more on refugees

MORE ON REFUGEES


“I, for one, thought "less effect on culture than a fart in a sewer pond" was brilliant. But we expect brilliance here.” The other day in the comments section. Okay, no pressure there. But seriously, shouldn’t you expect brilliance? You put up with my abuse, buy my elongated version of drivel ( e-books ), buy Amazon through my links and buy through Google ads. I am very well supported with such a small readership. To me, this is your vote saying “keep being brilliant or your fickle minions will spend their money elsewhere”. Granted, sometimes I have a slightly off day, but even then I’m still fairy decent. Hey, if you want an author without a swollen ego you are at the wrong place.

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I didn’t realize there was any more crap to be stirred in the Vietnam War pot, but evidently some minions still have strong opinions. I’ll try to add some more fuel, now that you’ve foolishly betrayed your vulnerabilities, but first two asides. One, I loved the response over at http://www.survivalblog.com/ on Thursday in defense of cats as post-apocalypse pets. My own view is that while dogs have some uses, they are still basically big stupid animals that eat too much, then lick their balls for an hour and their ass even longer. I think it was Heinlein who said cats are the perfect anarchists. Dogs are more like the perfect Gen-X couch potato game player with baggy pants who speaks Ebonics even, or especially, if White. Two, a trivia fact for you on Vietnam. Almost ten percent of the casualties were helicopter crash related. And of that amount almost half were from mechanical malfunction rather than enemy fire. Helicopters seem to be the perfect vehicle for swelling support personnel needs and overall costs.

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Okay, back to the book “JFK” for today’s lesson on the dangers of refugees. A good portion of the first hundred pages of the book were devoted to explaining the deliberate creation of the warring parties. I’m still enjoying the book, but be warned that the author really does repeat himself often. I’ve read in one form or another ten times about how the stockpiled logistics for the Japanese invasion were shipped over to Korea and Vietnam after the atom bombs were dropped. Whether this is true or not seems to rest on one conversation with a boat captain, but it doesn’t really matter. It would explain the levels of material support Ho Chi Min got from us in the Fifties. But we were talking of the deliberate creation of tensions to create war, which the military industrial complex benefited from ( my own view is not that those industries bribed Congress to pay them but that the government as a whole realized a continued war footing would permanently starve off a return to the Great Depression, hence the Cold War ). One of the agreements in the peace talks in Paris ( or was it Geneva? ) was that prior to partition into Commie north and US puppet south, anyone that wished to move to the other side was allowed to, and that the US would help transport if possible. While this seems are nice and sunny and “can’t we all just get along-ish”, the CIA had plans that were much more sinister.

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A combination of promises and scare mongering prompted over a million predominantly Catholic peasants to move to the south. The CIA airlifted quite a number of those, a good number boarded US naval ships in northern harbors and some even walked. Once relocated they were effectively abandoned to their own devices. At the same time the newly created southern government told the French to leave immediately. They didn’t really care as they knew the game was up, but it did eliminate the constable force that kept law and order in the countryside. All the ethnic Chinese were told to leave, using the excuse that they were commies ( even if they were several generations living in Vietnam ). The Chinese were the merchant class that traded with the farmers. Now, even though the peasants were mostly self-sufficient ( a lesson is coming up here for you asparagus worshipers ) they had several needs they themselves couldn’t meet. Metal tools, salt, and surprisingly, potable water. Even though surrounded by rice patties there was no drinkable water. This the Chinese merchants provided in return for part of the huge rice surpluses produced. There was even a steady trade in silver for rice, as the peasants store of wealth, another lesson for those that poo-pa precious metals.

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As trade was cut off, and as hordes of penniless refugees descended, the local farmers came under mounting pressure. The refugees were turning to banditry to survive. As the government started to believe the “commie under every rock” rhetoric preached by the Americans ( of course they “believed” it, that brought in money and guns ) they starting hunting for the fabled commies. Granted, there were some that had been sent over with the refugees, but it was a small portion more than likely. The refugee bandits were favored over the local farmers in the game of politics, and in many cases the farmers did turn into the Viet Cong. It wasn’t a case of the communists invading and forcing the peasants to fight, it was a case of the local population being forced out and being forced to fight back by the non-communist invaders ( the refugees lured there by the Americans ). Now, before you get all up in arms here, I am reporting what the book stated. I think it highly probable, as this is the kind of thing the CIA could do without blinking an eye. And it did benefit the other power players, so why not go along?

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The lesson here should be clear. You can avoid being a refugee, have a super duper deluxe fortress concrete bunker and yet still be overwhelmed by refugees. As you are being forced out of your home, please take the time to e-mail me ( if the grid is still up ) and tell me once again how silly I am for living up here in the deserted, frigid, barren, treeless wastes of northern Nevada. The other lesson is that silver is valuable to even subsidence farmers and that potable water supplies must be secure from outside forces ( outside forces include the electricity to run your pump ). Food for thought.
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