The Vietnam war

In 1945, after the atom bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki,

when the Japanese had finally surrendered,

France wanted their former colony Indochina back.

Vietnam, (a part of Indochina), that had been occupied by France for decades

and then by Japan during the second world war, 

wanted to become an independent country.

France did not want to give up their territory,

and thus the First Indochina War began.

US paid the French costs for the war, as France was ruined

and also helped them with air support.

Where did the French get the idea that Vietnam belonged to them?

Why did not any western democratic country

support Vietnam in their struggle for independence;

not before World War II, and not after?

Where could Vietnam find help?

Why did United States assist the French army in Vietnam?

Why didn't US give support to democratic endeavors in Vietnam?

Because The US was not a democracy at that time.

The US was a racist, right-wing extremist state.

Black people and native Americans

did not have the same legal rights as the white people.

Anyway,

In 1954, the Frenchmen were kicked out, despite all US support.

In the peace talks in Geneva that then followed,

it was decided that Vietnam should be divided in two parts

and that an election should be held within two years,

where the people of North and South Vietnam should decide

if they wanted to unite and if so, what kind of regime they wanted.

US prevented these elections and thus began the Vietnam War.

Two million Vietnamese died in this war, conservatively estimated,

and nearly sixty thousand young American men.

Seven million tons of bombs were dropped

with an explosive force equivalent to 600 Hiroshima bombs.

Ask young Americans or young Europeans of today,

if they know what this war was about,

and they will probably answer

that it was a war to defend freedom and democracy against Communism.