• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

US and Vietnam

Ryokan

Insert something funny here
Ryokan
Joined
Nov 17, 2004
Messages
10,862
Location
Norway
I just watched The Tonight Show, and Jane Fonda was there as a guest. She was, of course, asked about her role during the Vietnam war, and everyone involved perpetuated the truth that 'USA had no reason to be in Vietnam, and ending the war was a good thing'.

Now, I'm not an American, and wasn't even born when the war was on, but still I've been thinking...

Was there truly no reason for the Americans to be in Vietnam? Was it truly only good that the Americans withdrew from the war?

Hadn't the South Vietnamese asked the US for support? Isn't it a good thing to help out your friends when they're under attack? Wasn't the result of the US withdrawal a communist terror regime? Or was 'the good thing' only that US troops stopped dying, and no thought given to what would happen to the South Vietnamese people?

Or should I go back to my history books..?
 
This is an extremely complex question. I don't know if there is an answer. Crimresearch's link is a very good one. To start, there are a couple of angles to look at this.
1) look at the history.
a)Communism and the Soviet Union was a terrifying threat. At least we thought so at the time. The idea that world domination was the intent of the communists was a very real idea.
b) The US was not too far out of WWII where we had "saved the world". We had also beat back those pesky commies in Korea, so we may have viewed ourselves as the playground good guys thumping the little bullies when they picked on others.

2) what were our attitudes at the time.
a) the US, at the time, still had a strong social attitude that people were different (we still had racial segregation here). Perhaps we also went in with the attitude that we know what's best for these people and we have to correct them. (Hmm, did I say 'had'?);)

3) our military was strong, how could we lose?
a) based on our military successes in WWII, we thought we had a full proof game plan, that of attrition, to beat back these hicks. If any lesson was learned, it was we were not fighting a conventional war with a conventional enemy using conventional tactics. Basically, we found ourselves fighting an idea instead of a country.

4) we didn't do our homework
a) based on Crimresearch's link, it appears mistakes were made, or should I say nonaction was taken, early on. Perhap's if certain diplomatic events were to do over again, we'd have taken a different course.
b) it appears that Southeast Asia was a back burner concern until it was decided it was a mess.

These are simply some ideas for conversation. This certainly is not a thesis.

In short, it's awfully easy to second guess. It seems that this whole thing was something that just sort of snuck up on us and kept escalating. Kind of like when you try to get out of trouble by telling a lie but then that leads to bigger problems and eventually the thing turns into a bigger mess than if you had just dealt with it properly in the first place.
 
Ryokan said:
Isn't it a good thing to help out your friends when they're under attack?
Click to expand...
First of all, was it really a friend or was it just an enemy of an enemy? Second, did US politicians actually decide to personally fight in Vietnam? Is it a good thing to draft your own citizens when there is no actual threat to your country?
 
cbish said:
It seems that this whole thing was something that just sort of snuck up on us and kept escalating. Kind of like when you try to get out of trouble by telling a lie but then that leads to bigger problems and eventually the thing turns into a bigger mess than if you had just dealt with it properly in the first place.
Click to expand...
bush_debate_2_mad.jpg

So what's your point?
Click to expand...
 
I would say that most americans view our involvment in Nam as a major mistake.
 
Re: Re: US and Vietnam

Second, did US politicians actually decide to personally fight in Vietnam?

Isn't that sort of irrelevant? Most US politicians didn't fight in WWII, either--or in any war the US was in, for obvious reasons. However, many of them, in all the wars, had sons who did. Perhaps the most famous example is Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt Jr.--the only father-and-son "team" to ever win the Congressional Medal of Honor.
 
Some might say the Vietnam war was a bad idea, poorly executed. Others might say that we halted the spread of Communism, even if we lost South Vietnam. At any rate, a direct result of the Vietnam war is present-day kookiness like this:
Peninsula Raging Grannies invite members of Vets for Peace and other counter-recruiting groups, to protest the regular showing of military recruiting videos on Memorial Day weekend. They are also encouraging people in other parts of California and the rest of the country to form their own demonstrations. 11am. Wal-Mart, 600 Showers Dr., Mountain View. peninsula_raging_grannies@yahoo.com.
Click to expand...
http://www.sfbayview.com/051805/calendar051805.shtml

Here is a site that boils down myths that were perpetuated during and after the Vietnam conflict:Facts of the Vietnam war
The article's research sources are noted at the bottom of the page.
 
peptoabysmal

your link claims that 2/3 of US servicemen in Vietnam were volunteers- ie. not conscripts. Are you sure this is right?
 
Well, then, there was the problem of "what do we do with all the boys from the baby boom?" too.
 
cbish said:
In short, it's awfully easy to second guess. It seems that this whole thing was something that just sort of snuck up on us and kept escalating. Kind of like when you try to get out of trouble by telling a lie but then that leads to bigger problems and eventually the thing turns into a bigger mess than if you had just dealt with it properly in the first place.
Click to expand...

Robert McNamara asked Kennedy to come up with a plan for withdrawing troops from Vietnam, and then Kennedy got shot. The rest, as they say, is history.

