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Nonetheless, it miscalculated. Vietnamese tired of colonial rule, so communists in the North gained control. They won peasant loyalty by promising more equal land distribution. In addition, their top leaders were intellectuals. They planned well and were patient. The contrast in the South was stark. America installed the authoritarian Ngo Dinh Diem regime to build a strong army, crush opposition, and serve Washington reliably.
From the 1950s, military advisors were supplied, escalated under Kennedy, then accelerated when Lyndon Johnson became president. After the bogus August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident, war began to establish client regimes and military bases across East and South Asia, to encircle China, and crush nationalist anti-imperial movements.
Operation Rolling Thunder continued from February 1965 through October 1968. For 44 months, over one millions tons of ordnance were used in targeted and indiscriminate bombings. It aimed to destroy North Vietnam's economy and curtail help reaching National Liberation Front (Viet Cong) resistance in the South.
Over the course of the war, eight million tons of bombs were dropped from 1965 - 73, threefold the amount in WW II, amounting to 300 tons for every Vietnamese man, woman, and child.
As in Korea, napalm was also used with other incendiary devices. In addition, terror weapons like anti-personnel cluster bombs spewed thousands of metal pellets hitting everything in their path, plus indiscriminate land mines still claiming lives.
From 1961 to 1971, the dioxin-containing defoliant Agent Orange was used as well, mainly in the South, Cambodia and Laos. Millions of gallons were sprayed with devastating human consequences. It's one of the most toxic known substances, a potent carcinogenic human immune system suppressant. It accumulates in adipose tissue and the liver, alters living cell genetic structures, causes congenital disorders and birth defects, and contributes to diseases like cancer and type two diabetes.
These consequences were never considered nor the effects of expanded spraying to destroy vital food crops like rice. Also in 1970, US forces conducted Operation Tailwind, using sarin nerve gas in Laos, causing many deaths, including civilians. Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Joint Chiefs Chairman, confirmed it on CNN in 1998. Then under Pentagon pressure, CNN retracted the report, fired its award-winning journalist Peter Arnett and co-producers April Oliver and Jack Smith because they refused to disavow it.
The Indochinese war also engulfed Cambodia and Laos. From March 1969 through May 1970, Nixon ordered secret bombings (without consulting Congress) to destroy North Vietnam and Viet Cong sanctuaries. Around 3,500 sorties caused 600,000 Cambodian deaths, mostly civilians, helping the marginal Khmer Rouge rise to power in 1975. Over 500,000 tons of ordnance were until August 1973. Over 25,000 US ground forces also invaded. They destroyed dozens of towns, villages and hamlets, killing many thousands more, mostly peasants, guilty of living in the wrong country at the wrong time.
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