in any case -- >> jim, back to vietnam. do you consider vietnam a just war? in other words, should we have gotten involved and could we have won? >> oh, yes to both. it was a just conflict. we were there defending an ally against communism. and, you know, i have no problem with that on a moral level. our system, western-type systems are morally superior to the communist system. plus, we had obligations that we had made to them to say that we would help defend their freedoms, and the government may not have been a model of democracy and inclusion and good government, but it was a he can of a lot better than what ho chi minh had erected in the north. i go into the moral difference between melai masser where some of our troops went out of control and killed a bunch of south vietnamese civilians. the wei massacre took place during tet when the communists seized the city of weigh. they were there for about a month. and they proceeded to systematically kill thousands of people who were considered undesirables. you know, cold-bloodedly and systematically. it wasn't

/e >>baweja: if vietnam doesn't slow down right now, it needs to slow down credit , it needs to raise interest rates and it needs to reign in external deficit, if it doesn't do that i'm afraid we're heading towards bubble territory. >>reporter: inflation is already rampant, hitting 11.8% in december 2010 on a year on year basis. the dong has been devalued three times since last year. and there is a current account deficit of $2 billion dollars. >>thanh tam: our growth rate is 6.7 % but actually inflation 11%. a growth rate of 6.7% inflation needs to be the same or lower, otherwise it means the real economy is low. that is why vietnam needsto improve >>reporter: meaning this stellar growth may all count for nothing to the man on the street, presenting a real issue in a country already suffering from serious inequality. >>baweja: i think the government has to keep a very keen eye on social unrest especially in an economy that is overheating, because unlike the developed world in the developing world food prices comprise of a very large part of the overall consumer basket, and if food pr

in the first of a two part series we look at how vietnam has leapt forward. >>reporter: every morning for thousands of vietnamese, the day begins in the traditional way with a steaming bowl of pho, noodles in beef broth. >>the dish is served up in side streets and doorways for less than a dollar. but a new breed of young affluent vietnamese are willing to pay double that for more upmarket surroundings. >>trung: we gave the customers, people more options, more modern look and modern service, modern lifestyle eating culture. but it's going to be replacing traditional way of eating pho, i think the traditionalway is beautiful, so they both survive the modern and traditional way. >>reporter: the firm is doing well, with 78 cafes across asia. its success is symbolic of the modern vietnam, with its rapidly expanding middle class, which has increased from 28% of the population a decade ago to 64% in the cities today. it's a change felt across the retail sector. >>hoang: the vietnamese between 20-30 years old now, they're just different from how i see when i was 20 a

tavis: your a vietnam veteran. -- you are a vietnam veteran. >> marine. tavis: there have been so many comparisons between vietnam and afghanistan. when the comparison was first made, ted kennedy when he was alive made that comparison. he got concern from a lot of different people. i have heard other people make that comparison. what is your sense of that comparison now between vietnam and afghanistan? >> i think vietnam is ancient history, and it is hard to make the comparison even though i thought there. the way we treat our troops today is terrific. the troops know it and appreciate it, and that is not the case in the past. this country has a vibrancy to it that is terrific. we are able to distinguish between missions we may not like as individuals, and still represent a fine view towards our people, towards our soldiers and marines and say, god bless you. the one thing i see a similarity, and i bring this out, in vietnam, land mines were a problem. in afghanistan, this is cost -- this is called an improvised explosive device. this is the single bigges

one country we haven't specifically mentioned even though we have said in the general areas vietnam. where do we see vietnam emerging or do we see them emerging in terms of the military but where do we see them merging politically as it relates to our relationship with china? and once again, whoever wants to jump at this one. >> i think as a general statement we've been extraordinarily pleased by the progress that we've made in our relationship with vietnam over the past number of years, since normalization, and we certainly look to deepen and strengthen the relationship that we have between the united states and vietnam in the years ahead. >> does china view that as a threat 'cause historically that's -- those two countries have been at odds? >> i wouldn't speak and couldn't speak about beijing's threat perception but certainly as you know, china and vietnam have had a rocky history of their own. and i'm certain that there are those in beijing probably do view our relationship with vietnam in less than favorable light. from our perspective, or deepening and strengthening relationshi

