“War is mankind’s most tragic and stupid folly.” This quote from President Dwight D. Eisenhower helps convey the idea that war is a tragic thing that must be avoided all costs, especially in the case of the Vietnam War. By backing the French in the Vietnam War, America brought great harm upon themselves; it was France’s colonialism, sloppiness, and violent methods are that hurt America . A reason that America should not have entered this war was because of France’s violence. In response to the Japanese occupying French Indochina, Ho Chi Minh called for a revolution in 1941. During this time period, the Japanese had just occupied French Indochina; Ho Chi Minh, the communist leader, was becoming frustrated the he and his people had no …show more content…
However, the French did not listen to Eisenhower’s idea of internationalization. The letter also shows what President Eisenhower’s true opinions were. The intended privacy of his letter also allows him to give the truest, pure facts about what was going on with the disputement. If he were talking to the general public, he would sway the language in a way where it sounded that the Vietnamese were bad, the French are good, and America is great. When he speaks in this way, the American public is not getting the full truth …show more content…
The biggest one was the Red Scare. The Red Scare was a movement that made Americans afraid of communism. They displayed it in movies, job markets, and even in the government with McCarthyism. This pushed the American populous and the government to stop communism at all costs, even if it could be hurtful to the United States. At a certain point, one must weigh the good and the bad and determine the best course of action. If America would have payed a little more attention to this, it would have saved them a lot of problems in the future that are still affecting them
After World War II, the French began a fight for their former colony of Indochina, which included Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. The French and other countries failed to see at that time the will and desire of the Vietnamese people to gain independence from foreign rule and to have their country unified. Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist, fought the French and overtook the North Vietnam capital of Hanoi with his followers, the Viet Minh, declaring the area the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. (Anderson, 2002) The French were unwilling to give up their colony and drove the Vietminh from many of the larger cities in the south. The United States entered the Vietnam struggle in 1950 when $15 million in aid was pledged to France in order to fight the Vietminh. (Anderson, 2002) The rationale was to align with France and keep the Soviet Union from expanding in Europe and to keep another country from falling into communist rule.
...am War is not just history but the fundamental part of our history. Therefore, it needs to be taken seriously. Only if we take it seriously, can we prevent ourselves from doing the same mistakes again. It also teaches how the war policies and authorities can blind us from the real reason behind the war. It is important to also know the enemy and plan accordingly. One can clearly see that higher technologies can go wrong when accompanied with failed strategies. Most important of the all it makes the readers reconsider their definition of just-war. Most important of all, “Working-Class War: American Combat Soldiers and Vietnam” by Christian G. Appy teaches us how education and economic advantages can help us from facing the worst.
The Vietnam War: A Concise International History is a strong book that portrays a vivid picture of both sides of the war. By getting access to new information and using valid sources, Lawrence’s study deserves credibility. After reading this book, a new light and understanding of the Vietnam war exists.
The regrets of the many lives lost in Vietnam. The former secretary of defense Robert McNamara published a memoir, two decades after the war ended. In the memoir he admitted that the policy he helped create was “terribly wrong”. He stated that the ignorance of the history, the culture of Vietnam, and the misguided belief that every communist movement in the world was led by Moscow, had led the United States into a war that was unwinnable and regrettable. (Foner, 4th edition, pg.1030) The students of The Port Huron Statement were right by being against the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War was a military, political, and social disaster. Which only brought casualties in the lives of American people. It was an unforgivable mistake caused by Presidents that feared that the public would not forgive them for “losing” the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam War brought many tears and casualties to both the United States and Vietnam. Millions of soldiers lost their lives in the time consuming battle. On February 8, 1967 President Lyndon B. Johnson wrote a letter to Ho Chi Minh, Dictator of Vietnam at the time. President Johnson’s letter expresses his hopes of ending this conflict that has gone on so long in Vietnam. President Ho Chi Minh replied back on February 15, 1967 stating that it had been the United States that prolonged the wicked war. President Ho Chi Minh’s reply to President Johnson was the more persuasive of the two letters, because he appealed more to pathos, used stronger and bolder diction, and asked an important rhetorical question.
Though out history, American has had its hand in conflict with other countries. Some of those conflicts have turned out into wars. Looking back at America’s “track record” with war, America has a worthy past of having its citizen’s support. Obviously the two World Wars we not controversial. The United States in the Korean War was criticized, fairly, for its strategy, but the need to defend South Korea was never questioned. In only the Vietnam War was the United States’ very participation criticized. This is such a gigantic change with prior wars that it bears study as to why it happened, and better yet, should have it happened. This paper will discuss the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War, by asking the simple question, Should have the Untied States’ gotten involved into the first place. This paper will prove that in fact, America should have not gotten involved with the Vietnam War.
