vietnam

[Tom#13]

hey guys im doing a history essay for my school about the american public and tghe war in vietnam.
so if any americans can tell me there views or dads views or the general view where u live that would be really helpfull

[Campez]

GL finding them, I cant help you im from denmark, but if you want to know anything about the muhammed case just ask:P

[R.Johnson_USMC]

It really screwed the soliders up.

[Tom#13]

wow, this is fascinating stuff.
so far i can write about a person from denmark who knows alot about the muhammed case and the amazing revelation that it really screwed soldiers up.
cheers

[BrokenArrow]

I have a short one. My parents are from massachusetts and they were really against the war. I can't remember how it worked exactly but I think when the draft got going my uncle's number was called first. Luckily he ended up getting a defferment for college. Anyway, as I said, my parents were very against the war in Vietnam.

[Tom#13]

thanks mate. every little helps and thats the first thing worthwhile anyones said

[lonelyjew]

My view, summarized, is it was a political war. The U.S. chose the far less noble side only because we had similar goverments. All Vientamese people wanted was independence and the North Vietnamese saw us as a threat to this. This is why they faught us so tenaciously.

Here is an excerpt from wikepedia:

France had gained control of Indochina in a series of colonial wars beginning in the 1840s and lasting until the 1880s. At the Treaty of Versailles Hồ Chí Minh requested participation in the negotiations, in order to arrange more freedom for the Indochinese colonies. However, his request was rejected, and Indochina's status as a colony of France remained unchanged. During World War II, Vichy France had collaborated with the occupying Imperial Japanese forces. Vietnam was under effective Imperial Japanese control, as well as de facto Japanese administrative control, although the Vichy French continued to serve as the official administrators until 1944. After the Japanese surrender Vietnamese nationalists hoped to achieve formal independence from France.

On September 2, 1945, Hồ Chí Minh spoke at a ceremony heralding an independent Vietnam. In his speech he cited the US Declaration of Independence and a band played "The Star Spangled Banner." Ho had hoped that the United States would be an ally of a Vietnamese independence movement based on speeches by U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt against the continuation of European imperialism after World War II. However, the death of Roosevelt, the development of the Cold War, and Ho's Communist sympathies led to U.S. support being given to the French.

Indochina had been in the British theater of operations during the war. The French prevailed upon the British to turn control of the region back over to them, setting the stage for the First Indochina War in which France attempted to reestablish Vietnam as part of a French overseas colony. In a gradual process—accelerated by the establishment of the People's Republic of China—the Vietnamese nationalist army, the Viet Minh, gradually wrested control of the country from France.

After the Viet Minh's historic victory over the French at the battle of Điện Biên Phủ all of Indochina was granted independence, including Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. However, Vietnam was partitioned at the 17th parallel, above which the former Viet Minh established a Communist state and below which an anti-communist state was established under the Emperor Bảo Đại. As dictated in the Geneva Accords of 1954 the division was meant to be temporary pending free elections for national leadership. The agreement stipulated that these two military zones, which were separated by the temporary demarcation line, "should not in any way be interpreted as constituting a political or territorial boundary," and specifically stated "general elections shall be held in July 1956." But such elections were not held as Diem (see below), who had not signed the Geneva Accords, refused to hold them. The U.S. supported this move to maintain its Southern ally, also later claiming that Ho had no intention of holding free elections. The majority of Vietnamese were angered that the scheduled elections for the unification of the country never took place. The United States, fearing a Communist takeover of the region, supported Ngô Đình Diệm, who had ousted Bảo Đại, as leader of South Vietnam while Hồ Chí Minh became leader of the North.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war

Hope that helped a bit.

[BrokenArrow]

Haha there's your report bud!

[Xeno426]

I agree. Had we sided with the Vietnamese people when Ho Chi Min asked us for help, we could have completely avoided that conflict. At worst, we would have had a skirmish with the French.... who do you think would have won? Instead, we supported a line of terrible leaders that were no better than the government the Vietnamese people eventually ended up with in the Communist regime. Sure, he got help from China, but only because he had no one else to turn to. The very fact that they accepted any help from the Chinese, a very ancient enemy of the Vietnamese, just goes to show his desperation. After spending years in France trying to come to a peaceful settlement for independence, and being unable to get help from America, whom he was sure would help because we had also been a colony of an oppressive foreign power, he had no other choice. Heck, five years after we completely withdrew from Vietnam (1965), Vietnam went to war with China.
There really wasn't any good reason to ignored Ho Chi's request. He greatly admired the US, and even had their Declaration of Independence from France modeled after ours. The thing that got our policy makers squeamish was that he had spent some time in the Communist party, but left because of differences in opinion. I believe that had we supported the Vietnamese, Vietnam would be a socialistic democracy, similar to Sweden.

[Tom#13]

wow, thanks lads