Replies

Well, for one thing, Dooley was on the ground and lived through everything he wrote about in his three books. For another there have been numerous other writers who have confirmed and substantiated what Dooley says in various ways. You might read Michael Lind's Vietnam: the Necessary War (how's that for a disgusting title!) You'll learn about how kindly ol' Uncle Ho began assassinating rival "nationalist" leaders as early as 1946 and how he executed tens of thousands of north Vietnamese farmers in the '50's because they didn't fit into the Maoist structure he was trying to adapt from China to impose on his own country. And you'll learn lots of other interesting things about Vietnam, such as that Lind believes the war was both moral and legal (although he does say there were two illegal wars fought by US presidents - Demorats Truman and Clinton). But I suspect that much of your sense of your own moral superiority rests firmly on the fact that you once opposed that evil, nasty affair, and it would be extremely threatening for you to delve into such writings. So you'll have to go on believing what you want to believe......