Tim O’Brien states in his novel The Things They Carried, “The truths are contradictory. It can be argued, for instance, that war is grotesque. But in truth war is also beauty. For all its horror, you can’t help but gape at the awful majesty of combat” (77). This profound statement captures not only his perspective of war from his experience in Vietnam but a collective truth about war across the ages. It is not called the art of combat without reason: this truth transcends time and can be found in the art produced and poetry written during the years of World War I. George Trakl creates beautiful images of the war in his poem “Grodek” but juxtaposes them with the harsh realities of war. Paul Nash, a World War I artist, invokes similar images in his paintings We are Making a New World and The Ypres Salient at Night. Guilaume Apollinaire’s writes about the beautiful atrocity that is war in his poem “Gala.”
Vietnam War (1954-1975) is considered as one of those big wars of the modern world that has been acknowledged and studied by countries in the world. Especially, in regard to the United States, starting and ending war in Vietnam was an unforgettable experience that has left a priceless lesson in its foreign policy, and of course a lot of loss, physically, mentally, and property. “The Legacy of Vietnam” article of George Herring basically summarizes how the Vietnam War led to an end in failure of America and what consequences it left behind.
No one could have realized that what seemed as an insignificant gesture to partake in training South Vietnamese armies and America’s involvement in Southeast Asia would one day have the impact it did on America. Although at the time when Eisenhower was trying to stop of the spread of communism it seemed the right thing to do, the repercussions of that decision and the war it eventually led to was devastating to America politically, socially, and culturally.
"The historian Will Durant calculated that there have been twenty nine years in all of human history during which a war was not underway somewhere." (Hedges, 2003). In fact more than half of my lifetime has consisted of the United States, my country, being at war. It is sad to know that I have no experienced peace. It is also alarming because I, like my peers, have become somewhat immune and numb to war. We have come to think of it as just another issue going on, and do not really see it as the drastic event that it really is. It is something that is just there; just in the background.
It is understandable that some Americans strongly opposed the United States getting involved in the Vietnam War. It had not been a long time since the end of World War II and simply put, most Americans were tired of fighting. Mark Atwood Lawrence is one of the people who opposed our involvement in the Vietnam War. In his essay, “Vietnam: A Mistake of Western Alliance”, Lawrence argues that the Vietnam War was unnecessary and that it went against our democratic policies, but that there were a lot of things that influenced our involvement.
“It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder,” Albert Einstein. The Vietnam War was a war that America did not need. America believed they were doing good. They believed that they were protecting the people of Vietnam. America did not realise that they were only making a bad situation worse. America stopped nothing. They didn’t stop communism; they didn’t save the people of Vietnam. America caused the number of casualties in Vietnam to increase and had their own people killed. They caused diseases and destroyed the environment with the help of Agent Orange. America sent soldiers on a mission with a result of hundreds of civilians murdered. America did not help anyone. America sent people out to murder others and to be killed in the line of duty.
The Vietnam War was a war that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from November 1st 1955 to the fall of Saigon on April 30th 1975. This war was fought between the North Vietnamese Viet Cong and the government of South Vietnam. The criticism of the war in Vietnam started out as a reaction to President Johnson’s policy of fighting for a limited purpose and a negotiated peace in Vietnam. Criticism is valuable because it helps to correct communal procedures. That is a great advantage of exposed societies. But criticism works only if those in control have a sufficient intellect in order to recognize when a policy has gone wrong. The Vietnam War and its leaders is a "monument to the failure of that necessary wisdom" (Lewis). The supporters were known as “hawks.” As the President escalated the war effort, and became a hawk himself, his chief critics who disagreed with the war became known as “doves,” which included college students, faculty, and several other people who felt that the war was corrupt, was promoting no advantage for the US, and was increasing the number of casualties. But the Doves’ access to this goal is restricted: the war drags on. Many disaffected doves adapt to this situation by rebellion. They reject societal goals and means
However, this is not to say that the Vietnamese people preached communist ideology, as foremost, they wanted political freedom from colonial parasites. During the Vietnam War, the United States failed to abide by honorable American values, exemplified in their suppression of the Vietnamese revolution for European support of NATO, their attempt to demonstrate their perceived international power by elongating war, and in the process, their practice of inhumane attrition tactics, ultimately failing to unite the American people and leading to domestic distrust of government practices. Furthermore, throughout each step in their dishonorable failure, the U.S. disregarded the strength and will of the Vietnamese people in light of their larger anti-Communist agenda, backfiring when the powerful Viet Cong forces confronted them head-on, leading to the first-ever U.S. loss in war. The United States implemented flawed foreign policy going into the Vietnam War, focusing its anti-communist agenda on Europe by seeking support for NATO, garnering that support by helping their French allies suppress the Vietnamese revolution, while ignoring Ho Chi Minh’s
Yang Ti, the last emperor of the Sui dynasty was killed. This murder would start a new dynasty called the Tang Dynasty