December 12, 2019

Abandoned Allies and the Lessons We Still Need to Learn

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend" is an ancient proverb that suggests that two opposing parties can or should work together against a common enemy.  The earliest known expression of this concept is found in a Sanskrit treatise on st...

September 30, 2018

Will America Once Again Abandon Its Christian Montagnard Allies?

The Montagnard tribes in the Central Highlands were among our most loyal allies in the fight against the communists during the Vietnam War.  They fought alongside the U.S. Special Forces in epic battles and rescued countless Americans, incl...

November 8, 2017

Playing the Trump Card in Vietnam

The White House has confirmed that President Donald Trump will be attending the upcoming Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Da Nang, Vietnam on November 11-12.  Most of APEC's key activities will be held at the In...

July 26, 2017

The United Nations Has No Business Setting U.S. Refugee Policy in Southeast Asia

With the Democrats stalling the approval of the President’s political appointees, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson faces a huge problem in cleaning his house of Clinton-Obama holdovers embedded in the State Department.  One crucial positio...

December 1, 2016

China Builds Deep Water Seaport in Cambodia on the Gulf of Thailand

President Obama’s pipe dream policy of using Vietnam to contain China, which was conjured up years ago by two Senate Johns – Kerry and McCain – is falling apart. This should not surprise anyone who has compared the populations and e...

May 23, 2016

Obama’s Visit to Vietnam Comes as Mass Demonstrations Protest Pollution and Massive Fish Kills

On May 1, after marking the 41st anniversary of the reunification of Vietnam, residents in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) and major port cities in other parts of the country woke up to find thousands of energized young ...

August 16, 2015

Modern Day Slavery in Vietnam and Malaysia

In a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on August 6, Senators from both parties accused the Obama Administration of putting its Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) goals ahead of Malaysia’s modern-day slavery; however, this was just half...

August 2, 2015

Vietnam's Unending Oppression

The axiom “If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas” has been attributed to Benjamin Franklin (in his Poor Richard's Almanac). This may be translated to mean: "Be cautious of the company you keep. If you associa...

June 11, 2014

The POWs Obama is Leaving Behind in Afghanistan

Put aside, for a moment, Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. What about the health of two other American captives that Obama is leaving behind: Caitlan Coleman and her one-year-old child?  Caitlan, then pregnant, and her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle were captu...

March 23, 2014

A Cambodian Spring Tsunami

Most of the major media recently missed a chance to give democracy a boost, choosing instead to ignore events in Cambodia of major significance. Millions of Cambodians overcame the horrors of the Khmer Rouge genocide and their fear of the repressive ...

December 21, 2013

Cambodia Apes Vietnam in Its War on Religion

The axiom "monkey see, monkey do" comes to mind in a recent incident at the Buddhist Temple Wat Kanteyaram (Eastern United Temple Foundation of Jacksonville Inc.).  The Cambodian Buddhist community rallied in Jacksonville Florida on Novembe...

September 22, 2013

Vietnam's Talk/Fight Strategy in play on Human Rights Negotiations

For decades, the Vietnamese communists' negotiating strategy has been "Talk/Fight" -- first in dealing with the French, then with the U.S. during the Vietnam War, and now in the current U.S.-Vietnam Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations. ...

August 18, 2013

U.S. Aid to Cambodia's Corrupt Military

The "he said, she said" dispute over the claim that the Cambodian regime suspended or cancelled international military cooperation with the U.S. offers an ideal opportunity for the Obama administration to right a wrong-headed policy of providing aid ...

May 27, 2013

The Secret War in Laos Redux

On May 10, a small group of aging Laotian and Hmong veterans of the CIA's "Secret Army," a handful of American advisors who served during the Vietnam War, and a few others gathered at Arlington Cemetery to honor the Lao and Hmong veterans, their fami...

May 4, 2013

Communist Vietnam -- Human Trafficker Extraordinaire

Vietnam is now the proud possessor of the inglorious title "The Worst Human Rights Violator in Southeast Asia," according to recent testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. State-affiliated labor export companies are major suppliers o...

April 27, 2013

Vietnam Sucker-Punches the US on Human Rights and Religious Freedom

For years, the American Embassy, the State Department, and the Senate have enabled communist Vietnam, ignoring the regime's abuses of religious freedom and human rights to allow it privileged access to U.S. and international investments, markets, and...

October 28, 2012

Danger on the Mekong

Like a toxic fungus spreading its roots throughout Cambodia, communist Vietnam is slowly and methodically colonizing and swallowing up its neighbor. Researchers estimate that over 40% of Cambodia's voting population is comprised of Vietnamese migrant...

July 22, 2012

Vietnam's Two-Front War on Religion

The Vietnamese regime's religion is communism, and the Party views all other organized religions as a direct threat to national security and its authoritarian control of the Vietnamese people.  Religious tolerance exists only in theory; Article ...

June 10, 2012

Foreign Aid Underwrites Another Chapter in Cambodia's Bloody History

Recently, I watched Florida's Senator Marco Rubio -- who is allegedly short-listed as a vice-presidential candidate -- on TV, dancing around to avoid answering whether he supports Mitt Romney's position of cutting foreign aid to reduce the budget def...

June 12, 2011

What Religious Freedom Means in Vietnam

For many Vietnam veterans, Memorial Day was for remembering not only those Americans who died in the Vietnam War, but also our counterparts -- the Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians who died fighting for freedom, and for all who still suffer persec...

April 3, 2011

Vietnamese Communists' Fear Factor is Rising

As a Libyan protester said, "After we saw Tunisia and Egypt, we thought that we can do it too;" their "fear wall broke" and the people of Libya no longer feared their corrupt and brutal dictatorship.  In contrast, the prospec...