I'm not going to be staying that long, no disrespect intended:
"Kerry returns to Vietnam as America’s top diplomat; Visit is a mission for democratic, economic reform" by Matthew Lee | Associated Press, December 15, 2013
HO CHI MINH CITY — Forty-four years after first setting foot in the country as a young naval officer, John Kerry returned once more to Vietnam on Saturday, this time as America’s top diplomat offering security assurances and seeking to promote democratic and economic reform.
To what, the U.$. model?
Making his 14th trip to the communist Southeast Asian nation since the end of the war that profoundly influenced his political career and foreign policy thinking, Kerry is trying to bolster the remarkable rapprochement with the former US enemy that he encouraged and helped to engineer as a senator in the 1990s.
‘‘I can’t think of two countries that have worked harder, done more, and done better to try to bring themselves together and change history, to change the future, to provide a future for people that is very, very different,’’ Kerry told a group of businesspeople, students, and others at the US Consulate’s American Center in Ho Chi Minh City.
The visit is Kerry’s first to Vietnam since 2000 when he was part of President Bill Clinton’s historic trip here, the first by an American president since the end of the war in 1975 and the start of the US embargo against the former French colony. But, between 1991 and 2000, Kerry traveled 13 times to Vietnam to try to normalize relations, beginning with visits to clear up lingering questions over the fate of American prisoners of war and those listed as missing in action.
My thing is looking for the reference to the millions of dead Vietnamese in all this.
Here, in the city he first knew as Saigon, the capital of former South Vietnam, Kerry met Saturday with members of the business community and entrepreneurs to talk up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a wide-ranging trade agreement that the United States is now negotiating with Vietnam and nine other Asian countries.
Related:
Pacific area free trade deal closer
Take trade agreement off fast track
Ju$t $erving another corporate ma$ter, I gue$$.
To take full advantage of the economic opportunities offered by the pact, Kerry said Vietnam, which has been widely criticized for its human rights record, must embrace changes.
Or what, we will regime change them?
‘‘A commitment to an open Internet, to a more open society, to the rights of people to be able to exchange their ideas, to high-quality education, to a business environment that supports innovative companies, and to the protection of individual people’s human rights and their ability to be able to join together and express their ideas, all of these things create a more vibrant and a more powerful economy, as well as a society,’’ Kerry said.
I'm counting on that Internet openness (even as I accumulate a NSA trail), but tell it to the Occupy Wall Street kids. Never mind the torture, renditions, and black hole sites, the mass-murdering wars based on lies and all (he was part of it all).
Related: The Biggest Gun Dealers on Planet Earth
Oh, yeah, and then there is that. Hope you can $ee why I'm rolling through this quick. Covering the $tatu$ quo paper is u$ele$$ these days.
‘‘It strengthens a country, it doesn’t weaken it,’’ Kerry said. ‘‘The United States urges leaders here to embrace that possibility and to protect those rights.’’
He made the comments after attending Mass in Notre Dame Cathedral, which was built in the 1880s and 1890s under French colonial rule, in a bid to show support for the tenuous freedom of worship in Vietnam. Vietnamese authorities have been criticized for harassing, prosecuting, and jailing Catholic clergy.
Which shouldn't really bother Kerry to much because he turns out to be Jewish(!).
On Sunday, Kerry will travel to the Mekong River delta region, where he cut his military teeth as commander of a swift patrol boat in 1968 and 1969.
Is that where the blood in his mouth came from? I suppose I've just had too much of the war paper narrative, folks. Sorry.
Kerry plans a riverboat cruise to inspect agriculture projects that are a mainstay of southern Vietnam’s economy and assess the impact of upstream development and climate change.
Oh, that in the midst of this harsh, harsh winter all around the planet (almost didn't get a Globe today because of cold). I have had enough fart mi$t, too.
