Vietnamese Asceticism and Western Success

In the early days of any Communist regime, ascetics abounded. We in the West call them fanatics, but that isn’t always fair. Consider the PAVN, the People’s Army of Vietnam, when they were first being formed and heading toward their battle against the French at Dienbienphu. The following is from Jules Roy,’s La Bataille de Dien Bien Phu, 1963, translated in 1965 by Robert Baldick:

Page 102, discussing events of December 5, 1953: “Covering twenty miles a day, or fifty by night, the Vietminh divisions were advancing rapidly toward Dienbeienphu, marching along the sides of the road . . . Each soldier carried his weapon, sometimes a nonrecoil gun or a mortar tripod, a bag, a thirty-pound bundle of rice slung over one shoulder, his individual shovel, water bottle and a little salt in a bamboo tube. He marched from dawn to sunset, or vice versa, with ten minutes’ rest every hour. At night the distance covered was exhausting. On arrival, he dug trenches in which to take shelter and sleep, after washing his feet in a bowl of hot salt water. Not all the soldiers had footwear; many of them, like the porters, had only sandals cut out of tires, which sometimes hurt them. To drive away sleep and fatigue, they sang old songs devoid of the slightest suggestion of smuttiness. If it rained, they naturally chose the rain song with its refrain:

“It is raining, our clothes are wet,

“But not our hearts.”

“If they met or passed a column of women porters, there would be an explosion of gaiety. The two parties would call out to each other, improvise verses and make jokes. Girls would shout, ‘Is my husband with you?’; point to certain soldiers, exclaiming joyfully, ‘There he is!’; and then, shamming vexation, go off sadly to the accompaniment of laughter. When two such columns halted together, the river bathing, the bivouacs and the nocturnal encounters were characterized by an astonishing innocence. It was like an outing of seminarists meeting a party of young nuns. Their church was a total devotion, body and soul to the fatherland, the sole object of love. In the People’s Army, the soldiers’ language, commonplace by nature and not given to sublimating the reasons for fighting, resembled that of children playing at war; the only sentiments expressed in it were a flawless discipline and a boyish fervor. If every group of porters wanted to deserve the roll of honor, every soldier’s ambition was to sacrifice himself. One begins by smiling, but ends up impressed by the results of this indoctrination.”

COMMENT:

It is easy to admire such people and such sentiments. One can even excuse Westerners like Chomsky from getting caught up in the asceticism and dedication of these soldiers, But time has passed and we can see that what they brought to pass wasn’t worth all that dedication. They succeeded against the French and later against the Americans, but then, when it was all in their governments hands, they failed. Their government became Stalinistic in its brutality while the Vietnamese people starved. Consider the following New York Times Article written by Seth Mydans and posted April 13, 2000: http://www.mishalov.com/Vietnam_capitalism.html He assesses the changes in the 25 years since the Vietnames war ended. Of course that should be clarified as 25 years since the Vietnamese fought against a Western nation. America gave up and pulled out, but the Vietnamese still fought “as it occupied Cambodia and fought off a punitive attack by China.”

Notice the photo of old Vietnamese soldiers in uniforms they presumably wore years ago seeming (at least to me) to look bewildered at what Vietnam had become.

Mydans writes, “The next difficult step for Vietnam in its reintegration into the larger world is the signing of a trade agreement with the United States that embodies the free-market prescriptions of the International Monetary Fund. It would open Vietnamese markets to perhaps $800 million a years in new investment and send a signal that Hanoi is ready once again to do business with the world.”

We know the pattern. Communism doesn’t work. All the admirable asceticism in the world isn’t going to make Communism work. The article at one point describes Vietnam as one of the poorest nations in the world with a per capita yearly income of $360 a year. This is an old article. Things have changed, and even if we didn’t know what they were, we could guess. Communism doesn’t work. If a nation wants to improve and become more successful, it needs to “Westernize.” Consider the following from the CIA Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/vm.html

