In message , Pete
writes
"Paul J. Adam" wrote
Perhaps: but by that argument, wouldn't the US victory be even greater
if back in the late 1940s it had told the French to get out of their
ex-colony and offered generous aid and support to Ho Chi Minh? Communist
or not, I'll bet he'd rather have sold rubber to Firestone and Goodyear
for hard dollars than to the USSR for roubles. (Fifty years of hindsight
applies, of course)

And 50 yrs later, people would be writing about "Another evil dictator that
the Americans kept in power"

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Sadly, you're right.


Now, for some very my-opinion analysis... (assayed at exactly $0.02)

Maybe Vietnam would go the way of South Korea (prosperous, stable, but
not pleasant to be labelled a 'dissident' in). Or maybe it would be a
new Argentina with its own "dirty war" (where 'dissidents' are subject
to 'a process of elimination').

But given the grief the US got over Vietnam, how much worse could it be?
After all, the US _did_ prop up an assortment of corrupt dictators and
generals in Vietnam before the collapse - if nothing else, better to be
condemned for successfully either walking away or backing the winners,
than for failure.


I'll ask a really cynical question - was the combat experience that the
US gained in Vietnam worth the lives and treasure expended, and the
alleged intangible costs that are so hard to pin down?

(Would the US military have been stronger or weaker without Vietnam? I
have honestly no idea. Would it have been a rejuvenated force as old
equipment was replaced, or would it have placed blind trust in new kit
and - for example - still been using AIM-9Bs into the late 1970s because
tests proved the missiles were marvellous?)


--
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.
Julius Caesar I:2

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk