It was all about communism.

It was all about a Soviet instigated agitation/propaganda, so called anti-war movement whose ultimate goal was to get the US out of Vietnam so the communists could control all of southeast asia. They eventually succeeded, we left, the North Vietnamese invaded South Vietnam in 1975 after we lost over 50,000 of our troops, and they remain there to this day. The so called anti-war protestors, actually communist dupes/useful idiots, were recruited by a relatively small number of actual communists and fellow travellers. The Soviets wanted warm water ports(Haiphong Harbor etc.) to base some of their naval assets in, among other things, and they very successfully manipulated and brain washed thousands of idealistic young people in the United States and elsewhere to achieve their ends. The communists are doing the same thing now in Iraq. The so called insurgents are no doubt being recruited by secret communists, they always work in secret because they are cowards, disguising themselves as radical islamic extremists, bathists' or whatever. They want a free, prosperous, powerful,democratic Iraq which could become a staunch ally of the US, and a stabilizing influence in the middle east, about as much as they want to abandon marxism.