vets coming home

Jean Baptiste Ngô Đình Diệm (Vietnamese: Jean Baptiste Ngô Đình Diệm, pronounced [ŋo ɗîɲ zjə̂ˀm], Saigon: [ɗîn jə̃ˀm] ( listen)), (January 3, 1901 – November 2, 1963) was the first President of South Vietnam (1955–1963). In the wake of the French withdrawal from Indochina as a result of the 1954 Geneva Accords, Diệm led the effort to create the Republic of Vietnam. Accruing considerable US support due to his staunch anti-Communism, he achieved victory in a 1955 plebiscite that was widely considered fraudulent. Proclaiming himself the Republic's first President, he demonstrated considerable political skill in the consolidation of his power, and his rule proved authoritarian, elitist, nepotistic, and corrupt. A Catholic, Diệm pursued policies that rankled and oppressed the Republic's Montagnard natives and its Buddhist majority. Amid religious protests that garnered worldwide attention, Diệm lost the backing of his US patrons and was assassinated by Nguyen Van Nhung, the aide of ARVN General Dương Văn Minh on November 2, 1963, during a coup d'état that deposed his government. Upon learning of Diệm's ouster and death, Democratic Republic of Vietnam President Ho Chi Minh is reported to have said, "I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid."

In 1954, France and the Việt Minh agreed at the Geneva Conference that the State of Vietnam would rule the territory south of the 17th parallel, pending unification on the basis of supervised elections in 1956. At the time of the conference, it was expected that the South would continue to be a French dependency. However, South Vietnamese Premier Ngô Đình Diệm, who preferred American sponsorship to French, rejected the agreement. When Vietnam was divided, 800,000 to 1 million North Vietnamese, mainly (but not exclusively) Roman Catholics, sailed south as part of (Operation Passage to Freedom) due to a fear of religious persecution in the North. more wiki stuff

The history of the relationship with the United States is controversial. Some historians say the founding of South Vietnam was based on the United States's desire to create an "anti-communist" base in Southeast Asia.[citation needed] Opponents argue that it was based on popular support of the South Vietnamese people. However, the U.S. and the Diem government agreed that elections mandated by the Geneva Conference (1954) should not occur, claiming that the communists could not be trusted to conduct a fair election in the North. Moreover, most contemporary observers, including U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, estimated that if an election were held in the 1954–55 period (when South Vietnam was under Bảo Đại's rule), around 80% of the Vietnamese population would vote for Ho Chi Minh.[6] The dominant political rationale for supporting the South Vietnamese government was America's containment policy, which was designed to hold back the spread of communism during the Cold War.

The failure to unify the country in 1956, along with Diem's persecution of communists, led in 1959 to the foundation of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam (abbreviated NLF but also known as the Việt Cộng), which initiated an organised and widespread guerrilla insurgency against the South Vietnamese government. Although initially cautious, Hanoi backed the insurgency, which grew in support and intensity. The United States, under President Eisenhower, initially sent military advisers to train the South Vietnamese army. President John F. Kennedy increased the size of the advisory force fourfold and allowed the advisers to participate in combat operations, and later acquiesced in the removal of President Diem in a military coup. After promising not to do so during the 1964 election campaign, in 1965 President Lyndon B. Johnson decided to send in much larger numbers of combat troops, and conflict steadily escalated to become what is commonly known as the Vietnam War

Let's get this back to where it began. What i've said, and all that i've said is that the United States did not illegally occupy a sovereign nation, and that our troops were not criminal.

I agree that our troops, as a group and simply because they were there, are not criminal.

I don't know what has been, in other wars, considered "normal" war actions.

Robert McNamara, before his death last year, all but admitted that he lied to Johnson about the naval engagement on which the resolution was predicated.

By the way, you can keep that "lily white" **** to yourself.

As HS pointed out, these things can be solved by fact-checking. This Wikipedia article lists the Republic of Vietnam as a "Dialog Partner" of SEATO.

Despite being intended to provide a collective, anti-communist shield to Southeast Asia, SEATO was unable to intervene in the conflicts in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam because an intervention required a decision of unanimity, which was never reached; France and the Philippines objected. Intervention in the Vietnam conflict was sought again later, but France and Pakistan withheld support.

That does not alter, however, the right of the government of the RV to accept U.S. military aid and troops. If one argues against the legitimacy of the government of the RV, the same arguments can be advanced against the DRV.

Because of the 1954 Accords settling the First Indochina War, South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos were not SEATO members. The United States sought, but failed, to make the Vietnam War into a SEATO collective defense problem.

This is why i described the entire affair as tragic, with no good guys on any side of the conflict.

They invaded the sovereign nation for which JTT sheds his crocodile tears.

Now, one can argue that Ngo Dinh Diem was not an elected representative of the Vietnamese in the Republic of Vietnam, but Ho Chi Minh was no more a elected representative of the people of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

I was at Fort Knox, Kentucky the day of the Kent State shootings. A lot of guardsmen got the **** beat out of them by the GIs. The ones in our company were marched off to a separate barracks for their protection. The country was deeply divided at that time.