Hollywood Pimps World View Devoted to Control & Destruction

ꕤ Article SOURCE http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-oscars-are-a-con Why the Oscars are a con 11 February 2010 - John Pilger Why are so many films so bad? This year's Oscar nominations are a parade of propaganda, stereotypes and downright dishonesty. The dominant theme is as old as Hollywood: America's divine right to invade other societies, steal their history and occupy our memory. When will directors and writers behave like artists and not pimps for a world-view devoted to control and destruction? I grew up on the movie myth of the Wild West, which was harmless enough unless you happened to be a Native American. The formula is unchanged. Self-regarding distortions present the nobility of the American colonial aggressor as a cover for massacre, from the Philippines to Iraq. I only fully understood the power of the con when I was sent to Vietnam as a war reporter. The Vietnamese were "gooks" and "Indians", whose industrial murder was preordained in John Wayne movies and left to Hollywood to glamourise or redeem. I use the word murder advisedly, because what Hollywood does brilliantly is suppress the truth about America's assaults. These are not wars, but the export of a gun-addicted, homicidal "culture". And when the notion of psychopaths as heroes wears thin, the bloodbath becomes an "American tragedy" with a soundtrack of pure angst. Kathryn Bigelow's The Hurt Locker is in this tradition. A favourite for multiple Oscars, her film is "better than any documentary I've seen on the Iraq war. It's so real it's scary" (Paul Chambers, CNN). Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian reckons it has "unpretentious clarity" and is "about the long and painful endgame in Iraq", and that it "says more about the agony and wrong and tragedy of war than all those earnest well-meaning movies". What nonsense. This film offers a vicarious thrill through yet another standard-issue psychopath, high on violence in somebody else's country where the deaths of a million people are consigned to cinematic oblivion. The hype around Bigelow is that she may be the first woman to win the Oscar for Best Director. How insulting that a woman is celebrated for a typically violent all-male war movie. The accolades echo those for The Deer Hunter (1978), which critics acclaimed as "the film that could purge a nation's guilt"! The Deer Hunter lauded those who had caused the deaths of more than three million Vietnamese, while reducing those who resisted to barbaric commie stick figures. In 2001, Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down provided a similar, if less subtle, catharsis for another "noble failure" by the US, this time in Somalia, airbrushing the heroes' massacre of up to 10,000 Somalis. By contrast, the fate of an admirable American war film, Redacted, is instructive. Made in 2007 by Brian De Palma, the film is based on the true story of the gang rape of an Iraqi teenager and the murder of her family by US soldiers. There is no heroism, no purgative. The murderers are murderers, and De Palma ingeniously describes the complicity of Hollywood and the media in the epic crime of Iraq. The film ends with a series of photographs of Iraqi civilians who were killed. When it was ordered that their faces be blacked out "for legal reasons", De Palma said: "I think that's terrible because now we have not even given the dignity of faces to this suffering people. The great irony about Redacted is that it was redacted." After a limited release in the US, the film all but vanished. Non-American (or non-western) humanity is not deemed to have box-office appeal, dead or alive. They are the "other" who are allowed, at best, to be saved by "us". In Avatar, James Cameron's vast and violent money-printer, 3-D noble savages known as the Na'vi need a good-guy American soldier, Sergeant Jake Sully, to save them. This confirms they are "good". Natch. My Oscar for the worst of this year's nominees goes to Invictus, Clint Eastwood's unctuous insult to the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Based on a hagiography of Mandela by a British journalist, John Carlin, the film might have been a product of apartheid propaganda. In promoting the racist, thuggish rugby culture as a panacea of the "rainbow nation", Eastwood gives barely a hint that many black South Africans were deeply embarrassed and hurt by Mandela's embrace of the hated springbok symbol of their suffering. He airbrushes white violence - but not black violence, which is ever present as a threat. As for the Boer racists, they have hearts of gold, because they "didn't really know". The subliminal theme is all too familiar: colonialism deserves forgiveness and accommodation, never justice. At first I thought Invictus could not be taken seriously, but then I looked around the cinema at young people and others for whom the horrors of apartheid have no reference, and I understood the damage such a slick travesty does to our memory and its moral lessons. Imagine Eastwood making a happy-Sambo equivalent in America's Deep South. He would not dare. The film most nominated for an Oscar and promoted by the critics is Up in the Air, which stars George Clooney as a man who travels the US sacking people and collecting frequent-flyer points. Before the triteness dissolves into sentimentality, every stereotype is summoned, especially of women. There is a bitch, a saint and a cheat. However, this is "a movie for our times", says the director, Jason Reitman, who boasts about having cast real sacked people. “We interviewed them about what it was like to lose their job in this economy," said he, "then we'd fire them on camera and ask them to respond the way they did when they lost their job . . . It was an incredible experience to watch these non-actors with 100 per cent realism." Wow, what a winner. SOURCE http://johnpilger.com/articles/why-the-oscars-are-a-con ---------------------- ꕤ ---------------------- IN SUMMARY What stood out for me re the above: Hollywood pimps world-view devoted to control & destruction Dominant theme: America's divine right to invade steal history  occupy memory  ['rewriting' history + exporting world view & culture, I guess] Self-regarding distortions nobility of the American colonial aggressor  cover for massacre, from:  Philippines - Iraq Hollywood: preordains industrial murder glamourises / redeems industrial murder / "American tragedy" suppresses truth exports gun-addicted, homicidal "culture" psychopaths portrayed as heroes bloodbath turns to "American tragedy" vicarious thrill  /  violence deaths of millions -  consigned to cinematic oblivion Vietnam = over 3-million Vietnamese killed Somalia =  massacre up to 10,000 Somalis Redacted (2007) Brian De Palma /  Iraq - gang rape + murder family - US soldiers *was* redacted Film:  Redacted (2007) Link  |  here Assange Transnational Security Elite, Carving Up the World Using Your Tax Money London  OCT8 Antiwar Mass Assembly (2011) Link  |  here COMMENT Noticed this article while grabbing a link to another article, from the author's site. Interesting to see author's take on Hollywood big screen propaganda. I stopped watching movies years ago, so I haven't seen any of these films ... and I probably wouldn't have been attracted to war films, or American hero films, regardless.  Figured it was all propaganda years ago, but I'd never have been able to articulate why it's propaganda, as the author does. ꕤ

