At issue isn't whether a democrat or republican president was responsible for Vietnam—although it was Eisenhower who sent the first US military personnel to Vietnam. At issue is that the US had no point being there at all.

The French had their arses kicked in the first Vietnam war and sued for partition of the country into north and south for the sole purpose of being able to hang on to the south a while longer. The 1954 Geneva Convention granted the partition TEMPORARILY and promised free elections and a unified Vietnam within 2 years.(ie., by 1956)

By that time Diem had overthrown Bao Dai and installed himself as a US puppet in the south and the US and Diem together decided to ignore the Geneva Convention and refused to hold elections and unify the country. There was not a shred of justification for these actions. Vietnam had always been one nation. The partition was granted only on the grounds that it was temporary, but the US ignored the Convention and chose instead to prop up a corrupt puppet (Diem) against a legitimate anti-colonial independence movement.

It's a shameful chapter in US history that cost many good lives for no good reason.

Hanoi Dot strikes again.

that's just crazy talk - we went there because of the suffering of the Vietnamese people. The US govt doesn't do bad things like that, and it had nothing to do with a multi-billion dollar military industrial complex

Your recollection would differ from my long time good friend's. He was the youngest representative in the history of the country & a stern anti-communist. So you all are coming at this from different sides. His story, which can easily be backed up, is that Diem was far from a puppet, so much so that Kennedy had him killed, much to the dismay of much of S NV.

Another swing and a miss!

But this is my point. Diem was a US puppet. When his corruption (and intransigence on policy and tactical matters) became too much for the US, he became an embarrassment, and the US supported the generals in their coup against Diem. This is settled history. Well documented.

That is what you do with inconvenient puppets. You cut the strings.

I think the best book written about Vietnam is:

VIETNAM, A History
By Stanley Karnow.

You don't care if he was a puppet or not, you'd criticize the US either way. The new Iraqi gov't is hardly a puppet, and people criticize us for THAT.

"Great, we brought them democracy so they could elect kooky muslim leaders."

Well that's the whole point of democracy, innit?

Great book, I agree. Recommend it to anyone.

Could be a record, we agree on The Rosario and the book.

and probably on the Dillon loading press :p

So our puppet wouldn't perform? A lot of folks in VN liked the guy. And you have to admit, if commies were cutting the heads off babies & America was trying to re-attatch them, you'd be criticizing American medical technology.

You're not paying attention. Democracy was not the issue in Vietnam. The US and Diem blocked the elections mandated by the 1954 Geneva convention because they wanted to hang on to the piece of real estate (South Vietnam) they had just acquired.

As for Iraq, the whole notion of introducing Jeffersonian democracy in deeply fractured tribal culture is flawed in my view. There are countries on this earth where a meaningful democracy is just not possible either because of lack of education of the voters, deep tribal divisions in the population, corruption, or any number of factors. These countries need a strong and benign dictator to keep the lid on. Sadly, these are few and far between — but that doesn't mean democracy is the answer for everyone.

One of the problems was we (Kennedy) put Catholics in power and because of that you had to be Catholic to get anything, land reform went to Catholics, the Monastery's were being destroyed, the Monks were burning themselves in protest. It would be like putting me in charge of Israel, just didn't work.
Our winning the hearts and minds of the people wasn't working well.

It didn't occur to you that we used Vietnam as a proxy to fight the Soviets huh? It was Soviet expansion that we were fighting, no one in power gave one rats ass about Vietnam or it's people.

Seems to be working so far, even despite our gov'ts best efforts to screw the whole thing up.

Dictators are never the answer. You are such an elitist that it actually turns the stomach.

I'm glad you at least admit that the reason for war had nothing to do with caring about the fate of the Vietnamese people.

But I thought we were fighting the Chinese and the spread of *those* godless commies, not the Soviets in this case.

NO BUT Bui Tin, Colonel NVA General Staff is not General GIAP
nore is there any BS about they were ready to quit if the bombing had been keap up
a few days longer

General GIAP was willing to take any loss and keep fighting one day longer
then the other side

so unless we were willing to still be there fighting TODAY how do you win a war against people with that mind set?????



back to the opening question
how could any leader do a worse job then our current fool in chief has

Ike told Kennedy not to get involved.

1 - 2 - 3 - what are we fighting for
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn
I'm heading off for Vietnam.

back to the opening question
how could any leader do a worse job then our current fool in chief has
__________________
QUESTION!!!

If we had elected those other guys we would have found out.

Yes, this country is doomed if the America hating racist bho gets inhttp://forums.pelicanparts.com/support/smileys/ear.gif
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