re: #14 Dark_Falcon

Anti-colonialism, yes. But you should replace “self-determination” with “imposition of Communism” for the North sought to impose its system upon the whole of Vietnam, regardless of the wishes of those in the South who did not want a totalitarian system. Remember that the North’s final offensive was not a popular uprising, it was a crushing conventional attack spearheaded by Soviet-provided T-55s tanks.

As I recall, Ho did not start out as a Soviet puppet. Instead, he took aid where he could find it, first to fight against the French, then against the US. Decades of war hardened the ideological lines such that the eventual victory of the North meant a full dose of totalitarian communism for the South.

To win, the US would have had to wage a war of extermination, and there was never the political will (or moral justification) for that.