Your opinion of the Vietnam war?

Question

In my current understanding, South Vietnam was succesfully defended until allies left, then North Vietnam broke the peace treaty right after they left. So why then do people always talk about the North kicking the americans, aussies and such out? Whats your two cents on the matter?

Answer 1

While the USA and it's allies fought the war, not one battle was lost by the USA. However as the cowards and draft dodgers secured more public opinion against the war through inuendo, lies of atrocities, anti soldier, anti war protests, which kept the North Viet Nam morale up to continue, the war was lost because this country no longer has the courage to fight a long war.

The (American) Viet Nam soldier was abandoned, and denigrated, as eventually the present soldiers will eventualy be. After the war ended the USA denied us benefits, would not recognize the effects of Agent Orange, till much later. Would not treat the soldiers for PTSD, until later.

The South Vietnamese soldier was drafted into the service for a term of 20 years. 80% of the South Viet Namese were Buddhist, and the other 20% were Catholic. The Catholics controled the South Vietnamese goverment. The laws of the land stated that not more than 5 people could be in a buddhist temple at any given time. When the prime minister of Viet Nam's brother a Cardinal of the Catholic church was using South Vietnamese troops to forcebly baptise Buddhist to be catholics, all this cause problems, and anger.

Ho Chi Minh from the north was angry that the OSS (now CIA)during the ww2, told him that Viet Nam would be granted independence for France after the war, if they fought against the Japanese, which they did very well. But when the war was over, France took control again, and the French Indo-China war began. The United Nations in their infinate wisdom, split the country into North and South, (Like Korea) and that went over like a lead f**t. result a war.

Answer 2

The worst foreign policy error every made by USA and was the start of the reduction of the influence of that great country.

Answer 3

You understand wrong.  S.Vietnam was loosing ground while the U.S. was pouring in troops, supplies and money.   A surtax was imposed on the American tax payers to finance the war.   This was not entirely successful as in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, the U.S. experienced bouts of inflation and social upheaval.  

The south was loosing the war even with the American's help.   After the American's dropped out, the lines broke and the country collapsed.

I don't think it was so much as the north kicking the U.S. and Aussies out as it was a financial drain and the discontentment in the U.S. that lead to widespread riots.  In the end, it was political.  Nixon promised to get the U.S. out of the war and he won.   Later, the country would turn on Nixon.

Answer 4

It wasn't a war, it was a policing action as the American government told us.  

To me, all war is a pointless loss of life and limb and that one was particularly so.  :(

Answer 5

THE USA HAS HAD ITS **** KICKED IN EVERY WAR ITS BEEN IN {AFTER WW2}

Answer 6

IT WAS A VERY SAD TIME IN U.S. HISTORY. ANTI-WAR FOLKS HATED  SOLDIERS AND SOLDIERS FELT UNLOVED. THEY WERE NOT WELCOMED HOME WITH OPEN ARMS

Answer 7

The Vietnam War was not pointless. It was to protect American interests of democracy and to safeguard against the fear of the spread of communism, allowing the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics a stepping stone in the Cold War.

Answer 8

It is beyond doubt that the USA lost the war even though it won almost every battle.

Wars are fought, as well as in the field, by economic pressure and through morale and propaganda. The USA lost heart for the fight. The war was costing too much. In any case American public opinion is notoriously isolationist, and it doesn't take much to swing them against almost anything which benefits somebody else. This attitude infiltrated even the soldiers in the field, who did not understand or like the locals and so hated being at risk to help them. Hence the well-known atrocities which happened from time to time.

Having said that, the USA was clearly on the side of the angels in the war. The North was a particularly repellent military dictatorship. The Vietnamese people preferred the Saigon government with all its faults - they proved this by voting with their feet. Despite having to cross a war zone, a constant stream of refugees made their way south. Nobody was willingly going north. After the Vietcong took over, there was a flood of desperate people trying to escape by any means possible, and very many more who hadn't the ability to escape, but had to stay there and suffer.

Because the USA showed a disastrous want of moral courage and made many mistakes at the time, let's not turn this (as some commentators try to) into a sort of cowboy film where the Vietcong wear white hats (goodies) and the USA black hats (baddies). It was not good versus evil: it was evil versus slightly more tolerable.