Article - "The Only "Lowlife Scum" in the McCain Hearing Was Henry Kissinger" | John McCain

The Only "Lowlife Scum" in the McCain Hearing Was Henry Kissinger By Gregory Krieg January 31, 2015 "Arrest Henry Kissinger for war crimes!" The strained, sing-song chant that sent Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) into a twitching fit of rage on Thursday afternoon had died out by the time security escorted one last graying activist from the hearing room. For McCain, though, the quarrel never ends. This was no ordinary disruption, and the man seated before the panel, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, was no ordinary guest. That goes to explain McCain's jarring choice of words when he finally, and now infamously, called the departing protesters "lowlife scum." YouTube VIDEO  https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422579428&v=OYMtEGLmD_Y&x-yt-cl=85114404&feature=player_embedded If McCain was the pit bull in this setting, then Kissinger was the decaying clapboard chop-shop he was intent on defending. The intruders, in their defiance, were mauled for having attempted to carry out a "citizen's arrest" of the 91-year-old Nobel Prize winner for atrocities committed by the U.S. government during the 1970s in countries including Vietnam, Laos, East Timor and Chile. The senator's resulting outburst, in its wild-eyed wonder, had the unfortunate effect of overshadowing the substance of the their charges: namely, that the bloated figure wheeled out before them had, in the course of an eight-year run as the chief U.S. foreign policy strategist, masterminded a series of violent overt and covert campaigns against civilians and democratic governments across Southeast Asia and Latin America. Kissinger spent a little more than two of those years — beginning officially on Jan. 20, 1969, and ending on that same date in 1977 — serving concurrently as secretary of state and national security adviser to President Richard Nixon and, after his resignation, Gerald Ford. His power, and the seemingly counterintuitive respect he inspires, cannot be overstated, nor can it be rationally explained. There are hundreds of thousands of deaths on his crooked shoulders. Millions more were physically or psychologically wounded.  The secret bombing of Cambodia: The German-born "president whisperer" made his first dark mark on the planet in early 1969, when, confronted with continued advances by North Vietnamese fighters from bases in neighboring Cambodia, he and Nixon conspired to order a top-secret bombing campaign called Operation Breakfast, which turned into the longer-running Operation Menu. It might seem quaint today, given the mind-bending frequency of executive power overreaches, but Nixon's authorization to strike inside eastern Cambodia and Laos would come to represent a then-unprecedented scale of wartime deceit and illegality. Over the next four years, the U.S. would drop millions of tons of explosives on the neutral countries, all the while denying the program's existence at every turn. "Estimates of the number of people killed begin in the low hundreds of thousands and range up from there," Henry Grabar wrote in the Atlantic, "but the truth is that no one has any idea." World Without Genocide, a watchdog organization, estimates that 750,000 Cambodians were killed between 1970 and 1974, most of them by "American B-52 bombers, using napalm and dart cluster-bombs to destroy suspected Viet Cong targets." No one in the U.S. had anything more than a suspicion it was happening until May 9, 1969, when the New York Times published a story titled "Raids in Cambodia by U.S. Unprotested." Kissinger responded swiftly, telling aides and the president, "We must crush these [leakers and journalists]. We must destroy them." Infamous FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover was more than happy to oblige and, as told in Robert Weiner's Enemies: A History of the FBI, the two quickly set up wiretaps on the aides Kissinger suspected had leaked the story. Kissinger denied it all until 1992, when he conceded his part in the process of settling a related lawsuit. Backing Indonesia's invasion of East Timor: Kissinger's role in Vietnam fills volumes, but it's his and America's ostensible absence in East Timor on Dec. 7, 1975, that speaks more directly to his malignant diplomatic tactics. Traveling alongside President Gerald Ford, Kissinger led a Dec. 6 meeting in Jakarta, Indonesia, with Indonesian dictator