The Washington Post's front page today has a story about a message that prominent Republicans want George W. Bush to carry to Vietnam next month, along with lots of lucrative business and trade deals for the nominally Communist country. They want Bush to step up pressure on the Vietnamese government to free Thong Nguyen "Cuc" Foshee, a 58-year-old American citizen from Florida, who has been held without formal charge by the Vietnamese government since September 2005. Who is Foshee, and why should Bush care?
In addition to being "a prominent Republican supporter of Bush from Orlando," WaPo points out that Foshee has some, well, serious connections:
Foshee has actively demonstrated against the Vietnamese government and has been associated with the Government of Free Vietnam, a virulently anti-government group that maintains a military base on the Vietnamese-Cambodian border. Her daughter, Elizabeth McCausland, 37, a lawyer, said that she does not know whether her mother is a member of the group but that her mother helped train members of the group in public speaking and in education about democracy.
The Government of Free Vietnam, based in Garden Grove, Calif., says it aims to "save the nation to terminate the dictatorship of the current communist government." Nguyen Van Don, secretary general of the group, issued a statement saying Foshee was in Vietnam for "personal and family reasons" and has never "undertaken any projects for the party."
Isn't that interesting. I can't imagine why a sovereign nation would detain a foreign citizen who has trained members of a group that maintains a military base on its border and has as its stated goal the overthrow of its government . Nope, that would be downright un-American.
I hope Bush doesn't stand for it.
It would be a shame if our ally in southeast Asia started thinking about ways it could interrogate Foshee that might live up to U.S. standards.
--Ethan Heitner |
Friday, October 27, 2006 10:35 AM
