Why did the USA have to fight in Vietnam?

Question

What made the USA join the war?

Answer 1

~The US did not "have" to get involved and had Eisenhower listened to Degaulle, would not have. JFK realized the mistake and probably would have pulled out. Dallas stopped that. LBJ's ego would not let him get out, and there was too much money to be made by his cronies (and him) for him to be realistic and withdraw.

Art Buchwald wrote a column in '68 suggesting that we declare victory, hold a parade and bring the troops home. In '75, that's exactly what we did.

Gee, maybe we should have just let the elections that were required by the 1954 Geneva Accords to take place on schedule in 1956, but since Uncle Ho was a shoe-in to win, we wouldn't do that. Instead, we propped up the corrupt and blood-thirsty government of Diem until he got uppity and JFK sanctioned his assassination. Then we supported the much more malleable Nguyen Van Thieu until sanity prevailed and we pulled out.

As it turned out, the Domino Theory was a bogus fraud, as any thinking person had to realize it had to be, and Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening were proven to be not only not unpatriotic traitors but the only ration thinkers in Congress on August 7, 1964.

[Pardon the loaded language, but the facts are correct and a matter of record.]

Answer 2

No the Vietnam war didn't have to occur, the Americans said that the the war was for the freedom of democracy so other countries would not fall to communism, by the domino theory where countries would become communist one after the other and it would spread to the west. However lets revive the facts:

1) In the Vietnamese elections the American government fixed the elections to help the south Vietnam (democracy). However both the votes for north and south were equal.

2) In operation rolling thunder napalm agent and agent orange was used. Napalm was used to destroy the skin until it reached the bone by using a chemical altered again and again in order to hurt the Vietcong has much has possible.
The agent orange damaged all vegetation and to deform the people of north Vietnam.

3) The American solider raped, killed and abused many of the innocent peasants even women and children that lived in the country. Innocent's were killed for not speaking English or not knowing information the Americans wanted.The method was to take what you could take from them and then kill them.

4) The American soilders even hurt the population of South Vietnam, the side they were supposed to be on. Vietnam is torn apart and still hasn't recovered.

5) When America lost Vietnam and pulled out the country Vietnam became communist and so the country next it however the spread stopped. . This would have happened even if the Vietnam war occurred so a lot of money and lives were wasted. A lot of hate was given from the world to America. Does this sound familiar it should its the current state of Iraq.

6) The American government lied to their own population about the Vietnam war and made it out has if they were forced into the war and helped the citizens of Vietnam. Even the American population turned against the government and the war. Acts like this is why a lot of the world hates democracy.

Is this a true act of democracy if not why did it occur? Could it have been due to Vietnam's valuable income i.e. heroin and resources which produce a lot of money?

Answer 3

Robert S. MCNamara offers these reasons: "Throughout the Kennedy years, we (the American politicians & public) operated on two premises that ultimately proved contradictory. One was that the fall of 'South' Vietnam to Communism would threaten the security of the United States and the Western world. The other was that (only) the South Vietnamese could defend their "nation", and that America should limit its role to providing training and logisitical support."

The war that the U.S.A. joined was Vietnam's war for independence. Now that Vietnam has been unified as an independent nation under a communist government for over 30 years, why would anyone fear the security of the U.S.A. or the Western world?

Answer 4

Well, you have a couple of answers from Communists who hate America and one answer that seems to have either been written by John Kerry or is plagiarizing his lies.

For the record, the 1954 Geneva Accords which supposedly authorized an election in 1956 that would have determined who was to lead the country, that are mentioned several times by the communists, were NOT AGREED to. The PEOPLE of South Vietnam did not want to be ruled by Communists and refused to agree to the so-called Geneva Accords and neither did over a million people in north vietnam who moved south.

As to the lie about Ho Chi Minh being certain to win national elections in 1956, that is far from certain, as he instituted "reforms" which removed all landowners and non-communists from their property and any participation in the government in north vietnam. Ho removed the lie that he was a nationalist and showed his true faith of being a communist.

