Vietnam Airlines proposes privatization plan | Business | Thanh Nien Daily

Vietnam Airlines proposes privatization plan | Business | Thanh Nien Daily:



"State-owned Vietnam Airlines plans to sell 25 percent of its share capital this year, according to the privatization plan it recently submitted to the Ministry of Transport."

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Remember Vietnam?  The country that we were going to save from communism by destroying it, killing a million of its people, and losing almost 60,000 of our own soldiers in the process?  Well, after they kicked us out, they eventually found their own way to a mixed economy.  As the CIA Factbook explains,



"Vietnam is a densely-populated developing country that has been transitioning from the rigidities of a centrally-planned economy since 1986. Vietnamese authorities have reaffirmed their commitment to economic modernization in recent years. Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization in January 2007, which has promoted more competitive, export-driven industries. Vietnam became an official negotiating partner in the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement in 2010. Agriculture's share of economic output has continued to shrink from about 25% in 2000 to less than 20% in 2013, while industry's share increased from 36% to more than 42% in the same period. State-owned enterprises account for about 40% of GDP. Poverty has declined significantly, and Vietnam is working to create jobs to meet the challenge of a labor force that is growing by more than one million people every year." 



What does this mean?  The US invasion of Vietnam was the worst foreign policy blunder of the Cold War.  The only worse foreign policy decision in the last 150 years was the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The people who bullied us into the Vietnam war with their "domino theory" lies were horribly wrong, as were the criminals who sent us into Iraq based on lies about terrorism and WMDs.  And now we are hearing the same sort of people, and in some cases the very same people, making the same insane arguments to attack, bomb, invade, and occupy -- again, and again, and again.  There will always be a substantial minority of the population that is susceptible to being scared into sending our young people off to die or be maimed in a foreign country--ultimately, for nothing.  But is there a point where the majority decide that they have had enough, and won't be fooled again?