An Unwinnable War

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As America find herself in today’s “War on Terrorism,” one can easily find a number of similarities between today’s situation and the war in Vietnam. As the Taliban steadily loses control and power over Afghanistan, it becomes exceedingly important to discuss potential replacement governments. Afghanistan is, like Vietnam in the 50’s and 60’s, a very volatile country full of a variety of people speaking different dialects and practicing different religions. It is very important, then, that the government that is installed is one that is capable of maintaining some type of control or authority over its diverse people.

On July 7, 1954, Ngo Dinh Diem came to power as the Prime Minister of South Vietnam (Fishel 107). Diem was backed by the United States as the best man for the job to prevent communism in South Vietnam. The problem is that while “every foreign power to intervene in Vietnam eventually attempted to install some group of Vietnamese figures to prevent a Communist victory,” many of them failed to consider that by installing a government that continued to exploit and alienate its people, they were driving the population more toward Communism because at least it seemed to be a government for the people (Gettleman 134). Likewise, the U.S. was concerned with its own interest and unfortunately overlooked the interests of the Vietnamese.

In the first five or six years of Diem’s reign, the United States was quite pleased with its choice of Diem. Proponents of Diem praised him as an advocate of human rights who worked to uphold a democracy. Others who were not quite as flagrant in their approval simply stated that he was the best man among the limited choices being that he was strongly anti-communist. Many, includin...

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...enerals who don’t even command a company. He lives in an ivory tower surrounded by his family” (Behind 150). Diem was also said to have given the Catholic regugees “preferential treatment in land redistribution, relief and assistance, commercial and export-import licenses, government employment, and other GVN largess” (Buddhist 217).

The U.S. constantly pressured Diem to issue land reform in order to win some support from the peasants because, as his American advisors recognized “an exploited and impoverished peasantry provides fertile soil for communism, as in China; therefore, intelligent land reform, preserving private property and simultaneously creating a new middle class of farmers, is a necessity for ‘free world’ objectives” (Behind 142). This idea plays into the aforementioned assertion that America focused too heavily on their own interests (

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