Miss Universe in Vietnam -- Isn't That Wild?

Anybody who was alive and sentient during the Vietnam War had to do at least one double-take during Sunday night's NBC telecast of the Miss Universe Pageant. For one thing, the show originated live from Ho Chi Minh City, the former Saigon. The last time I think a prime time NBC show originated anywhere in Vietnam, it was a Bob Hope special, he was entertaining the troops on some base -- Da Nang, Cam Ranh Bay? -- asking them "how 'bout that Raquel Welch, isn't she wild?" -- and it certainly wasn't live.

Nor was it hosted, as Sunday night's program was, by Jerry Springer and Mel B (Scary Spice). Nor was it co-sponsored by ritzy golf resorts in Vietnam, nor executive-produced by none other than (Miss Universe Pageant owner) Donald Trump).

This must have been what John McCain and John Kerry had in mind when they advocated normalized relations with the former enemy. This, in 2008, is what passes for normal: a glitzy beauty pageant at a clone of a Florida resort hotel, staged at 8 a.m. local time for the benefit of prime time half a world away.

And this is what we're fighting for in Iraq right now, the ability for Donald Trump Jr. to stage a Miss Universe evening in Basra in 2042. Go for it, dude.

Comments

[Fudgefase]

I was just a kid at the time, but even I remember the helicopter and the people trying to get on it on the roof of the embassy, and the commentary that seemed to indicate that those who didn't make it were effectively doomed.
It all seems like a different planet now.

[ibsteve2u]

The folks in Iraq and Afghanistan should thank their lucky stars that Vietnam happened and that it was recent enough for memories to still be painful.

The tendency of American General officers to cheerfully indulge in the bulk sacrifice of American soldiers and marines for pointless objectives during Vietnam could not infect the young officers who were innoculated against it by surviving those exercises in carnage - and many of them now or recently lead.

Unfortunately, the chickenhawks who avoid such personal risk and so are always willing pull the trigger of other peoples' lives inevitably seem to be good at politics - which is why America both went to Iraq in the first place and why we went too small and too cheap.

[Balconesfault]

Harry - you have it all wrong.

The lesson of Vietnam is ... the longer we stay and fight ... the longer it will be until the country is normal enough to host a Miss Universe pagent.

Had we decided to fight for Vietnam down to the last Viet Cong and the last US soldier ... do you think the country would be safe and prosperous enough today to have hosted such an event? It would likely still be the hellhole battleground we left in 1973.

[Forester]

Lets not forget the neocon chickenhawks who to this day believe we could have "won" the Viet Nam War if only the press had been kept in the dark and those damn hippies hadn't gotten all high and crazy. The picture of the Mi Lia massacre was the AbuGraib moment. Biggest differences? No oil, and there was a draft. Kissinger wanted to bomb into Cambodia and on and on. This same sentiment has brought us back into another failed war fueled by hubris, arrogance and plain old Texas stupidity. Ye ha.

[TRYKER]

The beauty of Viet Nam was so incredible, it was breath-taking, I wanted to go there immediately.

[atp2007]

The night before the Pagaent I had watched on FreeSpeechTV a documentary on veterans going back to Viet Nam to be part of a bike ride from the north to the south. It was a very emotional event with many of the vets reacting to sights, sounds and smells that they recognized from the war, while all the while meeting local people who were very friendly toward them even though some were wounded or lost family in the war. It was difficult to watch and not think what a waste the war was, that we could have easily worked with these people if we had actually known what the war was about. And then the next night, there was the Miss Universe event dripping with capitalism and about as western as one could get with all the comercials and exclusinve resorts. And mentions of Ho Chi Min without blinking as the father of the country and it's hero. And once again all I could think was that these were the people that we feared so much, who were going to take over the whole world in the name of Communism and were so dangerous we had to bomb them "back o the stone ages". What a waste for both of us.

[FOXYLADY]

ATP2007............."WASTE" IS THE WORD...............JUST LIKE IRAQ AND BUSH'S TRAVESTY OF AN IRAQI WAR..........MEANWHILE IN AFGHANISTAN WHERE HE SHOULD HAVE STAYED THE COURSE...........MORE AND MORE OF OUR LOVED ONES KILLED AND MAIMED............

[wiseapple]

Our leaders in the mid-fifties didn't think those people could choose their own leader- we had to do it for them. That's how we spread democracy, right?

