ipl-logo

Hawks In The Vietnam War

437 Words2 Pages

The Vietnam War divided the United States into two separate categories: Hawks and Doves. Supporters of the war were known as Hawks, while pacifists were known as Doves. The Hawks believed the aggression North Vietnam displayed forced the United States into war, whereas Doves felt the civil war in Vietnam was not the United States responsibility and it was causing unnecessary costs and deaths. Not too long before the Vietnam War, a movement called the “Red Scare” flourished throughout America. The Red Scare promoted fear of a potential rise in communism. A commonly believed idea to the hawks, known as the "Domino Theory”, supported this agitation. This notion states if one country transitions towards communism then the surrounding countries …show more content…

Furthermore, the Doves held a substantial amount of anti-war protests. Many students participated in sit-ins and marches, young men burned their draft card, and protesters took over buildings and destroyed property at various universities. They believed American lives and money were being wasted on an unjust war. Such antiwar protests fed a widespread spirit of rebellion. Young people of the 1960's and 1970's refused to follow traditional American culture and values. The Doves changed the way they dressed, the music they listened to, and overall way of life. People believed in the judgment of Doves due to the peaceful and civil manner in which they believed the war should conclude. The Doves were against the bombing of Vietnam and desired the removal of troops from foreign land. Moreover, they assumed the Vietnamese people could improve their own government without any American intervention. Though the Doves presented logical and well-thought through arguments, I agree considerably more with the Hawk’s perceptions over the Vietnam War. It was crucial in the achievement of world peace and aimed to help Vietnam through a detrimental

Show More
Related
547 Words | 3 Pages

The Red Scare Analysis During the rise of World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union had been brought into an alliance due to both of their desires to defeat Nazi, Germany. Although the Soviet Union’s aggressive, antidemocratic policy towards Europe created tensions even before World War II had ended. That being said, they tolerated each other as much as they could but weren’t exactly friends. The United States government was initially hostile to the Soviet leaders for their decision to take Russia out of World War I and was opposed to a state ideologically based on communism. The main conflict between them was their inability to agree about communism.

Read More
1094 Words | 5 Pages

Sam Roberts in the article A Decade of Fear argues that McCarthyism turned Americans against each other. Roberts supports his claim by illustrating fear, describing betrayal, and comparing it to other United States internal conflicts. The author’s purpose is to point out a vulnerable period of American history in order to demonstrate that Americans felt prey to McCarthy’s negative propaganda. The author writes in a cynical tone for an educated audience. I strongly agree with Robert’s claim.

Read More
643 Words | 3 Pages

The American War Against Fear World War II was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945, in which it encompassed the major nations in the world, including the United States of America. The aftermath of the war, in which the United States and its allied powers emerged victorious, should have marked a period of political tranquility. However this supposition proved incorrect, as the American ethos was ravaged by a state of political and military tension between the United States and the Soviet Union. More than a military conflict, the Cold War was an ideological war in which democracy and communism clashed. The Cold War fears of the American people, reflected in the mass hysteria behind the Red Scare and McCarthyism, was entrenched in the

Read More
568 Words | 3 Pages

“There is at the outset a very obvious... connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I and others have been waging in America,”(Document E: Martin Luther King, Jr.). During the period of the Vietnam War, division struck the United States due to people’s vast opinions, this caused a rift in the country and began protests. Citizens of the USA did have legitimate reasons to protest the Vietnam War, but not all agreed with that. American citizens had many different reasons to protest the Vietnam War, but the biggest reason was that people were realizing how horrific wars truly were.

Read More
280 Words | 2 Pages

I find Ho Chi Minh’s letter far more persuasive than Lyndon B. Johnson’s. Using ethos, pathos, and logos, he forms a solid argument that supports Vietnam’s stance on the war. He appeals to one’s emotions by expressing the injustices faced by his people, writing, “In South Viet-Nam a half-million American soldiers and soldiers from the satellite countries have resorted to the most barbarous methods of warfare, such as napalm, chemicals, and poison gases in order to massacre our fellow countrymen, destroy the crops, and wipe out villages.” Words such as “massacre” and “barbarous” highlight the severity of these crimes, and invoke feelings of guilt and remorse in the reader. Chi Minh uses ethos to support his logos, or logical, views on the

