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Originally posted by Morpheus X: LOL now i cant take you serious anymore! You were in Vietnam for your own interest! |
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... the French had to be helped in Asia or they would be even weaker and less cooperative partners in western Europe. The United States poured over $4 billion into the French attempt to defeat Ho between 1950 and 1954. The money did little good. Neither French arms nor French-controlled Vietnamese governments could stop the revolution. During early 1954, France's commander decided to fight a climactic battle at Dien Bien Phu, near the northern Vietnamese border. It was one of the great errors of twentieth-century military history. The French garrison occupied the bottom of a valley while Ho's Viet-minh armies bombarded the garrison by moving artillery to the heights -- a feat the French did not think the shabby-looking Communist army could pull off. Eisenhower privately called the French "a hopeless, helpless mass of protoplasm." Dulles, nevertheless, warned publicly in late March 1954 that Vietnam had to be saved even if it "might involve serious risks." He and Eisenhower secretly spelled out those risks in early April, when the president asked congressional leaders for authority to use, if necessary, U.S. forces to save the French position. Led by Democratic Senator Lyndon Johnson from Texas, the congressmen refused to go along unless the British also joined. They warned that there must be "no more Koreas with the United States furnishing 90 percent of the manpower." Prime Minister Churchill, who considered the French effort a lost cause, flatly rejected any plan for intervention. |
And it goes on... Additionally, the French broke an agreement in 1946 to allow Vietnamese autonomy. They then broke a later agreement to provide political freedom to the Vietnamese when they attacked Hai Phong Harbor.
Additionally, about 70% of the 16,000 French troops at Dien Bien Phu were either Vietnamese or were French Foreign Legion (eg former Nazis).
Yes the United States had interests in Vietnam, but it's quite clear that our involvement, at least initially, was an attempt to mop up France's mess.