People who don't understand the historical context like to say the U.S. did not need to involve in the Vietnam civil war. This is simply wrong. If the U.S. did no get involved, the Chinese Communist government will support communists throw over government one after another, millions and millions more people will die in civil wars and communist cleansing. The world will look totally different today.
Got downvoted on this. LOL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_W...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Vietnam_relation...
FWIW, I agree with you regarding the dangers of communist purges- I lived in Laos in the late 70's/early 80's. I saw plenty of first-hand examples of what happens.
The vietmanese state has been an extension of the CCP since the 70s. This isn't up for debate, it's objective fact.
The Sino-Soviet split was a Very Big Deal, and Vietnam was firmly on the Soviet side of that split.
This sounds like the Domino Theory:
By the early 70’s the communist block had split between the USSR and China. Vietnam was USSR not Chinese ally.
Not long after the end of the Vietnam war, China attacked Vietnam (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War) ostensibly as the Vietnamese had attacked Cambodia, by this stage supported by China (and the US) to dispose the Khmer Rouge.
Suffice to say it went badly for the PLA and thanks to the Vietnamese the Khmer Rouge was ultimately disposed.
Granted, the worst case scenario did not happen (Australia was spared communist takeover), but what actually happened was horrific, nonetheless. Laos and Cambodia fell to communism, in part thanks to communist forces from Vietnam.
And anyone who pulls the line of "independence from foreign domination" should have a talk with the grey hairs in your local Vietnamese neighborhood, here, in the States. They'll let you know how much people in South Vietnam wanted nothing to do with the tyrannical regime in the North.
Furthermore, one cannot disparage South Vietnam as a puppet regime without also disparaging South Korea, Taiwan, or West Germany for that matter.
Communists, on the other hand, either suppress or celebrate their own atrocities.
LOL The ONLY person that received ANY punishment was Calley, and he was sentenced to life only to serve three years of house arrest.
"were punished" is a joke.
That's just one of them that we have evidence of. We know this was not a one off event.
Anyone who pulls the line of "Domino Theory" and "America was just fighting communism" must note all the war crimes that the US committed and was never held responsible for.