In our time, “war” means fighting a foe or an adverse alliance, not only by proper military means but also by political and economic means. In 1990, no military wars were fought between the Western Alliance (NATO) and the Eastern Communist Bloc (Warsaw Pact), but the collapse of the USSR foretold the disintegration of communist regimes in other Eastern European countries. These results came out of a long term “economic war” between the two opposite alliances. In addition, in a war fought merely by military forces, a battle and a front are less important than a theater of operation.
In my opinion, the United States, during its thirty years (1945–1975) of involvement in the war in Indochina, adopted the above notion, which meant that American leaders fought the war without using full American military powers but only the selected use of political and economic means. Moreover, Vietnam was a front in a greater theater of operation. American theaters of operation during that long period were the Asia-Pacific region and Southeast Asia. American objectives were to gain peace and security in these vast regions, even if the United States had to accept the loss of some fronts, such as South Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
For these reasons, contrary to common opinion, I would repeat that the United States under the seven consecutive presidents from Roosevelt to Ford, during these long decades of war in Indochina, did win the war in the Asia-Pacific region and Southeast Asia, since it was able to confine the wicked lion, Red China, to its den.
In addition, after the war, the United States had the opportunity to transform its old foe, the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, into one of its fortresses in Southeast Asia. I believe the people in these regional countries and the Americans should have enjoyed the outcome of the Vietnam War instead of sorrowing. Only the South Vietnamese people and their armed forces lost the war. They were all victims of an American policy toward the Asia-Pacific region and Southeast Asia.
We, the South Vietnamese people, have suffered and continue to suffer the effects of the Vietnam War. Sensitive to this problem, the United States and the other nations of the free world, for humanitarian reasons, saved more than two million South Vietnamese, including hundreds of thousands of former RVNAF personnel who were once prisoners of war in communist concentration camps, and their families. They settled the people in free and beautiful lands, and gave them opportunities to set up new lives and develop useful work and intellectual knowledge. We deeply thank the governments and the people of these nations.
However, there are more than 300,000 disabled veterans and more than 2,000,000 former soldiers of the RVNAF now enduring a miserable existence under the discriminatory and inhumane policies of the Vietnamese communist leaders. Moreover, the people of Vietnam live in extreme poverty. After three decades of communist rule, despite the Vietnamese Communist Party transforming from a rigid and party-controlled socialist economy into a more liberal market economy, Vietnam is still one of the ten poorest countries in the world.
As a Vietnamese, I deeply desire to see my country find independence, unification, freedom, and prosperity. But I will never see such a thing. I blame the Vietnamese communist leaders, led by the ruthless and hypocritical Ho Chi Minh, who carried communism into Vietnam and transformed the Vietnamese people into slaves. Younger Vietnamese intellectuals in exile assert that the partial renovation of the economic system in Vietnam only produces a new class of rulers, the “red capitalists,” which creates more intensive forms of exploitation, corruption, alienation, enormous gaps between rich and poor, a deterioration of relations between the people and government, and the elimination of the notion of a nation-state. The bonds and trust necessary for normal societal functioning have evaporated. Consequently, the sense of community that once characterized Vietnamese society has faded away, replaced by selfish and short-sighted economic decisions. These red-capitalist leaders are neither able to solve the poverty of the masses in Vietnam nor able to assure the future will be one of national development and modernization, but may submerge Vietnam more deeply into the Pacific.
There must be an end to the communist monopoly of power and democracy must be restored as a right of everyone in Vietnam. Once the dictatorship is abolished, the new political spirit will allow a true national reconstruction, development, modernization and prosperity. Every Vietnamese has the right and is responsible for the reconstruction of the country. Every one of us learns the history of our nation not only to know its ups and downs but also to make it glorious and eternal.
However, we must also remember that eternity is something no different than the antagonism between the forces of creation and the forces of destruction. These two forces are frequently seen as opposing each other, but are also intrinsically hidden within any essential nature, any organic structure, or any bodily constitution, with the potential to raise it or to ruin it. Both forces are created by God and the processes of creation and destruction are also His laws. Were only one of these forces to emerge, then at some point, all things on the earth would be annihilated and this annihilation would be complete and definitive. Probably, the radical difference between these forces may be seen in the fact that, at all times, the force of creation performs its functions with a godlike spirit, while the force of destruction realizes its own functions with dazzling characters of cruelty and death.
Thus, so long as these forces exist on earth, anywhere and within anything at the same time, to some degree or extent, confrontations, struggles, conflicts and hostilities cannot be avoided. Occasionally, the force of destruction may triumph over the other for a period of time, and its blinded advance may eliminate all opposing components, good or bad, without difference. However, it shall ultimately be destroyed by the force of good or broken down by its own constituent factors, for the creation of a new cycle of antagonism that is necessary for nature to last and to regenerate.
Through seizing national power, eliminating the human rights of the people, and cruelly suppressing religions, the Vietnamese communists, the force of evil, cannot escape the laws of God, and their final perdition may not be avoided in the near future. While in the last half-century, several generations of Vietnamese could do nothing better for the country, I hope that the younger generations will learn from our experiences and rebuild Vietnam into an advanced nation with unity, solidarity, liberty, and democracy.