“Since 2001, Vietnamese authorities have reaffirmed their commitment to economic liberalization and international integration. They have moved to implement the structural reforms needed to modernize the economy and to produce more competitive export-driven industries. Vietnam's membership in the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and entry into force of the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement in December 2001 have led to even more rapid changes in Vietnam's trade and economic regime. Vietnam's exports to the US increased 900% from 2001 to 2007. Vietnam joined the WTO in January 2007 following over a decade long negotiation process. WTO membership has provided Vietnam an anchor to the global market and reinforced the domestic economic reform process. Among other benefits, accession allows Vietnam to take advantage of the phase-out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, which eliminated quotas on textiles and clothing for WTO partners on 1 January 2005. Agriculture's share of economic output has continued to shrink from about 25% in 2000 to less than 20% in 2008. Deep poverty has declined significantly and is now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines. Vietnam is working to create jobs to meet the challenge of a labor force that is growing by more than one-and-a-half million people every year. The global financial crisis, however, will constrain Vietnam's ability to create jobs and further reduce poverty. As global growth sharply drops in 2009, Vietnam's export-oriented economy - exports were 68% of GDP in 2007 - will suffer from lower exports, higher unemployment and corporate bankruptcies, and decreased foreign investment. Real GDP growth for 2009 could fall between 4% and 5%. Inflation, which reached nearly 25% in 2008, will likely moderate to single digits in 2009.”

Vietnam is suffering economically as all nations are today, but the per capita yearly income was listed at $2,800 in 2008, and whatever it becomes in 2009, no one, I am quite sure, is going to advocate that Vietnam de-Westernize and return to a Communist economy. They are going to weather this recession like every other nation and get on with their plan to “succeed.”.

And so what would those uniformed Vietnamese veterans think today? Would they think they fought against the U.S. for nothing? In a certain sense it would seem so. We didn’t really want to fight against the Vietnamese, we just wanted them not to be Communist, and now, though they are still technically a Communist State, they bear little resemblance to the regime that was responsible for the Stalinist ruthlessness that alarmed us and the French before us years ago. Their government wants to enter into Western Success without giving up what they consider good about their Socialism. Good luck. No one has managed that very well so far. To become really successful, a nation needs to give up its totalitarian ways and allow the people to do what they like with their time and money, even if some of the things they do are not at all ascetic.

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Americanism

The love of Argentine Fascists for German Fascists is well known, but what is less well-known is that modern Leftist Totalitarians have a fondness for Totalitarian Islam. The support of Radical Leftists for Radical Islam is an ongoing puzzle. Why do they do it? If Radical Islam were to ever succeed in its goal of spreading their brand of Islam across the world, Radical Leftists would be the first to be executed. This seems to be another case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and the American brand of Liberal Democracy has been the greatest enemy of Soviet Socialism. In fact, the U.S. was largely responsible for the demise of Soviet Communism; so surely, many Leftists think and argue, it deserves to be opposed and gotten even with in any way possible.

And as Radical Islamists argue, America is the Great Satan, and Israel is the Small Satan. Israel is the “outpost” of the American Crusade against Islam. Anti-Semitism means nothing, they argue. It is all about the American Crusade against Islam, and Israel is part of that. And Radical Leftists seem to love the Islamists for giving America its come-uppance. They personally will be long dead before Radical Islam can do any serious damage against the U.S., if that ever happens, but in the meantime any road-block that can be thrown in the way of American success is to the good. America destroyed the best hope of mankind, Soviet Communism, they believe, so America deserves all the harm that can be heaped upon it.

I noticed the article: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/services/newspaper/printedition/saturday/orl-venez0709feb07,0,7725468.story . It is by Fabiola Sanchez and entitled “Venezuela’s Jews fear more violence, vandalism.” Is it merely a coincidence that this outbreak of anti-Semitism occurs in the totalitarian regime of Hugo Chavez? I don’t think so – not that there is a coherent anti-American, anti-Israeli philosophy, but there is a loose one. Noam Chomsky, for example can go on and on in one anti-American diatribe after another, but one can piece together certain themes that are important to him, and the same thing can be said about totalitarian governments, sometimes it seems to be the “exact” same thing. They hate America and they hate Israel, and any harm that can be done them, they in effect argue, should be engaged in. As the Sanchez quotes, “a chavista columnist named Emilio Silva posted a call to action on Aporrea, a pro-government Web site, describe Jews as ‘squalid’ – a term Chavez often uses to describe his opponents as weak – and exhorting Venezuelans to confront them as anti-government conspirators.”

Hitler’s Germany never mounted a very extensive propaganda campaign against the U.S. We were in a sense dragged into the war against Germany by Britain and there was a lot about Britain that Hitler admired. He hoped for a long time that Britain would come to its senses and join him. As for the U.S., they were a nation of mongrels that could not mount a serious threat. Even if they were to get to Europe, they could not match his German soldiers. But Communism and Soviet Russia were a threat; so his propaganda was directed not only against the Jews but Soviet Russia and Communism. A case was made that Communism was the creation of the Jews, for after all, wasn’t Marx Jewish?

