It was only a few days until the NLF troops had been beaten back and the American troops once again occupied Saigon and their own embassy. The Americans were not Militarily defeated, in actual fact defeating and killing 58,000 north Vietnamese troops (Wiest, 2008) however this attack is ranked high above others as the start of the downward spiral that ended the war. Despite the offensive by the North Vietnamese forces the standoff had not changed anything, Lawrence in, the Vietnam War a concise international history, claims it “merely changed the nature of the stalemate” and that the Tet offensive was “confirming opposition to the war among American public.” (Lawrence, 2008 P116). The North Vietnamese forces being able to take and hold the supposed hub of American power in Saigon, to then have the image of the Vietcong on the roof waving the flag of the opposing army is crushing blow to the American public. This Kind of image and media brought about the anti war movement that believed the war was a ‘quagmire’ and needed to be
It made people begin to lose hope in our ability to win the war, and led to increased questioning of the President’s tactics for the war. When the Pentagon announced the number of U.S. casualties sat that point in the war, President Johnson knew his popularity was lost and decided not to run for
The misconceptions and false interpretations the press portrayed through television, news papers, and photographs played a major roll in shaping the support the US military had from its own people. Many contributors, such as Walter Cronkite and Edward Adams, of the press damaged the support of the US people due to bias, negative, and misconstrued interpretations of the Tet Offensive. The media portrayed Tet as a North Vietnamese victory, which countered Westmorland’s portrayal of Tet and made US citizens doubt Johnson’s previous statements made regarding the war in campaigns before Tet. The media affected the American public’s opinion of the war in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive to a great
These two platoons went through a dozen camps killing hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese citizens, because this was such scandal, know one knew about it until it was released by the Pentagon on November 13, 1969. (Prados 184) On March 31, President Johnson, in a television address, announced a partial halt to the U.S. bombing of North Vietnam, a call to North Vietnam to begin peace talks. On May 13, formal peace talks between the United States and North Vietnam were openly held in Paris. (Karnow 523) In August, Richard Nixon was nominated for the presidency by the Republican Party. On October 31, 1968, President Johnson announced a complete halt to the bombing of North Vietnam.
Darwin Mushrush Am. st. 100 Prof. Smythe December 15th, 2011 The War in Iraq: What Did It Really Cost? The war on terror in Iraq was one of the most controversial periods of conflict in U.S. History, overshadowed only by Vietnam. The United States got involved in Iraq in March of 2003 because President Bush and Prime Minister Blair claimed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and also had relations with Al- Queda, the terrorist group responsible for the September 11th attacks. The U.N. sent personel into Iraq to investigate for weapons, but came up empty.
It also forced some crucial US losses which, due to the bi-polar nature of the US-USSR relations, translated into further Soviet victories. With all these long-term victories, the results of the crisis were a triumph for the USSR. The immediate outcome of the crisis was a huge propaganda loss for the USSR with the withdrawal of Soviet missiles; the USSR was seen to back down from the USA, showing the USA to be powerful and the USSR to be weak. This terrible propaganda loss was made even worse by the recent propaganda disaster in Berlin in 1961, with the building of the Berlin Wall. The two huge propaganda losses were so damaging to the USSR that it even resulted in Khrushchev being ousted from power in 1964.
Politically the United States appeared impotent as a result of losing the Pueblo. Not only were we unable to prevent the North Koreans from taking one of our ships but we were then forced to make a written apology. Making a written apology is something school children do, not the United States of America. Yes, a military strike on North Korea following the capture of the Pueblo would have resulted in a larger military engagement on the peninsula at a time when we were already engaged in Vietnam. By doing what the United States did, we only emboldened an enemy that we are still battling
My served in the Vietnam War for two years, 1969-1970; when he was eighteen years old. The Vietnam War convinced the French that they could no longer maintain their Indochinese colonies and Paris quickly sued for peace. As the two sides came together in Geneva, Switzerland, international events were already shaping the future of Vietnam's modern revolution. There were many lives lost in the war. Three thousand French troops were killed, and eight thousand wounded.
The War in Iraq Isn’t it interesting how the media portraits the war in Iraq? It’s always the negative points and never the good ones. There is so much disbelief and lying about our military and government that it is disgusting! Everyone believes that this war is pointless and stupid, however it needed to be done to make an example! The United States is the strongest government in the world and the media puts it down so very hard.
Many stated after that they, one day would like to go back to Vietnam and help rebuild the country that the helped destroy. Even though America was and still is seen as one of the world’s most prevailing superpowers, the withdrawal from Vietnam was inevitable. There was no clear way for the military to secure their victory in the War without having to lose thousands of soldiers. The War ended with the exact opposite of what all soldiers had spent the majority of their life fighting for. Vietnam succumbed to the communist rule and the rest of the world watched in