Monday 23rd October 2006
Vietnam expresses anger at Iraq slur
'Deeply hurtful to the heroic Vietnamese people'
by Nguyen Ai Quoc
The Vietnamese foreign minister last night expressed anger at widespread reports in the US media that Iraq had degenerated into "another Vietnam".
Nguyen Dzy Nien, speaking exclusively to The Rockall Times, expressed his wish to make it absolutely clear that the comparison was "deeply hurtful to the heroic Vietnamese people" who had "struggled valiently to throw off the yoke of US imperialism" while maintaining a "robust Indo-Chinese sense of humour".
Nien challenged: "Answer me this: how many Sunni Muslim stand-up comedians can you name? Exactly. Have you heard the one about the Cambodian, the Laotian and the Vietnamese? Well, all three of them are in a tunnel complex outside Saigon when a GI comes through the entrance and the Laotian says 'If you spare my life, I'll give you three water buffalo' and the Cambodian says 'If you spare my life, I'll give you five water buffalo' and the Vietnamese steps forward and says 'If you spare my life, I'll give you seven water buffalo and fuc*k you long time ten dollar'. Jesus, that always cracks me up."
Comedy analysts confirmed Nien's assertion that Iraq lacks the necessary credentials to stand comparison with fun-loving Vietnam. One expert told us: "They did try an open-mike stand-up club in Basra following Sadaam's overthrow, but on the first night some Sunni bloke gets up and says 'I'm not saying my Mother in law's fat, right...' and then blows himself up before delivering the punchline. I tell you, they need to work on their delivery."
Back in Ho Chi Minh City, meanwhile, Nien underlined another fundamental difference between the two countries. "It always pisses me off when I hear US Vietnam vets banging on about their nightmare wartime experiences," he explained. "They spend a couple of hours dropping napalm on some village and then it's back to the whorehouse for a bottle of JD and a night banging virgins for five bucks a pop. I don't suppose there are many pole-dancing clubs in Baghdad offering thirteen-year-old girls to anyone with an M-16 and a crewcut."
In Baghdad, the average GI would agree. "I did seven months in 'Nam and spent most of 'em gang-banging whores," sighed one combat-hardened frontline colonel. "Jesus, you've got more chance of scoring in a convent full of octogenarian dykes than getting your rocks off here. I tell you, if the guys don't get some tight pussy action pretty soon I reckon there'll be a My Lai-style massacre going down, and no messin'.
In conclusion, however, Nien did concede one direct parallel between Vietnam and Iraq: "The US is going to get its fuc*kin' ass whupped," he chuckled.