Vietnamese boat people of more than 3 decades ago now thriving, proud Canadians

It was a photo that transported my parents back to the moment of their darkest fears, that their quest for a better life would be an exercise in futility and cost them their children's lives.

The photo was of Alan Kurdi, the three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed ashore on a Turkish beach after his family tried to flee their war-ravaged past.

The Lethal Legacy of the Vietnam War

On a mild, sunny morning last November, Chuck Searcy and I drove out along a spur of the old Ho Chi Minh Trail to the former Marine base at Khe Sanh, which sits in a bowl of green mountains and coffee plantations in Vietnam’s Quang Tri province, hard on the border with Laos. The seventy-seven-day siege of Khe Sanh in early 1968, coinciding with the Tet Offensive, was the longest battle of what Vietnamese call the American War and a pivotal event in the conflict. By the off-kilter logic of Saigon and Washington, unleashing enough technology and firepower to produce a ten-to-one kill ratio was a metric of success, but the televised carnage of 1968, in which 16,592 Americans died, was too much for audiences back home. After Tet and Khe Sanh, the war was no longer America’s to win, only to avoid losing.

How Rory Kennedy’s ‘Last Days in Vietnam’ Distorts History

At the beginning of last days in vietnam, Rory Kennedy’s Oscar-nominated documentary about the chaotic final days of what the Vietnamese call the American War, an American man tears up, struggling to maintain his composure. “It was a terrible, terrible, terrible moral dilemma,” he says, choking on his words.

“Terrible” is a perfect word to describe the conflict: close to 4 million violent war deaths, about 2 million of them civilians—most of them in South Vietnam—millions more wounded, 11 million made refugees. But the former US Army officer, Stuart Herrington, wasn’t talking about anything of that sort. The dilemma in question had to do with whether a US-allied South Vietnamese army colonel should decide to abandon his post, his army and his country and flee with his family to the United States—surely a gut-wrenching personal choice, but microscopic in a war that saw suffering on an almost unimaginable scale.

Joe Biden Cautions China In Its Dispute With Vietnam

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden is conveying America's objections about China's behavior in a territorial dispute with Vietnam to the top brass of the Chinese military.

Biden met Thursday with Fang Fenghui, the military's general chief of staff. The White House says Biden told Fang the U.S. was seriously concerned about China's unilateral actions.

Biden told Fang the U.S. doesn't take a side in the territorial confrontation between the two countries over an area in the South China Sea. That's where China has triggered protests in Vietnam by deploying an oil rig in the long-disputed seas. One person has been killed, a Chinese worker in Vietnam.

But Biden says no nation should take provocative steps in the conflict that undermine stability and peace.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author:  AP  | by  By JOSH LEDERMAN

China’s state-run newspaper backs ‘non-peaceful’ steps against Vietnam

The state-run Global Times newspaper backed the use of “non-peaceful” measures against Vietnam and the Philippines on Friday, as it considered the possibility of war over territorial disputes in the strategically vital South China Sea.

“The South China Sea disputes should be settled in a peaceful manner, but that doesn’t mean China can’t resort to non-peaceful measures in the face of provocation from Vietnam and the Philippines,” the newspaper, which often takes a nationalistic tone, wrote in an editorial.

Thousands Of Chinese Evacuated From Vietnam Amid Violence

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Vietnamese authorities forcibly broke up small protests against China in two cities on Sunday, after deadly anti-China rampages over a flaring territorial dispute risked damaging the economy and spooked a state used to keeping a tight grip on its people.

In southern Ho Chi Minh City, police dragged away several demonstrators from a park in the city center. In Hanoi, authorities closed off streets and a park close to the Chinese Embassy and pushed journalists and protesters away. Police were posted outside well-known dissidents houses, preventing them from leaving, according to activists.

America's shameful history in Vietnam finally revealed

For weeks Nick Turse's new book has been rattling around in my head. Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam is not just another history book. Its implications for today are both profound and unnerving. It will haunt you every time the United States launches yet another military adventure somewhere in the world in the name of American idealism.

How to convey 260 meticulously documented, explosive pages of horror stories? On every page there's a new one, barely believable, that demands to be shared. Maybe you begin with My Lai, the scandal we still all know about, the one that has borne the burden as America's shameful bad apple in Vietnam. Until now.

“So Many People Died”: How Afghanistan and Iraq Echo Vietnam

Pham To looked great for 78 years old. (At least, that's about how old he thought he was.) His hair was thin, gray, and receding at the temples, but his eyes were lively and his physique robust—all the more remarkable given what he had lived through. I listened intently, as I had so many times before to so many similar stories, but it was still beyond my ability to comprehend. It's probably beyond yours, too.

Vietnamese still fighting for recognition of Agent Orange impact

A warning sign near Danang airport.
The sign reads: "Dioxin contamination
zone livestock, poultry and
fishery operations not permitted."            

HUE, VIETNAM—The walls of the Hope Centre, a small garment factory founded in 1999, are covered in peeling paint. The bedrooms where the workers live are basic: a handful of simple metal bed frames and a few personal possessions. The donated sewing machines are outdated.

“We get very little financial support and it is hard for us to get contracts and compete against other businesses that employ able-bodied workers,” explains Nguyen Thi Hong.

The 54-year-old founder of the centre employs disabled young people. They are, she believes, victims of the Agent Orange dumped on Vietnam’s jungles 40 years ago.

Vietnam Dispatch: The Salt Problem

hereKate Sheppard is reporting this week from Vietnam, where she's learning how the country is already adapting to climate change. To read her first dispatch—from a farm where one family is planting a new type of watermelons designed to withstand weird weather caused by global warming, click here.


The disappearing coastline is one of the most oft-cited concerns about climate change, as rising sea levels gradually chip away at the edge of our terrestrial domain. In Vietnam, that's certainly a concern, with 2,025 miles of exposed coastline. But more immediately, the rising seas are pushing salty water into freshwater sources like the mighty Mekong River.

The delta is the region of southern Vietnam were the branches of the river reach the sea. Known here as the "Nine Dragons" of the Mekong, the tributaries pass through fertile farmland before emptying into the sea. Salinity intrusion has long been a problem, but as the sea level rises, the salty waters of the South China Sea are traveling farther up the long fingers of the Mekong. The salt poses an immediate threat to much of the agriculture here: rice, coconuts, and other crops. It's also making it harder for people who live here to access freshwater for drinking, cooking, and bathing.

Vietnam Weapons Of War: Over 42,000 Killed By Leftover Mines, Bombs

HANOI, Vietnam — Vietnam's prime minister says more than 42,000 people have been killed by bombs, mines and ordnance left from the Vietnam War, and more continue to die 36 years after the war ended.

Nguyen Tan Dung told a mine action donors' conference Monday that more than 62,000 others have been wounded by accidental explosions of weapons from the war.

U.S. Ambassador David Shear told the conference that the United States has provided $62 million to help Vietnam deal with "this painful legacy."

The U.S. Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund says more than 350,000 tons of land mines and explosives remain scattered across the country.

Origin
Source: Huff