JAMES BRADLEY, [in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam] james [at] jamesbradley.com, Skype: JamesOnSound
Bradley is author of several bestsellers focused on U.S. policy in the Pacific and Asia, including The China Mirage and The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War. He is perhaps most well known for Flags of Our Fathers.
He is currently at work on a book on the Vietnam War and is doing extensive interviews with Vietnamese soldiers who led the charge against the U.S. and who have never spoken to outside media. He said today: “The U.S. military was basically defeated by hordes of teenagers. …
“Major media are reporting that somehow Biden is going to woo Vietnam from China. This is fantasyland. Vietnam kicked the U.S. out. They don’t love China, but it’s their biggest trading partner. There are 1.4 billion Chinese right next door. Vietnam is going to do business with whomever, that’s their concern now, providing a better economic standard of living. It’s not going to grant favors to the U.S.
“Obama tried for years to woo Vietnam. He failed. Biden doesn’t have a real hand to play here. Vietnam is strong and it’s a sealed society. Unlike others in the region, the U.S. can’t bully Vietnam.
“There’s some talk about Biden pressuring Vietnam regarding ‘repression.’ There are whole villages in Vietnam of people still suffering from the Agent Orange chemical weapons the U.S. used in Vietnam, many who can’t talk. I financially adopted a Vietnamese girl who was born with no arms and no legs because of Agent Orange poisoning. Still the U.S. government won’t take responsibility for this horror show they inflicted. So, Biden might want to deal with the log in his own eye before going on about the spec in the Vietnamese eye. You can’t walk in one third of neighboring Laos because of all the U.S. munitions still there, unexploded.”