Fearing communism the United States government committed their troops to defend South Vietnam. Still, North Vietnam overpowered the South and the United States ended up having to send in more and more troops to fight South Vietnams battle. The U.S. troops had no choice but to view the Viet Cong and North Vietnam as their enemy in order to survive helping the South Vietnamese. The length of the war and the high number of casualties turned many United States citizens against the war. Finally, defining who the enemy was in the Vietnam War completely depends on who you ask.
Therfreo he ordered immediatiely to have bombing raids agisnt military installations in North Vietnam and ordered his troops to land. However, the enemy matched every incrase in Amreican firepower with more men and more wiliness in the art of guerilla warfare. The South Vietnamese had become spectators in this war and incraisgly became Americanized. The corrupt government succeeded ecahc otheri n Siagon, but American still had fiath in calling them a democratic ally and the spokesperson in Wahsington defeded this axction as America’s commitment to the treayt pledges to resist communist encroachment. The Gulf of Tonkkin Resoultion gave U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson authorization, without a formal declaration of war by Congress, for the use of military forces in Southeast Asia.
Another lesson that the movie taught me was that you can choose which side you want do be on, the good or the bad. Ellsberg started on the bad side, by helping the government to find ways to attack the Vietnamese, like through the bombing campaign, (The Most Dangerous Man in America). As time dragged on, and Ellsberg read the pentagon papers, he realized that he was on the bad side of the war. Ellsberg then realized that America was murdering innocent Vietnamese, and sought to end the war for the greater good. These lessons help people to live their lives with new meaning, and become more conscious of themselves and others, no matter what denomination they
The U.S. had learned its lesson from Vietnam, showing American young men fighting and dying too explicitly was no way to keep public support for a war. It is obvious because of the many attempts at peaceful diplomacy prior to the fighting that America needed to win a quick and decisive victory. Some military experts have even referred to the coalition's invasion of Iraq as a “Blitzkrieg.” As a result, the military payed special attention to limit what the media could see in an attempt to portray the war as “bloodless.” Images of Iraqi vehicles being blown to bits by the coalition air forces were broadasted into the homes of ordinary Americans. These images did just that, the unprecedented nature of the intense, precise, air raids portrayed the war as a one sided
* 4. Outline the plan, method and scope of the offensive To this end, a multiphase plan was developed: in the first phase, the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) would launch attacks on the border regions of South Vietnam to close those regions to American observation. Following this, a second phase of widely dispersed attacks by the Viet Cong directly into the major centers of the country would cause the collapse of the government and would prod the civilians into full-fledged revolt. With the government overthrown, the Americans and other allied forces would have no choice but to evacuate, leading to phase three attacks by the Viet Cong and PAVN against elements of the isolated foreign forces. * 5.
The American citizens were completely against the napalm strike bombing because the napalm strikes to the skin, and the injuries were severe. US troops would go on a manhunt for Vietcong soldiers in large amount, so they get ambushed easily by the camouflaged Vietcong soldiers. Ho chi minh ordered the Vietcong troops to dig a very wide tunnel underground so the soldiers can move freely, and learn their way around the country. This was a disadvantage to America because surprise attacks were held against the US troops from the hidden entrances for the
He did all this in order to persuade people to show charity and compassion to all religions. Diem, and his government’s reaction to this was to arrest thousands of Buddhist monks. Many monks disappeared and Diem’s government was blamed. For these, and many other reasons, “Kennedy became convinced that Diem could never unite South Vietnam against Communism and he agreed that the CIA should initiate a program to overthrow him. A CIA operative, Lucien Conein, provided some Vietnamese generals with $40,000 to overthrow Diem with the added guarantee that the United States would not protect the South Vietnamese leader.
One of the main goals for the Communist Forcers was to demoralize their enemy and cause mass confusion by surprise attacks and other ways of attack. In response to this type of fighting the Americans and the Anti-Communists decided to drop napalm strikes which essentially were a deadly mixture of petrol and a chemical thickener which would produce a thick gel, which would stick to the skin and continually burn, it was reported that the burns would go down to the muscle and bone, these were 5th degree burns that often caused death. One of the main heights that they went to, to counter the Vietcong was the controversial use of “Agent Orange.” Agent Orange is define as “a powerful herbicide and defoliant containing trace amounts of dioxin, a toxic impurity suspected of causing serious health problems, including cancer and genetic damage, in some persons exposed to it and birth defects in their offspring: used by U.S. armed forces during the Vietnam War to defoliate jungles.” The main purpose of using Agent Orange was
The United States involvement in Vietnam started when the Vietnamese were fighting the French for independence. From the year 1945 up until 1975 the United States had a role in lives of many Vietnamese and Americans. This war was consisted North Vietnam, South Vietnam and the Americans after the French decided to give up to Vietnam. According to the United States we decided to go to war to stop communism from taking over Asia, also known as the "Domino Theory" and its freedom from attack. The Vietnamese had another reason to continue fighting the United States.
The Native Americans felt threatened for their land by the colonists. It was stated that one of their reasons to fighting was that the colonists made them do it and they pushed their buttons, so to say, that they had no choice but to fight them. In addition to the colonists being very religious so were the Native Americans. As stated in the book the Native Americans said their reason for fighting was that God was on their side and told them to fight and kill and burn down houses. The Indians were depicted to be very violent by the colonists.