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The Hamlet Program pissed off all the rural population. Farmers had to leave their land behind and go into these "protected hamlets." Also, there was a city-country split in the South Vietnamese people. The city people (Saigon) didn't understand the desires of the country people, and lots of the men out in the country joined up with the Viet Cong. The leadership in South Vietnam was completely corrupt, and they violated freedoms of religion and peaceful protest. The ARVN didn't want to fight for their own country. Just a total and complete cluster F. Kennedy was trying to stop WWIII over Cuba, and Vietnam took a back burner. Only until US Advisors started getting killed did the country start to notice what was going on there. It just snowballed out of control from there.
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