Re: Digest for vietnam-old-hacks@googlegroups.com - 3 updates in 3 topics

[Dawson]

Carl Robinson <robinso...@gmail.com>: Jul 28 04:51PM +1000 Hi everyone. I thought you might be interested in this piece i've written for my Substack on that war that's got all the 'experts' talking and media gearing up for the next war on China's soft-underbelly.

Could be just me, but I thought that a piece on this shenanigan could have done with a lack of carrying in the Bad Orange Man. There is one hella lot to the past week of little battles and flechette-artillery. Not even mentioning the rich one-eyed survivor of the Pol Pot era... not sure how you discuss the tiny "war" without mentioning him, but requiring the Donald.

I also think you missed and even misreported an extremely serious but directly related matter -- it's not the Vietnamese who hate Cambodians, it is exactly the opposite. That's why in 1970 you could literally walk across the Bassac on the backs of the thousands or tens of thousands of floating dead Vietnamese bodies. The CIA didn't kill them, that's for damned sure. Rich and privileged Cambodians definitely hate Vietnamese and to a slightly less visceral attitude, the Siamese. This alleged "war" of which you write had nothing to do with China or Vietnam -- or ASEAN -- but was engineered to humble and embarrass Thailand by that Pol Pot loyalist Hun Sen -- and it's historically wise to recall how he got to be the world's youngest foreign minister and then the "strongman" of the long-forgotten Khmer, because he was smart enough to realize that he was next on the Khmer Rouge hit list and lit out for Vietnam, which put him where he is today -- and neither the CIA nor even the most evil orange-haired person in world history were involved.

The Donald now is taking credit for Gunboat Diplomacy Without Gunboats that made Thailand and Hun & Son Inc. stop this particular round of shooting in their stupid Hundred Year War. Well, you can judge that, but it's bloody vital to recognize that ASEAN didn't stop them and Vietnam didn't stop them and China worked behind the scene to pump up its own trade-and-tariff business while Cambodians and Thais died -- without trying to stop them.

Incidentally, there is such a thing as the Chakri Dynasty, but that is only because the Chakrabongse man [i.e. not Chakri] who was to be king after Chulalongkorn (Rama V) was killed by the Spanish flu -- which is why the Chakri went into chaos until Rama IX in 1946.

73