Countless Americans lack education of the Vietnam War and what treatment the Vietnamese population received during the war. Many times the behavior conducted towards the Vietnamese portrayed American soldiers mistreating the noncombatants. James W. Loewen’s chapter nine of Lies My Teacher Told Me leads readers through the occurrences in the Vietnam War by elaborating the war crimes enacted by American soldiers, examining the intervention of America in the war, and describing pictures that were taken during the war. One subject Loewen uncovers is the analysis of the war crimes throughout the Vietnam War.
R. McMaster is an American soldier and a career officer in the U.S army. The purpose of McMaster’s book is to analyze how and why the United States becomes involved in the Vietnam War. During this, the author also explains on what he thinks why the president decided to keep the war going instead and escalate it. McMaster came to a conclusion that Johnson made the mess himself and he chose to escalate the war. The author presents the war as a consequence of specific decisions made by specific men, Lyndon B. Johnson.
4. The Vietnam War saw the use of many controversial military tactics used by both the United States and their allies, as well as the Viet Cong and NVA. On the American side, one of the most prevalent and well known missions was Operation Ranch Hand, a decade long herbicidal warfare campaign that is still causing terrible birth defects to this day. The herbicides used in Agent Orange were contaminated with an even worse chemical, known as TCDD, which is a heavy carcinogen and teratogen. In the period that it was used, agricultural lands were sprayed with Agent Orange in an attempt to starve the enemy by destroying the main crop in the region, rice.
Larry Berman's, No Peace, No Honor (Touchstone), argues that Richard Nixon wanted to be remembered as a great foreign policy president, however, his plans went array due to the Watergate scandal. Berman believes that with the aid of Henry Kissinger, President Nixon buried the truth about America's “honorable” pulling out of South Vietnam, thus leaving the South to fend off their northern counterparts. It is argued by Kissinger that the administration won the war and that it was Congress that lost it. Kissinger has said that it is evident that congress lost the war when they defunded any continued military activity that could have prevented the communist from taking over South Vietnam. Berman argues that Nixon and Kissinger both knew that with
In a “Vietnam Veterans against the war”, John Kerry’s comment on President Nixon not wanting to become, “the first President to lose a war,” illustrates just how insistent Nixon was on maintaining a superior Presidential image of power. Ironically, Nixon has one of the more, if not the most, tarnished Presidential image due to the Watergate scandal. Kerry’s speech drove the idea that the Veterans fighting in Vietnam did not believe that they were there to do good and did not feel that they were the “heroes” liberalizing the Vietnamese from the dangers of communism. As he notes, most people there did not understand the difference between communism and democracy. The freedom the Vietnamese sought was liberation from the helicopters, the bombs,
Because of its many complexity’s, the Nevada state legislature has various strengths and weaknesses and some components are both. For example, the 120-day session restriction. The restriction saves the state money, because the longer a session runs the costlier it becomes, even though the state only pays a salary for the first 60 days, they still pay expenses for the second 60. However, this session restriction also forces the legislator to do a lot in a relatively short time. Which can lead to questionable decision making, such as when the time the senate passed 9 bills in seven minutes (pg. 72). Another weakness of the legislature, is the decision to have biennale sessions rather than annual sessions, which has created problems for the
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
The U.S did anything they could to get the upper hand in the war any many people see their bombing in cambodia a major violation of war. Even with these articles it shows that the U.S main purpose was no peace in the war but to stop an opposing force by any means possible then figure out peace later. Their reason behind this was the domino theory which says that if one nation comes under Communist control, then neighboring nations will also come under Communist control. LBJ used this to justify increasing US involvement in Vietnam. In Document 3 is says that No act of violence which makes the return to peace more difficult as well as Killing the enemy is not the main purpose, obtaining your goal is.
In 1955, America stepped foot into Vietnam for what they thought was war, but in reality, was a slaughtering of the lambs. Nick Turse unearths the true realities (and horrors) of what actually occurred during the years in Vietnam in his book “Kill Anything That Moves: The Real American War in Vietnam”. Naturally, this book unfolds not only the politics and racial tensions between American soldiers and Vietnamese revolutionaries, but it also eradicates the glorious misconceptions of the morally upright man. Turse begins the book with the chilling re-telling of the massacre at Trieu Ai.
In his essay, Hills explains how Nixon evokes the intended response from the immediate audience by gaining support for the war. Nixon states in his speech, “tonight-to you, the great silent majority of my fellow Americans-I ask for your support.” Here, Nixon uses resentment in sacrifice in lives and finance, longing for some action in a marked direction were strategies used to gain support instead of “teaching.” This in turn allowed America to continue in the war which proves that he agrees with Foss for Nixon’s primary role was not that of a teacher or
The Vietnam War in American history exceeds a reputation of being one of the most unpopular, violent, and unnecessary in its time. Although there was a big support basis at the beginning of the war, many soldiers that were drafted or enlisted to fight realized the dangers of the event amongst each other, and had to help each other strive through to make it out alive and hopefully maintain a healthy conscious. During the times of war, relationships in the platoon can be rough, undesirable, and even violent in certain moments, but in reality, soldiers culminate into a brotherhood and family. At some points in war, many soldiers have rough relationships with their comrades.
“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 Vietnam War leaves a legacy of moral confusion with each and every soldier who serves. Soldiers are fighting for a cause they do not necessarily believe in, killing people who do not necessarily deserve it, and watching their brothers die beside them. Tim O’Briens’ book, The Things They Carried, illustrates the soldiers struggle to define morality throughout the confusion of the war. On the Rainy River, Tim O’Brien faces what he feels is his moral obligation to answer his country’s call and fight in Vietnam, and a personal moral issue with the reason for the war.
I choose this topic about the conflict and compromise of the Vietnam War because I have always been captivated in the History of the Vietnam War. I had a brief history lesson of the Vietnam War during my U.S. history class. I wanted to learn more about how the United States government ever got involved in the Vietnam War. In addition to that, the critical controversy that I wanted to explore a bit more is the compromise and the ending of the Vietnam War on whether or not the United States lost the War in terms of time, money, and lives lost during this era. I conducted my research on my topic by analyzing the recovered articles, or newspapers wrote during the time of the Vietnam War, exploring the perspective of the journalist/reporters
The terrible event known as the Vietnam War started on November 1, 1955. The number of people leaving Vietnam safely totaled to about 800,000 citizens during 1976 and 1979, about 200,000 people met their end as well when leaving Vietnam. The Vietnam war started because of inequality between the communist group and the non-communist group. The people of the communist group in Northern Vietnam acted as if the whole world belonged to them, they stole from the innocent non-communist citizens, demanding things like money ( dubbed “taxes” ).
