The year is 1961 Dwight D. Eisenhower the famous WW2 commander and president of the United States is giving his farewell speech to the nation, during his speech he gave a warning that many people forget “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist”. The 5 Star General and 34th president was warning the people that entities in our military/government are in the business of perpetual war and that can do monumental damage to America. Imply that above quote to the Vietnam war and the Iraq war and our foreign policy in general. You will realize everything …show more content…
The war was very unpopular for Americans back home, and wanted no part in it, so what justified going into Vietnam? North Vietnam ships fired shots at US navy ships, that was the lie that got us in Vietnam. At the time the public didn’t know this was a lie, but thanks to the freedom of information act we know that these claims were made up and even deliberately made to look like there was an attack (Shane). So, think about that 58,220 American military personnel (“Statistical Information about Casualties of the Vietnam War”) and, a staggering 2 million civilians died over the course of the war (Spector). All these people got taken away based off lies promoted by war propaganda. What were the results of the war? Nothing good, Nixon ordered military personnel out of Vietnam in 1969 and eventually South Vietnam fell to the north in 1975 meaning the war is lost, costing American lives, and wasting billions of …show more content…
In 2003 the United States of America launched an invasion of Iraq. This country committed no acts of aggression towards the US, and was no threat to the national security. There were claims that Iraq had something to do with 9/11, which was false. The big lie that got us in is a faction of our government claimed Saddam had weapons of mass destruction also known as nuclear weapons, turns out that was not true. I’m not arguing Saddam was a good guy I’m saying the only way to solve these problems is diplomacy and avoid war at all cost unless it’s the last resort or defensive. This war was a big mistake in a lot of people’s minds. The loss of 4, 486 American military personnel (Goodman), and over half a million Iraqi civilians (Al-Rubaye and National Geographic), is not a fair tradeoff for what the region is like today. This war was supposed to bring peace to the region, not ruin the region. The war also allowed ISIS to expand to what it is today. All this cost 1.7 trillion taxpayer dollars, which is completely insane for the result of the war. The United States must think about the consequence of toppling governments across the world and trying to tell them how to run their governments. The real questions are: Is the United States safer from occupying these countries, or does it give them a reason to attack us? And: Is it a good idea to impose the western way of life on the Middle Eastern
The U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War Was Justified. The Vietnam conflict has been known to be the most unpopular war in the history of the United States. The war of 1812, the Mexican war and the Korean conflict of the early 1950's were also opposed by large groups of the American people, but none of them generated the emotional anxiety and utter hatred that spawned Vietnam. The Vietnam war caused people to ask the question of sending our young people to die in places where they were particularly wanted and for people who did not seem especially grateful.
It was a very bloody war, with more than 58,000 American soldiers having perished in combat. Also, during the decade of direct U.S Military participation in Vietnam, during early times of the year, 1964 the U.S treasury spent over 140 billion dollars on this war. “This was enough money to fund urban projects in every major American city” (history.com). As this war affected the American’s, it affected the Vietnamese people too. This war affected both the American’s and the Vietnamese, because in the year 1973 the United States began withdrawing troops.
No matter how well intentioned the invasion of Iraq may have been, it was an act of violence and deception that has left many American men dead for no clear reason.
Throughout the course of American history, there have been copious amounts of famous speeches, spoken by many different people. From political figures to sports players; these people have provided deep thoughts and great insights about who they are and the world we live in today. Being a sports enthusiast, a memorable speech comes to my mind. Lou Gehrig’s “farewell speech”, given on July 4th, 1939, to more than 62,000 fans at New York City’s Yankee Stadium, has become a cornerstone in the history of baseball in America. Lou Gehrig is considered one of the most under-rated sports players of all time. Gehrig played in the same era with greats like Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio. In Fact, Gehrig played on the same team and actually batted behind Ruth and DiMaggio. Gehrig’s nickname is the “Iron Horse,” which came about with Gehrig’s amazing consecutive games played streak. Gehrig played in 2,130 consecutive games, which stood as the consecutive games record until just recently broken by Cal Ripken, Jr. Gehrig died in 1941, at the age of 37. Though many famous speeches have been spoken throughout time, Lou Gehrig’s farewell speech has remained one of the most memorable speeches of all time, due to the way he captivated his fans with the use of rhetoric.
General Douglas Macarthur was one of the most well known military figures in the history of the United States. He gave his farewell speech to congress on 19th April 1951 and went into retirement after 52 years of service in the United States army. He was given the chance to address his final message to the US government. This analysis carefully examines his ethics, goals, strategies, strengths and weaknesses. The speech is very famous and highly popular among the American audience. Therefore, we will take into account all factors to critically evaluate the speech and find out what makes it important.
MacArthur gave a long good-by speech to the members of Congress. I personally had never heard of MacArthur until this assignment. Before analyzing the speech, I conducted research about the speaker to know a little bit about his background. Then, I observed the context of the speech and how the audience reacted to his statements. After doing these two things it was much easier to understand and form my opinion about the speech.
