[r9etb]

The rest of us see that Vietnam fell into the enemy hands -- a defeat for us.

Actually, no. It was defeat for the South Vietnamese army.

Which (dragging us back on-topic) was originally created by the French, who surrendered the area to the natives back in 1954....

[Cicero]

Well, I won't enter the main argument about Vietnam, but to be fair to the South Vietnamese, they were doing reasonably well until JFK ordered the assassination of their leader, Diem. That was a major turning-point for the worse and was what chiefly led to our own direct involvement in the war as participants rather than advisers. Maybe South Vietnam couldn't have withstood the North Vietnamese onslaught anyway, but we'll never know for sure.