the U.S. By the end of war in 1975, it was estimated that more than 200,000 Montagnards, roughly one-quarter of their population, had perished.

For more information on the Montagnards, visit: http://www.montagnard-foundation.org

The opinions expressed above do not necessarily represent the views of Soldier of Fortune.

‘Big Lie’ lives in Vietnam

Communist Vietnam’s “President” Nguyen Minh Triet’s viscid propaganda op-ed piece, “Vietnam and America common interests and values” (The Washington Times, Page A-17, June 25) showed a lack of creativity: It is almost word-for-word his full-page ad on Page A-19 of the June 21 edition of The Washington Post, “A Letter from President Nguyen Minh Triet of Vietnam.”

Thomas Jefferson would roll over in his grave knowing Ho Chi Minh used his immortal words from the Declaration of Independence of the United States — “All men are created equal; they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” — as the opening for the Vietnamese communist’s Declaration of Independence. This is the same Vietnamese communist regime responsible for the murder of more than 1 million Vietnamese. 

Although Jefferson’s immortal words may be in Vietnam’s Declaration of Independence, there they are but hollow words. Vietnam tolerates no challenges to its communist one-party rule. Extrajudicial killings continue, and in a recent spate of repression, “the worst in 20 years,” the regime locked up and sent to prison more than 20 religious freedom, democracy and human-rights activists, while tightening its grip on the media and enforcing strict Internet restrictions.

Religious leaders and followers across the spectrum, Buddhists, Christians and believers of other faiths are continually harassed and arrested. More than 350 Christian Montagnard political prisoners remain incarcerated.

To Jefferson, being a president meant becoming so through free and fair elections by the populace, not by appointment as one by the Communist Party comprised of only 4 percent of Vietnam’s population as Mr. Triet was. One U.S. congressman said, “Since Triet was not elected in a free election, he shouldn’t be called president. … Rather he is more comparable to a godfather … of a repressive and deadly regime.”

In his article, Mr. Triet wrote, “Bilateral ties are built on the two countries’ common interests and concerns: commerce, culture, science and technology, education, regional peace and stability, the fight against terrorism.” However, the Vietnamese communist regime’s terrorism against its own people is not in the United States’ “common interests,” and it has done little to stop the trafficking in women and children for prostitution.

At their White House meeting on June 22, President Bush told Mr. Triet, “In order for relations to grow deeper, it’s important for our friends to have a strong commitment to human rights and freedom and democracy.” Mr. Triet rebuked Mr. Bush afterward in an AP interview saying his country does not need to improve its human-rights record. “It’s not a question of improving or not. … Vietnam has its own legal framework, and those who violate the law will be handled.” Mr. Triet’s so-called lawbreakers include, but are not limited to, religious leaders and adherents of all faiths, human rights and democracy advocates, labor lawyers, and ethnic minorities.

Rather than to Jeffersonian principles, Mr. Triet adheres to Joseph Goebbels’ “Big Lie” postulate — people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it often enough people will sooner or later believe it 

The Vietnamese regime’s creator was not God as Jefferson wrote, but Ho Chi Minh. Far from being Jeffersonian, Mr. Triet and his repressive band do not practice what they preach in their Declaration of Independence.

Rather than “all men are created equal, Triet’s regime is closer to George Orwell’s satirical allegories of communism in “Animal Farm” where some are more equal than others.

MIKE BENGE
Published in The Washington Times
July 1, 2007

Mike is an advocate for human rights and religious freedom in South East Asia.  We are proud to call him a friend.

Iraq and Vietnam?

WASHINGTON, June 26 (UPI) — Substituting the word “Iraq” for “Vietnam” in the text of a declassified 1967 CIA memo shows “eerie parallels” between the two conflicts.

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger gives a speech at a ceremony marking the 20th anniversary of the Center for Chinese and American Studies by Nanjing University and Johns Hopkins University in Nanjing, east China’s Jiangsu province June 23, 2007. China-US relations are important to world peace, Kissinger said in Nanjing on Saturday, Xinhua News Agency reported. Picture taken June 23, 2007. REUTERS/China Daily (CHINA)
*********************Former senior U.S. national security official Kurt Campbell and an associate at the centrist Washington think tank where he now works, the Center for a New American Security, have penned a piece for the new issue of Foreign Policy magazine.The Sept. 11, 1967, memo — titled “Implications of an Unfavorable Outcome in Vietnam” — was requested by CIA Director Richard Helms and “detailed a lengthy list of potential dark outcomes and worrisome prospects” of U.S. failure in Vietnam, says the article.The authors list several ways in which the 1967 memo foreshadows current fears about U.S. failure in Iraq.

– A geopolitical rival would exploit perceived American weakness as a result of failure (then: Russia; now: Iran).

– Other groups in the global insurgency facing U.S. forces, emboldened by success, would rise up elsewhere (then: communists; now: Islamic extremists).

– Regional allies would lose faith in U.S. ability to support and protect them (then: Southeast Asia; now: the Middle East).

– The United States would be seen as unable to militarily crush a guerrilla force that was sufficiently large, dedicated, competent, and well-supported (then: Viet Cong; now: Iraqi insurgents).