He will then visit the capital of Hanoi for talks with senior Vietnamese officials. US officials with Kerry said he would make a strong case to the Vietnamese that respect for human rights, particularly freedom of speech and religion, is key to improved relations with the United States. The officials said they expected Kerry to raise specific cases of political prisoners that the United States would like to see released.
Gitmo.
Apart from human rights and economic reform, the discussions in Hanoi are expected to focus largely on maritime security and territorial disputes in the South China Sea.
Oh, yeah, the trip is really all about the Asian pivot to confront China.
Vietnam and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations are deeply concerned about China’s growing assertiveness in the region and are looking to the United States to serve as a counterbalance by stepping up its traditional role as a guarantor of security in the Asia-Pacific.
Nice way of putting it.
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Hail the homecoming of the war hero, huh?
"John Kerry makes peaceful return to Mekong; Takes on impact of climate change" by Matthew Lee | Associated Press, December 16, 2013
Even the gears of war are frozen, huh? What a crap headline.
KIEN VANG, Vietnam — On Sunday, Kerry said he would make it a personal priority to ensure that none of the six countries that share the Mekong Delta — China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam — and depend on it for the livelihoods of an estimated 60 million people exploits the river at the expense of the others.
I haven't seen anything about Myanmar lately, and Laos was a one-day wonder. Hopefully I can get around to the other countries soon.
In a pointed reference to China, which plans several Mekong Dam projects that could seriously affect downstream populations, Kerry said: ‘‘No one country has a right to deprive another country of a livelihood, an ecosystem, and its capacity for life itself that comes from that river. That river is a global asset, a treasure that belongs to the region.’’
Yeah, we know why he has to $ay that.
The Mekong’s resources must ‘‘benefit people not just in one country, not just in the country where the waters come first, but in every country that touches this great river.’’
Though Kerry was keen to focus on the future, his return to the Mekong Delta, his first since 1969 despite his 13 previous postwar trips, was clearly a homecoming of sorts....
Ugh!
‘‘This was what we called a ‘free-fire zone’,’’ he said. ‘‘The Viet Cong were pretty much everywhere.’’
And so were civilians and other innocent people.
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I'm sorry, I know I may be offending some, but I can't abide AmeriKan murder based on lies anymore, now or in the past.
"US pledges $32.5m in naval aid to Southeast Asia nations; China rebuked on bid to expand air defense zone" by Matthew Lee | Associated Press, December 17, 2013
They have $32.5 million for empire but can't get unemployment and food stamps through to an ever-increasing population of destitute Americans.
But hey, the bankers and wealthy elite are doing just great so warm up!
HANOI — Taking clear aim at China’s growing aggressiveness in territorial disputes with its smaller neighbors, Secretary of State John F. Kerry announced Monday that the United States will boost maritime security assistance to the countries of Southeast Asia amid rising tensions with Beijing.
I'll bet all the small nations we have smashed wish they had a protector like John Kerry rushing to their defense. Whassat? He voted for the Iraq invasion you say?
On his first visit to Vietnam as America’s top diplomat, Kerry pledged an additional $32.5 million for members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to protect their territorial waters and navigational freedom in the South China Sea, where four states have competing claims with China.
It's the South CHINA Sea you say?
Related: Accepting Chinese Control of the East China Sea
Hey, what's in a name when there are wars to be started?
Included in the new aid is up to $18 million for Vietnam alone that will include five fast patrol-boats for its Coast Guard. With the new contribution, US maritime security assistance to the region will exceed $156 million over the next two years, he said.
With budget cuts here at home, save for the Pentagon and aid to Israel.
Kerry said the new assistance was not a ‘‘quickly conceived reaction to any events in the region’’ but rather a ‘‘gradual and deliberate expansion’’ of US support as part of the Obama administration’s broader decision to refocus attention on the Asia-Pacific region.
Not a growing aggressiveness like mean and nasty China!
However, his comments came as Washington and Beijing trade barbs over a near collision between US and Chinese naval vessels in the South China Sea 11 days ago.
