Thank you.

You can say what you want about Lenin or the Soviet Union, the motivation for the bolshevik revolution, the swamp it was spawned in, was Romanov abuse, colonialism.
Lenin was but one who was attempting to capitalise on the “disenchantment” this caused. Yet it was all a result of the Zar’s policies. If he had be a magnanimous, fair leader, there would have been no anger for anybody to try and harness, i.e. no bolshevik revolution.

This is not rocket science, but somehow beyond the comprehension of the American conservative idiot.

As for the “items” which connect Hitler, Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot, you could have added almost every major country on the planet, inlcuding our own. Or what, the US didn’t elimanate “potential adversaries” (Indians, Mexican’s, communists?),
“enthralling themselves within formal cults of personality”; establishment of gulags/concentration camps (slavery, Indian reservations, Japanese camps), “the establishment of highly doctrinaire educational systems” (my high school, and yours too), “totalitarian regimes more generally” (we fund, and us too if we have too); “de jure classifications of people for purposes of social and professional discrimination” (we used to) “including kangaroo courts, show trials and ad hoc” (the McCarthy era), “summary executions on a broad scale” (slavery, the American Indian, Vietnam, Indonesia, Chile etc); “societally inculcated forms of bigotry more generally” (Injuns, niggers, kikes, spicks, waps, chinks, polaks, then commies and Islamo-fascists).

“Not that the three are identical, I’m not saying that either, for example Hitler visited Paris only once, and briefly. Whereas Pol Pot and Ho Chi Minh spent a more extensive time on the Left Bank. However, it can be said the French were, in all three cases, accomodating.”

Ah, I see, the depth of one’s evilness is determined by how many times they visited France! Silly me.

I see your point now. ..Why don’t you comb some hair over it.

OK, one more (if you’re still awake). Here too they speak of Soviet military aid starting in ’65:

Cold War International History Project
Virtual Archive

Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua and Vietnamese Ambassador Ngo Minh Loan; Beijing, 13 May 1967

29. CHINESE DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER QIAO GUANHUA AND VIETNAMESE AMBASSADOR NGO MINH LOAN
Beijing, 13 May 1967

Qiao Guanhua: I have a problem to discuss with Comrade Ambassador. It is a specific problem relating to the Soviet aid to Vietnam.
On 6 May 1967, we were informed both in Hanoi and in Beijing by Comrade Deputy Minister Nghiem Ba Duc1 and Comrade Pham Thanh Ha2 respectively that in May and June 1967, the Soviets would provide Vietnam 24 Mig-17 and Mig-21 planes (12 planes of each type) and we were also asked to help transport them via China.
On 9 May 1967, Comrade Pham Thanh Ha officially informed our External Economic Relations Committee that these 24 airplanes would be transported by railway. There would be two shipments, each of which could handle 12 airplanes.
On the same matter, however, the Soviet Union informed us differently: on May 8, they requested that their AN-12 aircraft carry these 24 airplanes over China’s air space in a 10-day period from May 16 to May 24 1967.
On 9 May 1967, Comrade Nghiem Ba Duc in Hanoi proposed the [same] plan for air transportation.
Our leadership puts this issue high on the agenda. We have studied the requests by both Vietnam and the Soviet Union very carefully. On behalf of the Chinese government, I would like to inform you, Comrade ambassador, that we agree with the plan proposed by Comrade Pham Thanh Ha for railway transportation of these 24 airplanes, but not with the plan for air transportation.
The air transportation of these 24 airplanes is a question of great importance. As Comrade Ambassador has known, our opinions have long been different from those of the Soviets. Since early 1965, when Soviet aid started coming to Vietnam, the Soviets more than once proposed that their shipment go to Vietnam by air, over China’s air space. In general, we do not agree with the idea. Before, Vietnam also did not agree with air transportation because you understood our position [in this matter]. This time, I would like to make it clearer to Vietnamese comrades the reasons why the Soviet Union wanted this method of transportation for its aid to Vietnam.
For the last few years, using its mass media, the Soviet Union has been trying to publicize its large-scale aid to Vietnam. We hold that the Soviets intentionally do so in order to let the US know of the Soviet large-scale aid to Vietnam and by so doing, the Soviets reveal some secrets to the US.
For the last few years, we have helped Vietnam transport the aid by train, which is very timely and safe. The Vietnamese side has been very satisfied.
So why do the Soviets this time ask for air transportation? If the Soviets resort to air transportation in a grandiose manner, US spy planes–which are always flying over Chinese air space–would detect it at once after the Soviet airplanes take off from Irkutsk. Our position on this matter has been clear to Vietnam: the Soviets, by doing so, want to be boastful to the US [about its aid to Vietnam], publicly revealing military secrets to the enemy. They also make use of its aid to Vietnam in order to control the situation and cooperate with the US to force Vietnam to accept peace negotiations. The Western press has even mentioned that the Soviets increased their aid to Vietnam in order to create a situation of direct Soviet-American confrontation which will clear the way to compromises. I refer to this judgment of ours on this matter with a view to making you clearly understand our position. We, however, have no intention to impose it on you. In short, we hold that:
(1) the Soviet proposal for air transportation has bad intentions and is a conspiracy,
(2) transportation of these planes is a major military act, but the Soviets did not consult with us and [want to] force us to accept. This is nothing else than a chauvinist attitude.

