The North Vietnamese owner of my favorite restaurant turns out to be a big Bush supporter!

Today I stopped into my neighborhood Vietnamese cafe to pick up dinner to go. The owner of the cafe gave me a glass of wine while I waited, because I had missed the grand re-opening after a remodel. We started a conversation that zinged all over the map from Vietnam to Iraq. I asked him about the co-owner of the business and he informed me that guy was South Vietnamese while he himself was from the North. He then told me that not only did he not have hard feelings against the South but that Vietnam would be much better off had the South and the US won the war. He said that the Chinese were an evil influence on the Vietnamese and that they used the poor for their own purposes. Mind you this guy's wife is Chinese.

Then he talked about bombing Iraq. He said that the US would fly sorties over Cambodia, pretending to bomb but not actually bombing and that held off the Khmer Rouge. As soon as we stopped the air raids, the Khmer Rouge took over within 2 weeks. His feeling is that the same thing will happen in Iraq. He has extensive personal knowledge of civil war and I trust him.

He told me that he thinks Bush is a very good man with no ability to express his beliefs in a way that the people can understand. He agrees with Bush that we need to fight the terrorists on their ground, not here. He does not care for Bush's advisors much and does not think their motives are as pure as Bush's. He also told me people are ridiculous to think that Bush went to war for the oil because it is actually a tiny bit of oil and not worth much at all. He feels that if we leave Iraq we will have to go back there soon anyway. He echoed my belief that Bush knew that Iran, which is looking to exert influence all over the Middle East, was heading for nuclear weapons. We need a base next to Iran, he said.

He said that this country is a great country filled with good people. He said America will do 50% to help a country and they only need to do the rest to help themselves. He asked me to name a country that we have fought in and then ruled over or occupied for long. He says other countries have done so, but the US has not. He said that the beauty of the American system is the 4 year Presidential term. If you make a mistake you vote it out, but dictatorships are forever, unless the US intervenes!

I told him that I often felt like the only person in the entire Bay Area who felt as he did and he told me to stay strong in my beliefs.