First I've seen of it. WTF, Globe?
China announced in late November that it was establishing a defense zone over the East China Sea, a maritime area between China, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
All aircraft entering the zone must notify Chinese authorities beforehand, and China would take unspecified defensive measures against those that don’t comply. Neighboring countries and the United States have said they will not honor the new zone — believed aimed at claiming disputed territory — and have said it unnecessarily raises tensions.
Already, China has claimed it has a sovereign right to establish a similar zone over the South China Sea, where China and the Philippines are locked in another long-running territorial dispute.
They just want to know who is flying through the airspace like the NSA does. What's wrong with that?
‘‘Peace and stability in the South China Sea is a top priority for us and for countries in the region,’’ Kerry told reporters at a news conference with Vietnam’s foreign minister, Pham Binh Minh. ‘‘We are very concerned by and strongly opposed to coercive and aggressive tactics to advance territorial claims.’’
Unless it's the EUSraeli empire he is fronting for, then it's ho-hum.
While stressing US neutrality on the competing sovereignty claims, Kerry called on China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations to quickly agree to a binding code of conduct for the South China Sea and to resolve their disputes peacefully through negotiations.
China’s increasing assertiveness in the region — including the establishment of the East China Sea air defense zone — has alarmed many of the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, including Vietnam and the Philippines, which Kerry will visit Tuesday.
I hope you under$tand why I can no longer read this war flop.
In addition, Kerry made clear that the aid is designed to help Southeast Asian nations defend their waters from encroachment and his announcement was accompanied by blunt criticism of China for its creation of a new air defense zone and suggestions that it might do the same in the South China Sea.
As such, it is almost certain to anger Beijing, which bristles at what it sees as US interference in areas China considers to be in its ‘‘core interest.’’
As AmeriKa would bristle were China to declare an aid package to Mexico and Canada for territorial integrity of the oceans but whatever, war paper.
China and Vietnam fought a bloody border war in 1979, and in 1988 a naval battle close to disputed islands in the seas left 70 Vietnamese sailors dead. Disputes over fishing rights in the region have triggered occasional violent incidents and hiked up diplomatic tensions since then.
Nothing about all the energy supplies under the ocean floor, 'eh?
Kerry had harsh words for China’s new East China Sea air defense zone, saying it ‘‘clearly increases the risk of a dangerous miscalculation or an accident’’ that could lead to possible conflict between China and Japan over a string of small islands that each claim as its own.
Or a FALSE FLAG intended to start a war.
You know, like the GULF of TONKIN, a totally made up and fictional event (and we have seen that a lot coming from the propaganda pre$$ lately, from alleged Syrian chemical attacks to Sandy Hook hoaxes and Marathons of scripted and staged crisis drills)!!!!!
The United States is ‘‘very concerned about recent actions that have increased tensions between China and Japan and we call for intensified negotiations and diplomatic initiatives.
They were "ours," John! We flew bombers and spy planes through the minute they issued the press release! C'mon, man!
‘‘The zone should not be implemented, and China should refrain from taking similar unilateral actions elsewhere, particularly in the South China Sea,’’ Kerry said, reiterating that such moves by Beijing would not affect US military operations in the region.
Beijing regards the entire South China Sea and island groups within it as its own and interprets international law as giving it the right to police foreign naval activity there.
It is the South CHINA Sea, right? I am reading that correctly, right? Not a typo?
Kind of settles it for me, sorry.
The Chinese navy is operating with increasing frequency in the South China Sea and around Japan as part of China’s development of its blue water navy.
Tensions were highlighted earlier this month when a Chinese warship nearly collided with an American cruiser in the South China Sea.
"Ours" was cruiser, their's a "warship." SIGH!!
Last I saw of it, too, and I never saw a death told from the AmeriKan war crime known as Vietnam.
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Related:
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What the hell happened to you, $enator?
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