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with international agreement that a referendum would offer svn the chance to join the north peacefully.
when it became clear that the communists would win a vote, america welched on the agreement. the war was an active choice of the american government, probably because they feared having to listen to republicans say they 'lost' vietnam, just as they 'lost' china.
so the vn war was a crime from inception. the way it was prosecuted was even worse. lbj and nixon would have hung, if law was backed by power, for they did things that got germans hung at nurnberg.
mcnamara was the point man of 'capitalism' for want of a better label. the head of the department of defense is the director of military affairs, and he should have hung, beside lbj and nixon.
kennedy, like obama, was a white knight to the electorate publicly. like obama, the reality was quite different. but the quaint electoral customs of america ended his reign before he could do much damage, so i give him a 'pass'.
the importance of vietnam today is the perspective it should put on american military history, and current operations in the middle east. america is and long has been, an aggressive imperial power, not restrained by any law, custom or simple human decency when the wishes of the elite command action
