And the REAL irony, is that Ho Chi Minh was in favour, at first... and was kicked in the teeth after WWII - 'for the tin' :-)

"tells you just how legitimate it was as a real representative of the Vietnamese people. "

... and this is why those of us old enough to have lived thru the days of the very real possibility of being conscripted to fight (and die) in a foreign land (only big lottery I have ever been lucky in...) have expressed some degree of concern about Iraq.

The blatant lies used as an excuse to get the troops into Iraq at any price, as distinct from Afghanistan, where there was at least tacit UN approval - in contrast with the "F*** 'em all, we're doin' it OUR way!" US attitude (and craven US arselicking by Howard and Blair) in Iraq, for those of us who found out much later about the lies about Tonkin Bay that started the whole Vietnam Nightmare (and the also craven arselicking by the Aussie Govt there too) worry some of us very much indeed.

I find it bemusing that one of the 'reasons' for the Aussie arselicking - the right to throw billions of dollars at the USA to have US Military hardware - apparently isn't worth much anyway - we have now just thrown a political diplomatical tantrum because Boeing is now running way late on delivering our beaut new planes... oh, and now the US Govt doesn't want to play fair and give us all the proper Top Secret Stuff anyway, even though that is what our stupid Pollies THOUGHT we were buying anyway...

:-0