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Media role in vietnam war
Media role in vietnam war
Involvement of the US in the Vietnam war
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There have been many wars throughout US history, but the one that is the most questionable is the twenty year long Vietnam War. Was this war a mistake for America? We sure think it was. There was fighting for twenty years straight with many deaths and really nothing gained in the process. Yeah, we stopped the spread of communism South, but what do we get in return? A huge debt and a whole lot of mourning.
This whole fiasco was started with the start of communism spreading from North Vietnam to South Vietnam which started to scare the United States. When we started hearing about all of this, President Eisenhower came up with the Domino Theory, which stated that if South Vietnam and China fell to communism, the rest of Asia would soon follow
America was getting gradually more and more involved until about 1963 to 1964 when we were doing the most we could and knew this was all out war.
By 1964, the United States was most involved in the war and we kept sending more and more troops and supplies. When we came, we started using new weapons to fight back like the use of Napalm and the even more deadly, Agent Orange from about 1963 to around 1973. There was mainly little squimishes here and there, but no real military actions were taken until January 8, 1966 when the US launched Operation Crimp which is classified as our largest attack of the whole war. Deploying nearly 8,000 soldiers and a number of tanks and other armored vehicles, America set out to locate as many VietCong camps as they could. We showed no mercy, but only found a couple of smaller camps and had a couple of nice little battles. After this "failed" operation, we came up with Operation Birmingham which was a total search and destroy mission with just over 5,000 troops backed by a massive wall of tanks, planes, helicopters, armored vehicles, and other artillery launched on April of 1968 and lasting through May of 1968. During this month and a half to two month span, we only managed to take out about 100 VietCong, but we captured about 500 tons of food and other supplies. Still, Operation Birmingham was considered another fail. With the US seeming to fail all big operations, we eventually withdrew from the war
For instance, this war was the first war to be put live on television. Why would you televise people running around, getting hurt, and even getting killed? It just doesn 't make sense to us, but I 'm sure there was a reason. Another fun fact that seems pretty relevant to the subject is the state in the USA
Vietnam War Page !3 that lost the most people in the battle was California with about 5,575. Second place went to New York with nearly 4,119 fatalities. (archives.gov)
After hearing all of this information, what do you think? Was the war a mistake? We sure do. From all the fighting, the supplies, the money, and especially all of the senseless loss of life brought by the Vietnam War. Let 's just hope that we can stay out if conflicts like this in the
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.
The Americans entered the war in 1964 because they believed in the domino theory, that if one nation fell into communism then other nations would follow. Soon America found it almost impossible to fight against people who were so determined to win, so America pulled its troops out of Vietnam in 1973. Withdrawing the American troops resulted in the South Vietnamese forces being defeated by the communists who then took over the country.
In the history of the United States, foreign policy has caused many disputes over the proper role in international affairs. The views, morals and beliefs of Americans, makes them feel the need to take leadership of the world and help those countries who are in need. The foreign policies of President Eisenhower will eventually lead to the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. President Eisenhower’s role in these policies was based on his military-type strategies to safeguard a victory in the Global Cold War. President Eisenhower’s foreign policies led to an effective involvement in the Cold War and enviably the Vietnam War from an American perspective.
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.
In conclusion, I think that the United States became increasingly involved in the Vietnamese War because of the policies they had made as a promise to fight communism, and because they had sorely underestimated Vietcong’s ability to fight back using Guerrilla warfare. They refused to pull out of the war in fear of losing face before the world, but this pride factor scored them massive losses in the war. In the end, with both side sustaining heavy losses, the US were still seen as mutilators in the war, with advanced showing what their intervention had costed, and Vietnam was still fully taken over by Communism – they had achieved nothing and lost a lot.
The Vietnam War was one of many. One reason some people argue the US should have been in the Vietnam War is because of the belief the US was trying to help establish a democracy there. The Vietnam war helping America win the cold war was another reason people believe the US was justified in the Vietnam war. Others believe that the US should not have been there because they were supporting a corrupt government, another reason is that American warfare was excessive and abusively killed many innocent civilians and ruined the land. While it appeared that the US was trying to spread democracy and win the cold war, but in truth, the US was supporting a mini Hitler, and our strategy had little chance of
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.
By 1960 the American troops were sent in to fight a war that cost; Fifty-eight thousand Americans lost their lives. The losses to the Vietnamese people were appalling. The financial cost to the United States comes to something over $150 billion dollars. Direct American involvement began in 1955 with the arrival of the first advisors. The first combat troops arrived in 1965 and we fought the war until the cease-fire of January 1973.
1965 to stop the threat of communism and by 1975, the war was over and
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.
In May 1961, John F. Kennedy sent investigators to Vietnam, thus turning the tide in favor of the United States and South Vietnam. Unfortunately, with the flow of infiltrators and weapons from North Vietnam, the United States and South Vietnam lost their upper hand (Tucker). Conclusively, 2.5 million Americans served and about 58,000 lost their lives in Vietnam (Vietnam Veterans Memorial). On April 30, 1975 Vietnam was finally reunited under a communist government. Once the war ended, Vietnam was devastated. Both the South and North Vietnamese economies were in shambles and they suffered from the chemical pesticides. The Vietnamese also lost about 3 million soldiers and civilians during the war. The United States also suffered due to the fact that the military was completely shattered and had to be rebuilt. The inflation was at an ultimate high from the failure to fact the actual costs of war. These situations forced Washington D.C. to reevaluate the power of the United States
The Vietnam War has had its effects on America, both good and bad. We can ridicule it, we can deny it, we can say it was for the best, we can say we shouldn't have even gotten involved, but the one thing we can't do is ignore it. Because it's become an unforgettable part of history, and we all need to remember Vietnam.
However, the Tonkin Gulf Incident was questioned to have even happened, which makes the war undoubtedly questionable immediately after the incident. Many troops were killed in Vietnam and the United States eventually lost the war and did not achieve their goal of stopping communism.... ... middle of paper ... ... Also, “Johnson’s personal pledge not to ‘lose Vietnam’ and his stake in the Great Society programs, the economy was inadvertently the victim” (Helsing 228).
From 1965 to 1973, the United States military sent over 536,000 combat troops into the jungles, villages, and swamps of Vietnam. Of these 536,000, over 58,000 men would never return. Despite air superiority, artillery, and the most technologically advanced armed forces in the world, the United States slumped to defeat by the hands of both their enemy and themselves. Unpreventably so, the United States of America was defeated in Vietnam due egregious errors in political and military judgment, lack of popular support and an extreme unpreparedness to fight the Vietcong and North Vietnamese in a guerilla war.
Vietnam was a struggle which, in all honesty, the United States should never have been involved in. North Vietnam was battling for ownership of South Vietnam, so that they would be a unified communist nation. To prevent the domino effect and the further spread of communism, the U.S. held on to the Truman Doctrine and stood behind the South Vietnamese leader, Diem.