Notes:
1. Nghiem Ba Duc, DRV Vice Minister of Foreign Trade from 1954; member of the economic delegations to the USSR and Eastern Europe between 1965 and 1975. Thereafter economic adviser in Laos.
2. Pham Thanh Ha was a military logistics officer in the PAVN who headed the military assistance mission in Vietnam’s embassy in Beijing from 1965 to 1973.

The last thing on those “brotherly” Soviet-Vietnamese relations, warmed considerably after we started bombing the North. You can Google it yourself if you’re interested in the truth (but you know that):

10. Intelligence Memorandum (1)

OCI No. 0341/65

Washington, February 1, 1965.
Soviet Premier Aleksei N. Kosygin and President Johnson during their meeting at Glassboro, New Jersey, in 1967. National Park Service, Special Collection.

THE KOSYGIN DELEGATION TO NORTH VIETNAM

1. Moscow’s decision to send an unusually strong delegation headed by Premier Kosygin to Hanoi underscores both the USSR’s desire to regain influence with the North Vietnamese and its concern over the possibility of escalation in the Indochina conflict. One of the main purposes of this mission probably will be to strengthen the credibility of repeated public statements since late November that the USSR “cannot remain indifferent to the fate of a fraternal socialist country” and that it is ready to give Hanoi the “necessary assistance.”

2. The presence of high-ranking military and economic officials on the delegation almost certainly foreshadows a substantial increase in Soviet economic and military assistance. This aid may well include such defensive weapons as surface-to-air missiles, antiaircraft weapons, and naval torpedo and patrol craft. It is also possible, however, that Kosygin will offer advanced jet fighters.

3. A Soviet economic aid mission headed by M.N. Sulovey, a vice chairman of the State Committee for Foreign Economic Relations, is already in Hanoi to “study implementation” of existing economic aid agreement. Most of the USSR’s economic aid under earlier programs is believed to have been utilized. The Soviet Union has extended North Vietnam about $370 million worth of economic aid since 1955, mainly in the form of factories and machine shops, power plants, and coal mine equipment. The last major Soviet economic credit–$200 million–was extended in 1960 to cover North Vietnam’s first five-year plan (1961-1965). New economic aid probably will be designed primarily to provide equipment for projects covered by the second five-year plan.

