Matthieu Buge (Feb 14, 2023) - In Francis Ford Coppola’s movie ‘Apocalypse Now’, the character Hubert de Marais has this very important line which he delivers with a typical French accent: “The Vietnamese are very intelligent. You never know what they think. The Russian ones who help them – ‘come and give us their money. We are all communists. Chinese give us guns. We are all brothers.’ They hate the Chinese! Maybe they hate the American less than the Russian and the Chinese. I mean, if tomorrow the Vietnamese are communists they will be Vietnamese communists. And this is something you never understood, you Americans.”
Coppola had, in the ‘70’s, understood something that former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara only came to understand in the ‘90’s when he met with Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap. With astonishment, he suddenly realized that the Vietnamese were fighting a war of independence, not an ideological war. The 20-year conflict in Vietnam had never been about the spread of communism in the world. Concerning US foreign policy, the elderly and experienced politician went on to say: “We don’t understand the Bosnians, we don’t understand the Chinese, and we don’t really understand the Iranians.” With the exception of colonized Western Europe, it seems to be a good summary of Washington’s policy towards countries all over the world.
Coppola had, in the ‘70’s, understood something that former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara only came to understand in the ‘90’s when he met with Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap. With astonishment, he suddenly realized that the Vietnamese were fighting a war of independence, not an ideological war. The 20-year conflict in Vietnam had never been about the spread of communism in the world. Concerning US foreign policy, the elderly and experienced politician went on to say: “We don’t understand the Bosnians, we don’t understand the Chinese, and we don’t really understand the Iranians.” With the exception of colonized Western Europe, it seems to be a good summary of Washington’s policy towards countries all over the world.
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