Suharto. The focus was on East Timor, at the time a small Southeast Asian territory recently abandoned by the colonial Portuguese. With Ford concerned about regional Communists filling the vacuum and Suharto, an ally, with his eyes set on an invasion and occupation, Kissinger asked the Indonesians to wait until the U.S. delegation left to begin their assault. Additionally, he promised to supply Suharto with American arms, over the inevitable objections of Congress. "We will understand and will not press you on the issue. We understand the problem and the intentions you have," Kissinger told Suharto, the details emerging via transcripts released in 2001. "We would be able to influence the reaction in America if whatever happens, happens after we return. If you have made plans, we will do our best to keep everyone quiet until the president returns home."  The transcripts also reveal Kissinger asking Suharto if he anticipated a "long guerrilla war." Suharto responded that it would be "small." And so the Americans left. The invasion of East Timor, carried out with a steady flow of American support, was swift. They waited one day. The fight lasted much longer, carrying on for nearly a quarter-century. The estimated death toll: 200,000. Suharto died in 2008 after stepping down a decade earlier, following the deaths of 500 student protesters. Taking down the Chilean government: Sept. 11 means something very different, but just as painful, for the people of Chile. On that date in 1973, a CIA-backed coup ousted and assassinated the country's democratically elected President Salvador Allende. The socialist was replaced with Gen. Augusto Pinochet, a right-wing thug who would rule the country as a dictator for 17 brutal years. After Allende was elected on Sept. 4, 1970, Kissinger declared in a memo to Nixon that the vote "poses for us one of the most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere." "Your decision as to what to do about it may be the most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will make this year," he wrote. U.S. businesses had hundreds of millions tied up in Latin America, which has been and remains a target for strategic American enemies. Kissinger decided that allowing Allende to remain in power would create an "insidious model effect." That is to say: Other countries under the American hemispheric umbrella might see that they could democratically elect a government and make decisions without the U.S. Soon after the Sept. 11, 1973, coup, Kissinger was quick to order his man in Santiago to deliver to Pinochet "our strongest desires to cooperate closely and establish firm basis for cordial and most constructive relationship." He did, and Kissinger's shop in Washington, D.C., working with the CIA began a long relationship with the regime. Chile's murderous National Intelligence Directorate was built by American agents.  [Looks like 'Kissinger's shop' is the National Security Council, going by entry in Aaron Wildavsky's book] Pinochet's military dictatorship, one of a number of right-wing juntas that dominated, degraded and bled Latin America in the 1970s and '80s, killed thousands and tortured an estimated 29,000, according to a survey conducted by a government commission. The great majority of those crimes happened in 1973, with Kissinger in close contact the whole way. After he left, his Reaganite disciples supported the regime through its demise in 1990. So what the fuck was Henry Kissinger doing in Washington, D.C., last Thursday? On the face of it, Kissinger had been summoned to discuss foreign policy matters with the Senate Armed Services Committee. The hearing, called "Global Challenges and the U.S. National Security Strategy," was as inscrutable as the title suggests. In reality, Kissinger was on Capitol Hill because he, like so much "scum" before him, sticks to and feeds off all innocent life around him. He was invited because, to people like McCain, he represents the brand of blunt hegemonic history that Americans are (or at least should be) desperate to reclaim. But Henry Kissinger's time is in the past. There are new "challenges." Many of them, like President Barack Obama's drone killing program, probably make the old man smile. Some day soon, Kissinger will die. If only his legacy could be buried with him. http://mic.com/articles/109508/the-only-low-life-scum-in-the-mc-cain-hearing-was-henry-kissinger COMMENT Another great article.   Good for me as a learning aid. Really enjoyed this.

