Joe Biden on Vietnamese evacuations

[snopes]

Comment: Joe BIDEN on the subject of Vietnamese evacuation in 1975: 'I am
not willing to pay any money to get the Vietnamese out unless we can't get
any Americans without buying 174.000 Vietnamese. In that case, I'm willing
to buy the 174.000 Vietnamese'

Is this rumor is true?

[Chloe]

And if it is, did it make sense when he said it?

[kanazawa]

Originally Posted by Chloe

And if it is, did it make sense when he said it?

You have to understand the context in which the remark was made. The communist takeover of Vietnam in 1975 caused a severe shortage of Vietnamese for sale to Hollywood to play "commies" in cheap war movies.

Biden's solution was obviously to mix a few Americans in with the next shipment of Vietnamese to California, but hardly anyone was fooled.

In the end they had to resort to buying Thai and Phillipine actors to play the bad guys--see the Rambo movie series for instance.

Now days of course, we have a vast pool of Chinese that are quite willing and able to play Vietnamese in a variety of roles on stage and screen.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by kanazawa

Now days of course, we have a vast pool of Chinese that are quite willing and able to play Vietnamese in a variety of roles on stage and screen.

And Japanese too.

[Silas Sparkhammer]

Science fiction writer and pundit David Brin refers to the Vietnam war as a "Viking Raid." The U.S. invaded the country, and took away the best-educated, richest, professional-class people. We didn't take away many farmers, but we got a lot of their teachers.

Silas

In response to Sila's comment:

Doesn't it sort of make sense though, that the richest, most well-educated would want out? I mean, logically, the rich and the capable are the ones that would be most negatively affected by a Communist takeover. We're talking about a political and economic system where their intelligence, acheivements, hard work, and wealth would no longer belong to them, or benefit them in any way, so isn't it sort of logical that they left on their own accord, instead of us "stealing" them? I think that to say that the US "stole" those people in a "viking raid" takes the self-determination aspect out of the equation. They WANTED to leave, and would have at least tried to do so, with or without us. The fact that we gave them a way out, in my humble opinion, doesn't make us complicit in some sort of theft of that which rightfully belonged to the Vietnamese government, it simply reinforced our long-standing belief in self-determination taking precedent over government interest. If anything, the Vietnamese Government are the most complicit; they created a governmental and economic system that failed to reward success and chased these people away.

As far as Joe Biden's comment, all that he was saying is that he was not sure that he was willing to finance the extrication of these people, unless we were forced to in order to get our people out. I think that it was a valid stance at the time. We were interested in getting OURSELVES out, not the south vietnamese. That they also wanted to leave fell under a very broad category, one headed in bold letters that read "NOT OUR PROBLEM".

You may or may not agree or disagree with what Senator Biden said, based on lots of different stances:

1.) We've already done enough to them, let them take care of themselves;

Or:

2.) We've been taking care o them for 10 years, they've grown dependent on our support, and we cannot abandon them.

Either point was valid, logically, morally, and any other *ally you can throw at it, so i am really not even sure why this is being brought up...