http://apnews.excite.com/article/20040624/D83D2U701.html
"We're putting a history of bitterness behind us with Vietnam," the president said. "We want the Vietnamese to hear: together we'll fight the disease. You've got a friend in America," he said.

How can American set aside the ‘history of bitterness’ since it was them that caused it? Bush makes it sound like they are bitter because the whole of Vietnam didn’t welcome them with open arms when they invaded. And if he was actually going to address the ‘history of bitterness’ why doesn’t he financially support the clean up of Agent Orange in Vietnam?

I guess my question is how many US people feel bitter towards Vietnam?

I have never sensed significant bitterness on the part of Americans in general toward the Vietnamese- It's more like ambivalence and embarrassment. The most palpable lingering bitterness surrounds having lost a particularly ill-begotten war in disgrace. The most prominent expression of this is the fairly regularly-expressed opinion that we should have committed even more indescriminant killing, and "finished the job right". I am hopeful, because of the much greater freedom of information today, that Americans will get through the Mesopotamian and Arabian chaos ahead, and through to the conclusion of our now unsalvageable intervention there, without escalating to a comparable level of spiteful and gratuitous violence as was inflicted on SE Asia.

Although Americans are incrementally better informed now, the economic blowback from the gathering mideast war is going to appeal strongly to the American "when in doubt, bomb 'em" mentality, which if allowed to run wild will only compound US isolation and vulnerability. Although thankfully Americans don't seem to hold a grudge against the Vietnamese, we do not collectively demonstrate much wisdom gained from our defeat in Vietnam. Popular examination of how we stumbled needlessly in, and then failed to get out when the folly became obvious, is mostly repressed- which is very unfortunate in times like these, because this time around, I expect that there will be far more bitterness in the aftermath, because terrorism and economic warfare are going to hit us with horrific effect.

The Bush administration's compassion is as shallow as their understanding of the world. Because the last campaign's "compassionate" promises (http://www.failureisimpossible.com/needtoknow/campaignslogans.htm) were consistently not upheld, it is highly unreasonable to expect for American, much less Vietnamese AIDS sufferers to get sustained new help from this Administration, even if it through some regrettable crisis remains in power for another disastrous term.