It is seen as stupid and pointless only because we lost imo. If we had won it, which we easily could have, most people would not see it as stupid and pointless today. It basically was won, until the Democrats, with a post-Watergate leftist Congressional majority, cut off all military aid to S. Vietnam, in order to bring about their collapse.
Stupid strategery.
NO, you are wrong on this. The Vietnamese (many of them) wanted their own country, free of world power domination.
Sounds the Colonies against the British Empire, doesn’t it.
IOW, Vietnam wanted Vietnam, without the French, the British, the US, or Russia, or China being their overlords, and, they were willing to fight in the trenches for it.
I salute the Vietnamese spirit.
A war fought for the benefit of the MIC, and those “experts” who blindly assigned “The Domino Theory” to Vietnam.