Identify one argument for and one argument against Truman's decision to support the French rather than the Vietnamese nationalists.

Truman's decision to support the french was mainly because of the fear of communism which was seen by many in the free world at the time as a legitiment threat for peace and that to keep as many countries under the influence of the west he needed to support our ally and defender of quote on quote liberty.

on the other hand it may not have been the best thing to do because supporting an imperial power such as france was exactly against american values of basic libertarianism. the idea of live and let live and that we most likely should have just let the vietnamese take over, but that was a double edged sword in the way that communism the ideology that the vietnamese nationalists were standing for was also extremely against american values in the way that the government owned everything and that personal ownership was nonexistant.