Aiming to win back support from the American’s, as many people did not support the Vietnam war due to the bad media that was publicised. This was the first War to be so publicised and it shocked many of the people back home. This lead to Anti-War protest, which became one of the US governments aims to stop. However they still stuck to the aim to try and contain Vietnam from the spread of communism and supporting the SV defeat the VC in nearby country Cambodia. On the other side the aims of the NV government and their terrorist organisation the VC did not alter as they still aimed to persuade the SV government to vote for Vietnam to become a communist country.
These were army and police men and were sent to fight the IRA and reduce the chances of the civilians of Ireland retaliating. It was evident that he may have not made the right decision by sending in the Black and Tans as they were a brutal force who used severe violence against the people, ‘murder for murder’ was their policy. This overall shows an unsuccessful attempt from David Lloyd George and the British Government in dealing with the Irish question as it was later shown that the small war had left 750 dead and over 850 wounded. Despite this failure, David Lloyd George soon realised that the tactic of using violence was not bringing him success and he soon knew that his only choice was to enforce peace. Not only did the British people not want many thousands of men going to war with the Irish, the press and the USA were horrified by the situation and it was giving Britain and DLG a bad name.
It had also failed politically. Not only did the USA fail to stop South Vietnam going Communist, but the heavy bombing of Vietnam's neighbours Laos and Cambodia actually helped the Communist forces in those countries to win support. By 1975 both Laos and Cambodia had Communist governments. Instead of slowing it down, American policies actually speeded up the domino effect in the region. It was also a propaganda disaster.
In a CBS special, Cronkite concluded, "To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe, in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past, to say we are mired in a bloody stalemate seems the only realistic, yet unsatisfactory conclusion" ( Hallin, 1986, p.170) This did not help increase the support for our troops in Vietnam. The overall support for the war was diminished by Cronkite's report. The negative coverage of the war influenced politicians, the public, and the American soldier. Concerned with losing support, politicians started to really get involved. The TeT offensive was a last ditch effort for the communists.
When Eisenhower finally did something and sent the 1,000 paratroopers, a lot of the people in America were extremely annoyed, the west and north were angry that it didn't happen sooner and the south were angry that it happened at all, and disowned Eisenhower as a southerner. Eisenhower did not do this to help the blacks, but to enforce law. The causes and consequences of the Little Rock Crisis were on international television and were a huge eye opener for the rest of the world. Because of this, countries were putting pressure on America to stop this from happening. This is possibly the turning point for the black civil rights movement in
Because the American government openly supported the Christian Diem, the South Vietnamese were almost as against American involvement as the North Vietnamese by the time of the Tet Offensive. The Americans’ failure to keep the North Vietnamese at bay only added further tension between the United States and the people they were trying to help. Back in the U.S., protest was growing to the point that full engagement in Vietnam was becoming difficult. Opposition to the draft was an extremely crucial form of protest. Literally, “tens of thousands fled to Canada or Europe to avoid the draft” (Wills 29).
Even if the US-planes bombed North Vietnam they didn’t really damaged the North Vietnamese Military so much and the poison gases weren’t so effective against them but it was probably less good for the civilians of North Vietnam and the US-soldiers fighting the Viet Cong. Also the antiwar propaganda taking place in USA at that time used pictures were you could see American soldiers burning down small North Vietnamese villages. This had two main effects, the first one was that the people of USA didn’t support the war so much and the fact that many soldiers died in North Vietnam decreased the support even more. Also there weren’t any hopes on victory in a long while since the war was going pretty badly and the US-government always sent more and more troops to North Vietnam but the Vietnamese didn’t want to surrender to the US. The second more direct effect these had was that the Viet Cong did get more support from the civilians and the more support you get from the civilians the more likely it is to win the war because the civilians are prepared
By this point the strongest opposition of the War was becoming the soldiers. From 1960 to 1973 over five hundred thousand soldiers had abandoned their duties in War in protest. There was one demonstration in particular that rattled the morality of the American government; ‘Vietnam Veterans Against the War’ was the name of the event that happened in 1967. Old crippled, dismembered and injured soldiers from the War had come on television throwing away their badges and medals of Honour, saying that they were medals of murder. Many stated after that they, one day would like to go back to Vietnam and help rebuild the country that the helped destroy.
Although the Army had been in these parts of Iraq before the Marines were, the grunts, ground soldiers, of the Marines knew that the Army didn’t do their job and that they would now have to clear the area of all Mujahideen themselves. The Mujahideen are a global terrorist organization that occupies many parts of the Middle East, and the main group of people America was fighting against along with the Al Qaeda. As these soldiers have as much fun as they can and develop a brotherhood with each other, they also experience many tragedies and losses as many of their fellow Marines lose their lives and limbs while defending
I suppose British General Cornwallis was quite engaged with the constant French attacks and for a second in this brawl, he forgot about us. From what I had heard the French had successfully blocked Cornwallis’s supplies and were preparing to attack. Upon hearing this news we immediately celebrated even though we had not even begun the battle. I soon began to feel grief for us American and could comprehend the reason for the French’s behavior. They merely wanted to win the battle to go home but, they felt this would not be possible with an unorganized, uncivilized, and brutal American army fighting alongside them.