COMMENT:

It is so easy to forget that what the U.S. and Israel and indeed the European “West” and other nations like Japan represent is a loose, egalitarian, free-swinging, anything goes Liberal Democracy. There is nothing at all Totalitarian about this. Anything goes. Whatever feels good, do it. The governments that permit this sort of life are called Liberal Democracies. It is easy to see why authoritarian ascetics would disapprove. There is a strong strain of asceticism in Chinese Buddhism and Confucianism, for example; so it isn’t surprising that these ascetics view “Americanism” as a kind of debauchery.

And it is well known that one of the things Americans believe “feels good” is making money; so America is filled with entrepreneurs tripping over each other with new ideas. That isn’t something that authoritarian regimes promote; so America will always, as long as the current situation prevails, be ahead in technology, in the making of money, and in the making of weapons.

Meanwhile, Socialist ascetics mourn the loss of the dream. Yeah, maybe Stalin didn’t get it quite right, but he was on the right track. He did the best he could to follow Marx and Lenin, but the cards were stacked against him. Let’s not give up the dream, they tell one another. Let’s keep the fire burning: from each according to his ability. To each according to his need. Life can be beautiful in our ideal Socialist future, they still believe. Let’s not give up fighting for Socialism. America represents the Capitalism that Marx and Lenin wrote against. Let us, all of us ascetic Socialists who still believe in the dream, oppose America in every way possible and support all the enemies of America. Yes, if America collapses utterly, the world will probably enter an era of chaos, but chaos means opportunity. That will be our time. That will be the time when we can at last realize Marx’s Socialist dream. . . .

Those who embrace that form of Socialist asceticism can imagine themselves wandering some desert like Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, searching for truth. Siddhartha found truth in simple work, ferrying travelers back and forth across a river. America meanwhile has no truth. It only grubs for money, success, material plenty, etc, etc.

Unfortunately, the Anti-Americans do have a point. All of those excesses exist in American and, indeed, in every Liberal Democracy, including Israel’s. But what the Anti-Americans have failed to produce is a viable alternative. Their two tangible alternatives, German Fascism and Russian Communism failed in the 20^th century. Yes, little Fascist nations and little Communist nations still exist, but they are hopeless. They base themselves on dead dreams. If an alternative to American debauchery ever does arise, it will probably arise in America, and most likely in California. We are the fountainhead, here in California, of most of the new harebrained schemes and new religions. Their creation is one of our specialties. Elsewhere in the world, they warm-over Stalinism and Fascism, but we are inventive here. I say that in self-depreciation, but I do intend something serious. We have the freedom in America to choose, and much of America is choosing to be debauched. Its heroes are Barry Bonds and O. J. Simpson. Their heroines are Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. When they want to know who to vote for it asks Ben Affleck and Barbara Streisand.

But no one is forcing Americans to choose as they do. Hollywood celebrities and successful athletes appear before them and they applaud, but they choose to do so. No one is forcing that applause. If someone in some crackpot state like California or Texas were to come up with a viable, somewhat ascetic alternative, perhaps some would look away from the glitter and tinsel. There have been times in our past, in the past of the West, when we were more ascetic. “Debauchery” used to be a bad thing, and it can be again. We don’t need to turn to one of the untried, unproven ideals of the Anti-Americans.

In the meantime, even though we live in America, we ourselves are not being coerced to become debauched. Granted, that is our image, but we do have the freedom to make different choices; so we can go on living in this Liberal Democracy that is partially debauched, or we can opt for a revolution that destroys Liberal Democracy, reduces the world to chaos, very likely explodes several nuclear weapons in the process and then gropes after an ideal that has never been properly defined and has never existed at any time or place in history – an ideal that includes the premise that human nature can be improved.

Albert Heim, a Nazi in Egypt

http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2009Feb06/0,4670,NaziHunting,00.html

As far as Google could tell me, Fox News was the only popular News Agency to pick up this Associated Press article by Lee Keath, entitled “Nazi find sheds light on Egypt’s sensitive past.” It doesn’t really provide any new insight for those of us who knew of the admiration Arab Fascists had for German Fascists. What was not to love? The Nazis hated the Jews and so did the Arabs. The Nazis loved a totalitarian government and so did much of the Arab world. Nassar, after all was one of the founders of the Baathists. Three nations, Egypt, Iraq and Syria formed governments along Fascist lines and hoped to spread their ideology throughout the Arab World. Their goal was “Pan-Arabism.” So why would anyone be surprised that Nassar welcomed former Nazis to Egypt?

