Vietnam Solution

The ultimate in throwing the baby out with the bathwater--destroying something (or attempting to destroy it) in an attempt to "save" it from something perceived as a greater evil.

Almost always an AntiPattern. In most cases, the threat which the savior/destroyer seeks to thwart is more of a threat to the savior/destroyer, than it is to the alleged victim. Which results in the savior/destroyer being the real threat to the victim's well-being.

The title of this page comes from an attitude prevalent among some US conservatives during the Vietnam War that the destruction of (South) Vietnam was preferable to it being overrun by the communist North. As it turned out, much of Vietnam was destroyed (with millions of Vietnamese on both sides killed, along with 50,000 US troops), and yet it fell into communist hands anyway--where it still remains.

While this is no defense of the VietCong? or the NVA--they were both a thoroughly brutal and thuggish lot (much as the Baathist resistance in Iraq is today), I don't think it can be argued with a straight face by anybody that the Vietnam War was beneficial to anyone (other than munitions manufacturers and anti-American shirt-wavers, perhaps).