[Sociologist]

As a United State Marine and Vietnam combat veteran in the last operating Marine Corps gunship squadron in Vietnam (Marine Light Helicopter Attack Squadron 167 -- HML-167), these piercing and poignant questions raised by Mr. Shearer are asked on behalf of the 58,000 soldiers and Marines who lost their lives in the "police action."

[researcher]

we as americans must someday come to realize that our army has become about a mercenary army for corp profits

until americans figure that one out nothing much will change

and when they figure that one out they must take to the streets as we did during the vietnam war or over 100,000 would have been lost in that illegal war.

we killed over one milliion vietnamese and did not bat an eye

we set up a puppet government just like iraq

iraq is vietnam all over again american imperialism

the army general just got a big promotion for his imperialism even by obama

[goodspeed]

and well said researcger !

[spartacus275]

Well said and to the point.

[gevan]

Next year New Orleans?

[andvoodoo2]

If only. We could show everybody involved a damn good time.

[EndAllWars]

The thing to remember is what the war mongers of the 60s were doing to scare the Americans into supporting the invasions in Asia. It was the "domino theory", that unless we invade Vietnam, the whole of Asia will fall to communism one by one. We invaded. We lost. Vietnam remained a commie country. But the domino theory was inherent wrong. The rest of Asia didn't fall. The world didn't end. In fact, the Soviets were the ones to fall.

Why would we ever believe these people who cook up these theories based on scare tactics? That unless you believe their twisted predictions and follow their orders the world will end?

[knixphan]

yep!

[Garvagh]

A unified Vietnam would have been building luxury beachfront hotels for the global tourist trade, a decade earlier had it not been for the extremely ill-considered American intervention in the civil war.

Today, we have another continuing ill-advised American intervention in a civil war, though one being fought at a lower key fortunately. If the US withdraws all of its military forces from Iraq, new resort hotels should be in the pipeline before too many years slip by.

[bimplebean]

Amazing after all we've been through in/with that country that our relationship is now at the stage it is.

On the other hand, we're still managing to hate, ostracize and isolate Cuba, which --leaving aside it's oppression of it's own people -- hasn't done that much to us as a nation.

When you learn to accept and forgive you can move forward. When you don't, you don't.

[radicalcentrist44]

It has been about 30 years since the Vietnam conflict ended. If we look at the progress in Vietnam compared with other countries 30 years after a war what does it show? Tokyo had the Olympics in '64, Munich in '72 and Seoul in '88. The reason for the revitalization probably had much to do with rebuilding (Marshall plan, Tokyo rebuild), so why has Vietnam not become as industrialized 30 years later? What can we look at in the middle east in 30 years? Just questions, not trying to make a statement.

[Durango]

Quite remarkable isn't it?

Here is a nation we were at war with. yet we seem to be able to have normal relations with some 33 years later. 58,000 Americans killed, probably hundreds of thousands wounded, millions of Vietnamese killed wounded and missing.

I think we should be more impressed with the Vietnamese' willingness to forgive and forget.

At the same time we have numerous wingnuts telling us that Iran is evil, and we could not possibly talk to them because they held some diplomats hostage at about the same time.

Why are some determined to hold a grudge against Iran but not Viet Nam?

[vale409]

OIL

[Durango]

In that case shouldn't we be making FRIENDS with them?

There is such a thing as national interest.

[paixa3]

Actually, I welcome countries into the world, so the pagent being in Vietnam was no problem for me.

They will be outperforming the USA in a few years....like the rest of the world....of course, you need to understand that TRICKLE DOWN tax breaks is what built a new INTEL plant in Vietnam.

So much for those going to the USA.

[trubluelefty]

I have spent most of my adult life living and working in Viet Nam. I was there as a nurse in the 'war'...

You miss it all

[HalleBurton]

Harry you forgot to mention that the pageant was won by Miss Venezuela. Praise to Hugo! Those commies birds of a feather flock together.

[Ajita]

Are you implying that the contest was rigged? How arrogant is that?
The contest belongs to a corporation owned by Donald Trump and, is gloatingly called 'Miss Universe", is unbelievably ethnocentric with a US contestant winning 7 so far ( and not once in the last 10 years) and China with a population 4 times ours winning none and no Africans countries in the top ten countries list...
And most importantly Miss Venezuela was consistently given the best odds by all the bookies and was the favorite to win before the contest began, which you would have known if you had done a little research before making such accusations.

[HalleBurton]

It was an observation about the irony of holding this pageant in a country we used to bomb and won by a country some here would like to bomb, not an accusation. The line between friend and foe is very fluid, but always lubricated with money.