Changing perspective on the war

Vietnam has a history of conflict. For hundreds of years or more, Vietnam fought to stand independently as its own nation, and unification of the country has been something that it seems all Vietnamese have desired. But there has been a lot of interference, primarily with China who treated Vietnam as a vassal state for centuries. When Europeans began searching for riches in the East, Vietnam was used for political gain as Portugal, Spain, France, the Dutch, and England all sought to gain power and leverage over each other. Seeking to free the country from Chinese control, the Nguyen (pronounced like the english word "win") Emperor asked the French for military assistance against China. Out of the frying pan, into the fire! So from about 1860 until about 1950, the French supplanted China as the country holding Vietnam under its thumb.

What many people in the US don't realize is that before what the Vietnamese refer to as the American War, Vietnam was engaged in the French War. The issues for most of the Vietnamese was the desire to rule their own country, to have a voice as more than a puppet to a larger country. The French War didn't go well for the French, and it is a little surprising that the Americans didn't see the parallels. When the French left, they divided the country between north and south, going against one of the outcomes that the Vietnamese people wanted: a unified Vietnam. They also set up a government in the south that essentially was a puppet government. This betrayed another vital outcome that the Vietnamese people wanted: an independent Vietnam.

The rulers in the south weren't very sympathetic rulers. Think of Marie Antoinette and how the French people viewed her, and you may begin to appreciate some of the feelings about these rulers.

In the US, the war has been painted as a war against communism. The more time I have spent here and the more I've talked to people, the more I believe it was less about political ideology for the Vietnamese. The communists seemed to be the only group who were fighting for liberation, independence, and unification. When the US came in to support the South Vietnam government, they were also placing themselves as against some of these very compelling national goals. The American War was just the next war in a long line of conflicts for Vietnam. The North Vietnam sympathizers were probably fighting more for nationalism than for communism.

Maybe that is why the country doesn't feel very communist. They don't have socialized medicine, for example. I've not seen any sign of communism (other than political posters with hammer and sickle) but I have seen lots of people who are entrepreneurs: shop keepers, small business owners, street vendors. This country feels like a capitalist country and all the people behave like it is a free-market economy. BUT, it has an authoritarian government. There are lots of examples of countries like that, who are just as authoritarian, but lack the "Communist" label, and they are given a certain leniency in our scrutiny because of the politically correct label of the type of government they have. It is probably just an illusion, our perception shaped by meaningless labels when functionally the governments behave the same (or very similarly).

I'm just sayin'...