today is a gift

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

everyone knows that life is never easy. it is filled with obstacles, challenges, problems etc. a mix of emptions we experience in life. happy, disappointment, stressed, confused, revenge etc. one tends to think he's the most troubled person. not.

i've been watching lots of programs from channelnewsasia. lately, i'm stuck to that channel. and i love channelnewsasia. it widens my general knowledge. a several nights ago, i watched a documentary portraying the lives of people in laos. frankly, what i knew about laos is its soccer players suck in it. can never forget when it lost to singapore 11-nil in asean game. 2 british were exploring the country, learning the history and the culture. one of the most infamous incidents which the laos can never forget is the vietnam war. since laos is just beside vietnam, it was also affected by the war. one of the main reasons for the american government to start the war was basically to hold the line against the spread of world communism. it claimed to protect the vietnamese from falling to communism. there's a theory stated that if vietnam falls to communist, laos, cambodia, thailand, burma, india and pakistan are most likely to be involved. australia would be at risk. america paid french for the war to fight agianst the communists. however, french was defeated. typically, america poked into the vietnam politics. it prevented the elections that were promised as it knew that the communist would win. obviously, vietnamese leaders protested against involvement. an operation was organised by the cia. thousands of communists were arrested and murdered. american military advisers were sent. then, the us president sent in huge army troops. as china follows communism, it invaded vietnam. china army troops had been assigned to assist vietnam in its struggle against the americans. well, i don't wish to blabber down the details of the vietnam war. since it's a war, thousands of militants and civilians died and very high rate of casualties. initially, most americans supported the war. however, there're deep questions on the efficiency of the us troops. they didn't want to keep losing too many casualties for such limited progress in the war, for which they're not suited. they found no point of letting the war and the increase in the number of casualties to continue. does this seem familiar?

until now, the laos still has the 'souvenirs' of the war. a laos man showed the british the bombs that were used in the war in a forest. there're like 50 of them. and some were not even blow yet. a friend of the laos man was picking up the used bombs. when he saw the british, he smiled, assuming that the british was american, and said, "thank you, america for your bomb." despite the trauma of the war, the british were welcomed by the laos with opened arms. the laos seem to be happy go lucky. but as they're having lunch, the laos man said, holding his drink, "we laos like america. we laos not hate americans. but why american government hate us? now we hate them." then, he smiled at the british.

rabiah♥10:36 AM