vietnam war was it worth it?

[papasmurf]

The war criminals of the United States Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force murdered three million people in Vietnam, in countless places like My Lai. Most of the victims were women and children.

 

The American War" there is a continuing, little-known tragedy. Perhaps as many as two million children suffer genetic deformities that have been linked to Agent Orange, the defoliant that the Americans sprayed during the war in South and Central Vietnam to rob the enemy of cover, particularly around allied bases.

 

many belive the Vietnam War was "winnable" until the us "hamstrung" by the UN

 

So what do you think the war accomplish and was it worth it.

[cactoblasta]

Yes. It gave a little-known Indian ocean power time to improve its stranglehold over the petty nations of the Pacific. Without the Vietnam war to distract the Americans New Zealand would never have become the mighty empire it is today!

 

More seriously, the war achieved very little and had a high cost - I can't imagine what anyone got out of it except improved knowledge of the effects of pesticides on human evolution.

[Maquissar]

It only served as a bad example... but then again, I'm not sure anyone has learnt

anything from their own mistakes, considering the current political situation.

[MajKrAzAm]

The war criminals of the United States Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force murdered three million people in Vietnam, in countless places like My Lai. Most of the victims were women and children.

Criminals? Why have you called the US Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force criminals? Only 25 were sentenced to prison including Lieutenant William Calley.

 

People die in war and you can't really avoid that. I don't blame the Americans for using napalm and other means to kill the vietcong quickly instead of going through the jungle and stepping on a mine or a booby trap which killed or wounded 20% of American soldiers in vietnam.

[papasmurf]

You dont balme the americans for using bioligical agents with out knowing and studing the consequences .Many american veterans have long blamed the use of agents,which containted deadly componets for a variety.but ofcourse the american goverments denies it tyipical.during the war the us dropped more bombs on the indochinese peninsula than were employed by all sides during the 2nd world war.

the us ignored the geneva accord and the rights of the vietnamese they used the crullest weaponary.The other day there was a dodumentary about south vietnamese fleeing the comunists they fled into the jungles in large groups and many still live eating leaves and tree bark ,starving they fear leave for they will be killed .The americans desterted them.1 man said if the americans cant help us they might as well drop a bomb on us.

[Shakkara]

DOING a crime and not getting caught or punished still makes you a criminal. I would have thought much more people would have gotten a sentance, only 25 is ridiculous when you take the atrocities the US commited there into account. No the war wasn't worth anything, the US and any other nations should keep their filthy paws off things that don't concern them. If I could I'd genetically modify all the US inhabitants to make them die if they leave US soil. And the Chinese too while I'm at it... :ranting:

 

Bunch of hypocrites, blaming Saddam for use of chemical weapons, while they did it hundredfold in Vietnam and many more innocents died and still die.

[Chunky_Moose]

If I could I'd genetically modify all the US inhabitants to make them die if they leave US soil. And the Chinese too while I'm at it...

 

Whoa Shakkara, calm. Quite a lot of people have these fantasies about killing the inhabitants of superpowers. People like Osama Bin Laden and friends.

 

Anyway, on topic: The US entered Vietnam because they wanted to show off to the USSR that their policy of Containment did work and would stop the spread of communism. They made no progress in the first few years of the war and the USSR laughed in their faces. So, they got more determined and sent thousands of troops to Vietnam to get killed by the Viet-Cong and the NVA. A decade after the war begins, they come limping home with their tail between their legs and they scrap containment and start a new policy which is to only bully nations that have next to no military or economic power.

All in all, the US wasted 54,000 lives and billions of dollars to humiliate themselves, to make communism seem a better option and to kill millions of Vietnamese civilians. Typical American government... :angry2:

 

Oh, and btw Shakkara, I happen to be Chinese...... :angry2:

[Shakkara]

If I could I'd genetically modify all the US inhabitants to make them die if they leave US soil. And the Chinese too while I'm at it...

 

Whoa Shakkara, calm. Quite a lot of people have these fantasies about killing the inhabitants of superpowers. People like Osama Bin Laden and friends.

 

Oh, and btw Shakkara, I happen to be Chinese...... :angry2:

 

Don't worry, you won't die, as long as you stay where you are. I just don't want your people to do what they did to Tibet to another country. Amongst other things, your country is a direct threat to the Kingdom of Bhutan, something which cannot be tolerated. Meddling in the affairs of others shouldn't be tolerated anyway.

[Albareth]

This whole topic, and most of its esteemed writers, disturb me a little at the moment...

 

Big and importance difference: Nation as in the goverment <-> nation as in the people. While there certainly are plenty of foolish people that follow the goverment blindly - they are not the ones to be faulted. They are the ones I might possibly pity the most.

 

What is important to remember is that one policy, and one policy alone, is the reason why wars are such a grotesque phenomena (sp), and that is that it is the people who are made to fight the wars of the goverment - not the goverment, and that it's always the people that are blamed. Millions die because of this, and so long as you keep blaming one people or the other it'll always be that way - because once the balance of power shifts the same thing is bound to happen again.

 

As to the topic - no, it was completely to nothing. It was the most obvious of a long row of examples of the declination of the ideals held by the goverment of the US originally.

 

My two cents...

[vandorssen]

the Voice of Reason speaks:

 

Was the Vietnam War worth it?

 

This is a question that will never be fully answered. Hindsight is always 20/20, and in hindsight I think that most people agree that it was not a good idea, and perhaps that it was carried too far. But look at what the possible alternative was: leave the Soviet brand of communism unchecked and watch as South Korea, Indonesia, and maybe even Japan get swallowed up in the Soviet juggernaut. Although that was not a realistic possibility, it still concerned the leaders of that time. I think the world politics of the time made a confrontation between the US and a Soviet proxy inevitable. The US and the USSR would never have, I believe, come into confrontation directly with each other, but testing one another’s resolve was reasonable to both sides. Each side pushed the limit further and further until they felt it was no longer worth it, like a very long arm-wrestling match. The problem with Vietnam was that we (the US) simply did not know when enough was enough until our own people said so. We thought that going in to a morale deficit would bring big payoffs once we had defeated the Soviet’s Lieutenant (the Vietcong). What if we had been content to loose Vietnam early on? What if Hitler had been content with Poland and Austria?

 

But look also at the attempts the US has made after WWII to bring our benevolent form of tyranny to unwilling countries. Nineteen attempts and nineteen failures with two more easily on the horizon. The founders of our country were incredibly wise in saying we must avoid entangling alliances with foreign sovereigns (although they did not themselves follow this sage advice). I do not believe that the US should have been (or should be) an isolationist country, but I do not think we should have tried to single handedly change the balance of power then, or conquer the world now.

 

I also don’t believe one can compare our present situation in Iraq with the Vietnam conflict; in Vietnam we did (for at least some part) go in with the best of intentions, although over the course of that conflict those intentions changed. With Iraq we made a fully unilateral decision to invade a sovereign country that, as the evidence would seem to indicate, was incapable of doing us any real harm. And we did so in an extremely hypocritical manor, under the auspices of enforcing world laws that we ourselves are unwilling to commit to. What is good for the goose is good for the gander the saying goes. Does this mean that China or France should be able to invade and overthrow our government because it is stockpiling WMDs? Should we be sanctioned for manufacturing biological weapons unchecked and unregulated? But I digress… Was the Vietnam War worth it… Probably not. Was it effective for what its original intent was? Perhaps yes.