The Vietnam Window

I'm in a history class of the Vietnam War and I just can't quite figure out how the United States gets away with all of this?!? I love U.S. History but the more I learn of the politics I want to run away screaming into Canada. We consented to the Coup d'état of S. Vietnam's leader Diem--who we essentially put into office. Now, I know things went ugly in a fast direction--he was unwilling to compromise, and there was a rebellion growing, which in the face of communist rebellion infultrating Vietnam was a bad road, for a less academic way of putting it. But what are we saying? We essentially had a puppet government--which we were against, until we became the puppet masters--but when we lost control, a coup d'etat seemed okay??

This just pisses me off because I wonder what the people now will do in Iraq? Where do the US policy makers draw the line? Do we have any lines in foreign policy? Or is that only here in America that murder is bad. Ironic that not months after we authorized the Coup, our own president was assassinated. And yet, we can make each of these deaths so extremely different, simply because Kennedy was a red-blooded American Democrat?

Vietnam is so interesting to me today because I think it strangely parallels so much with today's current policies. And I think as Americans, as America, we have to learn not because of it, but through it. We have to recognize things about it and see what we think before we get caught up in something else we don't fully understand how to win.