system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5. Maybe a dumb question, but why didn't the Vietnam war produce terrorists, like conflicts in the middle-east?

I mean, the war left the country devastated, and I'm sure there were a lot of people angry at the US.  Why didn't anyone try to strike out at the US?
gpt
Terrorism, particularly international terrorism, doesn't just "happen" and not liking a country is never enough motivation on its own to start. Al Qaeda and other extremest groups of that ilk really have a history of at minimum decades or (depending on where you say it "starts") centuries.

Al Qaeda doesn't just hate the US, they have a vision of a grand pan-Islamic new caliphate. Their strategy has been to find an area with a Muslim population (but not an exclusively Muslim population), destabilize the region and in the chaos come to power using their dedicated and fanatical followers to create an extreme Muslim government. They did this in the former Yugoslavia, they did it in Somalia, they did it in Afghanistan during Soviet occupation, and they tried to do it in the Philippines with a series of attacks most of which we stopped (including the assassination of the pope). "Terrorism" is just a term we have applied to the kind of non-state militias, but they always have a purpose to their actions. It is for the glory of their interpretation of Islam and has the goal of creating a new Muslim caliphate. Al Qaeda litterally means "the base" and that is referencing that it is meant to be the first step in the foundation of a global and unified power.

Vietnam may hate the US, but there is no group like that in Vietnam. The whole war is seen very differently because of the Cold War, but the Vietnam War started the day after the Japanese surrendered in WWII as a war for national independence, not a war against the US. 

Ho Chi Minh was not a communist at first but a nationalist. He went to Versailles to plead for independence from France as promised in Wilson's ideal of self-determination, no-one would take a meeting. So when WWII ended, he released a deceleration of independence, declaring Vietnam was no longer a colony but a sovereign nation, invoking Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Thomas Jefferson and the Deceleration of the Rights of Man. 

France was not willing to let its colony go and the US sided with it's ally France. Ho Chi Minh started getting aid from the Soviets, but only because the US would not help. Eventually France was defeated (surprise) and the country was divided in two. Ho Chi Minh wanted a unified nation, but the US was willing to defend the south. That's what the Vietnam War was about, we tried to keep Ho Chi Minh isolated to the North, but the Vietnamese people are not really divided north/south.  To them it wasn't a defense against communism for the most part (though that did exist and why many Vietnamese immigrants came to the US in the 70s) but about the unification of the country. 

Now the country is unified, it's economy is improving rapidly, it is normalizing relations with the world. The US left scars for sure, but there is no reason for the Vietnamese to keep fighting us. The war is over and there is no reason why it should continue.