Well, yes, my Leftist friends will say, but didn’t the U.S. welcome Nazis as well? Well yes, but didn’t I explain just the other day that our goal in helping France in Indochina wasn’t Colonialism but anti-Communism. The same thing can be said about the U.S. and their hiring of former German scientists, some of whom were in the Nazi party. We were interested in using experts from a former totalitarian regime to help us in our fight against another totalitarian regime, Stalinist Russia. But what was Nassar’s motive? Yes, he hired former Nazi scientists as well, but his goal was to fight against the Jews. Many Nazis loved to fight the Jews, and I wonder how much choice they had. Should they work for the U.S. and fight against Totalitarian Russia? Or should they work for the Egypt and continue the Nazi fight against the Jews? Perhaps the U.S. exerted pressure on the German scientists who came to the U.S., but I doubt that Egypt had pressure to exert; so the Nazis who fled to Egypt probably did so voluntarily. And, as the article indicates, there is no evidence that Dr. Death (Albert Heim) ever worked on any Egyptian military programs. Fascist Egypt was a safe haven for fascists from defeated Germany.

Downsizing from the Ridgeback?

It rained a bit yesterday morning and looked as though it might rain again at any moment, but Ginger was telling me she wanted a walk (Ginger who hates the rain); so I decided to make a dash for the park at the end of the street, and if Ginger got wet, it would serve her right. Both girls were delighted and anxious to be off; so off we went.

As we walked along, it began raining lightly. The girls shook their coats and kept going, Ginger stopping to sniff trees and Bushes and Sage mostly just staring off at things in the distance. We got almost to the end of the park when the rain started falling more heavily; so we turned back. Normally when we go this way, we go through a hole in the park fence and off for a long walk, and perhaps it was in the girls’ minds that they didn’t really want to go on a long walk in a heavy rain. Anyway, when we turned back, they were both delighted and started dancing and chasing each other around me. I had trouble keeping their leashes straight. Ginger wanted to play while on leash, but not Sage, who wriggled backward until she wriggled out of her collar.

Now Sage has never had any formal training. For the sorts of things we do, I didn’t think she needed it. So when I yelled at her – not too loudly since there was no harm being done, but I did express my disapproval – she didn’t immediately come back to me. Instead she dashed back and forth, roundabout, up and down the park for about a minute. By the time Sage had completed her run, Ginger had calmed down. That meant it was time to come back and let me put her collar back on. I didn’t scold her. I could sort of see what she had done. Ginger is larger and stronger and can overwhelm her in close quarters; so Sage wriggled off and had herself a run until Ginger got over her playful intentions. And I did enjoy watching Sage run.

So how bad was that in terms of misbehaving? Not very, which is one more indication that a Ridgeback is easy to live with – or is it? My son and I have an ongoing debate about the protectiveness of Airedales. He has three, one of which is protective, but that one is 10 years old. I tease him about becoming defenseless once that one dies. He teases me about being defenseless already since my too girls would not rate very high in any guard-dog test. I get less teasing since Sage did stand up on three different occasions; so she has proved herself, but she doesn’t seem very guard-doggish, and for the most part she isn’t. As for Ginger that simply isn’t in her repertoire.

But as we learned not so very long ago, there is a spectrum for every breed running from extreme sociability/friendliness, etc. on the left to extreme dominance/territoriality/etc. on the right. Thus, theoretically, a Golden Retriever of the Radical Right (so to speak) might be more of a guard dog than a Rhodesian Ridgeback from the Radical Left. Nevertheless experts tell us what is “typical,” and that typicality means something. If we want a guard-dog, we will be much better off choosing a Rhodesian Ridgeback than a Golden Retriever, because even though Golden Retrievers guard-dogs exist, chances are you won’t get one because typically, Golden Retrievers are very friendly, at least toward people.

My son insists that he would be able to make sure that his next Airedale will have “guard-dog” capability by choosing one from a breeder who breeds “working Airedales.” He might be right. The one Airedale he has that is a guard dog came from a “working Airedale breeder.” And if I were to get a “working Airedale,” I am quite sure he would be very “Right Wing” when it came to standing up to feral dogs and coyotes.