. >> next on book t, vietnam -- book t, vietnam book veteran bing west us thes his book, "the wrong war." mr. west argues that a reliance on counterinsurgency strategy has led the u.s. astray in afghanistan. >> what i'd like to do in about the next 20 minutes is give you an overview of two things relative to afghanistan, and the first is what is the nature of the war, and the second is what is the strategy, and why do i call it the wrong war? the nature of the war i base on i have about ten years, now, on battlefields in vietnam, iraq and afghanistan, and as barbara said, generals are okay and secretaries of defense and presidents may have roles, but they better keep their egos under control because tolstoy in his book "war and peace" really had it right. what actually happens in war has much more to do with the tenacity of those who are fighting than it does with the pronouncements from on high. and i'll try to show you why. i'd like to just bring you through very quickly what the war looks like, how the strategy's embedded in it and then turn it over for questions. of most of my time

because usually rate for vietnam was approximately seventy percent eighty percent of those that served here were looking at over one third are now casualties already over thirty percent of everybody the service is now so bad off medically that they have to request permanent medical care and permanent pensions from the u.s. department of veteran affairs that's an incredible number. the pentagon has ended up saying that there is no danger at all from depleted uranium while some activists claim that it is a world threat real k. like many activists in the n.t. do you camp have been on both sides of the fence first as a member of the military establishment supporting the official line and then being against it everything you know that's one hundred twenty millimeter to your obvious aloon a mile that's one one hundred twenty millimeter to you rob. this is an aluminum up ok. so they say it's sixty percent net less radioactive they totally ignore the other half of the paragraph that i wrote they totally ignore the out of missions and they totally ignore all the beta gamma missions from the dau

thousands of tons of agent orange were sprayed over vietnam during the war there in the sixty's . agent orange is a powerful defoliant and it was used to destroy jungle like areas where gorillas could hide during the vietnam war. but agent orange also contained dioxins a poison that continues to contaminate the environment and the people. after a long legal and political battle the us government authorized compensation for the veterans and their children who had been affected but thousands of vietnamese some of them third generation who suffer from illnesses and birth defects are still fighting for compensation. congressman jim mcdermott as a young doctor saw firsthand the effects of agent orange on american soldiers last may mcdermott introduced an amendment forcing the government to conduct a comprehensive study on the health effects of dui on veterans back then the pentagon tonight at aging orange posed any threat to u.s. soldiers who were exposed during all those years of denial we stood by did nothing while our soldiers suffered and for me there can be no more asian orange we

but the reason they had to react in vietnam was as a people were imbedded in vietnam they just didn't call it that but what they saw was you know astronomically wasteful or borderline war crimes or totally divergent to what the purpose was whatever the purpose was that week so basically the reporters were doing their job in vietnam they were doing their job on the beaches in d.-day when they came ashore with the troops and if they had something that was sensitive sometimes and did can censor but it but there was a there was a but weight of looking and saying look this is the story this is the truth well we have now it was a p.r. move we would invent that term in bed and that really locks the reporter into the war reporting and almost sets it up so everything's going to be favorable because you don't want to disappoint these guys or these girls that you've been in the hole in the foxhole with we've been in this convoy with and seen them bleeding so that connection also has been there since the civil war they've added this extra layer of almost forced loyalty this real briefly chris you

veterans, like myself, the spiral time between returning from vietnam and winding up on the streets, for those who became homeless, was approximately 10 years. it was approximately a 10-year decline. there have been recent statistics to show that that spiral time for recently returned veterans can be as little as seven months. seven months from return to deployment homeless on the street. so employment is a huge factor in preventing this further downward spiral. so we have initiated a program wherein we are contacting the major employers of this city to find out what their commitment and what their objectives might be in consideration of hiring returning veterans as a priority. we are starting to get some success in that area. i'm not prepared to announce it yet, but we are having success with that brand new program to invite these employers to hire our returning veterans. so there is the homeless issue. there is the employment issue, and several other initiatives that i have brought to the commission for consideration, which we will be working on as bowls there. they are portrayed i

i'm sorry i was comparing it to vietnam. in vietnam, we were flying on the order of thousands a day or so at the height. in iraq and afghanistan, the highest we've gotten is maybe to between 140 a month. yet we are fighting the war in iraq and afghanistan. our forces are getting older. the up-tempo are minuscule compared to vietnam and korea and we've broken the bank. the military is literally stretched thin and you have people in washington talking about starting another war in libya right now. we don't have the resources and you can see the pentagon is dragging its feet big time, they don't want to go in and there's a reason. there isn't enough to go down and the question is how did we get into this mess. the problem is i think that over the 40 years the cold war we evil to the political economy based on the politics of fear on which was this of economy in a large political culture, political and economic culture that became interwoven in the defense industry, congress, the pentagon, and a whole bunch of hanger-on's think

