Why did so many Americans sooner or later oppose the US involvement in vietnam? please give many reasons?

Question

i have a few reasons, but i am having trouble thinking of more.

Answer 1

There are many many reasons for U.S. opposition to the Vietnam Conflict. The U.S. involvement in Vietnam really started at the end of WWII, France had occupied Vietnam prior to WWII. During the war, Japan went into Vietnam. At the end of the war, France basically asked for U.S. backing to go back into Vietnam. It suprised Vietnam, because Ho Chi Minh, who was a revolutionary leader in Vietnam, had thought that the U.S. would support a Vietnamese revolution. The U.S. was afraid of Communism, Ho Chi Minh had studied communism, but had also studied the American revolution. Since the Soviet Union and the U.S. struggled with relationships post WWII, and the "Iron Curtain" was created in Europe, separating Communist East and Capitalist West, the U.S. saw any possible sign of Communism as a threat, and thus supported France. At the Geneva Conference, there was an agreement to split Vietnam in 2, much like Korea, with Ho Chi Minh in the North, and a Capitalist/Democratic government in the South. The U.S. "helped" with the election of a "democratic" leader in the South, and helped to establish a SVA, South Vietnamese Army. As the conflict escalated, the U.S. committed soldiers. At the height of the conflict, president Johnson told a somewhat lie about where the U.S. was in the Gulf of Tongkin, and thus got Congress to pass the Gulf of Tongkin Resolution, which basically gave him a blank check to escalate the conflict as he saw fit. Americans were concerned about soldiers going to Vietnam, especially since many were dying. The lottery draft was instituted, and forced young men to be drafted into the military and serve in Vietnam at very young ages. When the Tet Offensive took place in January of 1968, the media coverage showed what the conflict was really like for many who had not already been paying attention. Americans further protested against U.S. involvement. It seemed to many that the U.S. was fighting a war that could not be won. The SE Asian jungle was unknown terrain for U.S. soldiers, the methodology of the NVA(North Vietnamese Army) and the Viet Minh (special tranied north soldiers) was at a level that the U.S. had not been trained to deal with ( underground tunnels, punji sticks, their ability to create bombs out of unexploded U.S. bombs and grenades). This was also the first war(conflict) that had been reported or televised at the level that it was, so the public was seeing first hand the effects of war, which created protest in itself. This was also a time of revolution in America anyway, being that it was during the Civil Rights movement, and it seemed that everyone had a movement to be involved in. Hope this helps!!!! Good Luck!!!!

Answer 2

A very interesting question, especially since during the Viet Nam war (From Eisenhower through Nixon) MORE AMERICANS WERE KILLED ON THE HIGHWAYS EACH AND EVERY YEAR THAN THE ENTIRE VIET NAM WAR!!!!
I thnk the main reason is because the Liberal Media tells people what to do and think and like a bunch of lab rats they do what the Liberal Media tells them. You see the same thin now in Iraq; people were so excited when it started, but soon tire of it and want to quit playing. Hello, Folks! It is NOT A GAME! It is for real and the enemy plays for keeps. Rome did not fall from without, but within. Americans are the worst enemy of America; they want to give everything away (witness the Mexican Invasion!), don't want to hurt the enemy, but don't care about the victims (such as the 3,000 that died at the Twin Towers on 9/1/1).
Another reason is that MOST AMERICANS now are not American by heritage, but only American by acquiring citizenship, many by being illegals who were granted immunity and citizenship. Many of these people just don't care about America.
But then, any one against the Viet Nam war or the Iraq war do not care about America. They would rather sit around doing drugs, getting drunk and enjoying their lives.
Until the next 9/1/1.

Answer 3

The excuse for the war was based on faulty basis.
The Gulf of Tonken incident was a lie
The Viet Kong was fierce fighters and caused more than 58,000 American GIs dead
No body wanted to die and many young men fled to Canada and Europe others did not want to go and found excuses George W Bush and Dick Cheney
The country split in regard the support of wars
Mass demonstration and hundred of thousands at Lincoln memorial and White House
The war very costly and destroying the fabric of the country
The Tet offensive was the final straw and the GIs were killed at a rate of 500 a week
There was no end of the war on the horizon with China supporting the Viet Kong with war material

Answer 4

The war was unwinnable despite the heavy cost in lives and the immense financial cost. The US was in the unenviable position of propping up a continuing succession of unpopular and corrupt governments in South Vietnam which eroded the support for the war among the very people the war was supposed to be for, the South Vietnamese. As the US commitment grew and grew, so the political and military situation deteriorated despite the military's claims of "success' until it became apparent that further involvement was a pointless waste of human lives.