On the other hand, I think my chances of getting a Ridgeback that would both stand up to coyotes and feral dogs while doing a creditable job as a watch and guard dog is higher than if I sought all those qualities from an Airedale, because “typically” the Ridgeback has them and while they are all found to a much lesser extent in the modern Airedale. Although it is possible that the “Working Airedale” has them like the Airedale of old. We don’t know. Neither my son nor I have any real evidence to support that other than his one dog that has those qualities.

Then there is the fact that the Ridgeback suits my life style extremely well. If I want to study or write, my girls are content to nap. People who rate the various breeds, rate the “indoor activity” of Ridgebacks as “low.” The “indoor activity” of Airedales, on the other hand, is “high.” My son says that his Airedales calmed down once they got older, but my son’s definition of “calm,” I suspect, isn’t quite the same as mine.

One advantage an Airedale might have is that he might be more content to be an “only dog.” If my downsizing consisted of going from two Ridgebacks down to one, would that one be content to be an only dog? Probably, but probably not as content as a breed which was more “typically” kept as an only dog.

One other thing. When I inquired about the size of the males being produced by Kathy in Oregon, I got the report that they ranged from 70 to 80 pounds. I didn’t inquire about the females, but I could downsize even further if instead of one male I had one female – from Kathy in Oregon. A “working Airedale” male would probably be as large or larger than a female Ridgeback from Kathy in Oregon. I still haven’t adjusted to the idea of grooming an Airedale as often as they need it, but I have become very attached to my two female Ridgebacks.

Another Hitman? Russian movie Brat (Brother)

The hero in the Russian movie Brat is Danila Badrov, played by Sergei Bodrov Jr. The movie begins with Danila fresh out of the army heading home. Danila wanders onto a movie set in the countryside and accidentally ruins a shoot. The director’s bodyguard sets out to beat him up and comes out second best. Danila is arrested but released, partly because the Police chief knew Danila’s father. Danila goes home to find his mother unhappy with him. Why can’t he be more like his brother Victor. Go to your brother in St. Petersburg, she urges, presumably so Victor can have a good influence on him.

But Victor turns out to be a hitman for the Russian mafia, and a rather cowardly one at that. He takes an assignment for killing a rival gangster who never goes anyplace without his bodyguards, but is afraid to attempt it. Were you in combat, Victor asks Danila? No, Danila says. He was a clerk at HQ. But do you know how to shoot, Victor persists. Well, yes, they did run us briefly through the rifle range. Good, Victor decides. You go off and kill the mobster. Victor thinks he is probably sending his brother off to his death, but he doesn’t care.

Danila sets about the task in a professional manner, tracking the mobster, disguising himself, and then building a very sophisticated silencer for a gun he took from a local hood. It becomes apparent that Danila was not merely a clerk at HQ. He does have fighting skills. Why would he lie about it? Probably the war against Chechnya wasn’t very popular in Russia. It was probably easiest to claim that he never killed anyone.

Without going into all the details of the movie, Danila adapts his military skills to civilian, gangster, use, but he only kills bad guys, and if he befriends or feels sorry for someone, he helps him. By the end of the movie, Victor has betrayed his brother to save his own life, but Danila goes to his brother’s house prepared, and kills the bad guys, except for one whom he forgives. While Victor sobs on Danila’s shoulder, Danila pats his back and tells him it is okay, but now he should go home to his mother who needs him. Danila is clearly a more skilful assassin than Victor ever was.

So did Danila take over Victor’s job as assassin? No, Danila too leaves St. Petersburg. In a scene reminiscent of Fargo, he has hitched a ride with a truck driver who is driving down an endless, snowy, icy road, perhaps toward Moscow.

So what was this movie about? It wasn’t a simple “Hitman” movie. Yes, Danila could do it, but he didn’t want to keep on doing it. He could kill bad guys when necessary, but he didn’t want to keep on killing them. He tells the truck driver that he was released from the Army but was merely a clerk in HQ. The truck driver sees the sawed-off shotgun, doesn’t believe him, but they share a knowing smile. They may be the same sort of people.

The movie was very popular in Russia. It depicted life in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. Times were hard. Danila encounters homeless people, a woman being abused by her husband, a punker who only wants to get stoned. But Danila is more like Robinhood than a hitman. He rights wrongs. He showed something noble and optimistic that Russian movie viewers liked.

