Gene, I missed one of your previous posts. You are right, “nation building” sounds very progressive and liberal, but it’s the same arrogant way to look down at another nation. In more general terms, every nation has its own way.
I wish more of us in the US understood this. We did not begin as an imperialist nation. President Washington’s farewell speech counseled us to “avoid suffering or offering injury”. Sure we had slavery and were rotten to our aborigines. Other countries were as rotten, some were worse.
Most of the bad behavior in the 1800s were “filibusters” and “freebooters” who went south. Sometimes they they didn’t come back. Was a pointless war with Mexico.
After the Progressives took over? Empire. Damn Roosevelts fucked up everything they touched.
Communist Party in Vietnam became very popular in 1953 and would undoubtedly win the election should such occur. Foreign powers kept the lid closed for another 20 years, and when it the pressure eventually burst it open it had lots of consequences. North Vietnamese army collapsed as fast as Afghani army now. I wouldn’t like to be in Afghanistan for the next decade.
I’m not sure if it was the communism or patriotism. If you get the chance, former Viet Cong member Tang Truong Nhu wrote a book called “A Vietcong Memoir”. He was mildly socialist. Really cool book about his experiences working against the US. Tang complained after the fall of Saigon that the North sent their cadres south to run everything. He and his southern colleagues got pushed aside. He fled Vietnam.
Vietnamese despise being occupied. The Chinese held part of the nation for 1,000 years. It’s like a cultural ideal to die freeing the nation of occupiers.
Some in the north had tattoos that said, ‘Born in the north to die in the South’. One in four died on the trip south. Tropical diseases and US air strikes.
I lost relatives in that war. Good people. They died for their people, their colleagues, nothing else.