4. The pattern of Soviet and North Vietnamese pronouncements in recent weeks suggests that both parties wish to work toward improving relations which have been rather distant and cool since Hanoi felt obliged to support Peiping in the period since the nuclear test ban treaty of August 1963. It is possible that the Kosygin mission, at the invitation of the North Vietnamese Government, is the culmination of an exchange of views since Khrushchev’s downfall, particularly during Premier Pham Van Dong’s visit to Moscow last November. Dong’s junket apparently was intended as a fishing expedition
to see what could be expected of the new Kremlin bosses in support of North Vietnamese objectives. It has been evident since his return that the North Vietnamese were intent on softening at least the public manifestations of their opposition to Soviet policy. A hard-hitting anti-Soviet piece, for example, was hastily scratched from the party journal Hop Tac last November, a few days after Dong’s return. Subsequent developments, including the appearance of Soviet antiaircraft guns in North Vietnam, the harder Soviet propaganda line on the Indochina situation, and the dispatch of a major
Moscow economic delegation to Hanoi, make it appear that Pham Van Dong probably received assurances of increased Soviet military, economic, and political assistance from the new leaders in Moscow.

5. It was not mere coincidence that almost simultaneously with Moscow’s announcement of the Kosygin delegation, the leading North Vietnamese party paper published an editorial welcoming this visit in unusually warm terms. It expressed gratitude for past Soviet assistance and voiced “warm and profound sentiments toward the Soviet Communists” and for their “spirit of proletarian internationalism.”

6. In addition to more favorable prospects for improving relations with Hanoi, the decision to send the Kosygin mission probably was motivated by growing Soviet concern that both sides in the Indochina conflict may be contemplating actions which could lead to a rapid escalation of the war. Over the past two months, the Soviets appear to have been searching for means of inhibiting the actions of both antagonists. An upsurge in Soviet diplomatic and propaganda attention to the Indochina conflict coincided with Ambassador Taylor’s consultations in Washington in late November and early
December and with the movement of substantial numbers of North Vietnamese troops into Laos in December. Soviet uncertainty and concern regarding US intentions probably was heightened not only by US air strikes against the infiltration routes in Laos but by a more general feeling that the US may be impelled to adopt more far-reaching military measures in an attempt to check the erosion in South Vietnam. One of Foreign Minister Gromyko’s main purposes in his talks with US leaders in December apparently was to probe for signs of US plans which might lead to escalation and
also for indications of Washington’s attitude toward negotiations.

7. The Soviet leaders almost certainly hope that a substantial increase in economic and military assistance to North Vietnam will enable them to press for a greater voice in the formulation of Communist policy in South Vietnam and Laos. Kosygin probably will argue that the Viet Cong campaign is progressing satisfactorily and that North Vietnam should avoid actions which might provoke US reprisals. He may also discuss political initiatives designed to inhibit US freedom of action, such as greater pressure toward reconvening the 14-nation conference on Laos.

8. The presence of party secretary Andropov on the delegation suggests that the Soviets will exchange views on the general situation in the world Communist movement and set forth their plans for the proposed meeting of the Communist “editorial commission” in Moscow on 1 March. The North Vietnamese have maintained silence on the March meeting. The Soviets, however, may not have abandoned hope completely that Hanoi will decide to participate. In any event, the Soviets undoubtedly would feel they had nothing to lose by renewing assurances that they had no intention of “excommunicating” the Chinese and that the only purpose of the meeting is to discuss means of restoring Communist unity.

9. From Hanoi’s standpoint, the growing strain in Hanoi-Moscow relations during Khrushchev’s era was primarily a product of Soviet softness in political and propaganda opposition to US action in South Vietnam and Laos. It has always been clear that if Moscow were to firm up its support of North Vietnamese policy objectives in Indochina, Hanoi would tend to moderate the degree of its open support for Peiping in the Sino-Soviet dispute, and once again attempt to play up its assumed role of “honest broker” seeking to bring at least an operative unity between Peiping and Moscow.

