You cannot place the blame for the 3,000,000 deaths in Vietnam soley (or perhaps even mostly) on the US. First of all, lots of those deaths came from North Vietnamese attacks and the South Vietnamese killed a lot of people too. Secondly, North Vietnam was the aggressor. Now, the US probably overstated the significance of defending South Vietnam, but they were our ally so it was only natural that we would help them. The blame for those deaths truely lies with North Vietnam. If you say the US could have backed away, consider that in the Cold War, any sign of weakness by one side would lead to the other trying to push for more gains. If one side appeared too weak, then the other side might push for something drastic, like the Soviets taking over West Berlin. If that happened then the chances of a nuclear war went up dramatically. If a nuclear war happened, we'd all be dead and couldn't have this debate or feel sorry for the 3,000,000 dead in Vietnam.
Ok, I made the mistake to assume that you all thought the Vietnam war was a wrongful war. That's the public opinion it most of the world, outside the USA.
In 1945 the Japanese forces where driven out by a revolutionary movement led by Ho Chi Minh. They made a declaration of independence that started with "All men are created equal" This movement was supported by the vast majority of the Vietnamese people. Shortly afterwards Britain and Nationalist China occupied a large part of Indochina, but turned it over to the Frenchmen.
During 1945 and 1946 H.C.M wrote letters to Truman, reminding him of the Atlantic Charter and to bring to attention the terrible situation in the French occupied Vietnam. Thanks to bad politics and negligence millions of Vietnamese had starved to death. But no one cared so in 1946 a war started between Vietminh movement and the Frenchmen, supported by USA (they financed 80% of the French war). In 1954 Vietminh won the war anyway and the French retreated.
An international conference in Geneva where held where the peace treaty between Vietminh and the French where laid down. There it was decided that the Frenchmen would keep control over the south part, the Vietminh would control the North and that an election would be held within 2 years in a unified Vietnam where the Vietnamese people would decide their own government. That didn't happen as you might now. Instead the USA put Ngo Din Diem into power that started to oppress every democratic movement. That led to the birth of NFL in 1960 in south Vietnam. They started a guerilla war against the dictator, supported by the Vietminh in the north. They supported them with weapons and people. The people where mostly south Vietnamese that had fled north during the war against the French and fugitives.
Well, then the war escalated and finally USA staged a fake attack on a destroyer to have a reason to enter the war. And you know how it ended.
I will grant you that history showed that losing Vietnam didn't change Cold War dynamics all that much. However, the leaders of America could not have known for sure that leaving Vietnam alone would not have lead to the chain of events I described above. They had to play it on the safe side. 3,000,000 dead is one hell of a lot better than 5 billion dead and the end of the human race.
The domino theory had nothing to do with preventing a nuclear war, rather the opposite it led the world closer to global destruction. What they where saying was that they couldn't allow themselves to loose control over the natural resources in the region.
And i don't think a theory proved wrong is a good defence for 4.000.000 people dead.
As for the Cambodians, don't try and paint them as innocent. If Cambodia had been truely neutral then they would have either acted to stop the Ho Chi Minh trail through their countru, or if they had been unable to do so, they ought to have joined the US's side as North Vietnam had violated their territory and neutrality. Since they did neither, Cambodia was effectively on the side of North Vietnam and thus fair game in any war. They brought the invasion on themselves.
I don't try to paint the Cambodians, or Laos as it was called the as innocent. It became a monarchy after the French withdrawal in the fifties. During the Vietnam war the king tried to remain neutral and opposed both Viet Cong and USA interventions. USA, not satisfied with that staged a military coup in 1970 and started to supply the junta with weapons to fight both internal opposition and the Viet Cong troops stationed on the Vietnamese borders. The bombings and the military operations proved inefficient and mostly killed innocent people living in the region, around 800.000.
However, we might have to kill people for other reasons too. For instance we had to kill people in Afghanistan. Why? Because Afghanistan was harboring the group which attacked us on 9/11. We cannot let attacks on our soil go unanswered, or there will be more attacks. "But let's find out why their made at us and reason with them!" Oh yes, I'm sure reasoning will be REAL easy with people who are willing to strap bombs on their backs and blow themselves up just to kill a few Americans. Tell me how that works out.
Well, Saddam came to power thanks to CIA (and the British SA) in the first place. Both Al Qaeda and the Talibans got financial support and training from the USA when they fought against the USSR. There would never have been an Al Qaeda or a Saddam in the first place without CIA intervention.
So i find the so called War On Terror pretty ironic.
I have a great theory how to stop terrorism in the world. Stop financing it. USA has financed more terrorist groups and terror regimes then any other nation in modern history.
CIA has trained and financed terror groups and death squads in more then 40 countries since the 50:s, and a pretty impressive list of dictators.
Here's a list i found:
http://www.serendipity.li/cia/death_squads.htm
And for some of the dictators:
Friendly Dictators Trading Cards http://home.iprimus.com.au/korob/fdtcards/Cards_Index.html#note
Pretty funny reading.
The problem the US has is not that we use force or interfere with nations, its that we do it in the wrong situations. I would say the Contras in Nicauragua, our overthrowing of Mossadegh in the 1950s, and the Bay of Pigs operation were all probably such situation where we probably shouldn't have gotten involved. But let's give the US credit for when we intervened rightly as well. The Korean War, Bosnia, and the first Gulf War were all proper uses of force.
I totally agree.
