# \*groan\* . . . OK, let's debate the Vietnam War . . . again . . . **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 21, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318 "2004-10-21T01:17:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/1 "2004-10-21T01:17:34Z")
From _Generation X,_ by Douglas Coupland (St. Martin’s Press, 1991), p. 151 – Andy and his younger brother Tyler are visiting a Vietnam War memorial in their home town in Oregon: > [@](#): > > “Andy, I don’t get it. I mean, this is a cool enough place and all, but why should you be interested in Viet_nam._ It was over before you’d even reached puberty.” > > “I’m hardly an expert on the subject, Tyler, but I _do_ remember a lot of it. Faint stuff; black-and-white TV stuff. Growing up, Vietnam was a background color in life, like red or blue or gold – it tinted everything. And then suddenly one day it just disappeared. Imagine that one morning you woke up and suddenly the color green had vanished. I come here to see a color that I can’t see anywhere else any more.” > > “Well _I_ can’t remember any of it.” > > “You wouldn’t want to. They were ugly times–” > > I exit Tyler’s questioning. > > Okay, yes, I think to myself, they _were_ ugly times. But they were also the only times I’ll ever get – genuine capital _H_ history times, before _history_ was turned into a press release, a marketing strategy, and a cynical campaign tool. And _hey,_ it’s not as if I got to see much real history, either – I arrived to see a concert in history’s arena just as the final set was finishing. But I saw enough, and today, in the bizarred absence of all time cues, I need a connection to a past of some importance, however wan the connection. We’ve had a lot of threads recently about Kerry’s Winter Soldier testimony in 1971, and whether it makes Kerry a hero or a traitor. We’ve argued about whether everything Kerry said was true; and whether he should have said it even if it was true; and how it might have affected the treatment of POWs in NV, the moreal of troops in the field, or the duration of the war. But that’s all horseshit, isn’t it? Or at any rate, rationalization. With most Dopers and probably most Americans, what it comes down to, more than anything else, is how you feel about the Vietnam War itself. If you believe America’s intervention in Vietnam was immoral and/or a tragic mistake, you almost certainly believe Kerry’s testimony was an act of moral heroism. If you believe differently, you almost certainly believe it was an act of treason. We will never reach any resolution or consensus on this (or, failing that, more sophisticated positions of stubbornly hostile disagreement) unless we go straight to the heart of the matter and debate the merits of the war itself. Issues for debate: 1. Was America’s intervention in Vietnam justified? Moral or immoral? 2. Was it a mistake for the U.S. to get involved, or not? 3. Could the U.S. have achieved victory by fighting with different strategies? (Defining “victory” as a lasting division of the country into two states, one of them non-Communist and both of them more or less at peace internally, as in Korea.) Before we even begin this discussion, let’s understand one thing very clearly: **It is only a vocal minority that is even keeping these issues alive.** By a margin of at least two to one, the American people agree that the war was immoral and/or a mistake, and that has been the case consistently ever since 1968, according to Gallup polls. From “Long Division,” by Michael Tomasky, in _The American Prospect,_ October 2004 – [http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8539:](http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=8539:) > [@](#): > > The Gallup Organization has taken care to track American public opinion on this question every few years since the Vietnam War ended. The results are beyond dispute. By overwhelming margins, Americans have always believed – and continue to believe – that the Vietnamese conflict was wrong. Gallup has asked two questions over the years. First, did the United States make “a mistake in sending troops to fight in Vietnam, or not”? Second, was the war (and were other wars in U.S. history) “just” or “unjust”? In both cases, the pro-war position comes up very short. Gallup began asking a version of the “mistake” question in 1965. The first majority calling the war a mistake appeared in August 1968, after the Tet Offensive and Walter Cronkite’s famous anti-war editorial at the end of his newscast on the night of February 27 of that year. After the war’s 1975 conclusion, Gallup has asked the question five times, in 1985, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 2000. And all five times – over that 15-year period that saw vast social change, the raging of the culture wars, and dramatic shifts to the right in American public opinion on several issues – respondents were consistent in calling the war a mistake by a margin of more than 2 to 1: by 74 percent to 22 percent in 1990, for example, and by 69 percent to 24 percent in 2000. > > Similarly, vast majorities continue to call the war “unjust.” While substantial majorities retrospectively support World War II (90 percent), the Korean War (61 percent), and the Gulf War (66 percent), fully 68 percent of Gallup respondents in 1990 considered the Vietnam War unjust, and 25 percent thought it just. Four years later, the numbers were 71 percent to 23 percent. Only in 2004 – after September 11, with American soldiers engaged in combat on two fronts, and with martial rhetoric from the incumbent administration a daily feature of national life – did the numbers change. But even then, they changed just a little: 62 percent still consider Vietnam unjust, while 33 percent defend it. > > It’s at least very interesting and at most rather