10. It is unlikely that an increase in the Soviet presence in North Vietnam will bring about a change of Hanoi’s tactics in prosecuting the Viet Cong war. Although factional differences appear to exist in the North Vietnamese party over certain areas of policy, it has always appeared that the party was basically united on the tactics to be used in the Viet Cong insurgency. The so-called “extremists” in the North Vietnamese party seemed most to resent the lack of political and propaganda support from Moscow over South Vietnam. More vigorous Soviet backing of Hanoi may tend to reduce the
differences between the factions.

11. Moscow’s desire to reassure the US that the Kosygin mission to Hanoi does not signal an abrupt shift in Soviet policy was apparent in an authoritative Pravda “observer” article of 31 January on President Johnson’s State of the Union message. In sharp contrast to the negative tone of Moscow’s initial reaction, Pravda for the first time warmly welcomed the President’s remarks about expanding US-Soviet contacts.

Footnotes:

(1) Source: Johnson Library, National Security File, International Meetings and Travel File, McGeorge Bundy–Saigon, Vol. III. Secret; No Foreign Dissem. Prepared by the Office of Current Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research produced a similar analysis of the Kosygin delegation on February 1. (Memorandum from Denney to Rusk; ibid.) Also on February 1, Robert Komer wrote a memorandum to McGeorge Bundy stating: “my hunch is that Soviets have decided we’re probably licked in VN, and are climbing on bandwagon. Kosygin’s visit, and inevitable aid promises when there, strike me as Soviet effort to prevent ChiComs from getting full credit for the victory.” (Ibid.,
Country File, Vietnam, Vol. XXVII) In Special Memorandum No. 7-65, dated February 5, CIA’s Office of National Estimates made a point similar to Komer’s while emphasizing that Kosygin’s trip reflected “a basic Soviet decision to contest the spread of Chinese Communist influence in the Far East.” (Department of State, INR Files: Lot 81 D 343)

Sorry, got my dates mixed up, the Tonkin Gulf incident was ’64, not ’65 (must be getting old).

Something else from the web about Vietnamese-Soviet relations:

Soviet Involvement in the Vietnam War

Forwarded from VIET-NET

*******************************************************

Soviet-Vietnam

MOSCOW (AP) — The Soviet Union sent 3,000 troops to Vietnam during the U.S.
involvement there, according to the first account in the Soviet press about the
secret military action.
In 1965, Soviet soldiers shot down the first U.S. planes lost in Vietnam, the
magazine Eko Planety (Echo of the Planet) reported.
The Soviet Defense Ministry previously has acknowledged that Soviet advisers
served in Vietnam, and that 13 were killed. But no details of their activities
have been published before in the Soviet Union, the Tass news agency reported
Saturday.
Tass said the magazine’s account was based on interviews with those who
carried out Soviet policy in Vietnam in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
including Ilya Shcherbakov, the Soviet ambassador to Vietnam from 1964-1974.
It was written by a former Tass correspondent who reported from Vietnam
during the war, Alexander Minayev.
Shcherbakov said the Soviet government was very restrained in the conflict
between Communist North Vietnam and the U.S.-backed South.
“But the Tonkin incident confronted Nikita Khrushchev with a dilemma,” the
article said, referring to U.S. retaliation in 1964 for an alleged attack by
North Vietnam on American ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. The incident prompted the
United States to escalate greatly its troop presence and involvement in the war.
“On the one hand, North Vietnam, a socialist country, had suffered from air
strikes and shelling from the sea. On the other, the shock of the Caribbean
crisis was still quite fresh in his memory,” it said, a reference to the 1962
Cuban Missile Crisis.
“Khrushchev decided to send a new ambassador to Hanoi to clarify the
situation,” and Shcherbakov got the job, the article said.
The magazine said then-Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin warned Shcherbakov to
“keep both eyes open” to avert Soviet involvement in the war when he visited the
country in 1965.
By that time, however, Khrushchev was out of power and had been replaced by
Leonid Brezhnev, who according to Shcherbakov favored more direct involvement to
aid North Vietnam.
Soviet aid began flowing to North Vietnam in early 1965, the magazine said.
In August 1965, Soviet forces shot down the first U.S. planes. But after 1966,
it said no Soviet troops directly participated in combat because the Vietnamese
forces had been trained to handle the Soviet equipment.
North Vietnam independently planned and carried out operations in South
Vietnam, according to Shcherbakov and Col.-Gen. Vladimir Abramov, who led a
group of Soviet military advisers in the region. The two said they were not even
told of the Vietnamese commander’s plans.