Personally, I think Truman screwed the pooch big-time on this one. Ho Chi Minh was practically begging to be a US poodle at first.
 
epepke wrote:
Personally, I think Truman screwed the pooch big-time on this one. Ho Chi Minh was practically begging to be a US poodle at first.
Click to expand...
Sure does look like it, doesn't it.
 
Bumped. for the reason.
No one has a reply or comment? I would have thought this topic would have induced quite a response. OK, I'm going to bed now.
 
Jon_in_london said:
peptoabysmal

your link claims that 2/3 of US servicemen in Vietnam were volunteers- ie. not conscripts. Are you sure this is right?
Click to expand...

I personally have no idea, but it would not surprise me. In the early part of the war there were a lot of volunteers, but the pics of the draftees near the end of the war smoking pot and holding M16's makes for a better media "Kodak moment". The link has it's sources posted at the bottom, feel free to take it up with those sources.
 
cbish said:
Bumped. for the reason.
No one has a reply or comment? I would have thought this topic would have induced quite a response. OK, I'm going to bed now.
Click to expand...

The Vietnam war has been discussed ad nauseam on this forum.
 
peptoabysmal said:
I personally have no idea, but it would not surprise me. In the early part of the war there were a lot of volunteers, but the pics of the draftees near the end of the war smoking pot and holding M16's makes for a better media "Kodak moment". The link has it's sources posted at the bottom, feel free to take it up with those sources.
Click to expand...

A "Kodak moment"? Clearly the media wanted to sabotage the war right? I mean, victory was finally near after ten years of fighting (G. Gordon Liddy said this, so it must be true). And they were so supportive for most of the fighting, hardly ever questiong the DoD's claims even though McNamara and his friends may not have been completely honest when they told us how things were going. Why be so helpful only to start having doubts at the end. Obviously, they just hate America and want to turn it into a Godless socialist nightmare. And if you're not convinced yet, just look at how the media framed poor Richard Nixon. ;)
 
Renfield said:
A "Kodak moment"? Clearly the media wanted to sabotage the war right? I mean, victory was finally near after ten years of fighting (G. Gordon Liddy said this, so it must be true). And they were so supportive for most of the fighting, hardly ever questiong the DoD's claims even though McNamara and his friends may not have been completely honest when they told us how things were going. Why be so helpful only to start having doubts at the end. Obviously, they just hate America and want to turn it into a Godless socialist nightmare. And if you're not convinced yet, just look at how the media framed poor Richard Nixon. ;)
Click to expand...

Nice strawman.

I never liked Nixon and was in fact a Democrat in those days, so I didn't vote for him. The media used photos that perpetuated the image they wanted to portray of the war. Some of these images led to myths that live on until this day. If you haven't seen the movie Apocalypse Now, check it out for a full dosage of these perpetuated myths.

Was the Vietnam war a screwed up mess? No one denies this.

Victory wasn't near, we left with a peace settlement and Saigon fell two years after we left.
 
Crim's link is very good.

Peptoabysmal's not so much. I kept hitting things to quibble with as I read through it. Most important is this.

From pepto's article:
The United States sought to minimize and prevent attacks on civilians while North Vietnam made attacks on civilians a centerpiece of its strategy. Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison sentences while Communists who did so received commendations.
Click to expand...

That sounds good, but it's not true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Phoenix

Apart from that bit of historical revision, other things bug me. It quotes statistics about the number of Vietnam veterans who "say they are glad they served", which looks like a loaded question to me. I would also be interested in the number of Vietnam veterans who would say that the war was a good idea, that the South Vietnamese government deserved their support, that the deaths of US servicemen were worth it and so forth.

The page purports to debunk the idea that Vietnam was fought by poor and uneducated Americans, but it does so by pointing out that the Vietnam soldiers were the best educated the USA had ever fielded. Which is what you would expect if the general standard of education had risen since the Korean war, and doesn't prove anything.

I have no idea how they think they know that the outcome of the war proved the domino theory to be true. It looks to me like they are playing the "heads I win, tails you lose" game. If Singapore et. al. had gone communist they'd be claiming that the domino theory was true and that the USA should have stayed in Vietnam. Because they didn't turn communist, they claim that the domino theory was true and the US engagement in Vietnam was justified.

I am sure there are plenty of inaccuracies in popular conceptions of what happened in Vietnam, but that page is clearly slanted towards polishing up the justifiably horrid reputation that the Vietnam "police action" earned itself.
 
Re: Re: US and Vietnam

The idea said:
First of all, was it really a friend or was it just an enemy of an enemy? Second, did US politicians actually decide to personally fight in Vietnam? Is it a good thing to draft your own citizens when there is no actual threat to your country?
Click to expand...

Great points! I especially think your comment on US politicians deciding to "personally" fight in Vietnam (or any war) pretty revealing. I think that, from the Korean war on, US politicians have made it a point NOT to personally fight, nor allow their families to fight. It was no secret during Vietnam that the war was being fought by the nation's poor (as is often the case). Dubya managed to get out of going, and how many politicians currently have relatives fighting in Iraq?

In Vietnam, as in Iraq, we were led to believe in an imminent threat. Fight them there so we won't have to fight them here, we've been told (most recently by Bush), but neither the North Vietnamese or the Viet Cong ever showed up in California.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom