The Vietnam 's Southern Revolution

In her book The Vietnam Wars, 1945-1990, author Marilyn Young examines the series of political and military struggles between the United States and Vietnam, a nation that has been distinctively separated as the South and the North. Young chooses to express the daily, weekly, monthly progresses of the affairs collectively called the Vietnam Wars, focusing on the American interventions in the foreign soil. She seeks to provide an answer to a question that has haunted the world for years: What was the reason behind the United States interfering in the internal affairs of a foreign country in which it had no claims at all? Young discloses the overt as well as covert actions undertaken by the U.S. government officials regarding the foreign affairs with Vietnam and the true nature of the multifaceted objectives of each and every person that’s involved had.

My report is on a book by Michael H. Hunt called Lyndon Johnson’s War written in 1996. Michael Hunt is a historian who works for the University of North Colorado and was also there during the Vietnam War. Hunt’s book was written to talk about former President Lyndon Johnson during the Vietnam war. The book’s purpose is to show us some of the causes and consequences of the Vietnam war on America and the Vietnamese people. It also shows us how resilient the natives were against the U.S. and their reasons for wanting to be a communist nation. The book is arranged chronologically from the 1945-1968, telling us how events like the Cold War brought to existence the Vietnam War.

There are two distinctly different and contradictory societies in Vietnam: Saigon and the rest. “Saigon and Vietnam are as different, almost literally, as night and day.” (para. 6)

1. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH QUESTION Throughout the years, the Vietnam War has lived up its name as “one of the most obscure episodes and, at the same time, one of the most serious conflicts not only of the Cold war period but also of the whole modern history” (Hodboďová, 2008). It was apparently the most long-lasting conflict in American history and most disfavored war that broke out after World War II and ended in 1975. The peculiarity of this war lies not only in its prolonged duration but also in an overriding number of war casualties, or in other words, the death and destruction to the country’s people. Averagely in the struggle, more than one million Vietnamese soldiers and over 58,000 Americans were killed, not to mention the massacre

Mintz and McNeil of Digital History state that Vietnam, like Cambodia and Laos, was a French colony until it gained its independence after the First Indochina War. The Northern supporters and Southern dissenters of communism divided Vietnam during this time. The Geneva Accords, created after the war in 1954, required Vietnam to hold an election between the leaders of the North and South after two years. The US was afraid of what would follow if the North were to win, and decided to intervene in the hopes of stopping the spread of communism. With help from the US, South Vietnam avoided the agreement's orders and cancelled this election; power went to the South Vietnamese prime minister instead.

For decades in the United States the Cold war remained one of the biggest political issues. However, the divisive point of the Cold War era was the Vietnam War in the thousands of Americans were killed and back home in the United States a civil war almost broke out.

In 1983, the Southern Front was against the Sandinista Government, Costa Rica could not handle the threat by the Colombian drug cartels. During a time when the growing cocaine trade occurred between Latin America and the U.S., the Panamanian and Colombian drug operatives also utilized the supplying facility of the Southern Front. According to Karol Prado and Werner Lotz, drug traffickers disguised their activities as negotiable deals with political groups as a result of the Contras’ lack of leadership, followers, and money. Moreover, Lotz claimed that drug operations funded the Contra with weapons from Panama; pilots from Panama, Colombia, and America, would unload the weapons, refuel, and then fly north to the U.S. with the remaining drugs. Furthermore, Lt. Col. Oliver North advised the DEA in June 1985, to carry $1.5 million drug money on a plane to the Contras. Although,

One of the most violent wars in history drove many of Vietnam’s citizens out of the war-torn nightmare of a country. Citizens were frightened for their lives, they didn’t know what would happen to them after the North overtook Vietnam, and furthermore, they fled. The

“Nixon Wins By Thin Margin” read the front page of the New York Times on Thursday November 7th, 1968, two days after Election Day. Richard Nixon won about 4 times the margin he lost to John F. Kennedy in 1960. The craziness that occurred during the election went hand in hand with the chaos of 1968. In this election, there were three candidates: Richard Nixon of the Republican Party, Hubert Humphrey of the Democratic Party, and George Wallace of the American Independent Party. The candidates did not know it at the time, but they would become part of the Presidential Election that would help shape American Politics to what they are today. The election of Richard Nixon in 1968 marked a turning point in the American political ideology,

Early on March 16, 1968, a company of soldiers in the United States Army’s Americal Division were dropped in by helicopter for an assault against a hamlet known as My Lai 4, in the bitterly contested province of Quang Ngai, on the northeastern coast of South Vietnam. A hundred G.I.s and officers stormed the hamlet in military-textbook style, advancing by platoons; the troops expected to engage the Vietcong Local Force 48th Battalion—one of the enemy’s most successful units—but instead they found women, children, and old men, many of them still cooking their breakfast rice over outdoor fires. During the next few hours, the civilians were murdered. Many were rounded up in small groups and shot, others were flung into a drainage ditch at one edge

Understanding the tactics of the Viet Cong (VC) is crucial to analyzing the war that these marines faced. VC strategy was based on two simple concepts: blending in, and hit and run. The VC hid within the dense forests at night, and by day took on the role of peasant farmers. It was nearly impossible to distinguish between a Viet Cong guerilla, a Viet Cong supporter, and an innocent villager. An elderly lady was as much a horrific killer as a guerilla soldier completely camouflaged; a child running toward a

The history of recent years in the Indochina conflict has been an eventful one. It will exhibit to the eyes of the future student some of the most remarkable instances of a ruthlessness and indifference to common humanity. Moreover, it will, I believe, demonstrate that North Vietnam has, for a long time, steadily pursued a communist regime which was deliberately designed to produce a subjugation of other countries by the threat of communism.

The year is 1975, its late April, and the North Vietnamese Army, or NVA has reached the outskirts of the capital of the South Vietnamese, Saigon. General Duong Van Minh, who has been president for two days, surrenders Saigon to avoid bloodshed. Even though their leader has given up, many citizens and volunteers prepare to dig in to defend their homes. The United States on the other hand has called a full retreat and are pulling out of the city, the fall of Saigon has begun.

The Cambodian Civil War took place from 1970-1975, however, the violence in the country was to only get worse. Immediately following the war, the Khmer Rouge took control of Cambodia from 1975-1979. Khmer Rouge was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge committed crimes against humanity and killed over one million people. Pol Pot and the members of the Khmer Rouge who are responsible for over a million deaths in the Cambodian Killing Fields, and 20,000 mass graves, are being brought to justice 30 years later, but the families of those who suffered will never forget their cruel and unthinkable acts against humanity.

China’s recent militaristic advances have raised tensions between China, Vietnam, and Taiwan. Recently, China has sent surface-to-air missiles to a land that is partially claimed by Vietnam and Taiwan. Due to the past that China has with its neighboring countries, many countries, like Taiwan and Vietnam, are concerned about the move China has made in putting missiles on Woody Island.