TURKEY & OTHERS GAOL JOURNALISTS

Turkey   By AFP 6:04PM BST 08 Aug 2014 Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister, faced a new outcry on Friday over his attitude to the media and women after he branded a prominent female journalist a "shameless woman" and told her "to know your place". Just ahead of Sunday's presidential election which he is clear favourite to win, Erdogan attacked Amberin Zaman, who writes for the Economist and the Turkish daily Taraf, over comments she made in a television debate. She had asked the main opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the debate whether any Muslim society was capable of challenging its authorities. Mr Erdogan lashed out at Ms Zaman, without mentioning her directly by name, at an election rally in the eastern city of Malatya on Thursday, calling her a "shameless woman".  "A militant in the guise of a journalist, a shameless woman... Know your place!" he declared. "They gave you a pen and you are writing a column in a newspaper... and you insult a society that is 99 percent Muslim," he said, drawing loud boos from the crowd. This is not the first time Mr Erdogan has lashed out at journalists, who have come under increasing pressure in Turkey, which has more reporters behind bars than any other country in the world. [...] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/turkey/11022632/Turkish-PM-tells-female-reporter-to-know-your-place.html

Never mind the 'shameless woman' bit.  They gaol journalists!  I had no idea.  And it's not just one or two bad boys; it's 40 journalists in the one year.

Check out this article for places not to work if you're a journalist:

• Turkey, Iran, and China accounted for more than half of all journalists imprisoned around the world in 2013

• Eritrea remained Africa’s worst jailer of journalists, with 22 behind bars compared with 28 in 2012. Eritrea is the world’s worst abuser of due process; no Eritrean detainee has ever been publicly charged with a crime or brought before a court for trial.  

• Vietnam was holding 18 journalists, up from 14 a year earlier, as authorities intensified a crackdown on bloggers, who represent the country’s only independent press.

• The number of prisoners rose in Ethiopia, Bahrain, and Somalia, in addition to Vietnam.

[used mostly anti-state charges to silence a combined 107 critical reporters, bloggers, and editors]

 http://cpj.org/reports/2013/12/second-worst-year-on-record-for-jailed-journalists.php

That journalist that was expelled from Turkey the other day was LUCKY!