and coming up next, she wore his name on her wrist since vietnam. now he's finally coming home. [ male announcer ] this is lara. her morning begins with arthritis pain. that's a coffee and two pills. the afternoon tour begins with more pain and more pills. the evening guests arrive. back to sore knees. back to more pills. the day is done but hang on... her doctor recommended aleve. just 2 pills can keep arthritis pain away all day with fewer pills than tylenol. this is lara who chose 2 aleve and fewer pills for a day free of pain. and get the all day pain relief of aleve in liquid gels. so delicious. my peppers and broccoli... they really make the dish. cream is really what makes it. i think you'll find it's the vegetables. the crunch... the texture. deliciously rich. delicious. fantastic! flavorful. [ cow moos ] hey, maybe we could... work together? [ female announcer ] introducing new stouffer's farmers' harvest. now classics like grilled chicken fettuccini alfredo come with sides of farm-picked vegetables... lightly sauteed with herbs and olive o

1940's and 50's built thousands of canals and as a result it is highly for tile and looks just like vietnam and the same kind of foolish to hide and it is called the green sound and also is where 90% of the herald a share when a beam of the world, from that is everybody makes money down there. but down there you cannot see this but every single afghan not trusting his neighbor over centuries has built the compound of mud and straw baked by the sun with walls a tank cannot knock over the walls so they hide and shoot at you knowing you will not do that much damage and that is the nature of the fighting. i was just down there two weeks ago in the area not too far. this was one of the taliban flags worry went on patrol the taliban would fall back but they brought their flags. i thought i am back in the 15th century than the marines were carrying their flags. then you push against and push against than thought why am i surprised? and the british spent four years and believed in the hearts and minds in the marines came to take the position and the british said by the way, you cannot go outside 20

like iraq thanks to your help in terms of vietnam finding out that so so so many of the pauses and the weight of the war was carried out was actually not as it was built for the u.s. people is it difficult to justify the so-called just humanitarian interventions when you can lie if you're going to target a version especially going to unilateral if you were less than the u.n. security council needle for example is basically i think the u.n. was right in describing that as a crime against the peace because aggressive war the only conditions were a u.n. security council with recession which they do have in this particular case i have to say but recent times no humanitarian intervention and extremely dubious about it's been a cover basically for basically colonialist type operations in the past you know military is not only even gates to say the solution of which he said can make the problem worse we really have to ask ourselves in libya as in these other cases are we going to make things worse for everybody by this intervention i do have to say if i had known you'd ask me about it it's ab

so i set out to write a book on vietnam. i studied the war in vietnam and thought about it and fought, what did i know about it from having been in that anti-war movement, which actually was quite a lot. it occurred at some point in the process, i realized that nobody wanted essays. they wanted a story, a personal story. i wrote that in the 80's. however, i was not satisfied with it because a friend of mine said, well, a 40-year-old always beating up on a 20-year-old in the story. i put the book away for 15 years. then in 2003 the united states started another war. i thought, well, and this time, though, the movie came out called the weather underground. i happened to be featured in the movie under not -- oddly enough. some strange coincidence that these things would happen together. it was the first time i gave an interview, 1999. and i found that young people really wanted to know the story. they wanted to know what it was all about. the wanted to know my story. i was going around to dozens of college campuses with this mo

didn't want to take responsibility they sent more soldiers to that war and dropped more bombs on vietnam after they knew the war was lost thirty thousand more u.s. troops died and millions more vietnamese died before the inevitable u.s. withdrawal and if you are against what bradley manning has done over allegedly done which is told the truth about the situation in afghanistan if you're against that then you're saying you're for all of those tens of thousands more soldiers we're going to be sent to their deaths we're going to be sent to get their legs blown off for a war that this government knows very well is lost now i don't sell michael you were an iraq war veteran and when you sign up to join the military i mean you take an oath to to swear this country and to stand by the laws of this country so let me put this question to you did he violate paddler irish allegedly releasing that information. oh he sort o. is to defend his country defend his friends and his family and his coworkers and his neighbors here in the united states and if he did release these documents he has done exactly

really involved with the the vietnam war there was demonstrations going on and some of them were very violent there was a lot of tear gas lot of broken windows what was the dimia the key demand was to get out of vietnam. but it tiny splinter group of students saw themselves as already at war with the nixon administration. and the nearest target was close at hand the campus army math research center. a research lab funded by the pentagon and housed in the department of physics. at three forty two am on the twenty fourth of august nine hundred seventy an explosion destroyed the army math center. hundreds of f.b.i. agents from all over the united states were sent to wisconsin this was fixed remain interested the white house was that this is the explosion absolutely it went all the way to the director's desk there was daily contact with the the oval office as to what was happening out here and why it happened and we had to come up with samantha's real fast this what was what was going on so anyone killed yes a young physicist by the name of robert foster not was killed in initial blast. t

