The Vietnam War: The Anti-War Movement

The civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. went public with his opposing views to the war on moral grounds, as well as Boxer Muhammad Ali who resisted his conscription into service during the Vietnam War. Ali, declared himself a "conscientious objector," earning a prison sentence and a ban from

Opposition to the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War The two events protested the war in Washington, D.C. On 24 April 1971 and Anti-Vietnam War demonstration in 1967 demonstrate a large number of the American population were opposed to U.S. involvement in the South Vietnam during the course of the Vietnam War. Public opinion was strongly against the war from 1967 to 1970, which resulted in only a third of Americans supposed that the U.S made a right decision over participating in Vietnam War. It is why special groups led the anti-war movement to avoid America 's involved in the Vietnam War.

The Unites States bombing campaign was one of the reasons the North Vietnamese troops were pushed further into Cambodia. As much as Cambodia wanted to remain neutral in the Vietnam War, they could not avoid it. When the United States and North Vietnamese came to a cease fire and formed a peace treaty the U.S pulled out their troops, but they left with an ongoing war between the Cambodian citizens and their government. The disputes with the government led to the rise of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge were brutal and harsh killed millions in efforts to reconstruct Cambodia.

Failure of US in this war was a big setback for the American hegemony. After that incident, USA never tried to use the forces in Southeast Asia. In case of North Korea also it is using diplomacy policy and trying to solve the issue with the help of dialogue because they are well aware that, military action may lead to Vietnam II. A lot of arguments surrounding the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War are relevant today in U.S. foreign policy and politics

Nationalism was one of the main cause of the Vietnam war because The United States initially entered the Vietnam War to aid the French but it was nationalism that caused the both the Communist North and American’s to continue the war. I think the most important causes are the divide between the capitalists and communists. After the divid of ideology they both got different leaders, the south’s leader was Diem and the north’s leader was Ho Chi Minh. Ho Chi Minh was also a nationalist as well as a communist. I think these two causes are the most important causes of the Vietnam War because if the country was divided into two, they want to have a war to see which sides wins to see which side is right.

Music As Protest Music has been used throughout many wars and conflicts as a way to protest and share the beliefs of people. I choose Creedence Clearwater Revivals song “Fortunate Son”, because this song spoke to the masses during the Vietnam Conflict taking place on the other side of the world. Creedence Clearwater Revival created a song that shared what the many people believed in the United States and helped get their voices heard. “Fortunate Son” shared the true story about majority of the middle and lower class Americans feelings. Vietnam had just gone through a war through 1954 to push France their colonial ruler out.

In order to aid the people and over through the communist government the United States got involved what came to be known as the Vietnam War. As the United States saw no end to the war with withdraw of US troops from Vietnam allowed the communist party to come to full power in the

The Vietnam War took place during the cold war era, which lasted many years and could be described as the clashing of two conflicting ideologies between the communist eastern countries and the capitalist western countries. The Americans aimed at stopping the spread of communism in Vietnam, based on the their policy of containment, which was set up to stop the spread of communism to any other country in the world. Many American citizens opposed the sending of their own troops to fight in a war that was not even theirs to lose. Many of the soldiers being sent to Vietnam were members of the youth, which led to increasingly rapid protest action amongst students, as well as the parents of the young men being conscripted. These American troops were being placed to fight in unfamiliar and harsh terrain – as the majority of Vietnam was overgrown with forests and dangerous wildlife - which negatively affected the Americans morale and diminishing their possibility of success in the war.

As politicians continued to send more and more troops to Vietnam, Americans began to question the involvement of the US and voiced their disapproval openly. In 1963, Bob Dylan recorded, “Masters of War,” as an angry protest song that voiced the opinions of the young people who were protesting against the war. He describes the brutality of war throughout the song. He explained how the government builds death planes, big bombs, and guns to aid in the brutality. Pointing fingers at the government, Dylan claims that they only build in order to destroy.

There were really strong leaders in the Vietnamese War. The Vietnamese War started between the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam with United States. The war was fought in the purpose of deciding whether Vietnam should be ruled in a communist way. The Vietnamese War was a conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. Creighton Abrams, Ho Chi Minh, William Westmoreland, John F. Kennedy, and Vo Nguyen Giap are some of the Big leaders during those times.

The Tet offensive, which took place on the 31st of January 1968, had huge significance on the political landscape of America, and public opinion on the war in Vietnam. After the Tet offensive, public support for the war plummeted, and with ever increasing support in the anti-war movement and protests, the war in Vietnam was no longer justifiable to the American public. As a result of this president Johnson stepped down from running for re-election, leaving an anti-war democrat running against an anti-war republican. This meant that Nixon was elected, which arguably ended the Vietnam War, due to his change in tactics.

V. Conclusion O 'Brien brings up many instances that show how things went wrong in the Vietnam War, not only because important problems were overlooked at the time but also because the American public sought at first to erase the war from their collective memories. Many Vietnam Veterans felt isolated from the American mainstream after they returned from service. After the period of erasure ended, the public commemoration, through movies and stories, sought to supplant the reality of Vietnam with a more endearing story that could be cherished as much as the myths that surround World War II, “O 'Brien points out that the evils of the Vietnam War are not merely forgotten, but all but deleted from American mythology and memory” (Ooms 26).

Immigration reform is one of the most contentious issues in America today, provoking angry debates in Congress, fueling tension in town hall meetings across the country, and even dividing families. In 2007, as the battle over immigration reform played out in Congress, Tom Selders, the Republican mayor of Greeley, Colorado, put a local face on the issue. Selders spoke out on Capitol Hill about the devastating effect of an immigration raid at a Greeley meatpacking plant and urged Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform. As a result, he faced a backlash of criticism at home. Selders knew his public stance on immigration was politically risky, particularly since he was seeking reelection in the upcoming mayoral race.

The 1950’s through the 1970’s was a time filled with hardship for many Americans because of the ineffective invasion of Vietnam. In a completely unreasonable manner, the United States attempted to end communism in Vietnam, by investing an exceedingly large amount of money on war materials and losing plenty of lives, only to fail; the U.S., filled with pride, became involved in the war completely oblivious of the North Vietnamese military force and should not have entered the war until they were aware of the forces of China and the Soviet Union (allies of North Vietnam). In 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower sent advisors to Vietnam to train the South Vietnamese soldiers in order to battle against the North Vietnamese forces. Then, Eisenhower delivered a speech1, The Domino Theory, giving Americans his opinion on Southeast Asia’s future if the U.S. overlooked the communism occurring in Vietnam. Eisenhower stated that if Vietnam was not under any influence by the United States, communism would spread from one country to the next, resulting in the entire southeast becoming communist.

Eventually, the French were defeated and the United States continued to get involved with Vietnam. Thousands of troops were sent to Vietnam and millions of Vietnamese were killed as well as the poisoning of entire regions. The war had essentially destroyed both North and South Vietnam. The Vietnam War is very infamous and it has had many consequences on the U.S society and Asian Americans for years to come.