In retrospect, no. Vietnam entrenched the communists more in Southeast Asia, which was exactly was we were trying to prevent by going to war. The political effects of that conflict have had social and political implications that still resonate today. The political instability caused by our invasion of Cambodia lead to the communist/Maoist takeover of that countries government. The Pol Pot regime went on to kill millions, destroying that countries social infrastructure. Truth of the matter is that the Vietnam War should have ended a lot earlier. Essentially we ended our involvement in 1973 by accepting the same deal that we would have gotten out of the North Vietnamese in 1969 at the beginning of Nixon's term! Probably it would have been a better situation as the South Vietnamese had at that point managed to secure a good deal of the country. Who knows, there probably would have been no Watergate and the subsequent domestic political upheaval had the war ended a lot earlier. Instead, the prolongation of that conflict ended up weakening US credibility during the 1970's. Unbelievable how one small thing can have such wide implications!

It was wrong that we fought there. An unjust, unholy war. North Vietnam wasn't a threat to the United States. C'mon! Many American soldiers and innocent protesters lost their lives in a fight that served no useful purpose for our nation.

We should have stayed out of Vietnam and any other nation's war that has no clear interests for our nation. It is folly to spread ourselves out in the world to fight wars that we have no clear intersts in. You can't fight a war without objectively defined goals. Although the eradication of Communism is a noble goal, this was not going to happen by stamping it out in little worthless Vietnam (or Korea for that matter, another war we lost).

We either should have stayed out altogether, or gotten in there and done it right. By this I mean we should have come in with one huge force, completely annihilated the Viet Cong and been done with it. Instead we sent troops over little by little just to get them killed and prolong the protests back home. It was handled terribly.