America’s involvement in the Vietnam War
Abstract
The Vietnam War went down in history as one of the most unjustifiable wars in American history. To date, there has never been given enough justification as to why America decided to involve itself in Vietnam affairs. Despite the large number of casualties as well as waste of resources on that war, the American government sought to give its explanations as to why they directly and indirectly participated in the Vietnam War. Whether these justifications make sense at all depend on specific individuals.
Introduction
The mention of Vietnam War is always synonymous with the involvement of American troops and the American government. There is no clear justification of the action of America entering this particular war. However, what is clear is the fact that by the end of this particular war not only was there massive loses and scars, but also a great impact on Americas history. This impact was characterized with by a lot of civil rights campaigns, one of the most discordant forces in twentieth century U.S. history. There were no particular reasons that were given in the particular movement; however, what was clear at the end of the day was that all the different movements were against the Vietnam War. Upon, the retraction of U.S forces from Vietnam; there have been attempts to explain/justify America’s participation in this particular war. For one to be able to understand this particular participation, America’s justification can be divided into three major reasons.
America’s justifications
Working relationship
Prior to America’s involvement in Vietnam, the country had been under the colonial rule of the French rule. This rule had been a long one for it had extended from post world war II well into post the war. During this long period, the Vietnam people felt that they were being oppressed by the French both before and after WWII. The Vietnamese people were not happy with this rule and subsequently formed a party that would in effect fight against the French. This particular movement titled Viet Minh, under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh, was formed right about the same time that Japan had effectively started a war with America by bombing the Pearl Harbor. This particular movement vowed to resist not only the French, but the Japanese as well (Statler, 2007). This acted in favor of America who would then set up an Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, on northern Vietnam. This working relationship between the Viet Minh movement and the OSS ensured that Viet Minh assisted with both the safeguarding as well as repatriation of American pilots who had been downed on Vietnam territory in their war against the Japanese and to a larger extend WWII. In addition, the movement assisted America as far as intelligence gathering was concerned. In return, the OSS, supplied Ho Chi Minh’s men with weapons and equipments. In this particular case, the U.S was aware of the reasons as to why the movement was fighting and made it clear that their interest in Vietnam was more convenient based rather than a sharing of political view.
The U.S was however very reluctant in helping Vietnam in fighting the French in this particular period, during WWII, because of the situation at hand. Despite the efforts taken indirectly by Ho Chi Minh in showing that it particularly wanted to emulate the U.S through corporation as well as smaller gestures such as drawing from the declaration of independence, the U.S was still reluctant. The reason given for this particular reluctance was that there had been talks that to be able to grand Indochina, of which Vietnam was a part of, they would have to place it under trusteeship. America was afraid that this would set precedence for Britain who would then claim trusteeship of the U.S. Thus, America backed France in reclaiming colonialism over indoasia and effectively Vietnam (Daum et.al, 2003).
The Vietnamese people would not give up. All through the 1940’s Ho Chi Minh and additional Vietnamese leaders made repetitive appeals to President Truman’s government and his American officials to aid in the achievement of independence from French colonial rule of the Vietnamese people (Anderson, 2011). This also fell on deaf ears. Having tried to communicate and ally himself with both the French and America, and his pleas similarly falling on deaf year, Ho Chi Minh opted for a different route, that of communism.
Communism
Given a choice between communism and colonialism and America saw the later as a lesser of the two evils. America’s involvement in the Vietnam War came only after they threatened to go the communist way. At this point, it was clear that the Vietnamese people wanted independence and they would get it using whichever means (Gitlin, 2010). This did not sit well with most capitalist countries, the U.S included. At first, the U.S was not directly involved and only participated by supporting the French rule and supporting funds that would assist the French fight against the Vietnamese resistance movements.
The cold war in this case also played an important role for both the French and the Americans were strong capitalist states and now firmly believed that communism had infiltrated into Vietnam. This era came immediately after WWII and most countries were interested in rebuilding and recovering from the war. In this capitalism for the U.S would ensure that development which was top on America’s agenda was ensured. America views shifted from being non-colonialist to being non-communism. Communism, they believed would derail in development as well as industrialization (Lewy, 1978). The U.S believed therefore that due to France’s strong capitalistic ideas, they were likely to liberate Indochina from communist ideas that had infiltrated.
There is also the fact that America had officially lost all faith in Ho Chi Minh whom they believed that despite the fact that he talked about capitalism had already embraced communism. This was evidenced in his works with Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party and the Comintern. In fact it is speculated that by the time the French finally surrendered and gave up to the communism scare had let to the U.S government spending three billion dollars they had ‘invested’ towards ‘saving Indochina from communism (Lind, 2002).
French withdrawal
This event is what triggered the U.S real/physical involvement in Vietnam. The state government decided that it now wanted to create a South Vietnamese state that was both nationalist and democratic (Scigliano, 1964). America believed that with its backing and aid, they would be able to create a South Vietnam that was capable of resisting communism which was rampant in the north. They believed that if they had their way they would end up containing the communism rampart in the north by dividing the state into the southern nationalist and northern communist states. However, this ended up as a failure. On one end, the U.S stated that it was fighting for the interests of the South Vietnamese people while all along those interests were those of the U.S.
Conclusion
Having the used that much resources, would on conclude that the U.S was justified in meddling in Vietnams affairs. History indicates that it was not. The fact is that they had been neutral and unresponsive from the very start. The reasons given for entering that particular war were not in the list justifiable.
References
Anderson, D. L. (2011). The Columbia history of the Vietnam War. New York: Columbia University Press.
Daum, A. W., Gardner, L. C., & Mausbach, W. (2003). America, the Vietnam War, and the world: Comparative and international perspectives. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Gitlin, M. (2010). U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Edina, Minn: ABDO Pub.
Lewy, G. (1978). Lewy: America in Vietnam C. Oxford University Press.
Lind, M. (2002). Vietnam: The Necessary War: A Reinterpretation of America's Most Disastrous Military Conflict. Simon and Schuster.
Scigliano, R. (1964). South Vietnam. Boston: Mifflin.
Statler, K. C. (2007). Replacing France: The origins of American intervention in Vietnam. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
