“Our present course [in Vietnam] will not bring victory; will not bring peace; will not stop the bloodshed; and will not advance the interests of the United States or the cause of peace in the world.”
Robert F. Kennedy, March 1968
The Vietnam War is one of the most controversial events in American history. The war was between communist North Vietnam and the democratic South Vietnamese. Many Americans felt that we entered the war under false pretenses and were interfering in a civil war that we didn’t belong. There were other reasons that Americans opposed this war, including the economic cost to our country and the use of the draft, which affected the uneducated poor, young and African American populations.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
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As Robert F. Kennedy stated in 1968, “It is because we have sought to resolve by military might a conflict whose issue depends upon the will and conviction of the South Vietnamese people.” On top of not being wanted by the people we were fighting for, many people at home felt that this was a war that the US didn't need to interfere in. They felt that the civil war was being fought by North and South Vietnam and we had no business getting in the middle of it. (Document …show more content…
King, a supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his Great Society, became concerned about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He believed that the Vietnam War diverted money and attention from domestic programs created to aid the black poor and would benefit only the banks who fund wars and the industries that supply the war. King said, ‘the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home…We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.'” (Document
The war in Vietnam to do this day has gone down as one of the influential and controversial wars in United States history. The war lasted from 1955 to 1975.The nation as a whole began to uproar over the war and the major consequences of the war. There were many reasons why so many Americans were against the war. Public opinion steadily turned against the war following 1967 and by 1970 only a third of Americans believed that the U.S. had not made a mistake by sending troops to fight in Vietnam (Wikipedia). Not to mention, many young people protested because they were the ones being drafted while others were against the war because the anti-war movement grew increasingly popular among the counterculture and drug culture in American society and
1b. The significance of Vietnamization is that it was started by Richard Nixon and it stated that he would withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam slowly and give South Vietnamese money, weapons, and training needed to win the war. This event caused the number of US troops in Vietnam to go from 540,000 to 30,000 in a span of four years. He got U.S. troops out of a war they did not know why they were fighting in. 2a.
Was US involvement in Vietnam Justified? US involvement in Vietnam was to large extent unjustified. Even though the United States. Even though the United States, and other western countries, alleged that American involvement in Vietnam was morally justified (Source B)
Richard Nixon gives the speech “The Greatest Silent Majority” during the Vietnamese war to convince Americans to support South Vietnam in their war against the communist takeover from North Vietnam. To specify, the speech directs primarily to the Silent Majority, the people who oppose the Vietnamese war. Throughout the speech, Nixon uses rhetorical appeals to support the freedom of South Vietnam state the reasons why America should remain in the war. In 1955, communist North Vietnam wants to reunite the North and South and has the support of China along with the rebellious South Vietnam army creating a war in Asia. In 1969, Nixon became the thirty-seventh president.
“I thought the Vietnam war was an utter, unmitigated disaster, so it was very hard for me to say anything good about it” - George McGovern. There are numerous controversial topics dispersed among the subject of American history due to the amount of unethical decisions that have been made in order to improve the lives of the people or keep America out of the clutches of war. Throughout American history, historians have debated the ethical impact that the Vietnam war had on the United States. Although some people may believe that the Vietnam War achieved the goal of avoiding communism and protecting the people, the overarching idea is that it was an unjust war because of the countless lives that were lost from the participating countries, the
The US first started getting involved with Vietnam in 1960 under President Truman to prevent communism taking over all of Vietnam and would not end its involvement until 1973 under President Nixon. In the beginning of his term, Johnson approved NSAM 273 “which directed the U.S. government to assist the people and Government of South Vietnam to win their contest against the externally directed and supported Communist conspiracy" and NSAM 288 which increased US involvement (Germany, “Lyndon B. Johnson”). Johnson officially authorized the US entering the Vietnam war in 1965 where “its legacy was 58,220 American soldiers dead, a huge drain on the nation’s finances, social polarisation and the tarnishing of the reputation of the United States” (White, “Why did Lyndon”). Towards the end of the term he reflected “I knew from the start that I was bound to be crucified either way I moved” saying that he was torn between leaving the Great Society or letting communism take over Vietnam (White, “ Why did Lyndon”).
President Lyndon Johnson 's continued support for the South Vietnamese was a culmination of misunderstandings and misconceptions throughout the war. Johnson inherited a difficult issue from Kennedy, and his choices were few and crucial. The United States entered the war confident of, if not certain of, success. However, a small-scale military effort quickly expanded into a vast military crisis. Events of Vietnam locked the United States onto a path of immense military intervention and ultimately destroyed Johnson 's presidency.
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.
The Vietnam War was strictly between North and South Vietnam. Many people say that we had no business in getting involved. Furthermore, the Americans were lied to by their own government. Who would trust a government that as been lying to them the time? Especially in a time of war.
The Vietnam War was a part of a larger attempt for America to contain the spread of communism throughout the whole world. In the beginning, little did the American government know that the Vietnam War would become the longest war in US history. America went through four presidents throughout the duration of the war: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. The majority of these men refused to give up in Vietnam, and they decided to escalate the war by constantly sending more men to replace those who had lost their lives. It wasn’t until President Nixon when the US government made the decision to flee from Vietnam.
The joint Chief’s ideology was an inflated version of the “Domino theory”: South Vietnam was pivotal to America 's worldwide battle with Communism and a defeat in Vietnam would affect the United States (Karnow 342). Nevertheless, by early 1965 after he won his first mandate as President, Johnson concluded that only direct American intervention could prevent Communism from spreading to South Vietnam, and more importantly defend him from being the first ever president to lose a war (Karnow 350). Johnson and his advisers both inherited the assumption from Eisenhower and Kennedy that an independent Vietnam was essential for the defense of Southeast Asia and America 's global credibility (Karnow 393). As much as Johnson hoped to limit America 's
He says “we were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.” King uses this statement to point out the inconsistency with America trying to establish freedom far away before establishing freedom on their own home soil. Additionally, King’s statement that Southeast Asia is eight thousand miles away strengthens the irony by making Southeast Asia seem like a place which is completely disconnected from America. This quote causes the audience to realize the contradiction in the Vietnam war policy, making them less likely to accept
In his 1967 speech on the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King, Jr. employs figurative language and syntactical elements to construct his argument against the hypocrisy and cruelty of American involvement in the war. Martin Luther King, Jr. utilizes figurative to emphasize the inhumanity and immorality of the war. In describing the ways in which the war is detrimental to the American people, King writes that "Vietnam [continues] to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube" (King). King draws a comparison between the war and an unholy vaccuum while enumerating what the U.S. loses as a result of the war to shed light on the resources and lives that could be better spent improving the U.S. itself as opposed to acting
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.
Throughout the first paragraph of King’s speech, he used emotional diction with words such as struggle, poverty, and poor to prove that the war in Vietnam was bringing down the American’s and their families fighting overseas. King proved this partly with the quote, “America would never invest the necessary funds… in the rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued…” (King, Beyond, 9). King was establishing his point that America was more troubled about healing and adjusting other countries, but would never invest the same in their own country. He was in the process of proving that it wasn 't a money issue in America, but an equality issue.