Read More
643 Words | 3 Pages

The author says that perhaps many citizens may be drawn to Communist ideology if the social injustices become more prevalent, and urges the readers to look into the problems of Communist civilizations. This article is an example of how many felt during the Red Scare and Cold War in regards to communism. It shows that people felt a collapse

Read More
1685 Words | 7 Pages

The American’s setback in Vietnam War is already tattooed in their history. It triggered shameful criticism both to General William Westmoreland and the US government. Even today, many Americans still ask whether the American effort in Vietnam was a sin, a blunder, an indispensable war, a noble cause, or an idealistic campaign (History Learning Site, 2015). Instrumental to this campaign was American General William C. Westmoreland who engineered the build-up and consolidation of U.S. military forces in South Vietnam. He is considered to be the primary reason why he was not able to win the war in Vietnam as he overestimated the American people’s patience and tolerance of friendly losses.

Read More
1222 Words | 5 Pages

The Vietnam Was devastating time for not just America, but worldwide. This War lead to 1 million, four hundred and fifty thousand casualties from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. This devastating number only increased when you also take into account the other side, the Americans, with more than 50,000 casualties. One may argue that a major reason the Vietnam War occurred was due to the disagreement between the Soviet Reds and the Great Uncle Sam after World War 2. The Reds wanted to spread communism, this left Americans not too pleased because they were capitalist all the way.

Read More
880 Words | 4 Pages

It’s the 1920’s and fear sweeps through the United States. When communists overthrew the Russian government in the 1917 Bolshevik Russian Revolution, the United States government resolved to prevent a similar uprising in America. American citizens also had a growing fear that the new communist ideals in Russia would spread to the United States, damaging the nation’s democracy. This fear of communism was known as “The Red Scare” or “The First Red Scare.”

Read More
1362 Words | 6 Pages

America’s fear of communism stretched beyond the western hemisphere; the Domino Theory became popular in the 1960s as the Vietnam War was increasingly seen as a threat to democracy in Asia. The Domino Theory is the belief that a communist victory in one nation would start a “chain reaction of communist takeovers in neighboring states. ”(Domino Theory) In the Vietnam War, this theory was used as a justification for American involvement. Communism, as understood by the American people, was a threat to peace and liberty.

Read More
891 Words | 4 Pages

Martin Luther King Junior claimed the source of the tensions was that young black men were dying so that the Vietnamese could have rights which black Americans didn’t even have (Doc C). This caused social tension because young men were forced to die for “freedom” when their own communities were discriminated against and abused. Another social tension was caused by the decay of society while the Vietnam War raged on. The political cartoon “Onward and Upward” illustrates that President Johnson sacrificed the means to better society in order to finance the war (Doc D). This frustrated many Americans because they believed more money and effort should be put into education and healthcare, social issues which impacted nearly every American, but instead government funding went towards the war, which many Americans felt was entirely useless.

Read More
992 Words | 4 Pages

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.

Read More
1101 Words | 5 Pages

The Vietnam war took a major death toll in Vietnam, United States, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia. Just in the U.S., “more than 58,000 American soldiers were killed while more than 150,000 others wounded”. On both sides, there were almost 2 million civilians dead and 1.1 simply on the Vietnamese side. The My Lai Massacre, where soldiers brutally killed Vietnamese children and mothers, presents an example where the war mentally changed the soldiers in the war in a very horrendous way. On the other hand, the United States took brutal losses in the Tet Offensive, where the Vietcong slaughtered over 100 towns and twelve United States air bases.

Read More
1887 Words | 8 Pages

The Vietnam War began in the year 1957 and did not conclude till the year 1975. However, the United States did not enter the war till 1965, and left by 1973 (Skinner 1). When the U.S. made the decision to go to war, not everyone in the country was pleased. The country was divided over the idea of the U.S. getting involved in a foreign-affair war. Some believed that the U.S. had a responsibility to assist South Vietnam, a U.S. ally.

Read More
496 Words | 2 Pages

The threat of a world dominated by Communist governments by the

Read More

More about Hawks In The Vietnam War

Open Document