Vietnam Essay, Research Paper

Vietnam is a country 9000 miles away from the United States. Yet America felt that its national interest to protect the peace in south Asia and stop communist was threatened strongly enough to fight a war there. Therefore, American considered that the establishment of the “Iron Curtain” of Europe must be stopped to happen again in Asia. Meanwhile, the communist take over of China, the Korean War and the communist victory over the French in Vietnam –all led many Americans to fear that The communists were taking over the world and America must dispatch force to stop their expansion. At that time, most American believed in the “Domino Theory”, suggesting that if one Asian country fell to the Communist the others would quickly follow. The U.S. government believed that by helping the South Vietnamese government to resist the invasion of the North Vietnam and prevent the spread of communism to throughout the world to stop advance of communist is the only one and most important perspective for American strategy in the Cold War.

After the WWII, US government considered that the communism pose a great threat to world peace. For example, communist easily established so-called “Iron Curtain” in the east Europe and overthrew Chang regime in the China and drove out France from Vietnam. Therefore, with France withdrawal from Vietnam, American wants to prevent a Communist takeover as well as reluctance on apart of American presidents to assume of primary responsibility for fighting Vietcong and their North communist Vietnam allies. Meanwhile, From Truman, American presidents all had done enough to avoid charge as “ who lost Vietnam to communist.” by 1954, instead of keep the promise of Geneva of taking place a free elections in order to elect a leader to rule the united Vietnam, American assisted Nyo Dinb Diem as the president of Vietnam, established American- style government in the southern Vietnam. By the mid-1950s, the Vietcong pose a great threat against South Vietnam, and the North began to pump weapons, advisors, and other resource into the southern cadres, which were reorganized as the National Liberation Front in 1958. At this time, “ losing the Vietnam to communist “ also strikes into American president’s heart, therefore, in the late 1950, US government dispatched hundreds of special “advisers” (later in war the numbers was up to thousands) to assist S. Vietnam military to fight with Vietcong. Vietnam had become entangled in the cold war maneuvers of the United States and Communism. With United States backing, American found out the president of Vietnam who didn’t have ability to fight with communist in the countryside and to start social and economic reforms. Meanwhile, his repressive tactics directed not only against Communists but also against the Buddhist majority and other critics. Therefore, US government decided to overthrow Diem regime and support pro- America of generals’ regime. However, America also resolved on “ Americanize” for Vietnam War, because most people believe American force could defeat the ill-prepared Vietcong and their North allies. However, it was also clear to Johnson and his government that American military involvement must not reach levels that would provoke the Chinese and Soviet into direct intervention. Therefore, although fighting with helicopters and gunship chemical defoliants, and napalm, became like the trench warfare of World war one —-a war of attrition. As Clark Clifford of new secretary of defense said: ” we have no military plan to end the war.”

The American intervention of in Vietnam in 1965, the danger and blind foolishness of ideological war become increasingly obvious for about 25 years. The US faced an internal crisis in anti-war and anti-government movement. As the war dragged on and opposition mounted students and others developed sophisticated ways to avoid evade, or resist the draft. Over 20000 young men simply refused to accept obey their draft notices and 4000 of those young men served prison sentences. Meanwhile, hundreds of young men instituted court challenges to the draft. The result was a much broader interpretation of them “ conscientious objector” so as to allow exemption for those with moral and ethical objections to war rooted in secular rather than spiritual principles. Some 56,000 men qualified for conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War, compared with 76,00 during the Korean conflict and several thousand fled to Canada or Sweden to avoid military service. The most popular way to avoid the draft was to flunk the physical examination. Many gorged themselves so as to exceed the weight limit; others raised their blood pressure by drinking excessive amount of coffee; some pretended to be drug addicts or alcoholics; a few feigned homosexuality. Whatever the preferred method, many students succeeded in avoiding military service. Of the 1200 men in the Harvard class of 1970, only fifty-six served in the military, and just two of those went to Vietnam.