The Vietnamese were largely supportive of Ho Chi Minh and there was supposed to have been a democratic reunification vote, which didn't happen. That's how the civil war started, and North Vietnam would have easily steamrolled the South (since they managed to steamroll both the South and the USA). Most civilian casualties came from horribly targeted anti-insurgency or massive American bombing raids. It's a pretty easy argument there would have been many, many fewer civilian casualties without US involvement.
> It's a pretty easy argument there would have been many, many fewer civilian casualties without US involvement.
The history of Communism in Asia would like a word with you.
Given that communism actually won in Vietnam, we don't even have to work with hypotheticals. There were certainly deaths but nothing to the level of the death toll American military power exacted on the populace.
Regarding the word intervene what I meant is that I believe it is not a good descriptor of what the US did. Makes it sound like some kind of spontaneous humanitarian mission rather than them undemocratically propping up a failing state.
Have you ever heard of the Khmer rouge in Cambodja, and how north Vietnam played a fundamental role establishing it?
IIRC Cambodia is the most bombed country in history.
...in response to the Khmer Rouge's attacks on Vietnam.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese...
> which was supported by China and the US.
Vietnam was concerned Cambodja's regime was too China-friendly, but the millions being killed under the banner of advancing socialism did not featured as a pressing concern by neither China nor Vietnam.
There were, of course, geopolitical calculations on all sides, which is why the United States and China supported the Khmer Rouge. I don't think moral revulsion alone often leads any government to declare war on another.
No. It was initiated by the South, when it refused (with US support) to participate in a national UN-monitored election, which Ho Chi Minh would likely have won.
Edit: Statement of Eisenhower, from Wikipedia:[0]
> I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indochinese affairs who did not agree that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly eighty percent of the population would have voted for the Communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bảo Đại. Indeed, the lack of leadership and drive on the part of Bảo Đại was a factor in the feeling prevalent among Vietnamese that they had nothing to fight for.
Hostilities were initiated by the North in the form of a guerrilla war.
It's crucial to keep in mind that it was the North faction that had been fighting for independence from France. And that the South Faction comprised largely the colonial bureaucracy and Catholics.
It was a civil war, initiated by the North, in which mostly Vietnamese killed other Vietnamese. The Americans intervening was absolutely a shit-show (and of course colonial history), but for the central point of your rant to stand, you’d need to show fewer Vietnamese would have died without American intervention, and that’s not a simple given.
You should spend some time talking to American Vietnamese with families who were persecuted in the immediate aftermath of the war, or who were lucky enough to escape.