Also proving the LIE about the communists having the total support of the vietnamese people is the fact that after the withdrawl of US forces in 1975 over a million vietnamese were killed and many million more were put into re-education camps.

whale

Answer 5

The Domino Theory of the Downfall of Southeast Asia was the cover story. The truth involves the control of opium and the distribution of it in Vietnam by the French.
The story begins long before American or French involvement in the war in the mid 1900s. It begins with the UK and China and the Opium wars long before.
But the US involvement followed the impending defeat of the French, our allies. The injustices forced by the French on the Vietnamese people included forcing each village to purchase a certian amount of opium. They also outlawed locally produced rice wine forcing the people to consume French wines. These, among lot of other injustices, convinced many to join Ho Chi Minh's Viet Minh, an organization fighting for the independence of Vietnam. An independent Vietnam was the last thing the French wanted and the US stood behind France.
The French established sovereignity in over VietNam in 1863 and introduced the opium poppy which soon produced a flourishing trade. They fought for 30 years before the US took over.
The beginning of all this goes back to the first part of the 17th century. There was a growing trade deficit between the UK and China. The British soon began exporting opium into China from British India (more correctly, forced importation). The first opium war was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Empire in China from 1839 to 1842. The second was fought between the United Kingdom and France against the Qing Dynasty of China from 1856 to 1860. The Viet Nam war was a culmination of forces put into play more than 120 years before the US got involved.
Interestingly, "By the mid-1960s, Southeast Asia had a self-contained narcotics industry producing enough raw opium to sustain addicts in the region's cities. Following a pattern seen elsewhere, local demand raised the region's opium harvest to levels sufficient for an eventual entry into the world market, and then sustained it during periodic downturns in global demand. Although Hong Kong's chemists had been producing heroin from Southeast Asian opium since the mid 1950s, heroin laboratories did not open in the Golden Triangle until the US military presence in South Vietnam created a local demand for No. 4 heroin." http://www.a1b2c3.com/drugs/opi011.htm

Today opium production is greatest in Burma and Afghanistan having been almost eradicated in China and Viet Nam.

In addition to the opium connection there is a lot of evidence that the war was over oil (imagine that) with Standard Oil wanting to drill off the coast. Interesting reading at http://www.brojon.org/frontpage/bj050701-3.html

Much of what I've written is an oversimplification of an involved process over many years with a lot of religious and political processes. I won't get into my interpretations of the politics of this time but the many of the same things are rampant in our current involvement in Iraq which has become the most expensive war the US has ever fought.

Answer 6

No it didn't. It could have let the Vietnamese sort it out for themselves - or even offered to help in developments after the end of French Colonialism. What made the US join the war was an idealogical fear of communism (inherited from the alarm spawned through European established power structures by the 1916 Russian revoluton), an inability to distinguish one form of communism from another, an ignorance of Vietnamese village culture outside French influence (which was COLLECTIVE, or "communist" for centuries), a delusion that if one part of SE Asia turned communist the rest would follow in the 'domino theory' - and a hubris which deluded the US into thinking it could shape the world to its own requirements (a delusion which has persisted in US Middle East policy first with Israel/Palestine and then with Iraq; and now potentially with Iran).

Answer 7

Some American leaders felt that if Vietnam was allowed to become communist, that the rest of Southeast Asia would follow, one by one. This was called the domino theory. This was the height of the cold war, and some felt that allowing this would give the Soviets too much of an advantage. Of course, many felt that there was no need to get involved at all.

Answer 8

You should be asking what the hell made australia join the vietnam war.

Answer 9

Containment-Allow communism to exist, but dont let it spread.

The US did not want communism to spread, and believed that southeast asia would be taken over by communism if S. Vietnam turned communist, A.K.A. the domino theory

Answer 10

For the Justice of god
For the Freedoms of democracy
For the Future of mankind