One of their major goals was to disrupt and destroy the South Vietnamese government. Orders were actually given to the invaders to cause maximum disruption to the government to create crisis by killing military and administrative personnel. This reason alone would do some serious damage to the government but another tactic was to kill for “…terrorism and warning.” By killing government officials and private citizens it scared the citizens of not just Hue but all over the area into compliance with the National Liberation Front. The communists also wanted to annihilate Christians for political reasons. The communists always tried to suppress religions anyway possible and because of Ngo Dinh Diem being Catholic and in charge of South Vietnam at the start of the resistance to the North.
This is another point towards poor leadership because there was no clear plan in how they were going to get their terms accepted only what terms they wanted. Another reason the rebellion failed was due to the lack of passion in the rebels. Not everyone knew what they were rebelling for which meant that they wouldn’t fight passionately for what they believed in. There was also a lack of focus because not everyone was fighting for the same cause. Some people were fighting because of the monasteries being dissolved and others were fighting because of rack-renting.
It was also a propaganda disaster. The Americans had always presented their campaign against Communism as a moral crusade. But the My Lai Massacre and the herbicides used on the forests damaged America's reputation. The whole campaign was shown to be flawed. The Americans were propping up a government which did not have the support of its own
To what extent was the US defeat in the Vietnam conflict a result of the difficulties in winning the “hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people? To establish the significance of the failure of America’s attempt to win over the “hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese people, one must look at the other reasons behind the US defeat and compare their significance to the significance of their failure. The first and probably the most significant event was the way in which the war was fought. The Viet Cong were a guerrilla army which used guerrilla tactics, they used the jungle to their advantage and their main tactic was being secretive; they would attack the US camps then disappear. Finding the Viet Cong was very difficult, not only due to their impressive tunnel system, but also the fact that most of the local population supported the Viet Cong due to opposition to Diem’s government and the strategic hamlets they were forced into, it made It impossible for the American soldiers to know who was a Viet Cong member and who was an ordinary villager.
The hawks and doves were complete opposites, the hawk’s argument concluded that America must win the war in Vietnam in order to contain communism in Southeast Asia and preserve the nation’s prestige (Davidson-Gienapp-Heyrman-Lytle-Stroff, 2005). The doves on the other hand wanted the conflict in Vietnam ended immediately and the troops returned home. The political and social outcomes facing the United States because of the conflict in Vietnam ranged from a growing distrust of the decisions being made by the political leaders to the ever increasing cost of the conflict in Vietnam. The growing distrust helped to fuel the student unrest because the younger generation decided to voice their opinions and take a stand for those
Attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States Flaws The attack on Pearl Harbor was an astonishing military strike by Japan against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor. This attack was not sudden, but an event led up to by previous conflicts arising between both powerful nations. Relations began worsening as Japan set out and expanded in Manchuria. When Japan effortlessly defeated China, the US began to foresee war with Japan. As Japan annexed China and Manchuria, war out broke between these countries.
Why were Anti- Vietnam war groups protesting about the war? Immorality of the war * My Lai massacre * Agent orange and Napalm (which burn the body through till bone) * The draft * Carpet Bombing towns with Civilians in them rather than the enemy * Racist war * Majority of the soldiers were between the age of 19 and 22 years old * Gruesome images of the war were put onto the tv everyday and executions etc caused alarm * Zippo raids Difficulty of winning the war * The enemy didn`t wear uniform * Many u.s troops were demoralised and didn`t know what they were fighting for * The tet offensive saw the north Vietnamese army seize 100 towns which meant they were stronger than the U.S first thought
This was done for protection for the country and not to create harm to the Japanese, unlike the Nazi’s goal to create a pure Arian race. After the ever decreasing association between Japan and the United States, their heartless attack on Pearl Harbor only depleted the relationship even more. The attack on Pearl Harbor was an undignified and startling attack on December 7, 1941. This was the beginning of the second world war, a war that would change the entire modern-world. The Japanese created a surprise attack on the United States using Japanese bombing planes.
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
What happened during this event: Before World War II, Vietnam was part of the French colony of Indochina. During World War II, the Japanese occupied Indochina. At the end of World War II, the Japanese surrendered. After this, the French attempted to take back control. But the French were opposed by a Vietnamese army called the Viet Minh.