President Barack Obama's decision to lift a half-century-old ban on selling arms to Vietnam is "really disappointing" because "once again, one of our former enemies — we give them something," former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra told
Newsmax TV on Monday.
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"We still have roughly 1,500 MIAs in Southeast Asia," Hoekstra, a Republican who represented Michigan from 2007 to 2011, told "Newsmax Prime" host J.D. Hayworth. The Vietnam War began in 1955 and ended with the fall of Saigon in 1975.
"You would have hoped that the president would've come back with some more information on that and put that on the negotiating table and said, 'Until you answer some more questions about MIAs, we're not going to do anything with you like this,'" Hoekstra said.
"If you want to have a real geopolitical stroke in that part of the world, strengthen your position with Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines," he added. "Those are the kinds of things that you need to be doing."
But retired Army Col. Derek Harvey countered that Obama's decision is really a move to help build support in the region as China steps up its activities in the South China Sea.
"It's positioning in the geopolitical realm to try to provide some support to allies or friends in the region that can help begin to check a little of some of the adventuresome activities of China into the South China Sea," he told Hayworth.
"What we're doing is not very much, but it's beginning to open a crack in the relationship," added Harvey, a former senior intelligence officer and adviser to Gen. David Petraeus. "These arm sales will not make a big difference, but it's a good first step."
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