Bush's secret plan.

Unfortunately, as I have mentioned in several threads now, Dys, when the time comes to do the equivalent of Nixon's evacuation of Saigon...when the time comes for American troops to do the evacuation of Iraq....

...my guess it will make the former look like a cake walk.

This moron has gotten us into a mess of monumental proportions.

BBB
Wah! The game is over! It's my ball and I'm taking it home!

BBB

Re: Bush's secret plan.


Nope, I'm pretty sure Dubya is planning on continued interference... it's part of a plan for world dominance...

Just my $0.02 worth for today... PP

I don't think it's as simple as that, Dys. For one thing, Vietnam had no oil reserves. For another, Nixon didn't start the fracas in Vietnam, he just inherited it. It's a lot harder for Bush to get out of a war he started for no apparent reason than it was for Tricky Dick.

If he sends Powell to Paris, who will Powell negotiate with? There is more then one faction in the Iraqi resistance and they are each others throats as well as ours.

Merry Andrew
Vietnam was known to have substantial oil prior to the war:

Since reunification, the Communist government has sought to increase exploitation of Vietnam's natural mineral resources but has had only modest success so far. Extraction of oil deposits in the South China Sea began in the mid-1980s. In the mid-1990s oil production was sufficient to meet domestic needs, while also providing an important source of export earnings.

Pioneer refinery to prompt oil export decline:

Oil export revenue is expected to drop by 40% within the next five years as the nation's first oil refinery comes into operation.

A recent assessment of export potential by the ITC, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Swiss government ranked crude oil trade as only a medium-level priority despite the fact that it is currently by far the country's most important export product in terms of gross revenue.

Crude oil exports generated nearly US$3.5 billion last year, or a quarter of Vietnam's total export earnings.

The country's production of oil is set to continue to increase, reaching around 20 million tonnes per annum by 2005 and raising export volume by approximately 30%.

Crude oil would maintain its lead position as Vietnam's principle export until 2005, when the Dung Quat refinery began production.

Oil exports would then begin to decline as product is directed to the refinery to be processed into fuel for the domestic market.

"Primary products, mainly oil and coal, which today account for a quarter of Vietnam's total export are likely to account for only three percent by the year 2010," the report estimated.

However, Le Minh Duc, an expert of the Institute for Industrial Policy and the Ministry of Industry, said that the drop in export value did not imply less benefit for Vietnam as the country would obviously save the huge sums of foreign currency, which were being spent on imported petroleum.

"When the second refinery comes into operation, processed oil and mineral products will themselves become potential export commodities for the country," Duc added.

While the 6.5 million tonne annual output of the Dung Quat refinery is to be primarily directed at the domestic fuel market, the nation's second refinery (estimated to be operational by the year 2010) will also supply exportable petrochemicals. Total capital investment of these two refineries has been set at around US$3.5 billion.

These two refineries would kick-start an infant petrochemical industry, said the report.

Vietnam is presently highly dependent on imported petrochemical products with petrol alone accounting for over US$1 billion in imports.

The crude oil price is expected to decline in the next few years after hitting nearly US$30 per barrel at the end of 2000.

Experts have predicted a slow decline of the industry in the long-term as the environmental concerns force a gradual shift to other sources of energy.

Vietnam is a small exporter on the world oil market, currently supplying about 0.6% of global demand. The government expects that at the opening of the Dung Quat refinery in 2005 exports of surplus crude oil will stand at 12 million tonnes. Its export strategy for 2001 to 2010 anticipates a decline in this figure in the latter part of the decade as further processing facilities come on line.


BBB

Acquiunk, actually it doesn't matter who he negotiates with cause it's all a sham anyway (just like "bring democracy/freedom to Iraq". He might very well negotiate with the then current CEO of MacDonalds franchise for Iraq. Of course there will be a big todo aboaut the size and shape of the table in Paris.

I keep reading that some permanent military bases are being built there. I wouldn't think a man planning to bug out would do that.

Edgar
Edgar, one of the main hidden reasons for invading Iraq was to build several US bases there because we had to leave Saudi Arabia and because of increasing Iran hostility.

BBB

If that's the case I vote we negotiate with Ahmed Chalabi, he already is a sham.

exactly.

Didja ever read this?
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf, written by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.' The document supports, 'maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.

That link don't work, but I believe Bush would have us sitting atop an arsenal in the mid east from now on.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article1221.htm

Here, the link to the document is within the article.

Thanks.

Thanks for setting me straight on 'Nam's oil reserves, BBB. But my point still stands: Vietnam wasn't about oil; the Middle East is.

See Victor Davis Hansons editorial at National Review Online and weep you appeasement/withdrawl fans. We are not about to relent or cut and run. You self-appointed geniuses are full of beans and MacDonalds franchises. You simply just don't get it...on purpose.

We don't get criminal presidents wasting our soldiers' lives and nation's resources.

What is it that we're supposed to get, Chuckster? That might makes right? That if you're not American, you have no rights? That what's good for Haliburton is good for America? That the Bill of Rights is a quaint document from a bygone era which can be done away with at executive will and replaced by a bogus bureaucracy called 'Homeland Security'?

I get all that. I just don't like it and intend to keep on fighting it.