remarkable that Americans, who tend to forgive their country pretty much everything on the matter of how it conducts its global affairs, have settled so firmly into the conviction that their nation was so wrong about something so important. Another 1995 Gallup question even found a majority of 52 percent agreeing with the assertion that the war was “fundamentally wrong and immoral,” as opposed to the 43 percent who called it a “well-intentioned mistake.” And while it can be argued that the 33 percent of pro-Vietnam respondents in the 2004 poll still represents a decent chunk of the population, it’s also the case than in electoral terms, 33 percent constitutes a fractional minority. The similar percentage of Americans that opposed the Iraq War in the early months of 2003 was uniformly written off by the media as marginal, disgruntled, and unimportant. So public opinion on this question couldn’t be clearer. There is no great Vietnam divide. Americans are more divided over carbohydrates than they are over Vietnam. But then, the majority is not always right, is it? ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/2 "2004-10-21T01:51:03Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. Was it a mistake for the U.S. to get involved, or not? This one is downright silly. Considering that Vietnam ended up with the US losing, with something like 58,000 US GIs killed, it’s kind of hard to say that the endeavor wasn’t a mistake. I would argue the war was immoral, and I can see reasonable people taking the opposing view. However, given all the deaths of US soldiers, and the fact the communists ended up victorious, surely the effort was a mistake. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/3 "2004-10-21T02:01:05Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > This one is downright silly. Considering that Vietnam ended up with the US losing, with something like 58,000 US GIs killed, it’s kind of hard to say that the endeavor wasn’t a mistake. I would argue the war was immoral, and I can see reasonable people taking the opposing view. However, given all the deaths of US soldiers, and the fact the communists ended up victorious, surely the effort was a mistake. Despite all that, some still insist the war itself – that is, getting into Vietnam in the first place – was a good idea; the mistake was in the **way** the war was fought. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/4 "2004-10-21T02:16:41Z")
US involvement in Vietnam was immoral, and our being there was a mistake, but _given_ the fact that we _were_ there (mistake or not), there were ways to handle our participation in the war there that would have been far better than what we did. If we were going to go there (we shouldn’t have, it was immoral and it was a mistake), we should have fought to win the war and we should have worked with the Vietnamese people rather than let Ho Chi Minh win the hearts and minds of the people as he did. We weren’t even fighting to win, we were fighting to keep the other guys from winning. Stupid, stupid, stupid. ---
**Author:** ![mks57](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b9bd4f/32.png) [@mks57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mks57)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/5 "2004-10-21T02:21:05Z")
You are asking for simple answers to complex questions. I don’t think the war can be reduced to “good or bad”, “moral or immoral”. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/6 "2004-10-21T02:29:00Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Despite all that, some still insist the war itself – that is, getting into Vietnam in the first place – was a good idea; the mistake was in the **way** the war was fought. The problem there is that it is just pure speculation that had we fought the war another way what the outcome would have been? For example, if someone says the war should have been fought in another manner, I could come back with a possible scenario how that would have led to WW III, with either all of us dead, or if there were survivors they would be planning on how to fight WW IV with sticks and stones as Einstein pointed out would happen. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/7 "2004-10-21T02:33:11Z")
> [@mks57](#): > > You are asking for simple answers to complex questions. Not at all. Make your answers as complex as you like. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/8 "2004-10-21T02:35:19Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > The problem there is that it is just pure speculation that had we fought the war another way what the outcome would have been? Not **pure** speculation. Some errors in judgment are more obvious in hindsight than they were at the time. And some information is available now that wasn’t, then, to LBJ and Nixon and their generals. ---
**Author:** ![rippingtons\_fan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rippingtons_fan/32/11767_2.png) [@rippingtons\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rippingtons_fan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/9 "2004-10-21T02:38:55Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > This one is downright silly. Considering that Vietnam ended up with the US losing, with something like 58,000 US GIs killed, it’s kind of hard to say that the endeavor wasn’t a mistake. I would argue the war was immoral, and I can see reasonable people taking the opposing view. However, given all the deaths of US soldiers, and the fact the communists ended up victorious, surely the effort was a mistake. Yes, I remember quite clearly the official unconconditional surrender ceremony quite well, of the United States to North Vietnam. Gee I think they even brought in the U.S.S. Missouri (now in North Vietnamese hands) as a perfect stage on which to sign the