Was the Vietnam War right or wrong?
Difficult to say... but the ending of the war was shameful
Was the Vietnam war a mistake? Why or why not?
American involvement in Vietnam was a mistake. The North Vietnamese and Viet Cong (South Vietnamese) were fighting a war of national liberation and reunification: America imagined it was fighting the threat of communist expansionism. Successive US policy makers understood they could never win the war: the Vietnamese were fighting for the right of national self-determination.A few hundred years earlier Americans had done exactly the same thing in their own war of independence. Think about how determinedly a people will fight for their freedom and independence.Ho Chi Minh was always far more of a nationalist than a communist (examine his personal history). In SE Asia (Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, etc) Communism presented itself as a useful vehicle for national mobilisation. An ideology that could be pressed into service to wage wars of national liberation. Fatally, America never quite understood this, so instead they spent the best part of 40 years stumbling around SE Asia fighting proxy wars and secret wars (Laos is the great untold story of US meddling in SE Asia) for reasons they mostly never understood themselves.And for what? In the end South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos all fell to communists of one strain or another (some more lethal than others).The US war in Vietnam (and SE Asia in general) was a huge mistake. Misguided, with no clear idea of what ‘victory’ would ever look like (anywhere in the region) and woefully misinformed. Run by people who had little to no interest or understanding of the cultures and peoples they were going up against.The April 17th People: Cambodia 1975 by Philip Ford on Cambodia 1975-1979
Thesis Statement on Vietnam War?
Can someone help me come up with 3 good supporting facts and a way to write my thesis? The thesis is going to be like "The US should not have interfered in this war" and one of the supporting details is that congress did not fully support this decision. Someone please help me come up with a way to word the thesis, and two more supporting facts. THANK YOU
Was America the bad guy in the Vietnam War?
Yes. First, we supported the French in their fight to hold on to their colony. So in a fight between a foreign colonizing power trying to maintain its hegemony vs an occupied colonized people fighting for their freedom, we sided with the oppressor and against the oppressed underdog.Second, after the Viet Minh defeated the French and liberated their country, we prevented free democratic elections from taking place because we knew the winner would be Ho Chi Minh and his Viet Minh, whom we opposed. I.e.; we stood in the way of democracy/ were anti-democracy.Third, we ensured that instead of a unified country, which was the clear will of the majority (a majority will we made sure would never get expressed in the polls by preventing elections from taking place), Vietnam was split between a nationalist North which, commie or not, had successfully fought to free their country from foreign occupation, and a corrupt US stooge government in the South with little popular support or legitimacy.Fourth, we killed a few million Vietnamese when points one through three resulted in the inevitable war for reunification. And the reunification, by the Viet Minh, still happened despite all our efforts.My Lai MassacreThere were good wars this country fought, and some iffy ones. But the only war in which we were the clear cut evil guys who deserved to lose was Vietnam.
Why did America lose the Vietnam War?
My humble opinion is the American soldiers were never allowed to win.Why? As many has said Politicians tried to control the war from D.C. and input from soldiers were ignored.It is hard to fight an enemy that may cut your hair in the day or cook your food then at night fire on you.The South was very corrupt and hated.Vietnam was well entrenched from fighting Japanese soldiers, French and finally American soldiers.They had tunnels that ran the whole spectrum of Vietnam so they could pop up and fire then disappear.
Could the US have won the Vietnam War if they can chose the right decision in the right moment at the right time?
I’ll do better than that. Let’s say that around June 15, 1972, one of President Nixon’s senior advisers was able to convince him not to go through with the Watergate attempted bugging. Congress was Democratic, but many of the Democrats were conservatives who supported Nixon on foreign policy.Watergate does not happen, the lunatic fringe of the Democratic Party is not elected in 1974, and Nixon is fully in charge 1973-76. As the North Vietnamese start testing the US and South Vietnam with limited offensives, etc., Nixon replies by sending additional supplies to South Vietnam, positioning B-52s, tactical aircraft, and naval vessels forward, and threatening intervention. North Vietnam has to back off. In 1975, the same thing plays out. By 1976 the fruits of a more peaceful time in South Vietnam strengthen its institutions gradually, and North Vietnam must either go for broke or give up. (Note: According to “Black April” this was the actual conclusion of the North Vietnamese Politburo in 1973 - if they could not keep the pressure on in South Vietnam by 1976 they would no longer be able to successfully overcome South Vietnam). Result is a win for everyone except a few autocrats in North Vietnam.Amazon.com: Black April: The Fall of South Vietnam, 1973-75 eBook: George J Veith, George Veith: Kindle Store
Was Muhammad Ali correct in refusing to go to Vietnam?
Yes. The argument goes that he was unpatriotic for refusing to fight for his country. Fight for whose country? American troops had no business being in Vietnam as it was an internal struggle that had nothing to do with the USA, which is why the US lost, at a cost of 50 000 lives. There was nothing to gain - gain being the only reason a war is waged. Ali was 100% correct in refusing to participate in what was essentially a pointless conflict. What do you guys think?