does anybody know anything about Vietnam?

Question

I need to interview someone for my class but everyone i have knows nothing and i know you guys are smart so here are the questions

1)Where is Vietnam? "Be specific"
2)What was the Vietnam War about?
3)Who were the 2 sides in the War?
4)What are the lessons to be learned from the war?
5)Is the Vietnamese War related to the War in Iraq in any way?"explain"
6)Do you think there is anything in our past "foreign affairs" and Vietnam
that could help us understand the war in Iraq and that could have prevented
us from going to war in Iraq?

Answer 1

Vietnam is in South East Asia - it shares borders with Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and China.
The Vietnam War was about the Vietnamese fighting for their independence against the French colonialists.
The two sides were: France (and the U.S. in a supporting role) and Vietnam (with the Chinese and the Russians in a supporting role).
The lesson to be learned from the war was: "Anti-Communism will remain a usless tool in our hands as long as the problem of nationalism remains unsolved."
(It is a shame the Americans never learned this lesson from the French.)
No, I think it is best to avoid making too many historical examples, such as "The Siege at Khe Sanh was another Dien Bien Phu," or "The war in Iraq is another Vietnam."

Answer 2

1) Southeast Asia, next to Laos and Cambodia.
2) Depends on who you ask. The Americans said it was about fighting communism. Vietnamese said it was about throwing off centuries of colonial oppression.
3) Basically, there was South Vietnam, with it's allies from America and a few other places such as Australia and New Zealand, and North Vietnam, with support from China and the Soviet Union.
4) An oppressor with superior force will never triumph over a people determined to live free.
5) Sure. They are both examples of the determination of the US to impose its vision of the world on foreign people through any means necessary. Both nations have oil, a resource the US is in desperate need of. Both wars have been disastrous failures. And both feature the might of the US against people of color who seem, strange, alien and dangerous to Americans.
6) Absolutely. As stated above, we should have known in advance that we would not be "embraced" by the people of Iraq, but violently resisted, and that our presence would serve as a rallying point for forces that would otherwise have little credibility within the invaded nations. And we should have understood that wars like this are crippling economically and spiritually, and that they would do enormous damage to the US.

Answer 3

Located on the S' China Sea. South of mainland China. Extends down to the Gulf of Thailand. Wraps around the south end of Cambodia. 106degrees by 8. almost equatorial

About? depends on who you ask. Some say over oil, some say over Communism. I say it was a practice for the up and coming conflict between the USSR and the USA. The Boomers knew nothing about war, and nothing about winning a war. They were given a rude awakening. 22 million Americans were put in live fire to wise them up. We only lost 50,000 men, and put 3.5 million Viets to the sword. We never invaded N' Vietnam. And in general allowed them to win. We had no use for the place except as a training platform. The saying was, when I was there, was to put all the good Viets on a ship, nuke Vietnam from one end to the other, and sink the ship. There was some hostility, but mostly towards the US for prolonging the inevitable. I don't know if there were two sides. We sank Chinese ships , Russian Ships, and shot down Russian, Chinese aircraft. See MIG Pilot. a book. Hard to find at this date, I'd reckon. the rest of my answer was cut off

Answer 4

1) It is next to Cambodia.
2) East versus west
3) There were many sides, once Cambodians, Laotians, and Chinese got involved
4) War is usually stupid and unnecessary
5) No. Vietnam and Iraq are in two entirely different spheres of influence.
6) No. Our foreign policy has consistently burned us, and our idiot politicians still continue to make the same mistakes they made in the past.

Answer 5

Yes.

See:-

http://www.vietnamtourism.com/

Of course the similarity between the Vietnam war and the Gulf War is that the yanks have ignominiously lost both whilst the rest of the world sniggers at them.

Sadly we had Blair as Prime Minister to get us involved and our servicepeople needlessly killed, whereas at the time of Vietnam we had Wilson who had a more realistic idea about what the yanks were up to (which is why the C.I.A. plotted against him) and he kept us out of the mess.