instead of the French. After all Ho Chi Minh looked up to the united states as a power that broke away from colonialism, just like the Vietnamese Communists wanted to do, and that the Vietnam war was a nationalist war and not a war of monolithic communist (or in reality Stalinist) expansion?
2007-03-28 08:58:36 · 8 answers · asked by Ludwig Wittgenstein 5 in Politics & Government ➔ Military
if you're an American, then supporting Ho Chi Minh would be an accurate hindsight observation on the opinion that we should never have been involved there in the first place.
If you're Vietnamese and seen the thousands of people Ho Chi Minh killed for no reason other than to gain power and cover his shady past, then you would wish someone would have killed him.
2007-03-28 13:31:53 · answer #1 · answered by MojaveDan 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The US supported Ho Chi Mihn in World War 2 against the Japanese. The fall of China to the Communists scared the heck out of the USA. In any case when it was exposed that many in the state department were communist agents it made the US government question any positive opinions about the Viet Mihn as they were called then.
The US did not appreciate how the Vietnamese were anti-Chinese, communist or otherwise. It would have been better to exploit these national tensions rather than send troops. Nixon did it successfully over Red China versus the USSR. But hindsight is 20/20.
2007-03-28 09:11:50 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Vietnam war began during the height of the cold war. It wouldn't have mattered what a leader was like or how much good he might do for his people, if he were a communist.
Look at Fidel Castro. He did improve the life of the average Cuban. He asked the US for help and was refused because the US was on the side of the rich who owned the casinos in Havana. The US wanted to protect US interests in Cuba, even if it meant the Cuban people were being used and impoverished. Castro went to the Soviet Union for assistance after the US refused any help. That was it for Castro. Going to the commies is the ultimate sin .Today, the US is still out to get Castro..... after all these years. No way the US could have supported Ho Chi Minh.
2007-03-28 09:10:55 · answer #3 · answered by Annie D 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
It was a matter of friends and support. The U.S. and French were friends on multiple fronts. The U.S. didn't have that kind of relationship with Vietnam, especially with Ho Chi Mihn. Anti-communism abound in government at that time and were proven right when the communists finally won, when the Democrats refused to supply the South, and killed off the smart ones, the rich ones and the religious ones (around 2 million in all).
2007-03-28 10:00:28 · answer #4 · answered by gregory_dittman 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You mean the same Ho Chi Minh who stood up at the secret Southeast Asian Communist Party Congress at Hong Kong in 1928 and explained how the Vietnamese needed more "living space" (Hitler called it "lebensraum" when explaining why he needed to take over western Czechoslovakia in 1938 - but, then, he was German and he would use the German word for invasion and theft, wouldn't he?) and that Cambodia and Thailand was where they would acquire their needed "living space"?
The boy was lucky he didn't end up with a bullet in the brain. That's what he was owed by history but, like most of history's worst gangsters, he escaped his would-be executioners.
Ol' Saddam didn't, though, did he? But then Saddam was not only one of history's worst gangsters but also one of its worst losers - and that is a very, very bad combination as ol' Sadly Insane found out!
2007-03-28 09:12:02 · answer #5 · answered by Fast Eddie B 6 · 2⤊ 0⤋
completely! The french subsequently removed the gold standard by using the worthless dollar to fill their vaults and we had to remove any kind of proof that the dollar was worth anything concrete. I think history proves we should have been on the commies side since now they are big trading partners of our. The bed I sleep on was made in Vietnam its not worth a dime though. I think substandard manufacturing is retaliation for all the agent orange we dumped on them.
2007-03-28 09:04:15 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
I never thought of that Leon. I've never had a problem with non-aggressive states regardless of their type of government.
The wingnuts are asking for the head of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. I don't like his taunting but in reality his military budget is far less than 1% of ours. Just about the same as Iraq's when we invaded them.
2007-03-28 09:12:33 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Read the book "Vietnam a History" by Stanley Karnow. If you haven't already read it. Yeah, you can buy very cheap vacation to Vietnam now and corporate America is shipping jobs over there. So obviously we were wrong about the whole damned thing.
2007-03-28 09:04:45 · answer #8 · answered by Crystal Blue Persuasion 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