From the Library of Congress:

Since the earliest days of the VCP, when the party’s primary mentor was the Comintern, the Soviet Union has played a complex role in VCP affairs. Many of Vietnam’s leaders had trained in the Soviet Union and had formed personal ties with their Soviet contemporaries. Historically, however, the relationship between the two nations has been characterized by strain, particularly on the Vietnamese side, and the record suggests several instances of Soviet neglect or betrayal of Vietnamese interests. These included Moscow’s indifference to the founding of the VCP in 1930; failure to support materially or otherwise the Vietnamese resistance war against the French in the 1930s and early 1940s; failure to recognize North Vietnam until five years after its founding; failure to support Vietnam’s application for membership in the UN in 1948 and 1951; support for the partitioning of Vietnam at the Geneva Conference in 1954; and sponsorship of a proposal to admit both North and South Vietnam to the UN in 1956. These examples of Soviet policy reminded the Vietnamese of the peril inherent in placing too much trust in a foreign ally.

The Sino-Soviet split in the late 1950s favorably altered the Soviet attitude toward Vietnam. Beginning in 1965, the Soviets initiated a program of military assistance to Hanoi that proved invaluable in carrying on the Second Indochina War. Hanoi, however, continued to suspect Soviet motives and perceived that Soviet aid, when offered, was insufficient and given only grudgingly after repeated appeals.

Following the conquest of South Vietnam in 1975, Hanoi sought to retain the equilibrium of its wartime relations with both China and the Soviet Union, but mounting tensions with Beijing, culminating in the loss of Chinese aid in 1978, compelled Hanoi to look increasingly to Moscow for economic and military assistance.”

They somehow left out Stalin handing over Vietnam to the English and Chiang Kai-chek (only an observer) at the Potsdam agreemnt. Or recognising Vietnams independence when it was declared on Sept. 22, 1945, still Vietnams independence day.

” (1) In Washington Metropolitan Area, there are seven Vietnamese Buddhist temples and two Catholics churchs.”

I didn’t know that. Yet certainly there are more Churches then Buddhist temples in America (to be honest I wouldn’t mind if there weren’t)

“(2) We are talking about post-colonial era. Catholic domination ended with Diem.”

No, you’re talking about the post colonial era. I’m talking about the whole ball of wax, what the Catholics did to Vietnam, French and Vietnamese, from 1865-. You can’t
exclude that if you want to understand why and how things happened, or are happening.

And I’m sorry about your family, and that we thrust this war upon your people.

“(3) The early film footage of Quan-Doi-Nhan-Dan (The People Army) in Hanoi show SKS rifles and various other Soviet made equipments (T-34 tanks and Mig-15). That was soon after Dien Bien Phu”

Soon after Dien Bien Phu? That would be material from the French Indochina War. What came in after the Geneva agreemnt, between 1954-65 is another story. Not that anything wasn’t smuggled in, but the all out arming of the North everyone likes to talk about only began after ’65, after we started bombing the North.

“By 1964, annual military assistance reached $800 million.”

Where did you read that? Aid was considerable, infrastructure projects and the like, but military certainly not (unless you have something our governemnt doesn’t).

“The US entered Vietnam because the North innitiated agression against the South.”

