Vietnam War Dbq Essay

The Vietnam War was fought between the North and South Vietnamese over Communism. The North pushed for a communist regime while the South favored a more democratic government. During the time of this war, the U.S. was pushing towards containing Communism, and vowed to support any nation resisting communism. Although America’s policy of containment had good intentions, this often led to the support of corrupt leaders and governments. President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam was Catholic and did not lead well. Offering little help to the poor and oppressing Buddhists, Diem lead a corrupt government. In America, tensions heightened when America continued supporting the corrupt government especially when an oppressed Buddhist monk immolated himself

In McDonald’s song, the effect of the draft and its effects on society are highlighted by the lyrics, “Send ‘em off before it’s too late. Be the first one on your block To have your boy come home in a box,” [Doc B]. More than 50,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War, and after withdrawing from the battlefront, Americans felt it was for nothing. Robert F. Kennedy said, “we have sought to resolve by military might a conflict whose issue depends upon the will and conviction of the South Vietnamese people,” [Doc E]. To the war, Americans provided weapons, supplies, and troops. But, as the South Vietnamese were fighting for their liberation from a communist regime and the Americans were not, the Americans could not provide the Vietnamese with the will to win. Seeing as their efforts in Vietnam were not as effective as had been hoped for, America began to lose support for the war as tensions at home increased. “It is like sending a lion to halt an epidemic of jungle rot,” [Doc E]. The lions that were being sent, as many of the time recognized, were often minorities and oppressed people. Martin Luther King, a popular civil rights activist, said, “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,” [Doc C]. The blacks, who had fought for so

Onward and Upward is a political cartoon from 1967 [Doc D]. In the cartoon, ‘Great Society’ is represented by a man on top of a boulder while ‘Foreign Policy’ was dangling over the edge of the large boulder by a rope tied to the other man. As America s striving for a thriving society, it is being pulled down by foreign policy. Americans are leaving behind foreign policy in order to stay above water themselves. Because foreign policy is connected to great society, foreign policy will move upward, but will be hurt in the process. Similarly to social tensions, political tensions must be resolved. As expressed in Country Joe’s song, Americans followed their government. Whatever was decided by the authorities, the civilians followed. “And it’s one, two, three, What are we fighting for? Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Vietnam,” [Doc B]. Americans wanted their lives to be secure, not to fight a war they weren’t really in. The U.S. had to decide what it would do in order to protect Americans, contain communism, and keep their government from falling to corruption all at the same time. The War Powers Act of 1973 was passed in order to keep the President’s power to commit to war under checks. In the act [Doc I] The President must remove armed forces unless “Congress (1) has declared war…”. The U.S. did not want to enter any more wars that would prove to be a waste of