“In considering the Iraq war’s endgame,” the authors conclude, “the U.S. government would be wise to review its own notes.”

 

Communists Leadership in Vietnam Tone Deaf

By John E Carey
For Asia Times
(Our Thanks To Shawn Crispin)

WASHINGTON – Despite landing new agreements on trade and investment, Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet’s landmark official visit to the United States, the first by a Vietnamese head of state since the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, ended on a sour note and raises new questions about the direction of the relationship.

US President George W Bush, who visited Vietnam last year when Hanoi hosted an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

meeting, last Friday met privately with Triet at the White House. The two leaders later spoke to the international media sitting side by side in an informal discussion at the Oval Office.

Bush told reporters they discussed the tremendous economic opportunities closer bilateral cooperation has and would continue to bring to the two nations. Annual trade and cooperation between the US and Vietnam is now estimated at about US$1 billion, and big US corporations have recently made major investments in the Southeast Asian country’s manufacturing sector.

But Bush also significantly broke from the conciliatory script and publicly upbraided Triet over his government’s rights record.

“I also made it very clear that, in order for relations to grow deeper, that it’s important for our friends to have a strong commitment to human rights and freedom and democracy,” Bush said, with Triet directly at his side. “I explained my strong belief that societies are enriched when people are allowed to express themselves freely or worship freely.”

During his week-long visit, Triet also met with congressional leaders from both political parties on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers in the meeting said he was repeatedly taken to task over recent claims by rights groups that Triet’s government has increased repression of pro-democracy activists and religious leaders, some of whom have been sentenced to long prison terms on assorted anti-state charges.

Commenting on the talks afterward to reporters, Republican Congressman Ed Royce, who had attended the meeting, said human rights had been “overwhelmingly the dominant issue” of the session.

“We’ve got to see a stop to this conduct if this relationship is going to improve,” he said, adding that Triet answered questions but was “very evasive” during the meeting.

Earlier, the US had predicated trade concessions, including support for Vietnam’s membership bid to the World Trade Organization, which Hanoi achieved this January, on a demonstrable improvement on its abysmal rights record. Members of Congress had called on Bush to push Triet to end what they perceive to be widespread state-sponsored human-rights abuses, and that seems to be what finally happened on Friday.

Predictably, Triet defended his government’s position to reporters before and after the White House meeting. He said he had a “direct and open exchange” on human rights with Bush, but offered no indication that he might change his government’s policies or practices as a result of the discussion.

“It’s not a question of improving or not,” Triet said in an interview with the Associated Press, hours after meeting with Bush. “Vietnam has its own legal framework, and those who violate the law will be dealt with. The Vietnamese laws could not be 100% the same as US laws, due to the different historical backgrounds and conditions. There is a different understanding on this issue,” he said through an interpreter.

The US media that covered his trip saw it differently, however. A quantitative news analysis of media coverage of Triet’s visit showed that fully 70% of news outlets highlighted the human-rights issue. In Vietnamese media, however, the topic was almost entirely overlooked and the new trade and investment pact led the headlines.

Triet insisted that differences on the rights issue would not adversely affect the two countries’ “larger interests”. But it’s no doubt significant that Bush made his public comments on such a high-profile occasion. The Washington Times in its news coverage reported that Bush “chided” Triet for Vietnam’s human-rights record, religious repression and lack of democracy.

On Monday, the same publication ran an extraordinary commentary written by Triet in what could be interpreted as a mild official rebuke of Bush’s earlier comments to reporters. Notably, the essay did not once mention human rights.

“Known as a new rising star in Asia, Vietnam offers an attractive business and investment environment, driven by a youthful and friendly population who are exceedingly optimistic about the future,” Triet wrote. “In the international arena, Vietnam is showing itself more and more to be a responsive and reliable partner. And I know that a stable and prosperous Vietnam is also the wish of the American government and people.”

In its entirety, the article reads more like a lecture to schoolchildren than a proper op-ed piece and underscores clearly his hope that bilateral trade and investment issues will, as before, continue to trump Washington’s concerns about his government’s poor democratic and human-rights records.

Triet wrote that “bilateral ties are built on the two countries’ common interests and concerns: commerce, culture, science and technology, education, regional peace and stability, the fight against terrorism, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, humanitarian assistance to combat HIV/AIDS, avian influenza, and the lingering wounds of war”. He added: “For Vietnam, the United States is always a key partner, and Vietnam’s commitment to multifaceted cooperation with the United States is sincere and steadfast.”

Only time will tell what really happened behind closed doors in Washington last week, but Bush’s and Triet’s mild spat in the media indicates the bilateral relationship could be in for rocky time ahead, particularly if Bush was serious about prioritizing democracy and human rights on par with economic matters in his government’s official dealings with Vietnam’s communist rulers.

John E Carey is the former president of International Defense Consultants, Inc. He writes frequently on international issues from Washington, DC. His daily weblog is Peace and Freedom.

To read the rest go to:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IF27Ae0
1.html

Above: Communist Vietnam’s proven method of silencing a prisoner.  Father Nguyen Van Ly just before he was removed
from court.  He had no representation at his own trial in Vietnam.