The US was already there in the early days of the French War, arming and advising long before Diem arrived. The US government concluded that, although somewhat hazy, the Viet Cong initially acted on it’s own, in response to Diem’s policies back firing. Connecting the dots, VC to Hanoi, Hanoi to Moscow and or Peking, the agression was concluded to be coming from every where except where it was coming from: The South, and the people Diem fucked over.

At any rate the South broke the Geneva Agreement, and deserved what it got. It should have held an election and that would have been the end of it.

“(4) Ho Chi Minh was Comintern agent. He went to Russia and received indoctrination there, spent many years in China as Soviet operative. I do not get idiots who claim Ho was not a Communist.”

Ho Chi Minh was in New York and London too. Unfortunately no one was interested in his problems. He got his first revolutionary ideas from the Irish (who had just beaten the Eglish), hanging out in pubs in London.

I’m not saying Ho wasn’t a communist, only he didn’t have to be
IF WE HAD EVER GIVEN A SHIT ABOUT HIM OR HIS COUNTRY. And that isn’t to imply the Russians were particularly crazy about him or Vietnam either, it’s just the way things worked out. Ho said he “would find help where he could”, and he wasn’t kidding.

“Ho never denied he was a Communist.”

Yet continually articulated why: Independence.

“He advertise that fact with pride.”

Considering the rocky relationship with Moscow maybe he had to to stay friendly and get what he wanted from them. And don’t forget he wasn’t the only guy in the North’s government.

“When he returned on Vietnam, the first thing he did was sold out Phan Boi Chau to French Securite.”

This is ludicrous, a wives tale that was debunked long ago. When I have time I’ll spell it out for you.

As for Phan Chu Trinh, a friend of Ho’s father (also a revolutionary), he helped Ho out in Paris, and got him into the Versaille conference to petition President Wilson for Vietnam’s Independence. No luck there, his journey led him else where.

We know the ending.

(2) We are talking about post-colonial era. Catholic domination ended with Diem. When Diem ran for office, my entire family voted for him. A few years later, my father (and uncles) were on the street protesting, which lead to the downfall of Diem. The opposition played a key role in the overthrow of Diem, providing political supports to the generals and continued to play an important role until all of them were detained or executed by the Communists in 1975. No such opposition ever existed in the North.

(3) The early film footage of Quan-Doi-Nhan-Dan (The People Army) in Hanoi show SKS rifles and various other Soviet made equipments (T-34 tanks and Mig-15). That was soon after Dien Bien Phu, long before 1965. By 1964, annual military assistance reached $800 million. Until the early 1960, all of the equipments went through China by train. After the 1960 they went to Hai Phong Harbor. The US entered Vietnam because the North innitiated agression against the South.

(4) Ho Chi Minh was Comintern agent. He went to Russia and received indoctrination there, spent many years in China as Soviet operative. I do not get idiots who claim Ho was not a Communist. Ho never denied he was a Communist. He advertise that fact with pride. When he returned on Vietnam, the first thing he did was sold out Phan Boi Chau to French Securite. Phan Boi Chau (along with Phan Chu Trinh) were the father of modern Vietnamese nationalist movement. Ho went after many other nationalist parties killing their leaders. Ta Thu Thau (leader of the Trotskyists) was assasinated. Hanoi, the birthplace of many political parties, by 1954 were empty of them. Viet-Nam-Quoc-Dan-Dang was found by Nguyen Thai Hoc (who was executed by the French) in Hanoi. By 1954, the Party existed only in the South. In 1975, party leaders who were remained in Vietnam were executed.

You’ll notice that the YOU was in quotation marks (“you”), speaking figuratively.

But you are right, I was curious to know if you were Catholic, not only because you sounded like many of them, but because 40% of the Vietnamese in America are Catholic, only 4 times more then the average in Vietnam.

As far as Vietnam’s ability to change itself if they don’t like what’s going on, I’ll stand by what I said. They are as capable, or more, then anyone. Maybe it’s not as bad as many make it sound?