i'm, i was comparing it to vietnam. in vietnam we were flying on the order of a thousand flights a day at the height. in iraq and afghanistan the highest we've gotten is somewhere between 1 and 2 thowrk a month. yet we're fighting these wars in iraq and afghanistan. our forces are getting older, the op tempos are minuscule compared to vietnam and korea, and we've broken the bank. the military's literally stretched thin. you've got a lot of people in washington talking about starting another war in libya right now. we don't have the resources to do that, and you can see the pentagon is dragging its feet on it one time. the real question is, why? how do we get into this mess? and the problem is, i think -- and i try to explain it in the article -- is that over the 40 years of the cold war we involved a political economy based on the politics of fear in which it was really a sub economy in our larger political/economic culture that became tightly interwoven, the relationship between the defense industry, congress, the pent

>> that was my vietnam. and i was in vietnam. >> oh, look at us, three construction dudes. dad, i'm going to get you workman gloves, blue or camel, what's your preference? >> surprise me. tavis: you are the most diverse head of the household. your family is all over the place. >> yeah. tavis: you are diversity. >> that's right. tavis: what do you make of this character and all the different pieces of his family's puzzle? >> when i first started trying to do it, i was concerned, you know, i thought, i don't know how to play this guy. i didn't know how that relationship would work with my wife, the clomian, i didn't know if anybody would buy that. this is perfect casting. and then again, at this stage, i'm 64. i really don't even know how to play it. i don't know how to be 64. it seems odd to be this old. it's almost i'm out there on my own now. when you are in your 30's, you sort of know what's appropriate. you know how to live. so, that carries over into the world and i don't know what's appropriate half the time. i don't know if that makes sense. tavis: i get it. the quest

. >>> a little history was made on the harvard campus today while a decision from the vietnam era was reversed. rotc is now back on the harvard campus for the first time since being kicked off during anti-vietnam war protests back in 1969. the recent gays in the military vote prompted harvard's decision. >>> up next here tonight, a story of unity that won an academy award and the battle to keep one very unusual school intact. >>> it happened during that three-hour tv marathon last weekend. one of the oscars we saw get handed out is in real life bringing new attention to a school in israel that's teaching a powerful lesson in unity. but there's something else to know about this school. we get the story tonight from nbc's martin fletcher in israel. >> reporter: from welcoming the sabbath in the slums of south tel aviv today, to helping win the oscar -- >> yeah! >> reporter: school principal karen tau is on top of the world. school brings together jews, muslims and christians from 48 countries, many of them from migrant workers. it's the subject of "strangers no more" which won best shor

it's about the united states and vietnam. but i should also note, you know, we don't have any illusions, even our own history with vietnam about the future of their relationship either. there are issues that we have to continue to work out. there are human rights questions that we still have in terms of how vietnam treats some of its own religious minorities that we still need to be built to cycle through russell. >> thank you. thank you once again for your patience. >> thank you, mr. kissel. now the subject near and dear to her heart, the gentle lady from alladi. >> thank you. thank you, mr. chairman. i don't believe we can discuss readiness out of context of what has happened with the context of what happened, the devastation and the catastrophe in japan. having said that, i would like to know, japan is considered like our anchor partner in terms of our securities defenses in the pacific. what impact is the tsunami and the earthquake having on what ever strategic locations we have in japan? mr. secretary, you can answer tha

from korea and vietnam to the conflicts in the gulf. your darkest days since pearl harbor to 10 years ago in washington and new york and we were with you. my predecessor, john howard, was quite literally with you, and he came to this capitol when you met on september 12 to show you that australians will be with you again. and after 50 years under a new prime minister and a new president, the treaty was invoked. within australia's democracy, john howard and i had our differences, but he was and is an australian patery ott, a -- patery ott, a man that was moved during that terrible september. he was and is a friend of america. when john howard addressed you here in 2002, we were already with you in afghanistan and we are with you there still. i want you to know what i have told australiaa's -- australia's parliament, what i told general petraeus, what i told president obama in the oval office this week, australia will stand firm with our ally, the united states. friends understand this, that we will stand firm with you, but perhaps more i

