What happened in Vietnam?

Question

Why were we there in the first place? Who were we fighting? How did we lose?

Answer 1

Vietnam --North Vietnamese 1st place.
Americans 2nd place.
South Vietnames 3rd place.
Japanese 4th place.
French 5th place.

Ho Chi Minh was an American ally who provided the US Army with accurate, vital intelligence about French Indo China during World War II. When he was sworn into power in Hanoi in 1946, an American plane flew over the ceremony and his speech included exact quotes from the Declaration of Independence.

A few months later, the French (who HAD COLLUDED WITH THE JAPANESE DURING THE WAR) wanted their colonial power back, and the US double-crossed Ho and sided with the colluding, power-mad French.

We got in there to take over from the French after they made a tremendous mistake at the Plain of Jars in 1954.

We EXPANDED our presence during the Kennedy Administration for the outrageously irrelevant reason that the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba was incompetent and Kennedy needed to show he was tough on Communism, so he started a program to stop Communist expansion in "Laos" by sending more troops to Vietnam. By November, 1963, we were involved deeply enough to collude in the assastionation of South Vietnamese President Diem.

The destabilized, leaderless South Vietnamese government was losing its civil war with the north rapidly, so we EXPANDED our role over (a probably fabricated) military incident in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964.

Lyndon Johnson won a landslide election in 1964 by fictitiously claiming his opponent, Barry Goldwater, was trigger happy and anxious to use nuclear weapons. Johnson also promised --and yes, this is exactly what he said, "I will not sent the wives of American mothers to Vietnam!" This promise was kept, no lesbian life partners died in the conflict. Goldwater said during his acceptance speech, "Your government is getting you into a war in Vietnam and lying about it!" He got 38% of the vote.

Johnson, of course, EXPANDED the war in 1965 with the election victory behind him. Soon we had 1/2 million troops involved, daily bombing runs and weekly "casualty generation" numbers published by the Pentagon.

Nixon ran in 1968 on a program of his "secret plan to end the war" in Vietnam. He barely won and his secret plan kept the war running through 1972, in spite of the fact that Congress RESCINDED the Gulf of Tonkin resolution in June, 1970. So it was an unauthorized, illegal war for the last 2 1/2 years (and it was carried OVER into CAMBODIA in June of 1970, one of the counts of impeachment against Nixon at the time he resigned in 1974).

Kissinger developed a deal in which we bought our way out with bombing and troop withdrawals and a willingness to leave prisoners of war behind (mostly in Laos, where our substantial involvement started). The peace treaty took effect in January, 1973.

The South Vietnamese, as crooked as their government was, held on until April of 1975, when they ran like cowardly children from the North Vietnamese advance. Our unelected acting President, Gerald Ford, wanted to go BACK INTO VIETNAM but was taken aside by his cabinet and embarrassed into eating his words and growing up a little bit.

SUMMARY: We got in there to take the place of the French, our Europwean WW2 allies. We were fighting their blunders and then ours. We lost because we supported weak colonial government and a corrupt puppet government we ourselves destabalized instead of APOLOGIZING to Ho Chi Minh, an ALLY we betrayed,

and because

we listened to a policy wonk in the State Department, Dean Rusk, who got America into Korea and came back as Kennedy's Secretary of State to advocate yet another land war on the Asian perimeter with the Pacific.

Summary of the summary: We (especially ou ambitious bureaucrats in DC) were incompetent and couldn't admit mistakes --especially -- out intelligence community.

Answer 2

We went into Vietnam to stop the spread of communism that we feared would spread across the Asian continent. We were fighting the northern Vietnamese Army, which was backed financially and with military hardware from the Soviet union. We lost because we, as a country, lost popular support for fighting a war many beleived we could not win.

For some background, We began sending in military "advisors" in the 40's and 50's. It was thought at the time that we could provide support for the Vietnamese people to repel the communist influence, whether it was political or military. Remember, at the time North Vietnam had already fallen under communist control. The southern half of the country had not. The US wanted to keep it free and democratic. So...we slowly got involved more and more on a somewhat secret or at least quiet basis. Then President Johnson orchestrated the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident in which US military personel were (supposedly) the victims of an attack by the N. Vietnamese communist backed troops. That drew the US into the conflict more and more. It generated support from the american people to back the US openly sending in thousands of troops to fight back and also repel the comminst influence. The US found out over time that we could not win the hearts and minds of the vietnamese people (north and south). We eventually withdrew as we could not win unless the people of the country supported democracy and the US troops. More and more they did not want us there, and the people of the US were more and more "anti-war". We just didnt see why so many US soldiers should die to help a foreign country. The backers of the US sending in troops more and more were of the mindset that we had to look at the bigger picture. They thought that if south vietnam were to fall to the North, then that would open the door for Communists to take not only South Vietnam but also more and more countries across Asia.

In the end, it looks like it was a mistake to go into Vietnam in the first place. But then again, no one had a crystal ball when it started. Its like the first IRAQ war. Iraq invaded the country of Kuwait and may have been ready to keep taking over more countries. That would allow one country hostile to us to control a large part of the world's oil supply. We need oil to live so we had to get involved.

Its kind of complicated and my explanation is very general. I hope it helps.

Answer 3

Vietnam was a French Colony. The French were driven out by the Communists in the North. The US were asked to be 'advisers' to the South in fighting against the Communist North. The US agreed because it wanted to avoid the domino effect which was that if one country in South East Asia went Communist then all the others: Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia etc. would follow. The US expanded its role from advisers when it was clear that the South could not win. With lack of support in the US the US eventually pulled out and left Vietnam to the communists. The domino effect failed to materialize.

Answer 4

The politicians said that we had to stop the growth of communism there so the military went. The vietnamese had already kicked the French out and they had been in vietnam for decades as the elite class. When we went, it was just another automatic war and it was not long before China was sending hundreds of thousands of troops and weapons in to help the vietmanese. it was guerilla warfare all the way and the intruder, us, could not fight them. We got kicked out also. We lost our asses.

Answer 5

That is just too long of a story for here! We went in for Michelin!
Google or Yahoo Vietnam, there is a lot on it!

Answer 6

Google the Tonkin Gulf. That is where it all started. And it was started on false pretenses. Kinda like Iraq.

Answer 7

Haha... Good question. Why indeed...

Answer 8

We lost.