It's such an amazing country.
I'm so conflicted over what happened there, and it's only getting more complicated the more I know about it.
Essentially people just wanting to be left alone, but the country getting torn by multiple groups.
French colonizers who's time was ending. The Soviets who took the opportunity to spread chaos to weaken the west and bring communism. The russians are doing similar shit now, particularly in Africa.
And the USA who wanted to stop that and get their influence over the country in an extremely brutal fashion.
Only to later to also have issues with the Khmer Rouge. Now China is encroaching onto them.
You might want to consider looking a little deeper into the government South Vietnam had before you pretend it was just those peaky Soviets tricking dumb peasants into being uppity.
Either way, reasons aside, the Soviet model for “communism” was abject failure at achieving anything that can be defined as socialism that lead to a brutal one party elite dictatorship. Going from awful colonialism to awful authoritarianism isn’t fun.
Also, Marxists, including Carl Marx himself never had faith that peasants would willingly welcome socialism. He had public disdain for peasant. He called them “petit bourgeois,” also “little business owners.”
As an American patriot and a student of history, I'm not conflicted at all. It was a horrific war and we never should have dipped our toes in. Diem was a dictator; the junta wasn't much better. Ho Chi Minh had broad popular support, something even US intelligence recognized. Dumbasses who believed in 'Domino Theory' escalated the shitshow, and cretins who believed in 'Realpolitik' continued it, until an ignominious withdrawal from a war that remains a stain on America's soul and culturally shattered a generation.
I think that the us escalated because they didn't want to appear weak.
It was all posturing.
