re: #4 Aligarr

Oh please Destro , enough of your revisionist history .Yes Diem was a catholic , elected by crooked election , and despised by many including Buddhists,who were systematically replaced in Govt by Diem . Buddhist monks self-emulated in protest . Those disaffected in the South ,became the Viet Cong . Diem and his brother survived a bombing and a coup but were both later assassinated , the US having a large hand in that . There were no “racist motives ” involved . Not to mention , discrimination between religions would be called bigotry.Eisenhower started our involvement , after the end of WW2 , the British gave authority back to the French , whom the US supplied with money and weapons until their defeat in a decisive battle .[ it should be noted ] During WW2 Ho Chi-Minh was an ally who fought the Japanese and vowed to remove the other occupier -France , and sought to unify the country by election under a communist rule . The US refused to accept that fearing communists would win , and cited “the Domino Theory ” therefore taking over where the French had failed . Thus an election in the South only , producing Diem .

I think you mean self immolated not self emulated.