Answer 5

I have no answer but the figures in the era of George Bush did not develop any of the people only loss in the economy and the loss of health is also
to the war on Iraq, the army and people infected
The judge currency on the world, we find that there is the cost exceeded the volume of the International Monetary government budget to cover this loss should be a low price

Answer 6

One of the main reasons was that the US Selective Service, aka The Draft! The sons (only) of Mr & Mrs Middle America were being taken, by threat of prison, to be cannon fodder for a war 12,000 miles away that had nothing to do with America!
If we had the draft today, we would either be out of Iraq, or Bush would be out of office!

Answer 7

Like the current 'war on terrorism', that part of the American public who had mixed feelings about it grew to see that the reasoning behind the war was flawed, given the mountain of evidence which showed plainly that their government was in the habit of hiding the truth, and manipulating voters by hysteria and greed. Plain stupidity was often employed.

Answer 8

There has been an anti-nuclear-weapons "peace movement" that we don't hear from so much these days, but used to be very popular with students and some scientists for a good chunk of the 2nd half of the 20th century. This movement was getting a lot of news media attention in the run up to the Vietnam war.

Another question might be asked on Yahoo Answers about the effectiveness of such movements, and how much news media attention they get.

When a lot of people are marching & demonstrating for some cause, and they get a lot of news media attention, that leads to supporters for their cause, that they might not otherwise get.

Then there's events, that may be contrived, that are used as fuel for more propaganda, or good works.

Some of the civil rights events were "setups" or "entrapment" where civil rights workers deliberately went places that were racist, for the purpose of documenting the bad treatment of blacks etc. This led to boycotts etc. that successfully got bad practices reversed. So that is a well known effective tactic if used wisely.

Similarly, the Kent State massacre was caused by the peace movement ... basically a bunch of college students who did not want to go to Vietnam, decided to have a violent confrontation with the military, and some of them got shot.

There are wars, like WW II, Korean War, that "enjoy" great popularity where the people approve the nation involvement in the war. There are some where the nation is deeply divided on which side to fight, such as the American Revolution and American Civil War.

In such wars, the people flock to be recruited into the military, to help fight the "just" war.

With the Vietnam War, the government failed to make a convincing job to the people as to why this war was neccessary for US involvement. There was a draft, where young men were being forced to join the military, go over there, many get maimed or killed.

So there were masses of young men engaged in various kinds of draft dodging.

We were fighting to help prop up a horrible dictatorship, which was in a conflict with a communist neighbor, whose interest was in national independence.

US foreign policy was heavily reliant on a domino theory that the communists take over one country, then use that as a launching point to take over other nations. There was a lot of validity to that theory, but there were also places where the theory did not apply. Vietnam was one such case. So there was controversy there, with respect to who accepted what theory., and where it was relevant.

Remember that prior to WW II, Vietnam was a colony of France that got invaded by the Japanese. The allies said to the people of Vietnam ... if you help us in the war against Japan, we will help you with your independence from colonialism after we with WW II. Then after WW II, most of the allies welched on that deal, and tried to go back to business as usual as it had been before the war.

So Vietnam had a revolution against French colonialism, and they called upon WW II allies for help. The USA decided to be a friend to France instead.

At that point in time Vietnam was not a communist state, but because of the Cold War, any nation that the west had decided to make an enemy of the west, that nation could then go to get help from the communists.

There were a ton of people, particularly on the left that were disgusted with how America seemed to be making enemies needlessly, but in the case of Vietnam, it was the Democratic administrations (Kennedy & Johnson) that got us into the war, and Republican (Nixon) that eventually got us out.

So we had a situation there that was the product of double dealing from WW II, and the Cold War.

A lot of people were ignorant of this history, but the left wing of the Democrats were disgusted with the degree to which America was supporting dictatorships that were doing horrible human rights violations to their people.

France got defeated, kicked out, the UN was involved, America said to hell with that, we are going to take over there. Again, the vast majority of the people were ignorant of the history that led to the mess in Vietnam, but it was pretty obvious to everyone that we were propping up a horrible dictatorship, whose behavior was comparable to Burma today.

The communists were no better ... look at their treatment of Prisoners of War, in total disregard for the Geneva Conventions, but the US and South Vietnam were doing the same kind of War Crimes.

To win a war, some pretty brutal stuff has to be done. As technology marches forwards, the news media is able to get more details into people's homes. Television did not exist during WW II, was in its infantcy during the Korean War, but now people were seeing the gory details of war, like they had never seen it before.

The goryness of war was nothing new. What was new was that vast numbers of the public were seeing this stuff on TV, and were horrified. It has a much bigger impact when you see it with your eyes, than when you read about it in the news papers.

Answer 9

I think what it was, is that it was a war at the wrong time in U.S. history.The peace movement and people dying somewhat needlessly in a conflict that we (the US) should not have been involved in.

Answer 10

thousands of young americans died in an illegal war (like irak) for geo-political reasons. it was far away, there children where coming home in coffins 18 year old kids beeing drafted to fight an enemy their goverment had armed to get rid of the french. they werent winning millitarily or politicaly and they had no reason to be there to start with exept the ridiculous domino theory to stop communism.