
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 31, 1994                   TAG: 9402240003
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

TIME TO STOP ACTING LIKE LOSERS

THE U.S. Senate, including one member who spent six years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam and another who is a decorated veteran, has provided President Clinton with the opportunity to end the nation's trade embargo against its former adversary.

He should accept the political gift and lift the embargo.

To do so would risk attracting the ire of veterans groups and others who criticize the president for having avoided military service, as so many young men did, during the tumultuous war era.

But veterans from both ends of the political spectrum who served with distinction in Vietnam - Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona and Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts - have joined the voices of those who say that, after almost 20 years since the fall of Saigon, it's time to end economic hostilities.

To continue would constitute a national failure to get past the humiliation of defeat by a lesser-armed but more deeply committed enemy.

The embargo, which was initiated against North Vietnam in 1964 and extended to the whole country with the collapse of the South to communists, serves no American purpose. The main objection to lifting it comes from those who believe the Vietnamese have yet to make a full accounting of the fates of U.S. servicemen who were missing in action in the Southeast Asia war.

Yet most expert observers have concluded that there are no surviving prisoners of war in Vietnam, and searches for the remains of those who died surely would be easier if U.S.-built barriers between the countries are lowered.

The Vietnamese reportedly bear little enmity for Americans, despite the devastation of their country by the United States, with its saturation bombing and systematic defoliation of the countryside. Their country remains poor as a result of decades of rigid communist rule, the continued effects of the war and the U.S. embargo. But Vietnam is showing signs of a flowering of economic reform, with private commerce blooming at a local level.

Once supported as a communist client-state of the Soviet Union, Vietnam no longer appears to be a threat to its neighbors, now that it no longer has Soviet military and economic support. Its once large army has been reduced dramatically in size, and it has abandoned its border wars with China and withdrawn from Cambodia (where, arguably, it played a helpful role).

Even as its military aggression has dwindled, its interest in and need for ties to economically healthy, free-market nations have grown. The communist regime is being forced to welcome foreign investment to help its economy grow. Already Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Hong Kong, France and Germany have started to invest there. U.S. businesses hanker for the same opportunities.

The United States should allow its businesses to compete on an equal footing in this potentially lucrative market, while helping to convert Vietnam to capitalism. We should recognize that, far from being contrary to U.S. interests, a prosperous and stable Vietnam - encouraged to permit private investment and commerce - will be a far more peaceful and welcome member of the world community than a nation crushed by poverty.

We lost the war. We can win the post-war denouement.

by CNB