>If you want to see what 'destructive' is, just look at Russian engagement in Ukraine, or Assad in Syria, or Saudi in Yemen. They don't care what they hit, it's a totally different environment.
Show us the difference with Vietnam (and Cambodia).
And the Caribbean.
The difference is deliberate and arbitrary attack of civilians at scale and total lack of concern - popularly, politically, operationally, and practically for casualties outside military targeting.
The notion one would even try to compare 'the Caribbean' - where USN is destroying drug running boats - which is arguably against some maritime laws but is nevertheless exceedingly acute, I think shows how wound up people are in the political context.
There is no relevant kinetic fallout in the Caribbean - it's an Elephant precisely stepping on a single ant.
Capture of Venezuelan Oil ... almost certainly illegal.
But that's a different thing
As for Vietnam - start by laying the context for why the N. Vietnamese imprisoned, tortured, killed 100's of thousands of political dissidents and civilians of all kinds, and continued that horrible repression for decades even to this day as they continue to crack down on mild dissent. The actual facts on both sides are actually ugly, but woefully misrepresented and the same utterly bizarre dual moral lens is applied ... a bit like in the Iranian situation as well.
Implied in the question is the despotism in plain site: why did N. Vietnam invade Cambodia? Against the will of those people? And murder and maraud in that territory?
The difference is between that, as a starting point, and strategic bombing of rural roadways (Ho Chi Min trail) etc., which ironically was in lieu of actually bombing North Vietnam which should have been done right from the onset, would have prevented a war, and saved 1/2 the population from a perennial nightmare and given the citizens some say in their future.
But it's also an example of the extent of the ability of superpowers to project power.
>where USN is destroying drug running boats
>which is arguably against some maritime laws
You get it completely backwards: the US Navy is "allegedly" destroying drug running boats, and it is completely, totally, "inarguably" against maritime laws - and laws of war (but there is no war, right?) and basic law principles in civilized countries.
>it's an Elephant precisely stepping on a single ant.
It is not a cute animal simile. It is US Navy sailors commiting 200+ summary executions. It is burning alive and drowning. It is widows and orphans.
"It is widows and orphans." - you lost the argument by trying to characterize these people as innocents, because it's such an awful position it undermines your own legitimacy.
These are 'Cártel de los Soles' etc they are thugs and killers, the source of untold violence and harm.
This the hysterical rhetorical position that I'm actually hinting at - contempt for a party (in this case the US) renders people intellectually incoherent - willing to defend the most vile actions such as mass murder by Hamas, Iranian regime, mass killings, torture and imprisonment, by North Vietnam etc..
The same people that overlook Stalin's literal genocide - for example, the German Centre Left Party, the Social Democrats, who used to 'retreat' in Russia, at one of Stalin's summer homes.
This 'USA always bad / actual terrorists are victims' nonsense is the psychological affliction at work here, in almost all these discussions.
It's the flip side of the 'USA good and justified in everything' nonsense.
One posture does not justify the other.
First - The US has a reasonable moral claim against stopping these parties, even if they are going too far by not using interdiction, and killing those who were floating at sea. The basic legitimacy remains even if the methods are not justified.
Second - The situation if anything demonstrates US exceptionalism, which is the argument here. This isn't about 'moral claims' - it's about if the US is actually an exceptional military force.
The OP indicated 'the US clearly not exceptional'.
This is completely delusional. Obviously, they are. It's not a moral assessment, which is much more complicated.
Contempt for the US turns people's brains to rubbish.