American Involvement In Vietnam War Analysis

Over thirty years ago the Vietnam War ended, and the U.S. came back home with their tails between their legs and nothing to show for other than a high number of casualties, and a huge pile of debt. The U.S. underestimated the North Vietnamese army, and it was costly. Many believe that the Vietnam War was none of the U.S. business, but on the contrary, many believe we should have tried to stop the spread of communism. The long-lasting Vietnam War was unnecessary for the U.S. to be a part of; it put many people through unneeded stress and hard times.

The War in Vietnam remains to be a blemish of American foreign policy today and remains as a crisp thought to those who lived it. As the decades pass away through the sands of time, historians and civilians alike further their wonder of who was truly responsible for this calamity. Verily, this war was the full responsibility of Lyndon Johnson because he failed to learn from former presidents of why fighting was happening, he accrued some of Kennedy’s inept advisors and, he was selfish in terms of the reason why he gave the approval for war.

US should not have been involved in the Vietnam War. For one, the US should not have been involved in the Vietnam war because protest were turning violent. They started peaceful and then they turned violent. Movements and protest are now violent because the American Society feels as if their opinions are being ignored or do not matter. Another reason that people don't trust the government now is because of the propaganda and false advertising. The president is telling the people of the US that everything is okay and the war is almost over when it is nowhere near being over. Lastly, war is very costly. The money going to cover the cost of war could be given to innovations, welfare, housing, and many other beneficial things to the people of the US.

The United States of America seems to always be searching for conflict with other countries. If one looks at history, he or she can see the United States “sticking their nose in other peoples’ business,” which seems to cause conflict. Former president Richard M. Nixon once said, “No event in American History is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now.” One can take this quote into consideration and realize that the truth was not all there. The United States involvement in the Vietnam War can be argued as a good thing or a bad thing; however, the bad definitely outweighs the good.

Like a moth to a flame, the United States has always been attracted to international affairs. In this particular case communism in Vietnam was the flame that leered American bugs in, not knowing that they would be brutally burned by communism in the end. From 1953 to 1961, all the initial decisions involving Vietnam were made by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who once served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe as well as the first Supreme Commander of NATO. Thus, Eisenhower was very knowledgeable about war issues and was prepared to tackle pending conflicts and avert the dispersal of communism when he came into office. Communism was an immense fear of this great patriot, who witnessed to the “Red Scare” during the

“On October 17, 1973, Arab oil producers declared an embargo that drastically limited the shipment of oil to the United States” (OPEC 1). Arab countries refused to sell oil to the United States because of the Yom Kippur War, a war between Egypt and Israel. In this war, United states was backing up Israel by supporting them and giving them weapons, which angered Arab leaders. Arabs started limiting the shipment of oil to the United States. The embargo, however, brought crisis to the US with unequal proportions. US citizens were very panicky because of the shortage of gas and oil. Ultimately, the US economy slowed down, leaving its’ citizens to to be dependent on domestic resources. Shipment of oil in the country dropped by 1 million barrels,

Before the famous Vietnam war started, America promised we would keep communism from taking over. When Eisenhower and Kennedy were in office they continued to supply weapons, funds, and military advisors to South Vietnam. America stepped in when North Vietnam began to take over South Vietnam. We stepped in to help South Vietnam because they are our allies and they couldn't take on North Vietnam alone. This action taken by the United States government to step in created many problems within our own country.

The U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War helped for the South Vietnamese for a while,

thousand plus killed, many were blameless citizens who wished not to be involved. The attacks were just fruitless, and it should be clear to Americans about how hypocritical their government is acting and reacting.

Do you know how many people died in the Vietnam war? 58,200 American soldiers died during the Vietnam war. 1.1 million Vietnamese war soldiers died during the war. This war was pointless for America to get involved in. The only reason America joined the war was because the government thought it was a way to prevent the communist takeover of Vietnam. This was a part of the “domino” theory. The Vietnam war was a very bad thing that happened and it was bad that we got involved.

The U.S. involvement in Vietnam was a failure and should not have been a war the US fought. The United States main objective was to stop communism within Vietnam, considering that Vietnam is still a communist country shows that the involvement did not help to stop communism in Vietnam. The Vietnam War was not only a disaster in Vietnam, the United States was getting a lot of backlash from its citizens. The US was split with pro-war and anti-war opinions that created a lot of protest amongst the citizens. The covering up and lying about the war by president Johnson also caused a lot of distrust between the US citizens and the US government grew. The United States involvement in Vietnam did not only not fail in its main objective, it came at a huge cost in casualties to American and Vietnamese citizens.

Within the context of the United States, wars, atrocities, and widespread violence has plagued our nation’s history. Although we go through periods of revolution and pride, a more critical and overarching perspective of American history reveals a common theme of war. Since the American Revolution of 1776, major wars like the Civil War and the Vietnam War have broadly changed the American landscape. In particular, the Vietnam War solidified widespread distrust in the American government because of the drastic disparities between political rhetoric and reality. The pervasive propaganda in the rhetoric of American politicians created an inaccurate portrayal of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, influencing the imaginations of the American public. In

Vietnam split into North and South in the late 1950’s. North Vietnam was a strongly communist country. America feared that other Asian countries might follow North Vietnam’s ways and fall to communist regimes (“Vietnam War”). This theory of adjacent countries falling to communism was called the “Domino Theory” (“Domino Theory”). America has never agreed with the viewpoints of communism since America prides itself on being a free democratic country.

Ho hid out in Hong Kong for the next year, but heard the news of his father's death. He stopped taking care of himself, since he was so saddened by the news. He was caught a year later but Sir Stafford Cripps, his defender in court, was able to bring his sentence down to imprisonment. The Years following his imprisonment are unclear but word came out that Ho Chi Minh was dead. There was nation wide anxiety and mourning. These claims were meet with others saying that they had seen him in many areas of Vietnam (Yancey 14). These rumors were true. Somehow Ho had escaped, or secretly been set free. Ho was reunited with his party and laid low for a while. In February 1941, Ho finally returned to Vietnamese side of the Tonkin border, kissing the ground the second that he crossed. "On 10 May 1941, Ho met with a group of Communists on Marx Mt., to listen to his new plans to free the country (Yancey 16)." He planned to form a new group, Vietminh, to fight for the independence of Vietnam. They spent nine days on Marx Mt., discussing their plans to make Vietnam independent. After his summit at Mt. Marx his political career is over and here on out is purely military.

In 1954, Northern and Southern Vietnam entered a war that led to the death of nearly 3 million people including civilians, Vietnamese troops, and ally soldiers. Though the number of lives lost during the war is atrocious, so are some of the other lasting effects of the “poor man’s fight”. Throughout this essay, I will explain my opinion regarding what I believe were the costs and the benefits of U.S interaction in the war in Vietnam.