Chile today is not Chile in 1980 say. And Chile did not suffer massive economic embargos arranged by the US for 20 years nor was it bombed by a superpower for a decade. (The US dropped more bombs in Laos -- which wasn&#x27;t even technically a combatant -- than were dropped on Europe in WWII.) The amount of damage inflicted on Vietnam by the US is simply unprecedented. (And let&#x27;s not even get into the &quot;free fire zones&quot; the US declared late in the war where it would simply shoot peasants and call them insurgents.)<p>Vietnam is currently accused by Human Rights Watch of having &quot;over 135&quot; political prisoners. The scale of human rights abuse in Vietnam, at its worst, is utterly dwarfed by those in US client states in South America.