documents. (You remember that, don’t you?) And when General Giap accepted General Westmoreland’s ceremonial sword, that added that extra touch of drama. (You remember that, don’t you?) It was on all the networks. But what got me was when the victorious North Vietnamese held their war crimes trials in Hanoi, with the “Hanoi Hilton” serving as their Spandau Prison. And the extradition of Americans to stand trial in Hanoi. (You remember that, don’t you?) Yep, the U.S. surrendered all right! Our loss to North Vietnam at least allowed us in the former-USA to have festive May Day parades! (You remember those, don’t you?) Their soldiers goose-stepped really well, don’t you think? The ones that started off and ended with the flag burning ceremonies of the flag of the former-USA! They were on all the networks! (Don’t you remember?) And without commercial interruptions!! Yep, when the U.S.A. lost the war and surrendered to North Vietnam peace broke out all over the place. The North Vietnamese victory also put an end to the Cold War. (Whadda’ deal!!) Ah well, enough history lessons for now!! I’ve got a Central Committee meeting I have to go to!! See ya’!! ---
**Author:** ![rippingtons\_fan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rippingtons_fan/32/11767_2.png) [@rippingtons\_fan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rippingtons_fan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/10 "2004-10-21T02:53:21Z")
> [@rippingtons\_fan](#): > > Yes, I remember quite clearly the official unconconditional surrender ceremony quite well, of the United States to North Vietnam. Gee I think they even brought in the U.S.S. Missouri (now in North Vietnamese hands) as a perfect stage on which to sign the documents. (You remember that, don’t you?) > And when General Giap accepted General Westmoreland’s ceremonial sword, that added that extra touch of drama. (You remember that, don’t you?) It was on all the networks. > > But what got me was when the victorious North Vietnamese held their war crimes trials in Hanoi, with the “Hanoi Hilton” serving as their Spandau Prison. > And the extradition of Americans to stand trial in Hanoi. (You remember that, don’t you?) Yep, the U.S. surrendered all right! > > Our loss to North Vietnam at least allowed us in the former-USA to have festive May Day parades! (You remember those, don’t you?) Their soldiers goose-stepped really well, don’t you think? The ones that started off and ended with the flag burning ceremonies of the flag of the former-USA! They were on all the networks! (Don’t you remember?) And without commercial interruptions!! > > Yep, when the U.S.A. lost the war and surrendered to North Vietnam peace broke out all over the place. The North Vietnamese victory also put an end to the Cold War. (Whadda’ deal!!) Ah well, enough history lessons for now!! I’ve got a Central Committee meeting I have to go to!! See ya’!! Yes, unconconditional! (I apologise for being so sarcastic in my reply, as I was kind of pissed-off at somebody else when I wrote it.) I’m really not a right-wing nut. I’m just a nut!! ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/11 "2004-10-21T03:00:52Z")
What the hell?! You don’t have to surrender to lose a war. You just have to not win. And we didn’t win. Or did you miss the famous images of the US soldiers being airlifted out of Saigon? ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/12 "2004-10-21T03:09:19Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > What the hell?! > > You don’t have to surrender to lose a war. You just have to not win. And we didn’t win. Or did you miss the famous images of the US soldiers being airlifted out of Saigon? Right. The US military hustled out of Vietnam with their tails between their legs. The objective of North Vietnam wasn’t to conquer the USA. It was merely to get the US to withdraw, and let them reunify the country under communist rule. The NVA was victorious against the US. ---
**Author:** ![aahala](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a88e4f/32.png) [@aahala](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aahala)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/13 "2004-10-21T03:23:47Z")
Even in hindsight, IMO, it’s fair to say a mistake was made in 64 or 65, certainly 66. We had had token forces there since about 1958, and in the early 60’s had increased the force levels 50% or more several years in a row. Then from 64 to 65 we went from 25,000 to 125,000 and the next year 385,000. Something is seriously wrong here, but the President apparently refused to see it. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/14 "2004-10-21T05:52:13Z")
1. The war was a terrible, immoral act, a crime against humanity by any reasonable examination. Essentially you had a powerful industralized nation invading a small, underdeveloped nation and fighting a war against its citizenry in order to prop up a government of puppets. There is no significant difference between what the USA did to Vietnam and what the Soviets did to Afghanistan, except that the USA killed a lot more people. Nor can the war be looked at in isolation from the grander scheme of things in Indochina. The bombing of Laos was simply genocide, as evil a war crime as has been committed by any state since the end of WWII. The invasion and bombing of Cambodia wasn’t much better. I’m going to become very unpopular for saying this, but while there wasn’t really a good guy in this fight, the MOST bad guy lost. Stepping away from an American perspective, it’s not a bad thing the USA lost, unless you think it’s bad that the Vietnamese got to run their own country, for better or for worse. 1. Well, duh, it was a huge mistake. 