Upon taking control of the bomb-ravaged country, the Vietnamese communists banned all other political parties and forced public servants and military personnel of the Republic of Vietnam into re-education camps. The government also embarked on a mass campaign of collectivization of farms and factories. Reconstruction of the war-ravaged country was slow, and serious humanitarian and economic problems confronted the communist regime. Millions of people fled the country in crudely built boats, creating an international humanitarian crisis.[22][23] In 1978, the Vietnamese army invaded Cambodia (sparking the Cambodian-Vietnamese War) which removed the Khmer Rouge from power.[24] This action worsened relations with China, which launched a brief incursion into northern Vietnam (the Sino-Vietnamese War) in 1979.[25] This conflict caused Vietnam to rely even more heavily on Soviet economic and military aid.

The link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam

You took a severely one-sided and very myopic view of the whole “bombing innocent victims” argument. You obviously understand very little about how the Vietnam war started, how it evolved and how it ended up. It wasn’t just about the US involvement, or Nixon, no. It goes back much farther than that.

You also understand very little about the Cold War and nuclear proliferation and the pervasive adoption of communism throughout the world.

Myanmar-Military junta.
Laos-Communist state.
Thailand-Constitutional monarchy.
Malaysia- Federal parliamentary democracy with a constitutional monarch.
China-Communist party-led state
Vietnam-Communist state.

http://www.nationsonline.org/o.....t_asia.htm

So of the six nations total of SE Asia, including Vietnam, three are openly communist, one is a military dictatorship, one a monarchy, and one a parliamentary state much like Great Britain.

Maybe not “domino theory” to you but well, I think there is evidence to support that the fight against communism was valid. Additionally, The United States pledged support to Vietnam when the French bailed out. I guess it would have been better to just abandon them and let them fight their own battles.

But then, you and people like you would condemn (once again) the US and its government for “not doing something about the human rights violations going on in Vietnam”. So there would be no pleasing you anyhow.

Meanwhile, the communists saw the opportunity to move in after the killing of Diem and the failure of various attempts at governments.

Eisenhower had pledged support to the people of Vietnam as early as 1954.

In any case, facts like these will not hold sway with your utopian dream that communists don’t really want to hurt anyone or run their lives, etc. They are peaceful and good and wholesome I suppose the way you see it. Doesn’t matter that everywhere communism is tried, their own governments destroys lives.

The bombing you refer to, which is inaccurate at best, such as Linebacker I and Linebacker II, under Nixon, perhaps were the single strongest methods to get the Viet Cong to the bargaining table as the old method that Johnson had of trying to fight a “limited” war by declaring certain targets off limits, wasn’t really working…and never had.

From wikipedia:

Although Hanoi claimed that the U.S. had “carpet-bombed hospitals, schools, and residential areas, committing barbarous crimes against our people”, the North Vietnamese government itself claimed that only 1,624 civilians had been killed by the bombing.

Not 1,000,000. Nor is that number you claim in any of the research I did online for not just Linebacker ops but for the entire war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O.....ebacker_II

Politicians should not dabble in warfare, just as generals should not dabble in politics.

Your beloved chosen golden boy, Obama is intending to do just that in Afghanistan…and will repeat the mistakes made in Vietnam by Johnson and Macnamara by already declaring certain targets off limits and endangering the lives of US soldiers.

War may be an ugly thing, but it’s not the ugliest of things. And while you sit there and enjoy your home-grown pot or whatever it is you’re smoking, be thankful that you live in a land that is so lenient that militarists don’t come into your house in the middle of the night and take you to a detention center and let you rot in a cell to die.

That, my friend, is what communists do. So “big whup” that communists proliferate? How about we take you there and let you try to do whatever it is you do HERE, over THERE.

You idiot.

And oh, some numbers I found with a quick Google search:

D. Vietnamese Civil War, final phase, 1973-75

* Young, citing Pentagon estimates:
o ARVN: 26,500 (1973) + 30,000 (1974)
o PRG/DRV: 39,000 (1973) + 61,000 (1974)
o Civilians: 15,000
o [TOTAL: 171,500 killed in the "Cease-Fire War".]

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat2.htm

*note, this is after the US pulled out altogether.

I have heard the stories from those that survived on a skiff, escaping across the open waters of the ocean. Many more died by drowning, starvation, and at the hands of pirates.

Or how would you like to be forced from your home into a camp where you survive by catching the occasional rodent to eat?

What happened in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon is not unusual in human history – it is more the norm than the relatively comfortable life we live. Cede your liberties to the government and you rely on blind luck that the same oppression you shrug off in Vietnam is not your own fate.

No thanks. Us evil conservatives will err on the side of fighting to retain our personal liberty.

It was a long struggle against Communism, and the Viet Nam War played a big part in it. Thank you every last Viet Nam vet. There are millions of Americans who appreciate the sacrifices you made. And as we are learning in spades with coward leftists in charge, it’s possible to win wars that take decades without a major decisive victory.

Of course, militarily, Viet Nam was a decisive victory, and we could have easily overthrown the Viet Cong and given the people of Southeast Asia a good life instead of the lives of misery lunatic leftists like you condemned them to.

Here’s a bit of advice. Practice developing as much sympathy for our allies as you have for our enemies.

Do you even know what this war was about? Saving the world from communism? Forty years after that war and most countries in that area are still not communist. So much for the domino theory. Maybe you should stop depending on right-wing blogs for all your information,

Creator of the Nobel Peace Prize, Alfred Nobel, invented dynamite.