Many people know of the Vietnam War and its devastating effect on both the United States and Vietnam, but few know of its effect on Cambodia and the mass genocide following the war. The United States, under Lyndon Johnson’s administration, bombed Cambodian villages believed to be containing Vietnamese communists and supply routes. U.S carpet bombing began to increase in support of the pullout of U.S troops in Vietnam. The B-52 bombing campaign ended as a result of a peace treaty between the United States and the North Vietnamese, but the Khmer Rouge and Lon Nol armies continued to fight until Phenom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge. The Khmer Rouge then began their terrible reign and efforts to reconstruct Cambodia resulting in a mass genocide. The Vietnam War had a lasting negative impact on Cambodia and its people, with the United States lack of involvement in the civil war leading to the rise of the communist group the Khmer Rouge. Between 1965 and 1975 the Vietnam War began to expand into Cambodian territory. In 1965 Cambodia, under Prince Sihanouk, officially cut ties with the United States in effort to remain neutral in …show more content…
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. Eventually the Khmer Rouge fell and the people were
However, in 1970, Nixon started Vietnamization, that involved withdrawing 540,000 US troops from South Vietnam over a period of time. It also included South Vietnam taking responsibility of fighting their own way by giving them American money, weapons, training. In 1971, a man by the name of Daniel Ellsberg from the New York Times published the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the war. These papers claimed that the U.S had been involved in large scale bombings in Laos and Cambodia as well as raiding the the coasts of North Vietnam.
The Cambodian Campaign was a series of military operations conducted in eastern Cambodia during 1970 by the United States and the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War. These invasions were a result of the policy of President Richard Nixon. A total of 13 major operations were conducted by the Army of the Republic of Vietnam between April 29 and July 22 and by US forces between May 1 and June
Nixon learned from Kissinger that the Vietcong had strongholds in Cambodia so Nixon decide to extend the war into Cambodia and for a coup to get the Vietcong out. In Grandin’s book Kissinger mad the case that the war spreading into Cambodia meant the Vietcong had new hideouts and it would hurt the Vietnamization policy . Now the United States bombed North Vietnam and Cambodia. On page 71 in the foot note the Kissinger book even notes that the Vietcong in Cambodia were hiding in remote places but the US liked to attack the Cambodian Farmers to weaken the Vietcong . With the eventual end of the Vietnam War and with the Nixon Doctrine beginning peace with
On March 8th 1965, America entered the Vietnam war. The United States entered the war in an effort to prevent the spread of communist beliefs. On May 30th, 1970, President Richard Nixon declared that the South Vietnamese army, along with American troops were going to invade the country of Cambodia. This was to disrupt North Vietnamese supply lines. The news of the invasion struck people with anger and fear throughout America.
Nixon dedicated a $100-million to begin the war on cancer. However, during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong signed a peace treaty but the American people knew that once the US took all of their soldiers out of Vietnam that the North would continue their invasion into the South. Just as predicted they did. The end result of this was that the South’s capital, Saigon, fell and caused the South to become Communist. Also causing surrounding countries to fall into Communism.
People were saying that his decision to bomb Cambodia was not ending the war, it was making it worse. Many people protested against Nixon’s decisions during the Vietnam War and it did not end well. At Kent State University four students were killed guardsmen because the were protesting against the Vietnam War. On January 27, 1973 the Paris Peace Accords made an end to the Vietnam War and all U.S. military involvement (“Nixon Declares Vietnam”). North Vietnam ended up winning and the United States and South Vietnam lost.
With the US military helping South Vietnam against the North Vietnam. The South Vietnam didn’t not feel like they had support under the Western’s power, which South Vietnam didn’t because Nixon was trying to help the South Vietnam, but no involving US soldiers to fight in the war. Although, Nixon made the Vietnamization policy to stop US involvement it cause more of a uprise for the US position in the war. The New Economic policy and Nixon Doctrine both policies made by Nixon was only towards his presidency and not actually stopping the US involvement. Nixon said it would make a change in the US involvement to better but instead Nixon didn’t follow up upon his campaign promises.
Many of the presidents during this war were not successful in ending it such as Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Johnson had a campaign promise to keep troops out of Vietnam and contain communism. In March 1965, he let an operation called Operation Rolling Thunder take place. Operation Rolling Thunder was an action of sustained bombing against North Vietnam (Fagnilli 32). Nixon was able lose American distrust through his war policies like the Invasion of Cambodia.
As Vietnamization took place, the United States military would withdraw 150,000 from South Vietnam within a year (Dean 73). Simultaneously, he was supplying the Southern Vietnamese people with military support and even helping with their government. When Nixon helped politically, he “expand[ed] its political base in rural areas… offered U.S. assistance to help South Vietnamese officials organize local elections and implement social reforms and economic development initiatives” (History.com Staff 1). While Vietnamization was taking place a treaty titled The Paris Peace Accords was negotiated between all of
Causes of the Cambodian Genocide The Cambodian genocide took place from 1975 to 1979; it is estimated that some two million Cambodians were systematically murdered by the Khmer Rouge and its followers (Power 90). In Alexander Hinton’s article, “A Head for an Eye” he recounts in details the experience of Gen, a survivor of the Cambodian Genocide. After the Lon Nol government was overthrown by the Khmer Rouge, the Communists began their witch-hunt in an attempt to identify and kill anyone who was associated with the former regime, as well as the educated, the Vietnamese, the Muslim Cham, the Buddhist monks, and other “bourgeois elements” (Power 101). During the investigation, it was revealed that Gen’s father was a teacher–this fact alone was
The Vietnam War was a war the United States should have never been involved in. The “Domino Theory” was a direct cause of the war. The war resulted in much death; innocent civilians and young Americans were killed. The Vietnam war also resulted in rioting, distrust for the United States government, and the loss of many lives. 58,000 Americans were killed and 300,000 were wounded.
People had antiwar demonstrations in many parts of the country. In 1969, Richard Nixon was elected President. He started bringing soldiers home, but U.S. planes also increased bombing of North Vietnam and started bombing Cambodia, a country west of Vietnam. In 1973, North Vietnam, South Vietnam, and the United States agreed to a cease-fire.
The Khmer Rouge was a revolutionary group who wanted to reconstruct Cambodian society. On April 17, 1975 the Khmer Rouge attacked the capitol Phnom Penh. As soon as the Khmer Rouge got to the capitol they started to force the people to leave all their possessions and march to the rural part of Cambodia. “Hospital patients
It is quite difficult to compare two wars that happened 180 years apart from each other, the Vietnam war 1955 to 1975, and the American Revolutionary war 1775 to 1783. Yes, both wars are all that different from each other, in fact I would say that they were the two least similar wars in American history. These wars are very similar because they both used guerilla warfare, a form of irregular warfare that uses tactics such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, and mobility to fight a larger less mobile military force. However a major difference in the wars was that the Revolutionary war was fought to gain independence, while the Vietnam war was fought to maintain independence. Another difference is that the U.S. were ‘Victors’ in the Revolutionary war, and were not so in the Vietnam war.
1. What problems did the United States face in the Vietnam War? As the United States struggled against communism in Vietnam, it would face many problems. In the late 1950’s President Eisenhower and later President Kennedy sent military supplies and advisers to South Vietnam. Despite the American aid the Vietcong grew stronger with support from North Vietnam.