State of Virginia Bans Vietnamese Flag on Its Territory

One American state is unhappy with a whole country

The United States of America has been the leading country in the field of scandalous political news lately. There was a scandal with France and its position of the list of NATO allies, then there was a scandal about the persona of the German Chancellor, not to mention Iraq and North Korea issues. It may seem, though, that White House and Pentagon officials are so aggressive against the countries that cause problems to Washington. It just only seems so. Vietnam has recently suffered from Americans too. Virginia law-makers prohibited Vietnam to use its official state flag.

The point of the scandal between Washington and Hanoi is as follows. The lower legislative house of Virginia parliament decided to change the state flag of the Social Republic of Vietnam on all Virginia-based institutions of this country. It was ruled to substitute the official Vietnamese flag to the flag of South Vietnam – the state, which vanished from the map of the world 28 years ago. As Reuters news agency reports, mass anti-American actions of protest took place in the center of Vietnam’s capital Hanoi, as well as in Hi Chi Minh City (former Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam). It is hard to say, if those demonstrations of protest were organized by Vietnamese politicians, or if it was all about the patriotic spirit of the Vietnamese population. However, there is no other word but ‘provocation’ to be applied regarding the decision of American law-makers from the State of Virginia. It stands the reason that South Vietnam used to be an American ally in the war. It is also clear that the draft law appeared after the recent celebration of the Paris Treaty of the year 1973, which marked the USA’s defeat in the Vietnamese war. Nevertheless, Virginia law-makers’ stupidity is blatant.

First of all, don’t they have anything else to do , but to add more problems for the US Department of State? It deems that Colin Powell has enough problems to deal with. More importantly, what ground does the Virginia parliament have to make such decisions at all? The Vietnamese regime is legitimate, no matter what the USA might feel about it. It is insulting to make a decision to change the official flag of an existing country to the flag of the now defunct state. To all appearances, parliamentarians of the State of Virginia did not think of that at all, when they voted for the draft law. As a matter of fact, this draft law will have to be approved by the Senate, but this is not really important. The precedent has taken place. From now on, separate American states may set forth their claims to other countries.

Vasily Bubnov
PRAVDA.Ru

Translated by Dmitry Sudakov