After a dispute over who should rule, Castillo Armas seized power. Directly aided by the United States Armas returned the expropriated land and halted the literacy and social welfare programs. Even worse Armas killed 8,000 peasants within the first two months of his rule kicking off the 40 year war that ended leaving up to 200,000 unarmed civilians murdered, the abduction and torture of tens of thousands and the forced displacement of more than a million people. Some of the grossest human rights violations ever committed were committed under this regime that received $80-$90 million dollars from the U.S. government within the first few years after the coup. That was $20-$30 million dollars more than the U.S. gave to all the rest of Latin America combined. .
Vietnam.
The Vietnam War was a war fought between 1964 and 1975 on the ground in South Vietnam and bordering areas of Cambodia and Laos, and in bombing runs over North Vietnam. .
Fighting on one side was a coalition of forces including the United States, the Republic of Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Fighting on the other side was a coalition of forces including the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (North Vietnam) and the National Liberation Front, a communist-led South Vietnamese guerrilla movement. The USSR provided military aid to the North Vietnamese and to the NLF, but was not one of the military combatants. .
The lowest casualty estimates, based on the now-renounced North Vietnamese statements, are around 1.5 million Vietnamese killed. Vietnam released figures in 1995 that a total of one million Vietnamese combatants and four million civilians were killed in the war. The accuracy of these figures has generally not been challenged. 58,226 American soldiers also died in the war or are missing in action. Australia lost almost 500 of the 47,000 troops they had deployed to Vietnam and New Zealand lost 38 soldiers.
It is also difficult to say exactly what counts as a "Vietnam War casualty"; people are still being killed today by unexploded ordinance.