John McCain's commie grudge

John McCain Vietnam War POW CIA - Department of Defense Files 73 pages of CIA and Department of Defense documents and transcriptions, of foreign broadcasts, from 1967 to 1973, relating to John McCain's captivity in North Vietnam. On October 26, 1967, John McCain was flying an A-4E Skyhawk on his twenty-third mission over North Vietnam. This mission was his first encounter with the heavy air defenses deployed by the North Vietnamese in and around Hanoi. His plane was hit by a Russian made surface to air missile. McCain ejected and landed badly injured in Truc Bach Lake. He was dragged from the lake and beaten by civilians along the shore. Thus began John McCain's 5 1/2 years of captivity in North Vietnam. He was taken to Hoa Lo Prison, also known as "Hanoi Hilton," where he was refused medical treatment, interrogated, and beaten. After his captors learned his father was Admiral McCain he was given medical treatment. Early on, this son and grandson of high-ranking naval officers was accorded relatively privileged status. Then he refused early release, which he says he saw as a public relations stunt by his captors, insisting that POWs held longer than him should be granted their freedom first. Thereafter, McCain was treated much more severely. In March 1968, McCain was put into solitary confinement, where he would remain for two years. In August 1968, a program of severe torture began on McCain. He was subjected to rope bindings and repeated beatings every two hours for four days. McCain attempted to commit suicide, but was caught by guards. He was then put under suicide watch. He signed a forced confession during the torture. When he resisted further attempts to be used for North Vietnamese propaganda, a regiment of beatings two or three times a week was established. In the later half of 1969 the North Vietnamese treatment of American POWs became less inhumane and the express torture ended. McCain was released on March 14, 1973. He returned home on crutches and began years of physical rehabilitation. McCain later regained flight status and commanded a Navy squadron before retiring from the Navy in 1981. Source - here.

It was all going swell until those North Vietnamese got themselves some heavy air defences.

Then McCain was brought from the skies ... to his knees. 

Looks like McCain's still mad at commies for the kinky rope and corporal punishment humiliations exacted, after he was shot down by an alleged Russian SAM.

McCain's now interfering in European affairs ... but it's the Ruskis who are the villains?

Currently Reading: Vietnam

"U.S. propaganda leaflet urges Viet Cong to defect using the Chiêu Hồi Program" (Chiêu Hồi - is 'Open Arms') [Source - Wikipedia - here]

The Chieu Hoi ('Open Arms') US propaganda program is described in Wikipedia as 'successful' overall, having removed a number of combatants from the field.

History shows, however, that it is the Viet Cong who ultimately prevailed against the odds.

Vietnam's Cam Rahn Bay facilities - Vietnam looking to East or West?

 The Japan Times Article

China removes oil rig that triggered Vietnam riots from disputed waters

AP

... 

It said oil and gas has been discovered during the operation, but was assessing the data gathered before deciding its next move. It has always been unclear whether the Beijing deployed the rig for genuine exploration reasons or geopolitical ones. When it announced the deployment, Beijing said it would withdraw it on Aug. 15, also citing the typhoon season.

Ha Le, deputy director of Vietnam’s fisheries resources surveillance department, said China began removing the rig and escorting vessels Tuesday night, and by 8 a.m. Wednesday it was 40 nautical miles northwest of its original location and continuing to move toward Hainan island.

Le said 30 vessels from Vietnam’s coast guard and fisheries patrol forces that were sent to try to force the Chinese oil rig away will return to port to avoid the incoming Rammasun typhoon.

China’s unwillingness to move the rig exposed Vietnam’s lack of options when dealing with its giant neighbor. The workings of the Vietnamese government are shrouded in secrecy, but it has long been assumed that the Communist Party is split between a faction that favors a tough line against Beijing — and consequentially stronger ties with the United States and its allies in Asia — and those members who believe a compromise can be reached with their ideological allies to the north.

As a result of the rig placement, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung has said the country was preparing to file a legal challenge to China’s claims in an international tribunal, something that risks angering China. It remains to be seen whether Vietnam will go ahead with that now the rig has been withdrawn.