A Brat II movie was made, which I didn’t see, but while shooting a subsequent movie, Sergei Bodrov Jr was killed in a snow and rock slide. He was 31. He became a very big star in Russia, but then was killed. Have they made him an icon? They never did recover his body. Perhaps they have Sergie sightings over there to match our Elvis sightings.

Truman supported Colonial French?

On page 17 of Ending the Vietnam War, Kissinger writes, “By the end of 1950, the Truman administration had decided that the security of the free world required Indochina, a French colony, to be kept out of Communist hands – which in practice meant bending America’s anticolonial principles by supporting the French war against the Communist insurgents in Indochina. Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson saw no other choice because the Joint Chiefs of Staff had concluded that the American armed forces were stretched to the limit by simultaneous commitments to NATO and to the ongoing war in Korea, and that none could be spared for the defense of Indochina – even if it were invaded by China.”

COMMENT A:

A European Leftist recently hinted that America was somehow secretly in favor of Colonialism because it supported the French in Indochina in the 50s. I suppose you can find Anti-American literature that says that sort of thing, that America secretly favors Colonialism, but would a reputable historian say that? Knowing human nature for what it is, I can’t say absolutely that no historian would pursue that line of argument, but he would either be ignored or hooted at by his peers for doing so. American isn’t America because of any ethnic identity. We are not ethnically “pure,” as Hitler pointed out. We are a nation of “mongrels.” What we do have is a set of documents, like promises, that we adhere to more or less. There is no “America” to overtly claim to favor Liberal Democracy while secretly favoring Colonialism. Our documents were formulated at a time when we were throwing off the Imperialist power that made us a Colony; so these documents are more anti-colonialist than they might have been if they were formulated later on. And the nature of the government created by the founding documents is such that no “Secret America” can stand behind the “Manifest America” and pull the strings. Oh yes, certain things have happened in small ways by a limited number of power brokers. I’m not saying that can’t happen, but if what those power brokers engage in is opposed to our founding documents, or opposed to what a majority of the people think those founding documents guarantee them, then they are on thin ice.

We have heard the anti-Americans say that power-broking Capitalists were secretly pulling the strings and getting America to do things that the bulk of the people were unaware of. Could that be true? I don’t think so. Our economy is suffering today because power-broking Capitalists pulled some strings, but these were strings of greed, not some Protocols-of-Zion-type conspiracy theory and not with any long-ranged goal, for what could such a goal be, and what segment of our society could have it? And if greed is the short-term goal, why would a huge, foreign-policy involved conspiracy be necessary? As we have seen recently, the capitalistic power-brokers were in it for themselves. Apparently if you are in the right group, you do have the ability to become very rich, but you don’t have the ability to force the government to support, for example, Colonialism. There was a time (see Max Boot’s Savage Wars of Peace) when the Marines were sent hither and yon to protect American investments, but even that was “short term” by conspiracy-theory standards.

And despite the invidious comparisons Anti-Americans like to make, comparing us to Nazi Germany is their favorite – they don’t compare us to Stalinist Russia because that failed state is still too close to their dream of a perfect state – we are too open a society for something like that to remain secret, even if some groups wanted to support French Colonialism. The reason given was that the Truman administration was afraid of Communism, not so much here at home, but internationally. George Kennan wrote a long telegram describing the danger and the Truman administration accept what that expert on the Soviet Union told them. Containment was urged, and containment was something the Truman administration could easily grasp. It was also something easily grasped by succeeding administrations. With “Containment” as the primary foreign-policy device for combating Communism in the world, other considerations became secondary. A nation might be a vicious dictatorship, but we were worried enough about the advance of Communism that as long as this dictatorship stood shoulder to shoulder with us against Communism, we could ignore other concerns.

France in the 50s might be seen as having national psychological problems. How could it not? It had endured a period of Vichy collaboration with Nazi Germany. How was it to get over that? And its leader, Charles De Gaulle might be seen as having severe problems of a different sort. France, for all the world, had gone over to the Germans during World War II, but De Gaulle said Vichy France was not the “real” France, that he and a few stragglers who had followed him to England, were the “real France.” Roosevelt thought De Gaulle was a clown; which didn’t bode well for French/American relations when De Gaulle, or his Gaullists were in power. And De Gaulle wanted back the glory that was France. In other words, he wanted to get back the French “Empire.” They rushed some troops to South East Asia, and though America hadn’t changed its view on Colonialism, they noticed that the French, in fighting for their Southeast Asian Colony were fighting against Communist insurgents. If it were merely a matter of helping France regain its colonies, Truman couldn’t have gotten away with providing support to France, but what the French were doing was fighting against Communism, even if they called it something else. We could if not in good conscience, bend our anti-colonial conscience enough, to support the French as long as they were in effect helping to contain Communism.

