The infamous Vietnam war cast serious doubt on Westmoreland’s claims of progress in the war effort. Even after the war, Westmoreland fought off criticisms of his conduct of the war in Vietnam. The United States began developing ground forces to Vietnam under Westmoreland who had decided to conduct a war based on Attrition. His strategy of attrition aimed to inflict heavy losses on North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces using search and destroy operations tactics and superior U.S. firepower. Westmoreland largely ignored other key responsibilities most importantly in dealing with their counterparts in the South Vietnam’s Armed Forces.
First, he mentions the dishonesty of a “one-sided idea of who was kept free” by the war if “the highest percentage of casualties” were African-American (15). Kerry made his speech during the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, and he keeps it in mind when discussing the unfortunate state of veterans in America, particularly black veterans. Similarly, it doesn’t escape his notice that the war America is fighting in a third-world country is much more violent and inhumane than one fought in a European country. He accuses America of losing its “sense of morality” because of its apathy to corruption and massacres such as what happened in My Lai (16). Due to such destructive war tactics, Kerry says that “America placed a cheapness on the lives of” the Southeast Asians that they were fighting (17).
Contextualization and introduction The Vietnam War served as a major turning point of the Cold War, during which the American public split in its support of the conflict. As a proxy in the superpower conflict between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR), the US entered to support the South Vietnamese who were at war against the communist North. To support the South and its Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN), the United States sent military advisory, conducted airstrikes, and committed ground forces with the hope of curbing the growth of communist ideology in the Asian sphere of influence through a communist defeat. However, the American military ultimately did not apply full force against the Northern combatants under the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN/NVA) and Viet Cong (VC). Despite investing considerable quantities of human and material resources to support the South’s fight over control of Vietnam, the focus often diverted to concurrent threats such as West Germany.
In fact, Joseph McCarthy himself suffered this consequence: “It was his clash with the Army that would lead to his downfall” (Robert 3). By accusing the Army of treason, he lost respect in the population and bad opinions spread around, ruining his power streak.This risk prevented these kinds of people from succumbing to actions that would sabotage their reputation. In addition, McCarthyism allowed these kinds of nasty people, such as McCarthy, to act upon unsightly desires. Therefore, the McCarthy trials encouraged the conflict between
First of all, accepting full blame for causing the war was difficult for them to do because they did not agree with the statement, but also, it tainted their reputation for the country as a whole. They knew it would make them appear untrustworthy and ignorant, which could really hurt them in the long run with trades and other economic factors. Also, paying that much money for reparations was just frightening in general. It was just such an excessively high number, so they had every right to worry about going bankrupt or just generally going into a huge debt. Army was more or less just a sign of pride and power.
Throughout United States History, there have been many situations that have limited civil rights. Some of these actions were the Espionage and Sedition Acts, the Executive Order 9066, and the passage of the USA Patriot Act. These actions were very controversial at the time and caused a lot of commotion between Americans and officials. Some people did not agree with them changing our civil liberties and were upset about it while others were fine with them changing our rights. In 1917, the Espionage Act was passed stating that any statement that could interfere with the success of our country winning the war became illegal.
William Golding chose to express his anti-utopian views about humanity in Lord of the Flies. After the two World wars the world was shattered by its horrors. The elements of compassion, humanity, civilization seemed to be fast eroding from the face of earth. People during this period often blamed the political system of some nations who were responsible for the war. They failed to realize that it not any particular system that is responsible for the downfall of social order, instead the individual in power are the ones to be blamed.
The present state of the world is not the proof of philosophy’s impotence, but the proof of philosophy’s power. It is philosophy that has brought men to this state—it is only philosophy that can lead them out. — Ayn Rand, 1961 Look around the world, and you will see something that would have shocked anyone living in the after-math of 9/11. Following the worst attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, with thousands of our citizens killed, Americans were rightly outraged—and their (healthy) response was to demand retaliation. Our leaders in Washington insisted that the people who attacked us would be made to pay.
The My Lai massacre was a point of changing views and perspectives of the American public on the Vietnam War (Source A). The violence of the actions taken were too extreme for many Americans to ignore. The massacre came to represent the war as a whole and the soldiers that were supposed to represent America’s heroes for a number of citizens no longer maintained this hero status but rather were seen as criminals (Source B). The massacre started nation-wide questioning about America’s involvement in the war and even people who were extremely pro-Vietnam war had to reanalyse their rationalisation for the American military presence in Vietnam (Source B). There was an increasing divide in the opinions about the war that only increased after the news of the massacre (Source D); a divide that was splitting the nation into two schools of thought.
There were many people jailed with one reason, they are Muslims. It constitutes a dictatorship type of government and not a constitutional government that promoted democracy. They also did not respect and appreciate the international law. Action should be taken even though US is a strong and major countries, but, human right must be prioritised. The act of President Bush accused Osama as the main actor of the attack, we could see it clearly that his ‘intelligence’ which because they can know who the real enemy is in just few hours of the attacks.