WWII in the Pacific, against the Japanese, was really about colonialism. The Japanese were scooping up the colonies of the countries occupied by the Germans. And their "Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere held some attraction for many of those colonies, who were seeking more independence promised by the Japanese. The US didn't like that, fearing that trade with them would be cut off. The US imposed a trade embargo which threatened the Japanese oil supply. It was going to be war no matter what as the Japanese did what they thought they had to in oreder to protect their supply of raw materials.

After WWII, the French tried to re-establish their colony. However, the Vietnamese independence movement resisted that, turning to force. France was in no condition to fight a war for a former colony, and Uncle Sugar stepped in. The Vietnamese had been fighting for their independence for a long, long time, most notably against the Chinese.

After WWII, the Indochinese war was a US war. The French did supply the troops. They had quite a bit of unemployed manpower after WWII, and could do so. HOWEVER, their uniforms and arms, their artillery, their airplanes, all were supplied by the US, their payroll was met by the US, and they were in effect proxies of the US in that fight. When they were beaten at Dien Bien Phu, the US was beaten. (Read about that battle some time. Tactically it was as stupid a move as could be made. The Vietnamese in effect turned on a vacuum cleaner, sucked the French up to the nozzle and then clubbed them to death. It made as much sense to fight it out at Dien Bien Phu as it would )

After much negotiation, a division of the country and elections were approved. As the elections approached they were sabotaged by the South Vietnamese, knowing the south would lose. The war escalated, again, as Kennedy threw in American "advisors". And the rest is history.

As for the cast of characters who benefited and who were mere puppets, that's been the same in every war and is obvious. No line officer in the Air Force had ever made general without being in combat, so for them "it wasn't much of a war but was the only war we had". They were delighted to volunteer. It was a poor man's war, with the likes of George W. Bush learning to joyride airplanes but never having to do anything else, and people who couldn't get multiple deferments the way Dick Cheney did dying. And the likes of me were both doing their duty and enchanted by the idea, led down the primrose path both by those on it themselves and those selling primroses. It fed our immature egos.

Be careful with your fanciful recreations of history. They are wishful thinking. First, it's wrong. The French were relatively successful colonists, and used the local infrastructure as much as possible. Contrast with the US dissolving the army, police forces, and schools in Iraq. (Stupid beyond belief. Contrary to all pre-war military planning. In fact, the US dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets to the Iraqi army telling them to go home, not fight, and the US would take care of them. Which they did, and we didn't.)

Second, France is well on the way to becoming Conservative America's darling.

And third, if the French hadn't blockaded the American coast during the Revolutionary war, Cornwallis's army would have gotten away to fight again. We owe our freedom as a nation to the French. You will have to pretzel your mind again to accommodate the Conservative agenda.

There is a danger to knowing without learning, to ignoring history and attempting to formulate a coherent history based upon personal prejudices and old headlines. You exemplify the worst which can happen under those circumstances.

Arf