I know you are. But why do you care about this projection? That is what I am asking you.
Why do you think the outcome of a terrorism-death-squad-tainted vote would have been important (any more important than the recent vote in Iraq)? That is what I am asking you.
Why do you keep ignoring the fact that everyone in the South had already made it clear they didn't want to live under Minh (by leaving the north or at least not going there), while at the same time you hype up a hypothetical "vote" of terrorized people in an artifically-unified country (who said it had to be "unified:? it never was a unified country in the first place) as evidence that they all "wanted" to live under Minh? That is what I am asking you.
Do you understand the things I am asking you now?
The fact that we had to assasinate the leader in the south and run their government and the war shows the fallacy behind those who thought the south was a nation independent of the north.
Actually neither the south nor the north were "nations independent" of each other or of anyone else for that matter. They were both completely made-up nations, the inventions of foreign diplomats trying to figure out how to get the French outta there (in fact originally there were three made-up "nations"). There was never, historically, a unified country called "Vietnam" and no obvious reason why there ever had to be. (Note: Because Ho Chih Minh wanted to rule over everyone there, not just the North!, is not a good reason). There were loosely connected villages in a place probably referred to by Chinese as "the low countries" or some similar construction.
Now you are telling me that "the south wasn't independent of the north". Uh, so what? Not only wasn't it "independent", it needed our protection for survival. This is not in dispute at all. In fact, it's precisely my point: these people (who did not want to live under Minh) needed our protection for their survival, and in the end we let them down. This was not good or honorable, but for some reason you seem to think it's okay because in a thought experiment some CIA dudes realized that if they were to take a (completely tainted) vote, those terrorized people would probably have voted for Minh.
In my opinion you have also overstated the coercion involved in such a scenario
That's your opinion. Tell it to millions of slaughtered Vietnamese peasants. Their opinion might differ.
and misunderstand much of the Vietnamese population circa 1955-65.
Well I do know that the vast majority of them chose not to live under Minh when given the chance. Meanwhile, you (in all your expertise) either don't know this, or keep choosing to ignore it for some reason.
BTW Everyone in the south had not fled from the north.
There was a lot of work done by our government in the 50s trying to figure out what to do in Indochina and fight the communists. The problem was that we saw communism as the main issue and many Vietnamese saw getting rid of outside influence to be the main issue. This is not the first or last time we were wrong or that our efforts were misguided and ignorant of the determination of other people.
Based upon your position we got the very outcome we were fighting to prevent. I posit that this was due as much on the determination of the Vietnamese as it was on our strategy for carrying out the war.
I believe the key to looking at Viet Nam now is to know that you can simutaneously hold in esteem those who did their duty on the front line and realize that the leadership was wrong all along. Errors they subsequently lied about over and over to cover up one of the major disasters in foreign policy in our history. Psychologically it is difficult to know that many of us suffered losses in the war and then believe that it was a mistake. After 45 years of dealing with this issue I know that I have been on the right track since 1958.
I'm tired and know you may want to go on, so have at it and good luck.