The Besz Dispenser - This Week's Rant

For the week of May 5th, 2000

Welcome to the school of hard knocks

So, Sunday was the 25th anniversary of the Vietnam war ending. Yes, on April 30th, 1975, two Vietcong tanks smashed through the Presidential Palace's gates and Saigon officially fell. So, needless to say, newspapers around the world, news magazines, news television shows, everything around sat around for a weekend wondering, "Was it worth it?" and "Did we learn anything by it?"

Well, I don't know about the US, but I know I learnt some very valuable lessons from the US about the Vietnam war. And since everyone else is doing it...

1.) The US realized that you really can't fight an enemy when they are determined to win at any cost, and they happen to have the support of most of the people you're trying to help. Not to mention they are in a thick jungle. But, so long at they have their population behind them, it's not in a jungle, and the people of the surrounding nations and the ones you're trying to save don't mind you being there, bomb the piss out of them until they have no where to hide. This was especially effective in the Gulf war.

2.) The disillusionment of entire generations can be blamed on a lost and pointless war. Look at the entire baby boomer generation in the US, for example. They actually believe that they helped put a stop to the war, that they played a major part in the shaping of the country towards a better place. If I'm not mistaken, they only helped stop the war because they made soldiers back from the war believe that they were the enemy, not the VC. They helped the other side win. As far as the "world a better place," I need not comment of this at length, since just looking at the movie "Wall Street" and realizing that most pollution problems only continued when they entered the job force and entered their executive positions. And because of them, there will be no pension or high-end jobs for any one not in the boomer generation until they are all retired or dead.

3.) Anyone can make money from a war, even after the fact. How, do you ask? Write a book about how "you were in the shit, man," and get a movie made about your side, the side that "hasn't been heard yet." You can exploit the fact that you can't get a job, that you lost your wife, that you are depressed and lonely, and believe that the world owes you everything because you fought a pointless war and lost. Believe that you can hack it on your own, and just rant at people about how unfair your life is. And finally,

4.) An entire nation can be defined by such an intense period of history and yet, somehow, the generation after that period in that same nation, that same proud, patriotic, strong nation which has spent years licking its wounds can't seem to point Vietnam out on a map if asked to.

I've learnt all this from my years watching the US rant and rave about how great they are and Vietnam was their only black eye. Actually, if you want to count, for a quick tally, they lost the War of 1812, they only gave more bodies in WWI (and they lost the only battle they fought in that war, too), and WWII they really didn't win it, they Russians did. Korea was just as pointless at Vietnam, and the Gulf war was a UN mission, not a US mission. But then again, maybe I just haven't learnt anything yet.

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