Isn't this what happened in Vietnam? Civil war?

[southernleftylady]

just wondering (I'm too young to know for sure) but i thought this is how it went down..
we got into a civil war...
is this correct or not?
please educate me :)

[PassingThrough]

1. Yes, no and maybe. Conflict just wasn't that simple.

[zbdent]

2. Come on, it was fighting communism! (Wait, it was started by the Dems?

then it was interfering with the development of a country . . .

Wait, it continued under Nixon? Then you were unpatriotic to oppose it!

Wait, you got out of it by joining the National Guard < Quayle, Bush43 > and you skipped out of your duty to go drinking < Bush43 >? Then you were "protecting America" . . . )

I'm confused . . .

[Warren Stupidity]

3. Not really.

We attempted to portray it as a civil war between the evil commies from the north and the brave freedom loving peoples of the south. In reality it was the endgame of the colonial era, with our forces playing the role of a colonial occupying army. The Vietnamese just wanted the foreigners to get out of their country.

[Toots]

4. No there were two distinct countries and governments

Just as there is in Korea now. Not at all like what is happening in the Middle east. The only real suicides in Vietnam were Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire to protest the war.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. Neither the RVN nor the DRV ever relinquished claim to the other

territory.

And the treaty which supposedly extablishes them as two different countries in fact explicitly prohibits the 17th parallel being seen as a national boundary. Finally, much of the resistance in the South came from southerners. So...a little hard to represent it as two countries. The two countries bit was more an illusion to make it seem like the South was being invaded. There were never two Vietnams, which was part of the problem.

[Toots]

6. It sure seemed like it to me.

I spent quite a bit of time over there and talked quite a bit to the people there. :shrug: But the world is not always as it seems..