And yet, the poster you're replying to said no such thing. Not even close. They merely said they wanted help repelling an enemy. You're also using hindsight to frame this conflict, something entirely unfair to the people involved at the time.
The US repeatedly tried to get out of that war. Multiple times. They just kept getting pulled back in.
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Re your response. Were they ordered to rape and pillage by their full chain of command?
Or were they acting illegally, regardless of the outcome?
Would a military in a dictatorship have deemed that "illegal"? What about 200 years ago? 1000?
You seem to be ignoring the concept of comparables. And taking acts that the military itself teaches its own soldiers, was wrong.
It's good to have principles. And good to defend them. But if you ignore what others are saying, and the context of their words, you start to slide into zealoty.
Millions upon millions of people around the world protested the Vietnam War, including millions of people in the US.
On one day alone, an estimated 2+ million Americans participated in anti-war protests. Over 500,000 men were officially categorized as draft dodgers, more than 200,000 charged with violating the Selective Service Act and millions more found a way not to go to Vietnam through deferments and exemptions.
It's both amusing and sad that there are some people (like you) who 50 years later can't see what was apparent to so many people at the time.
> The US repeatedly tried to get out of that war. Multiple times. They just kept getting pulled back in.
That's right. Those pesky Vietnamese villagers just wouldn't let American GIs stop torching their villages, gang-raping their women and children, and executing them. The American military was trying to leave but spreading democracy demanded sacrifice.