Regardless of how I worded it, if you want to actually understand what went on as opposed to playing "gotcha," the important consideration is how many Vietnamese were killed during the war, because of the American presence. Remember, we are not trying to indict the U.S. for war crimes here, but rather to analyze the consequences of the U.S. departure. Thus, any Vietnamese deaths that resulted from the U.S. troops being there, whether killed by Americans or by the Vietnamese themselves, should count on one side of the equation, and those killed after the American departure by the Vietnamese government on the other. What's more, we must somehow project the Vietnamese war deaths into an indefinite future, resulting in a much higher toll than actually occurred.

And finally, we must ask ourselves how many of the Vietnamese who were executed by the government or died accidentally while trying to flee would have lived if the country had been unified in 1946 or 1956, or even 1965, rather than in 1975.

While some of these questions are difficult to answer, it is very easy to see that the death toll, even if we only count actual as opposed to potential deaths, is far higher due to U.S. intervention.

As for the Khmer Rouge, it is completely incorrect to tie what they did in with the Vietnamese when trying to answer this question. The two groups were allies in the war; the U.S. and the Soviet Union were allies during World War II; does that make the U.S. responsible for Stalin's terror? The fact that Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978 to overthrow the Khmer Rouge and put a stop to the slaughter speaks rather loudly to this question.

Also, we must ask ourselves whether the Khmer Rouge would even have existed absent U.S. intervention in the war.