As for your previous remarks:

“(1) Most Vietnamese exiles are not Catholics. Most are Buddhists. There are far more Vietnamese Buddhist temples in the US than there are Catholics Church.”

You’re right, according to the US National Census 47% are Buddhist, 40% Catholic (again 4x’s the avergae in Vietnam). Nevertheless I doubt seriously there are more Buddhist temples in America then Catholic Churches, but I think I know what you’re getting at.

“(2) Catholic domination in Vietnam lasted only a few years.”

I disagree, Catholic domination was Colonialism, so add at least 80 years onto that wonderful period of prosperity too.

“It was a Buddhist generals who deposed President Diem. Just because Buddhists oppose Diem, it does not mean we like the Communist.”

I never said so, although some obviously did. At any rate, who would like Diem? We can thank America for flying in another great champion of democracy, this time Diem, direct from New Jersey and the Catholic Maryknoll Seminary.

“(3) 1965 is not the year the Soviet military aid arrived to Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh was a Communist agent.”

Receiving military hardware and being an “agent” are two entirely different matters. I believe you are ignorant of Soviet-Vietnamese relations, no suprise considering where you are.

The Rand Corporation or the CIA never detected any military hardware coming in from the Soviet Union before 1965, that is after we began direct bombing. That’s because the Russians never wanted the war.
When the North got out of line, too provacative, the Soviets cut off aid
a number of times. They consistantly tried to get Ho to be happy with what he had, the north, “half a loaf”. He wouldn’t accept the division of his country.

So who was an agent of who? Ho’s loyalty to the Soviets, through out his life, which you imply, is rubbish.

“(4) South Vietnam invited the US in because we were fearful of the Communists.”

South Vietnam had no right to invite anybody in. Any infringment of the Geneva Agreement, an internationally brokered and recognised cessastion of hostilities agreemnt, is a “threat to peace”, a war crime under international law.

Besides arms, military alliances were also prohibited.

So “the French war” started up again.

” What happened after 1975 confirmed our fear.”

A self-fullfilled prophecy. Radicalising the communists like radicalising Islam today.

(5) South Vietnam was flaw but was far more democratic than the North. We had multi-parties parliarment and a viable political opposition.”

Viable opposition? Maybe after 9 years of Diem, in a last ditch effort to save things. Yet you’re splitting hairs here. Both cease-fire zones were still “war zones” (unfortunately), and thus quite authoritative and repressive.
Determining validity of exact numbers and atrocities, the context they were in, provoked or unprovoked, is a game without purpose. Both sides were playing for keeps, atrocities happened on both sides. It was war. I just say it didn’t have to be.

Vietnam could have been “American” in ’45, if we stood up for our principles instead of playing the international “chess game”, staying out of Europe’s way so they could (try to) take back their colonies.
Vietnam or Europe was our choice. Naturally we picked Europe. And the Vietnamese kicked our ass later for it. I say good for them. I say fuck Europe, fuck colonialism.

Or if the French weren’t pushed out by the American’s in ’54, Vietnam could have been a memeber of the French Union. Vietnam (Ho Chi MInh) always wanted to be allied with the west, “somehow” we just wouldn’t let them.

Again, the war didn’t have to happen. And if you think for a minute the Soviets ever cared about Vietnam or wanted that war you’re dead wrong (no pun intended).

“In the North, The Communists even killed their own for disagreeing with the Party. It is called a purge.”

After all they’d been through, all the times they’d been cheated, I’d say they were playing for keeps and wanted to finally cement their grip on power. Again the south “purged” who knows how many too.

“And a few days as a tourists in Vietnam does not give one more experience than someone who lived there for many years.”

It wasn’t a few days, it was two months. But you’re right, nothing compared to someone who lived there, yet irrelevent to understanding the past, and thus the present.

And by the way, that stuff about Ho Chi Minh and Phan Boi Chau on your web site was debunked fifty years ago. I’ll tackle that next time, gotta go.