Quote: (08-31-2018 04:01 AM)BaatumMania Wrote:
The Vietnam War is just evidence that if you let something escalate then radicals usurp it. It's kind of like how the Syrian opposition started off as social conservatives and then degenerated into ISIS.
In Vietnam's case, at least in a lot of documentaries and books, a bunch of sources imply Ho Chi Minh was a Social Democrat after WW2 and even came to the U.S. for support to create a full democracy. But it was France and former colonial bureaucrats (Vietnamese ones) who wanted to go back to the old days. Then later on the U.S. gave full support to Diem who was a total jerk to everyone around. So Ho Chi Minh became more authoritarian and radical as the years went on.
And I wonder how well Vietnam would had done if it did become a democracy in 1945? Thailand was never Communist but their standard of living was always really low until tourism went into full drive (and even then a lot of Thai people still live in poverty). Never mind Philippines is poor as well.
This isn't that widely known but the Communist Asian countries were doing better than Republic of Korea and Philippines in standard of living throughout the Cold War. Even North Korea was doing better than South Korea for most of the Cold War.
It isn't that widely known because it isn't true. South Korea and Thailand may have not been nearly as wealthy as the West, but they didn't have the mass famines and killings that China and Cambodia had.