I really don't want to start a long thread on the Vietnam war. Before 1945, Vietnam was divided into 3 regions with different administrations. French ruled the South (Cochinchina) as a colony, the North (Tonkin) as a protectorate nominally under control of the Vietnamese King in the middle (Annam). The relationship of the indigenous people and the French colonists varied with where they lived.
Ho Chi Minh's war of independence with the French took place essentially in the North whereas the war of re-unification with the Americans took place in the South. To understand why the war of re-unification killed and maimed so many, you need to understand the context.
I, ve agreed with that because its all basically true... But you fail to accept
a) that very partioning of the country you talk of was one of many outcomes from France and its 1945 incursion back into Vietnam
B) Irrespective of any of that, the major contribution to prolonged violence throughout Indo China was predominantly Frances desire of colonialisation of region at a time when the whole world should have known better.
No matter how you assess situation nobody can actually deny France (with our's and other's collusion ) played a major role in the destabilisation of entire region, specifically entire Vietnam, which lasted well into the 70s.
Without France making the aggressive decision to go back into Vietnam the conditions which led to both prolonged wars was unlikely to have developed. Both the partition and subsequent wars of both regions can be traced back to that essentially greedy, all conquering attitude of us Europeans.(actually not the US)
Just think back to the time Woosh. France has just managed to regain control of its homeland by expelling the Germans with help from countries throughout the world. And one of its first major decisions is to re Colonise (or however you want to describe it) a region it had absolutely no Sovereign claim over. That was wrong and along with various other terrible mistakes by US, Australia, Ouselves and France led to one of the most prolonged, nasty wars in history.
You are completely missing role France played.
It played a major roll.
This is my last post on this subject.
Herr Agnew will be spouting. It upsets him when we go off topic.
We will have to agree to disagree.
France played a massive role in initiating Vietnam war.