Former Vietnamese Ambassador to Beijing Nguyen Trong Vinh said China’s removal of the rig didn’t signal a change of attitude on behalf of the country.

“The removal of the oil rig from our continental shelf and exclusive economic zone is only temporary. Maybe they pulled out the oil rig ahead of the typhoon season. It does not mean that they have abandoned their resolve to take control of most of the East Sea,” he said, using the Vietnamese term for the South China Sea.

EXTRACT ONLY - Source - The Japan Times - here.

--------------------------------------------
Article Publisher Background

Toshiaki Ogasawara has been Chairman of The Japan Times Ltd. since 2001 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer and Publisher. ... He served as an Advisory Director with Bank of America. Mr. Ogasawara ...

Board Members Memberships*

Trustee

University of Southern California

Unknown/Other Education

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs  - [Princeton University]

 Other Affiliations*

University of Southern California

...

Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs [Princeton University]

Business Breakthrough, Inc. [Educational services - Tokyo Japan]

...

Source - Business Newsweek - here. 

--------------------------------------------
Vietnam Government

The Socialist Republic of Vietnam, along with China, Cuba, and Laos, is one of the world's four remaining single-party socialist states officially espousing communism. Its current state constitution, which replaced the 1975 constitution in April 1992, asserts the central role of the Communist Party of Vietnam in all organs of government, politics and society.

[wikipedia]

 --------------------------------------------
Japan Government

Japan is a member of the G8, APEC, and "ASEAN Plus Three", and is a participant in the East Asia Summit. Japan signed a security pact with Australia in March 2007 and with India in October 2008.

It is the world's third largest donor of official development assistance after the United States and France, donating US$9.48 billion in 2009.


Japan has close economic and military relations with the United States; the US-Japan security alliance acts as the cornerstone of the nation's foreign policy.  A member state of the United Nations since 1956, Japan has served as a non-permanent Security Council member for a total of 20 years, most recently for 2009 and 2010. It is one of the G4 nations seeking permanent membership in the Security Council.

Japan is engaged in several territorial disputes with its neighbors: with Russia over the South Kuril Islands, with South Korea over the Liancourt Rocks, with China and Taiwan over the Senkaku Islands, and with China over the EEZ around Okinotorishima.  Japan also faces an ongoing dispute with North Korea over the latter's abduction of Japanese citizens and its nuclear weapons and missile program (see also Six-party talks).


Japan maintains one of the largest military budgets of any country in the world.  Japan contributed non-combatant troops to the Iraq War but subsequently withdrew its forces.

[wikipedia]

--------------------------------------------
COMMENT

[NOTE - The above background info is largely for my own benefit, trying to make out who's who.]

China pulling its oil rig from the contested waters is a development which may -- or may not -- influence current negotiations purportedly taking place between Vietnam and both US and Russia, in respect of the Cam Rhan Bay port -- a deep sea port 'seven miles from open sea', which has recently been upgraded to the tune of millions of dollars and is capable of accommodating aircraft carriers as well as docking and maintaining sea vessels.

So the question is, which way will Vietnam turn and:  is the Communist Party in Vietnam divided when it comes to deciding how to best address maritime territorial interests?

Vietnamese Communist Party factional divisions (if any) can only be guessed at.

However, I suspect that alliance-shy Vietnam is looking to make the best deal it can negotiate and, as mentioned, discussions are purportedly 'well under-way' with both Russia and the US.

From the US perspective, Vietnam has common interests with with the US who:

... also wants to protect what is, according to a 2012 U.S. estimates, $1.2 trillion in U.S. trade transiting along South China Sea shipping lanes. 

[Source - stripes.com]

Of course, the US also has military interests in the Asia-Pacific region, so Cam Rahn Bay access is also of wider strategic military value to the US.

At this stage (June 2014), it appears that the US is quietly hopeful that the Vietnam's attitude has warmed towards the US in more recent times:

“There have been remarkable strides already made in last few years, and it’s been very rapid since 2010 in terms of U.S.-Vietnam military relationships,” said Christian Le Mière, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “Continued assertiveness by China in the South China Sea will only further convince the Vietnamese that they should be expanding their international alliances, and that includes the United States.”