and whose earlier book, the best and the brightest, was the definitive study of american policy in vietnam. david halberstam. [applause] i have to ask the first and most basic question. you graduate from harvard in 1956. five. '55. with great distinction. no, i was a terrible student. [laughter] i was in the bottom third of my class. that was the heart of my question. how badly did you do at harvard? [laughs] i think i had-- i mean, i think it's true of a lot of people in journalism. i had in those days what we didn't know was attention deficit disorder. i did not focus well on schoolwork, but i was good at something called journalism. i was on the undergraduate newspaper. and i can now think back to the fifth and sixth grade, and if i had a teacher that did not connect with me, i can see my mind sort of flying out the window. but i didn't know that then. well, i assumed the great distinction because you were the editor of the harvard crimson, which meant you had some talents. and, i presume, given that education, even in the bottom third, you would have some choices in life. and then you

marvell you have a personalam connection to the vietnam war. could you tell us about that? >>t i group in washington d.c. my dad worked for the dispatch and was a foreign correspondent he is still living and spent a lot of an time in southeast asia and other places in the world where there was trouble. he was skeptical of the border very, very early and talk to to my sister and me quite a lot so eager appealing was wrong we're very active in theovem civil-rights movement and the anti-war movement. and i know sheila isre referring to later, in 1970, my father was then cambodia and taken prisoner and missing 40 days. i mention that in this book. and then eventually was released.h he had the adventurous life but he had the it venturers life and strong believes but felt as a newsman he had to report the facts but in such a way the people would get the real story instead of whatever they wanted them to get. i spoke about in this book. i think i am a little more cynical than these people. [laughter] part of that came from feeling i will like to think i believe this. i do. i am ag

welcome back the reserve officer training corps which was kicked off campus at the height of the vietnam war recently harvard and other private schools use the military's ban on gay soldiers serving openly as a reason to keep r.t.c. off campus but with don't ask don't tell being repealed by congress and signed by president obama many schools are forced to take a second look at their o.t.c. program after their official reason for banning it no longer existed now a lot of people on the right have complained of the ivy league schools have been slow to allow r.t.c. to return claiming of the ivies are simply elitists who don't support our armed forces but harvard finally says that the time is right now to harvard have been allowed to join r.t.c. but up until now they have to commute to mit in the boston university for the program so now the harvard has agreed to allow the r o t c to return expect many more schools to follow yale has also expressed strong interest in hosting r t c program and debate over whether to open its doors has intensified at columbia the scene of some of the largest uni

that that does happen with every work is that the work i mean though that was the same during the vietnam war comes home and does it comes home and wounded people it comes on and injuries it comes home and it comes home and in all these things you know c.b.s. poll just yesterday found sixty eight percent of americans are in support of the president's intervention at this war. and yet at the same time john boehner as a mention just came out against it's almost like he was you know which way ok well will. how do you reconcile this. national support with the fact that we're dropping bombs with congressional support . again people want to support their president that's a given george bush had very high approval rating spiked and i don't want to be when the attack occurred on afghanistan and later on. iraq however this isn't about playing for a single day in a single. applause this is about responsibility to guide the future of our nation to do. correction where you guided away from trouble not take it into trouble and now we've been taken into trouble in iraq afghanistan and libya the cost fo

you joined the military during the vietnam war. you wrote about some of the lessons in vietnam. i do not think afghanistan is vietnam, but i would like u2 explain to the crowd why it is not at a time when we are now going on 10 years in, at a time when secretary gates in a speech in brussels a week ago seemed to suggest we would not remove any trips this summer. they should be more interested in accomplishing the objectives been getting out. i want you comment on why this is not becoming a quagmire. a lot of americans have that concern. >> first and foremost, i think there is very little argument about the truly vital national security interest that reside in afghanistan and the greater afghanistan, pakistan -- afghanistan-pakistan region. there is no question as to why we went to pakistan -- as to why we went to afghanistan. at that time, the taliban controlled the country. the initial training of the attackers took place in afghanistan. we went there because of those attacks. if you narrow it to afghanistan, our objective was to ensure afghanistan does not once again become a

it cut off the supply support for south vietnam's military. we wondered, why was it that they ran in the face of the north vietnamese? they had nothing left to fight with, mr. speaker. their munitions were gone, they were played out. they didn't have heavy weapons, they didn't have light weapons that were well supplied and it brought about the collapse of the south vietnamese self-defense. and millions died in the aftermath, not just in vietnam, in cambodia and other places in southeast asia. i disagreed with the decision that this congress made but i do agree that the language in the continuing resolution was effective in shutting off the funding to the vietnam war and similar language to the language that i crafted to go into the appropriation bills from this point forward that says essentially, notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the funds in this act and no funds previously appropriated shall be used to carry out the provisions of obamacare. that's the language that i sought to introduce and asked the rules committee to gra