European views on American involvement in the Vietnam war.

[Razgovory]

There is a picture that's been circulating around the net for years comparing the US and the EU.  It's silly really, but I keep thinking about it (it's been posted here once at least).  It compares the various deficits and virtues of both the EU and the US.  Under the history heading it shows Auschwitz as a bad thing for Europe and a photo from the Vietnam war for the US.  This strikes me as pretty strange, so I wondered how exactly do our European friends view American involvement in Vietnam.  Personally I see it as noble if misguided.  While South Vietnam was a corrupt kleptocracy that lacked support from much of it's population it's northern neighbor was an aggressive, dishonest and authoritarian regime.  Essentially the US was defending one state from another and that seems to be a noble enough goal.  The main problem was that US lacked or didn't implement quick enough a successful strategy for South Vietnam, not that it was it's actions were innately evil.  True, innocent people died, but peace also killed quite a few innocent people in South Vietnam as well.  The NVA was pretty ruthless with populace once they successfully conquered it.

So my question is mostly posed toward the Euros, but anyone can answer.

[Eddie Teach]

It was a mistake, but our heart was in the right place.

[Josquius]

The issue people had with Vietnam was more with the American methods than their helping South Vietnam.

[Admiral Yi]

The issue people have with Vietnam is with the American methods rather than their helping South Vietnam.

People who?  That certainly doesn't sound like the boilerplate criticism that I'm accustomed to hearing.

[Josquius]

The issue people have with Vietnam is with the American methods rather than their helping South Vietnam.

People who?  That certainly doesn't sound like the boilerplate criticism that I'm accustomed to hearing.

People who moan about the Vietnam war.
Whenever I see it its far more about sending in conscripts to die, agent orange, napalming villages, etc...
Nobody really cares about the geo-politics of it all.

[jimmy olsen]

The issue people had with Vietnam was more with the American methods than their helping South Vietnam.

Given the state of military technology of the time, I find it unlikely we could have done much better with regards to civilian casualties given the scale of the conflict.

[Admiral Yi]

People who moan about the Vietnam war.
Whenever I see it its far more about sending in conscripts to die, agent orange, napalming villages, etc...
Nobody really cares about the geo-politics of it all.

Plenty of people who have moaned and still moan do so regarding the oppresive imperialist Americans oppressing the independence-loving Vietnamese people.

[Josquius]

Plenty of people who have moaned and still moan do so regarding the oppresive imperialist Americans oppressing the independence-loving Vietnamese people.

Maybe in the 70s. The only place I ever see that kind of crap is from marxists and other idiots. Really not a majority viewpoint at all.
I very much doubt that was the thinking behind the very strained auschwitz comparison, seems pretty certain to me that was far more about American behaviour in the war rather than the war itself.

[Razgovory]

The issue people have with Vietnam is with the American methods rather than their helping South Vietnam.

People who?  That certainly doesn't sound like the boilerplate criticism that I'm accustomed to hearing.

People who moan about the Vietnam war.
Whenever I see it its far more about sending in conscripts to die, agent orange, napalming villages, etc...
Nobody really cares about the geo-politics of it all.

Then why don't they complain about Allied involvement in WWII?  You have conscripts and firebombing there as well.

[Gups]

At a rough guess, less than 5% of Europeans think of it at all. For many of those that do, their impressions will be based on a number of Hollywood films and images of the protests in the late 1960s.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

The issue people have with Vietnam is with the American methods rather than their helping South Vietnam.

People who?  That certainly doesn't sound like the boilerplate criticism that I'm accustomed to hearing.

People who moan about the Vietnam war.
Whenever I see it its far more about sending in conscripts to die, agent orange, napalming villages, etc...
Nobody really cares about the geo-politics of it all.

Then why don't they complain about Allied involvement in WWII?  You have conscripts and firebombing there as well.

hardcore anti-american en pro-communist shitheads do complain about that.

[Richard Hakluyt]

I don't recall anyone mentioning it for years. At the time the usual leftists were anti-US, but their views are not worth thinking about as they are anti-US regardless 

My father would watch the news reports and grumble at what he considered to be American over-reliance on bombers in particular and hardware in general. He thought you needed more infantry patrols, though I would have thought that would have involved a greater commitment by the men and the US  I'm not sure how much he had analysed the situation, it may just have been standard crabby old soldier grumbling (vet of Korea and the Malaya counter-insurgency).

[Syt]

At a rough guess, less than 5% of Europeans think of it at all. For many of those that do, their impressions will be based on a number of Hollywood films and images of the protests in the late 1960s.

This. I think the most prevalent "memory" in the general public would be that the U.S. military with all its firepower was unable to beat a technologically inferior backwater country in a war that was not worth fighting (in hindsight).

[jimmy olsen]

I don't recall anyone mentioning it for years. At the time the usual leftists were anti-US, but their views are not worth thinking about as they are anti-US regardless 

My father would watch the news reports and grumble at what he considered to be American over-reliance on bombers in particular and hardware in general. He thought you needed more infantry patrols, though I would have thought that would have involved a greater commitment by the men and the US  I'm not sure how much he had analysed the situation, it may just have been standard crabby old soldier grumbling (vet of Korea and the Malaya counter-insurgency).

We already had half a million men there. How many did he want?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Enough to win the war of course. Not much point fighting wars in foreign lands unless you intend to win them.