The U.S. Navy has been making port visits to Da Nang in recent years, engaging in activities that started with sports and ship tours with Vietnamese sailors, and developed into a joint search-and-rescue exercise last year. Greater U.S. Navy access to Cam Ranh Bay, further south near Nha Trang, would represent a bigger step in the military-to-military relationship.

The deep water port is about seven miles from open sea and is capable of accommodating aircraft carriers, and its facilities recently underwent millions of dollars in upgrades. Its airport is used by both Vietnamese military forces and by commercial carriers.

U.S. Military Sealift Command ships have visited for repairs — the first came along with former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in 2012 — but no active U.S. Navy ship has visited the port since the Vietnam War.

[Source - stripes.com] 

What is also interesting is that the US has set up the PSI (Proliferation Security Initiative) which received over 50% UN support since its inception:

Launched by United States President George W. Bush in May 2003 at a meeting in Kraków, Poland, the PSI has now grown to include the endorsement of 103...nations around the world, including Russia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Singapore, New Zealand, Republic of Korea and Norway. Despite the support of over half of the Members of the United Nations, a number of countries have expressed opposition to the initiative, including India, China and Indonesia.
[wikipedia]

Vietnam, along with China, appears to have opposed the PSI initiative -- until Vietnam backed off last month:

PSI was created by the U.S and Poland in 2003 as an international effort to interdict [prohibit] vessels carrying weapons of mass destruction, and it has since garnered signatories from more than 100 countries.

Vietnam joined with China in strenuously arguing that PSI violated international law, until Hanoi changed its mind last month.

“It’s a bait on the hook to request the United States to assist in standing up their ability to conduct maritime reconnaissance and surveillance, and link to shore-based radars and other technical equipment,” Thayer said.

The additional U.S. presence could force China to act less aggressively in the area, while at the same time allowing Vietnam to show that it took no provocative action against China.

[Source - stripes.com]

If I have that straight, it would seem that Vietnam backing off from opposing the PSI is perhaps signalling it may be inclined towards making way for US presence at the Cam Rahn Bay facilities -- or it may simply be one of the concessions Vietnam is willing to make in the interim, towards forwarding its Cam Rahn negotiations.

Uncertain what the 'bait in the hook' request is & too lazy to re-visit article (LOL).  Expect Vietnam has requested the US to assist in Vietnam with reconnaissance and surveillance, if I'm reading that right.

Whatever the outcome of negotiations, the US are purportedly keen on getting a foot in the Cam Rahn door.

One suspects that even if negotiations fail, the US would not be averse to creating an 'international logistics hub' via a less 'threatening' option (to Vietnam) -- ie the 'Places Not Bases' initiative -- where it would be envisaged that the Cam Rahn Bay facilities would provide the US with assured access for repair, refuelling, restocking and so on (as well as presence in the region), on an informal "partner" arrangement basis, such as the one the US has apparently negotiated with Singapore.

The 'Places Not Bases' strategy is explained below:

... the Pentagon fashioned a policy of “places, not bases,” whereby the U.S. military sought access to naval facilities of “partner” countries.

Compared to “bases” run by formal allies such as South Korea and Japan, “places” in Singapore — and other countries such as Malaysia and Brunei — enabled the U.S. military to maintain its presence in the region ...

Singapore is the quintessential example of such a “places, not bases” strategy.

SOURCE - The China Post (Taiwan) - here.

So will Vietnam look towards the east or the west when it comes to negotiating maritime concerns in the region?

If The Japan Times is correct, the final decision may depend on intra-party politics in Vietnam.

Politics aside, Vietnam's decision may well pivot on how attractive the commercial prospects are for Vietnam.

Or ... on how impressed they may be with Bill Clinton's visit (LOL):


--------------------------------------------
Thanhnien News

Bill Clinton to visit Vietnam again

Thanh Nien News

July 16, 2014 17:13

Former US President Bill Clinton will return to Vietnam on Friday (July 18) as part of his Asia-Pacific trip to visit the work of the Clinton Foundation and deliver remarks at the 20th International AIDS Conference, according to a release by the Clinton Foundation.