2. Possibly, but probably not. The general consensus of many people, and we’ll see that come up here, is that the USA lost because they hamstrung the armed forces. This fails to note that the USa had overwhelming armed force anyway. Invade North Vietnam? Sure, you can try that, but there’s a hundred downsides to that strategy. They’d have been fighting a civil war there for twenty years. It comes back to the fact that the United States was fighting the Vietnam War against… the Vietnamese. Both North AND South. Unless they planned to kill all the Vietnamese, increasing the itensity of the war would just have killed more innocents and increased the possibility that the war would spread throughout Asia. The history of nations attempting to suppress the independence of other nations is a spotty one. Would the British have won the American Revolution with better strategy? I doubt it; truth is, they won most of the battles anyway, but for every American soldier they killed, two more joined up. It was a hopeless cause by 1778 to attempt to prevent the Americans from being American. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/15 "2004-10-21T06:08:08Z")
I see many posts stating the war was immoral. When I think of it in terms of the US helping the south avoid a communist government they did not want, it seems ok. This may be a big assumption on my part, but in my limited knowledge I have the impression that the communists had not gained much popular support in the south. What am I missing w.r.t. morality of the US being involved in the war? (which is very different than the morality of how we conducted ourselves during the war). ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/16 "2004-10-21T06:11:22Z")
Now that I hit submit I see RickJay’s comments (it took a while to get the next load of laundry going). I see your point on supporting an unpopular government. Any other reasons why it was immoral? ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/17 "2004-10-21T06:23:33Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 1. Was it a mistake for the U.S. to get involved, or not? No it was not a mistake , if not Vietnam, it would have been africa or south america. The soviets were bank rolling lots of different movements all over the world , sooner or later a line would have been drawn, in this case it was Vietnam > [@](#): > > 1. Could the U.S. have achieved victory by fighting with different strategies? (Defining “victory” as a lasting division of the country into two states, one of them non-Communist and both of them more or less at peace internally, as in Korea.) Go nuclear and gamble the soviets would not think it was worth a major war , or non nuclear and destroy the dikes above hanoi ,and cause genocide. If there was one mistake that I would latch onto , was not to launch spoiling attacks on VC forces massing for tet. When the tet offensive was launched , the VC were pretty much anahialated , leaving the south rife for take over by north vietnamese communists. Had cadre forces been able to reform in the south , they could have been exploited to cause troubles for General Giap, with the eventual withdrawal and maybe a partitioned vietnam still. That was on the local level On the international level , the conflict in Vietnam allowed countries like Hong Kong , singapore , Malaysia , Thailand and Taiwan to successfully grow into thrivin economies , so they got one , we got the rest. Vietnam will probably be revised in hundred years , to reflect that it was a victory ,rather than a defeat. Declan ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/18 "2004-10-21T06:25:56Z")
> [@RaftPeople](#): > > When I think of it in terms of the US helping the south avoid a communist government they did not want, it seems ok. > > This may be a big assumption on my part, but in my limited knowledge I have the impression that the communists had not gained much popular support in the south. But the South Vietnamese people, rightly or wrongly, for the most part **did** want a Communist government. Why do you think the war dragged on so long without the U.S. troops ever directly engaging the North Vietnamese army? The Viet Cong were all South Vietnamese. ---
**Author:** ![RaftPeople](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@RaftPeople](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RaftPeople)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/19 "2004-10-21T06:41:06Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But the South Vietnamese people, rightly or wrongly, for the most part **did** want a Communist government. Why do you think the war dragged on so long without the U.S. troops ever directly engaging the North Vietnamese army? The Viet Cong were all South Vietnamese. I am the first to admit my lack of knowledge on this. I was under the impression that the communists had not made much progress in getting support from the general population. I had assumed the VC were merely an effective force but a minority of the population. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2004, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318/20 "2004-10-21T07:57:23Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > But the South Vietnamese people, rightly or wrongly, for the most part **did** want a Communist government. Why do you think the war dragged on so long without the U.S. troops ever directly engaging the North Vietnamese army? The Viet Cong were all South Vietnamese. I think it would be fairer to say that the South Vietnamese wanted a true **Vietnamese** government, rather than a Communist one. The North Vietnamese were very skillful at coopting liberals in the South and portraying the struggle as one of national liberation. It was only after the war ended that the liberals learned that the Communists weren’t interested in sharing. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/groan-ok-lets-debate-the-vietnam-war-again/270318.md?page=2)