The Vietnam War took place in between 1947- 1975. It consisted of North Vietnam trying to make South Vietnam a communism government. The United States later joined this conflict because of the stress North Vietnam was putting to South Vietnam to become a government that America did not want. The main reason why America joined was because of a theory called the Domino Effect. America and Russia were going through what has been dubbed the Cold War. The Domino Effect is the theory that communism will spread form one country to another. United states does not want this because our government is a democracy and communism opposes everything we stand for. America fearing communism was growing, stepped into Vietnam with America’s interest in mind, instead of Vietnam’s. There are several reason why American should have not gotten involved with this war. The most important reason was that America government officials made to much of a big deal about communism. This might sound cynical, but America to a certain degree did over react. Let it be said that it is much easier to say this after the fact. By looking back at McCarthyism, we can see the silliness of this fear. There is a serious side though. Thousands of people dies for a government that has no impact of their daily life. What regime Vietnam was going to change over to had no effect on the every day cycle of the United States. So truly, one can say, this can not one thing to do with America, its government and people.
George Washington, the first president of the United States, had written a very important historical speech and document towards the end of his time in office. He had written the Farewell address which focused on helping America understand the importance of preserving unity, acknowledging the rise of political parties forming, strengthening religion and morality, and he stated his position on American foreign policy. He addressed these ideas with strong tone and used incredible amount of dictions that strengthens his tone as well as representing his appeal to ethos to a strong degree. However, today’s society seemed to forget Washington’s position on foreign policy and has created a new form of the policy. But nonetheless as time grew, change occurs. In today’s society Washington’s foreign policy would include many positive and negative manifestations, but it is still a speech and document that will always apply to America.
“However, it seems he ¬¬–Eisenhower, never considered how easily our leaders would turn to borrowing to continue feeding the military-industrial complex war beast. Look at America's financial and social conditions today and consider the validity of Eisenhower's warnings expressed more than five decades ago. One truly unfortunate side effect of the military industry's quest for growth is that wars must be fought to justify and increase demand for its products.”
He was also a Gulf War veteran who commanded an armored cavalry. His desire in writing this book was to examine, through the recently declassified documents, manuscript collections, and the Joint Chief of Staff official histories, where the responsibility for the Vietnam foreign policy disaster lay, but also examine the decisions made that involved the United States in a war they could not win. This book details the discussion of government policy in the stages of the Vietnam crisis from 1961-July 1965. It examines the main characters of President Lyndon B. Johnson, Robert McNamara, in addition to the military, which included the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It began in the Kennedy era amidst the Bay of Pigs incident and how that led to mistrust of the military planning by advisors and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Many Presidents who have to endure the war during their term give various explanations on why we are involved in Vietnam. For instance, Truman states in document 1, “I believe that it must be the policy of the united states to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities
The Vietnam war has been referred to by many names, one of the longer ones was 'the cornerstone of the free world southeast Asia'. It was called that by John F. Kennedy. He was talking about Vietnam being and essential country in a non-communist world. He believed that if Vietnam became a communist country, all of the surrounding countries would also become communists. This is the main reason America was involved in the Vietnam war. Another reason was that America wanted to spread their “political ideas around the globe”. They wanted to do this so that their anti-communism stance was clear. The public also wanted to keep communism from spreading. To soldiers, the war was like a crusade, a great journey to purge the communists from Vietnam. Sadly, this is not what happened. The Viet Cong (VC) had far better tactics than the US. The VC was told to 'nibble at the enemy' so that he could 'neither eat or sleep'. This worked very well. Another demoralizing tactic the VC used was their landmines; they were designed to blow the limbs off the soldiers without killing them. This tied up hospital beds and meant the soldiers had to carry the wounded back to the base.
The reasons for the Vietnam War took place long before the war even began. For years, the Vietnamese had been under French colonial rule. But, when Communist revolutionary Ho Chi Minh came back to Vietnam, he established a group called the Viet Minh, the goal of which was to remove all French occupation from Vietnam. So, the fighting started, and Ho Chi Minh tried to get the US to support them. But, being true to their policies of containment, the US started supporting France. The United States' thoughts about Communism's potential growth can be summed up in one basic idea: the Domino Theory. This theory stated that if one country in a region fell to Communism, the surrounding countries would soon follow. Because of this, the US committed to keeping the North Vietnamese contained once the French withdrew from Vietnam. But, the thing that really pushed the US into sending troops into Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. On August 2nd and 4th, 1964, the North Vietnamese fired upon two US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin. Following this, Congress approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution on August 7, 1964, which gave the president authority to send military troops into Vietnam without declaring war. So, President Johnson sent troops into Vietnam, which had already erupted into civil war, to aid the South Vietnamese.
From the beginning of time, the world has always chosen to use a variety of weapons to defend what is rightfully theirs. This means that the Vietnam War was no different and had its fair share of weapons that were used. Through the duration of the war, the United States had over half a million soldiers, nurses, and other medical staff. The people who died in this war understood that what they could be dying for was honorable and well worth the cause. The United States wanted to make sure that other countries did not fall into communism. As stated by President Eisenhower, “You have a row of dominos set up; you knock over the fi...
Propaganda is a powerful weapon in war,it is used to dehumanize and create hatred toward a supposed enemy, either internal or external, by creating a false image in the mind. Throughout the United States history there were many objectives dominated the method in which propaganda was employed throughout the Vietnam war. The war had to be perceived as a threat to national security, which was relatively difficult due to the distance between the United States and Vietnam. Public support had to be sustained. Which was difficult not only because of the distance but also because the American way of life was virtually uninterrupted by the conflict. Our objectives had to be clearly outlined, because the South Vietnamese regime America was defending was contradictory to some of our basic ideals. Also, some people were misinterpreting our actions as imperialistic. Promotion of trust in the government. Trust in the government was low because of the amount of secrecy that shrouded the intervention from the beginning. Vietnam had begun as an undeclared, remote war that the American public was never briefed on. The deaths of civilians in a coup against President Di...