COMMENT B:

Perhaps some other anti-American will think “no, no. This is like adultery. If you have committed adultery once, you are an adulterer. You supported French Colonialism in the 50s and earlier you had your own Colony, the Philippines, so you are a Colonial power.”

I doubt that many in the world today, at least in the West, subscribe to a “Scarlet Letter” sort of philosophy in regard to foreign affairs. Even from a Christian standpoint it doesn’t hold up. Christ forgave the woman caught in adultery and the soundest theological interpretation of Christ’s view (in my opinion) is that he opposes “continuing” in objectionable behavior. He did forgive the woman caught in adultery, but he told her “go and sin no more.” “Forgiveness” is a principle in Christianity. The adulterer is no longer an adulterer for she has been forgiven. Her sins were cast as far as the east is from the west. They are remembered no more. If we remember them against her, then shame on us. We are falling short of the God’s view of the matter. And even if she were to weaken and commit adultery a second time, that wouldn’t unalterably condemn her. In Christianity, forgiveness remains if the sin is repented of. Were we like France or Britain who gloried in their empires? No. We felt guilty of our Philippine empire and repented of it. And even if some were to claim we committed Colonial adultery once again with France in 1950, we might squirm a bit and say, well in a way perhaps we did, but it was for the greater good, and besides, we didn’t enjoy it.

If one reads Fromkin’s A Peace to End all Peace, or Macmillan’s Paris 1919, one will learn that David Lloyd Jones and Clemenceau tried to talk Wilson into taking some of the “spoils” of the allied victory. “Spoils” would have meant “colonies,” but he refused. It did become convinced that various nations required some sort of “protection,” but he viewed this as a kind of nurturing, bringing these backward nations along toward eventual independence.

As a “disclaimer,” we should accept that in the diverse grouping of peoples we call America, we shall probably find every point of view that exists in the world, but the America that moves forward with an accepted Foreign Policy is the elected government that represents a majority view, and even here we see minority objections that carry weight. For a time, there was power enough in support the acquiring of the Philippines as a colony. But almost at once governmental guilt, noticing that we had broken, not merely bent, our anti-colonial policy, set in and we set about granting more and more independence.. The Philippines in 1916 became, perhaps, the pattern for the “protectorates” that Wilson approved in Paris in 1919. So if the anti-Americans want to scald a Scarlet “C” on the foreheads of any Americans, they must restrict their punishment to those Americans who urged the acquisition of the Philippines. Even when the retention of the Philippines as a colony was policy, it was not popular policy, and it was eventually repented of. By 1950 when Truman decided to support the French in Indochina, America’s anti-Colonial policy was firmly affixed in the American psyche. The American people needed to be convinced that what we were doing by supporting France wasn’t Colonialism but anti-Communism.

The Last Hitman & Shadowboxer

There may be little hope of getting producers and directors to do original stuff when copying or tweeking previous successful stuff works so well. Last night I watched The Last Hitman, a 2008 movie starring Joe Mantegna. There were other actors, but Mantegna was the only big name. I liked the movie. Harry Tremayne (Mantegna) is a hitman who discovers he has a malignant brain tumor. He notices it when he is doing a hit and misses. He never misses, so he goes to the doctor who tells him of his problem. His time is limited. He won’t admit vulnerability to the people who ordered the hit, so they think he “went over to the other side” and order a hit on him. The hitman sent to do Harry is Billy Rosco (played by Romano Orzari). He fails and Harry gets the drop on him. Harry and his daughter, Racquel Tremayne (played by Elizabeth Whitmere) had previously been talking about Harry taking on an assistant, and Harry, on the spur of the moment, offers Billy the job.

Billy Rosco had only used shotguns in drive-bys to do his hits; so Harry teaches him how to shoot rifles with sniping accuracy. All the while, Harry’s daughter, Racquel, is suspicious and jealous of Billy whom Harry has been treating like a son. Once Billy is up to speed, he and Harry begin going after whoever it was who put a hit on Harry. Once the opposition is dispensed with, Harry asks Billy to do him. He doesn’t want to become weaker and weaker from the cancer and end up in a pitiful state in a hospital. He would rather go out on top by having Billy shoot him; which Billy does. And which Racquel understands and accepts. Racquel’s boyfriend is killed in the last shootout; so the movie ends with Racquel and Billy going off, like sister and brother, to carry on as a hit-team.