Clinton, who visited Vietnam for the first time in November 2000, is scheduled to visit India, Vietnam, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Australia from July 16-23.

The trip highlights Clinton’s longstanding commitment to the Asia/Pacific region, as well as the work of the Clinton Foundation on a number of issues that are critical to the region, including global health and improved access to medicines, climate change and economic development, the release said.

In Vietnam, he will visit an orphanage outside of Hanoi to view a Clinton Health Access Initiative program that aims to prevent tuberculosis among children living with HIV.

Clinton's November 2000 visit to Vietnam was the first by a US President since the two countries normalized diplomatic relations in 1995, 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War.

He later returned to Vietnam in several occasions to promote work of the Clinton Foundation in the country.

Source - Thanhnien News - here.

--------------------------------------------

Hmmm ... what a coincidence Bill's in town.

Maybe I'm a cynic, but it looks like the US are pulling out all stops to win over Vietnam -- and Clinton's charity tour schedule just happens to coincide.

Charity foundations really are the way to go; good access, favourable impressions etc.

China withdraws oil rig from disputed waters claimed by Vietnam - Pew Research Centre chimes in

 Time Article

China Removes Contentious Oil Rig From Waters Claimed by Vietnam

David Stout

4:40 AM ET

...

... state-backed China Oilfield Services Limited said the billion-dollar platform, which had been drilling in the heart of highly contested waters claimed by Vietnam, had “precisely extracted the related geological data as planned” and was being redeployed to sea blocks off China’s Hainan Island.

The Vietnamese coast guard confirmed the platform was being towed out of the disputed waters south of the Paracel Islands, claimed by Vietnam but occupied by the Chinese, late Tuesday night.

...

... smoldering nationalist anger exploded into deadly bouts of rioting at industrial parks in the suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City and in central Vietnam’s Ha Tinh province in mid-May.

Factories were razed, several Chinese workers were killed and relations between the neighbors deteriorated to their lowest ebb since diplomatic ties were renewed in the early 1990s.

Beijing remained unmoved by Hanoi’s objections, despite continued protests from the highest levels of government.

“The relations are certainly damaged and the outlook is not encouraging, particularly as China has indicated it has plans to send out more oil rigs to disputed waters and has made provocative statements with respect to its plans in the Spratly chain,” Jonathan D. London, a professor and Vietnamese scholar at Hong Kong’s City University, tells TIME.

Tensions remain high. A study released by the Pew Research Center on Monday reported that 84% of the Vietnamese polled said they were concerned that conflict could erupt with their northern neighbor.

Professor Bruce Jacobs, an Asia expert at Australia’s Monash University, says the deployment of Haiyang Shiyou 981 must be viewed within the context of Beijing’s brazen maneuvers to consolidate its long-held, albeit highly disputed, grandiose maritime claims across the Asia-Pacific. “The oil rig was just part of that,” he says.

With China unrepentant, the U.S. has attempted to use the episode to strengthen relations with its Asian partnerships and position itself as an arbitrator in the Pacific. 

Last week Michael Fuchs, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Strategy and Multilateral Affairs, called on all states claiming a stake in the South China Sea “to clarify and agree to voluntarily freeze certain actions and activities that escalate disputes and cause instability.”

In response, Beijing accused the U.S. of unsolicited meddling.

“We hope that countries outside the region can stay neutral, distinguish right from wrong and truly respect the joint efforts made by regional countries for peace and stability of the region,” said Hong Lei, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, on Tuesday.

 Full Article @ Time - here.

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COMMENT

China moving on should ease immediate tension.

It remains to be seen if the US, who is wooing Vietnam & hoping to ease US navy (and aircraft) docking at Vietnam's Cam Rahn Bay facilities, will eventually win Vietnam over.

Funny how Pew Research Centre chimes in with one of their trusty little surveys.  LOL.