> And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. False. Did you know the Viet Minh initially counted with support from the US? When it

> And the North would never had existed without USSR and China’s backing. False. Did you know the Viet Minh initially counted with support from the US? When it was an anti Japanese struggle, of course. Initial US assessments even thought the French should get the fuck out; those sentiments were overruled by others in the US, sadly. The Vietnamese struggle was a struggle of national liberation. Aided from the outside like all resistance organizations, sure -- like the French resistance against the Nazis was. Didn't make France any less real. Imagine if the Allies had partitioned France in two after the war, claimed the last Nazi held parts were to be ruled by Germany's successors or whatever, and that the ensuing fight to reunify France was "a civil war" and that the free (non German) France was "just as artificial". > I’m not sure what your point is? That the US sided with colonial powers and against an independence movement. Not their finest hour. > How much “free will” do the Vietnamese have today? More than they would have had had the US backed dictatorship won. Not that it matters: it's not for you to decide. There's no White Man's Burden to send civilization to other countries. Let them have their self determination and arrange their governments how they like. Above all, don't murder them by the thousands, destroy the countryside and poison their land when you don't like the government they choose.