I must confess that it wasn’t until after I had watched the movie and the commentary that I thought to myself, “Hey, wait a minute.” They presented it as an original effort, created out of whole cloth. It was the scene in which Billy shoots Harry that reminded me of Shadowboxer.

In Shadowboxer, Cuba Gooding and Helen Mirren (two stars in this movie) as Mikey and Rose are a hit team. In this one Rose gets the illness and has Mikey shoot her. At the end Mikey and Vicki (not a hitter but a hitee) go off as a hit-team. Shadowboxer is a bit “sicker” because of the sexual relation between Mikey and Rose (who functioned as his step-mom for much of his life). Also, Mikey just can’t make it emotionally by himself. He has to have a woman telling him what to do. Vicki, rather than Rose’s illness is the reason hitmen were sent after them. Vicki’s mob-boss husband believed she may have had an affair; so he puts out a hit on her. She is pregnant and her water breaks while Rose is pointing a pistol at her. Rose can’t bear to shoot her in that condition; so she and Mikey rescue her instead. Vicki is a smart girl and knows her only hope is to stick with Rose and Mikey (also she becomes attracted to Mikey); which she does with enthusiasm. She is fully in Rose’s role at the end of the movie, just as Billy is in Harry’s role at the end of The Last Hitman.

Are the two movies different enough so that the director of The Last Hitman can imply that his was an original effort? Perhaps by Hollywood standards, I don’t know. But if he really wanted it to seem original, why have Billy put Harry out of his misery? That was a “dead” give-away (pun intended). Of course it may be that Shadowboxer was itself a “takeoff” from some earlier movie. That in itself might provide justification for not owning up to a debt to Shadowboxer.

The hitman in each movie has an “edge” over his adversaries that his adversaries don’t know about. In the case of Mikey it is his shadowboxing. He has skills his employers aren’t aware of, and In the “shootout” scene, he is able to gain the initiative by knocking down the people holding him, allowing him to get a gun. In the case of The Last Hitman, it is Harry’s daughter. She is known merely as Harry’s driver. No one knows she is a superb shot. She has never done any hits herself, but she is fully capable as she proves by shooting down the bad guys who have the drop on Billy and Harry.

Keeping with the “sickness” theme of Shadowboxer, Vicki’s son, a little boy by the time the movie ends, performs the final killing in the shoot-out. And as they drive away, Mikey and Vicki discuss the likelihood that more hitmen will come after them. The little boy in the back seat says, “then we’ll kill them all.” Mikey has a worried expression on his face as he watches the little boy from the rear-view mirror as the movie ends. As an “artistic success” I would rate Shadowboxer higher than The Last Hitman, but the latter movie was more fun to watch. All the people killed were bad guys. This was true of The Last Hitman as well, but the latter described a more wholesome family situation (compared to Shadowboxer). The Last Histman could have been Western, except that in a Western, Billy probably would have left a six-shooter for Harry to use to kill himself.

COMMENT:

Perhaps the most interesting question is why we have so many movies about hitmen. Movies about hitmen and serial killers are very popular in our society. Why is that? The Serial-Killer question seems easier to answer. Perhaps they began with Poe’s “Murders in the Rue Morgue.” Such movies involve very difficult, seemingly motiveless crimes, that the clever detective, the main character in the story, must solve. So in these movies you identity with the detective fighting evil, not the evil serial killer. But in the Hitmen movies, you have to identify in some way with the hitmen. I have made no study of these movies and can only bring two others to mind, one with Alan Ladd, who played Phillip Raven in This Gun for Hire) in which he likes cats and small kids but nevertheless comes to the bad end which he thinks he deserves, and another with Timothy Olyphant (Hitman) in which he (patterned after a comic-book hero) displays a heart of gold by giving the girl who helped him a vineyard and then shooting the hitman who was sent against her.

Timothy Olyphant’s movie seems to owe something to the TV series, Dark Angel. Olyphant’s character, “Agent 47”, was raised much as Jessica Alba’s “Max” was in Dark Angel. They are more like superheroes than ordinary bad-guy hit-people. . . . unless Dark Angel was patterned after the Hitman comic book . . .