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Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

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Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Arcadeus on Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:47 pm

This is a rather controversial topic that's been in my thoughts for quite a while now. I figured I'd post it up here to see if I got any good feedback. I think of all the American wars The Vietnam War is the most morally ambiguous. It's also I believe the most unpopular American war. I personally believe it was a travesty. One really just needs to look at the legitimacy of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, and the numerous human rights violations committed by the U.S. military in Vietnam to begin to question The Vietnam War as a whole. Your thoughts?

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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Saken on Sat Feb 05, 2011 1:51 pm

I don't think there is a justification, to be honest, for the Vietnam war, but I also do not think we should -not- have fought it, if it makes any sense. We did, at least, help people get free- and we did at least show communism that we would fight for the will of people who were being repressed.

At the same time, what people did in Vietnam, to the enemies and to those who were not enemies, were not right- they should not be condoned, an they had no excuse for it. At the same time, I believe (after reading a book from the American Solider side) that sometimes the enemy is not so easy to guess. A lot of American soldiers died when they were tryin to protect north Vietnam citizens, and some of the south Vietnam citizens hid, and slaughtered.

It's hard to not kill when everything looks like the enemy.
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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Arcadeus on Sat Feb 05, 2011 2:22 pm

Saken wrote:I don't think there is a justification, to be honest, for the Vietnam war, but I also do not think we should -not- have fought it, if it makes any sense. We did, at least, help people get free- and we did at least show communism that we would fight for the will of people who were being repressed.

At the same time, what people did in Vietnam, to the enemies and to those who were not enemies, were not right- they should not be condoned, an they had no excuse for it. At the same time, I believe (after reading a book from the American Solider side) that sometimes the enemy is not so easy to guess. A lot of American soldiers died when they were tryin to protect north Vietnam citizens, and some of the south Vietnam citizens hid, and slaughtered.

It's hard to not kill when everything looks like the enemy.


I don't think people should blame the soldiers. I think people should blame the government that sent them there. War is an extremely dehumanizing practice. It wears on the psyche. There were many crimes committed during the duration of Vietnam in which the U.S. soldiers were fully aware that they were attacking civilians. After seeing so many their comrades die many American soldiers began to no longer view the Vietnamese as human, hostile and non-hostile. I think anyone who is interested in the subject should watch the documentary Winter Soldier. But to put it simply, any good we did in Vietnam is vastly outweighed by the bad.

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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby WhiteSwan on Sun Feb 06, 2011 1:04 am

There's nothing justifiable about it now in retrospect, but it may have seemed justifiable to various US government administrations at various points in the 20th Century, given the Truman Doctrine and Domino theory. At some point I'm sure it became not so much justifiable but a giant investment that we were already too deep into to just withdraw completely from without some sort of return to our investment.
In retrospect it's easy to pick out that Truman and following administrations made the mistake of seeing Ho Chi Minh as a Communist pawn of the Soviets rather than a Vietnamese Nationalist. It's a mistake that's easy to make and easy to look stupid in retrospect, various US administrations made the same "Communist-Nationalist" mixup all over the Cold War, mistaking democratically elected leaders that had slight socialist or simply patriotic tendencies and thinking they were pawns of the Chinese or Soviets. After the fall of China to Communism and the heated Soviet arms race, there was a lot of pressure on US leaders to put down Communist uprisings in the world at any cost, to allow them to succeed would be a slight on the appearance of US hegemony.
So, just like with Ho Chi Minh, they tended to get themselves in bloody situations or coups that really weren't ABOUT Communism in the end. The US would've done far better if they'd simply allowed Vietnamese reunification and strengthened ties with the VietMinh. There are reports that Ho Chi Minh made attempts of outreach to the US government early on before the war, assuming they would sympathize with his cause.

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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby tommithetaco on Fri Apr 08, 2011 12:23 am

I don't think there was much of a point in it. The Japanese got antsy, and I guess the Koreans were in the way...No justification, though.

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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Jag on Mon Apr 11, 2011 12:58 pm

tommithetaco wrote:I don't think there was much of a point in it. The Japanese got antsy, and I guess the Koreans were in the way...No justification, though.


Are you sure you're talking about the Vietnam War with this post?

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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby viper45 on Tue Mar 27, 2012 8:48 pm

In my opinion, there was justification for US involvement in Vietnam. Not to the extent that it escalated to, but some involvement was necessary. The Vietnam War was "lost" in America due to media involvement. If the media hadn't published such graphic images of the war and portrayed it in a negative light, then public opinion wouldn't have been so low at home and the war would probably have ended much sooner.

My uncle says that towards the end of the war, the troops were so demoralized as to be almost combat ineffective due to the low opinions of the public back home.

Although I believe that we should have stuck with President Kennedy's policy of only supporting and training the South Vietnamese army instead of sending in our own military.
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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby WAAAGH! on Wed Mar 28, 2012 7:24 pm

In ALL wars there are war crimes, so using that to say Vietnam was unjustified is not a strong argument because, in that case, all wars would be unjustified (rather you believe that or not). You also seem to only blame what U.S military crimes, but there were crimes on both sides as there always is in any war. A large part in why South Vietnamese civilians would not give up the Vietcong members was because if they did the Vietcong would kill their families. Trying to judge any war by what Human Rights were violated will get you nowhere.

Was it justified? Yes, I believe so. Soviet Russia and the United States did not like each other. You can paint it any way you like by saying it was the media or government propaganda but whenever you get two large superpowers near each other they tend to dislike each other no matter what time era you look at. It does not take much for people to come to hate each other.

The Vietnam War was a statement made by the United States to Soviet Russia that communism (and more importantly Soviet Influence) would be fought on all fronts no matter the cost. Soviet Russia made similar statements in Afghanistan. The Vietnam War was just one of the many statements made in the ever going battle for Influence during the Cold War. Much of the Cold War was fought and won by bluffing and making the Soviet Union believe we had more than what we had and that we would be willing to go farther than them. The Arms races and wars (Vietnam and Korean) were a major part in the United States’ victory over Soviet Russia in the Cold War.
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Re: Was there Any Real Justification for The Vietnam War?

Tips: 0.00 INK Postby Tea on Sun Apr 01, 2012 11:46 am

WAAAGH! wrote:The Vietnam War was a statement made by the United States to Soviet Russia that communism (and more importantly Soviet Influence) would be fought on all fronts no matter the cost. Soviet Russia made similar statements in Afghanistan. The Vietnam War was just one of the many statements made in the ever going battle for Influence during the Cold War. Much of the Cold War was fought and won by bluffing and making the Soviet Union believe we had more than what we had and that we would be willing to go farther than them. The Arms races and wars (Vietnam and Korean) were a major part in the United States’ victory over Soviet Russia in the Cold War.


These are accurate accusations for the causes behind the conflict in Viet Nam. I do not disagree. However, it is not ethical for one country ( any nation ) to enter violent conflict without clear military objectives regarding borders and territory. ...there is a reason why the other nations of the world are afraid of the United States of America. They fear us, not because of technology, but because of the kind of amoral arrogance which led to the Viet Nam Conflict in the first place.

It is not an ethical or correct justification to use another nation's philosophy as an excuse to enter War.

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