Reasons for the US pulling out of Vietnam!?

Question

Ive done a lot of research into this, but am interested to find out other peoples perception on it, as many people think different things.
ta x

Answer 1

Well aside from the usual stupid and ignorant answers from those who pretend to know and were not even born until the advent of Disco. Let me answer as one who lived and fought through it.

The length of the war, the high number of U.S. casualties, and the exposure of U.S. involvement in war crimes such as the massacre at My Lai helped to turn many in the United States against the war. Politically, the movement was led by Senators James William Fulbright, Robert F. Kennedy, Eugene J. M c Carthy, and George S. M c Govern; there were also huge public demonstrations in Washington, D.C., as well as in many other cities in the United States and on college campuses.

Fighting between South Vietnamese and Communists continued despite the peace agreement until North Vietnam launched an offensive in early 1975. South Vietnam's requests for aid were denied by the U.S. Congress.

So in a nutshell,due to the political game playing of those seeking to advance their own political careersby pulling out of South Vietnam (somewhat like we are seeing today with many Democrats) we soldiers were left out in the cold, abandoned by the VA, distrusted by fools who believed all the movie and news reports written by idiots, and looked at like traitors to our own country.

It wasn't until we Vietnam vets got tired of all that crap, that we started to set the record straight and fought our own government to get what was due us at the VA, build our own monument, and continue the efforts regarding the POW/MIA issues.

End of Story!!!

Answer 2

The turning point in public opinion in the US was the Mai Lai massacre where women, children and elderly were massacred for no reason, then came the Tet offensive which did not help. The US could never pacify Vietnam and a consistent flow of body bags and injured troops from Vietnam angered the US public where they had no choice but to pull out. In the end the US withdrew from Vietnam without achieving their objective, this no matter how one wants to dress it up counts as a defeat, however a defeat that saved a lot more young US lives!

Answer 3

Impact on the economy (huge spending on defence rather than social programs or job creation), external economic factors (oil crisis in 1973) increased the cost of war exponentially but probably the most important factor was morale. Many Vietnam soldiers were children of soldiers that had fought in Europe in WWII. It seems that in WWII there was a clearer understanding of why troops were needed, what the injustices were and most importantly that there was a clear victory. In Vietnam this wasn't as clear, for many reasons such as guerilla warfare, and the lack of results vs human toll lead to extreme fatigue in the public's conciousnous. When the politicians lose public opinion so much, they have no choice but to retreat. The difference with Iraq today is that despite the similar lack of results, the death toll isn't high enough to warrant the extreme reaction from the public.

Answer 4

The inability of the South Vietnamese to defend themselves autonomously necessitated continued US involvement and assistance. This continued involvement led to, among other things, but most importantly, mounting US casualties. These mounting casualties caused public outcry.

Nixon won the 1968 presidential election based on his policy of "Vietnamization". Basically, strengthening the South Vietnamese military through training and equipment, allowing for less US involvement in direct fighting. In 1973 the South Vietnamese army was nearly strong enough to defend itself and with the additional threat of US aerial bombardment Northern aggression was considered to be in-check. North and South Vietnam signed the "Paris Peace Accords" on January 27, 1973 and the involvement of US ground troops came to an end, but the threat US aerial bombardment was maintained as a key component in the balance of North-South military power.

On December 13, 1974 North Vietnam violated The Paris Peace Treaty to test the resolve of the United States. Also in December 1974, the Democrat majority congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act which prevented Nixon from maintaining North-South balance with his promised aerial bombardment. Had Nixon not been crippled by the Watergate scandal, he would have opposed congress and been able to fulfill his promise, but sure of impeachment he resigned and the new president Gerald Ford was forced to sign the act into law due to the weak position of his party. This spelled the end for South Vietnam.

Answer 5

The U.S. started to reduce the numbers of American troops in Vietnam under President Nixon. They trained and provided equipment etc. to the South Vietnamese armed forces. The government and much of the military in the South was corrupt and inefficient. When the North started an offensive in 1975, the South retreated. The North kept pushing and the South kept retreating. Soon, it became impossible to stop the North without the use of nuclear weapons. President Ford decided that the South could not be saved and that was the end of the war. Ford and Nixon were both Republican presidents. So, it is false to suggest that it was the Democrats who "lost" Vietnam as if anyone but the Vietnamese people owned Vietnam.

Answer 6

Losing may have had something to do with it.

Public opinion, which everyone seems to think did it, is only right up to a point. If the war had been going well, the govenment's attitude would have been one of 'who cares what the public thinks, we're winning.'
Isn't that EXACTLY what's happened with Iraq? It was all fun until body bags started arriving home from a war that can't be justified, made against a country that, hey, had no weapons of mass destruction, something that Ol George Dubya wouldn't be told. But it's going well in military terms and it's safeguarding oil supplies, so the US government is in no hurry to pull out.

Answer 7

I was in h.s. when the war ended. We were getting our butts kicked over there, it was a war that was a nightmare for the troops; booby traps, not knowing who the enemy was sometimes, jungles, swamps, etc. We had a government that kept saying we were "observers" and not declaring it a war. We became a country divided; the young people understood this was insane and wanted us out, older people who seemed to love war wanted us in (they weren't drafted of course).

I visited the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C. That beautiful summer's day, hundreds of people were there, but you could hear a pin drop, it was silent. Those large black granite walls with thousands of names (nearly 60 thousand) made you speechless. I had tears in my eyes as I walk slowly down the walkway along the walls. Just knowing all those names were people, young people who were under the age of 25 (most) was so hard to take. It was a generation, my generation, of people lost forever.

Answer 8

Nixon didn't want to be seen as the first president to lose a war, plus he promised to pull out of Vietnam.. Although leaving it a number of years before he did.
He didn't want America to look defeated in simpler terms.

Answer 9

It was an unpopular war at home. It was costing too much (causing inflation). There was no end in sight. Diplomatic successes with the Soviet Union and China led to an erosion of the "Domino Theory" and a reduction of the percieved threat of a "communist world domination".

Answer 10

all of the above plus an army can win battles but they cannot win the general populace. This has been the over riding fact in all guerrilla wars from Cuba To Iraq & Afghan