Vietnam America Connection, Essay Example

History shows that the United States had a military presence in Vietnam prior to the Vietnam War and history also shows that beginning in the 1950s, maintaining a non-Communist South Vietnam became crucial in American efforts to contain communism. To this end, America’s involvement in South Vietnam at the Gulf of Tonkin in the 1950s was, no doubt, justified by the fact that North Vietnamese forces fired on U.S. forces stationed in Vietnam at the time, attacking them in international waters. As well, President Lyndon Johnson was authorized to retaliate, in an effort to uphold international peace and the security in Southeast Asia (OOTH, n.d.). This is how the United States justified getting involved in the war at Vietnam and used this as the basis for its actions there. The United States’ justification for being involved in the war was also the justification for its determination to abide by the outcome of free elections in Vietnam, but only if those elections yielded a non-Communist leader.

According to OOTH, the Communist Party was poised to win schedule elections to reunite a divided Vietnam in 1954. However, the United States got involved in an effort to lessen the spread of communism in the country. This initiative led to the charter supporting Ngo Dinh Diem, the South Vietnamese leader. The charter was called the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SATO) of 1954. Leader Ngo Dinh Diem refused to have elections because he wanted to curtail communist infiltration of South Vietnam. However, the insurgence of South Vietnamese communist guerrillas (the Viet Cong) took over South Vietnam, which marked the beginning of the Second Indochina War (OOTH, n.d.)

According to historical accounts, the Second Indochina War (1954-1975) was a result of French and Vietnamese conflict, in which the French were forced out of Vietnam, after being in power for over 100 years (Brigham, n.d.). Meanwhile, the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorized President Johnson’s administration to escalate the U.S. military presence in Vietnam, as a response to the conflict between the French and the Vietnamese in an attempt to subdue the communists that were infiltrating Vietnam. This was further justification used by the U.S., along with the first incident at the Gulf of Tonkin, to take aggressive action in Vietnam (OOTH, n.d.).

American history accounts for its involvement in Vietnam in a way that would seem justified. However, many people, no doubt, feel that the United States’ presence in the Vietnam War was not justified. This was a war of much controversy for the United States, as well as for the president at the time, Lyndon Johnson. This controversy included, according to Mintz & McNeil (2013), the enormous amount of fatalities and casualties the Vietnam War caused. These were 58,000 American lives lost with 350,000 casualties, and one to two million Vietnamese lives lost. These numbers are staggering, due to the length of the Vietnam War, which has been labeled the longest war in American history. Many Americans, to this day, question whether or not the United States had any business in this war or whether it was actually for a greater cause. Either way, it did not protect the South Vietnamese from the totalitarian government, which was supposed to have been the purpose and the justification of the United States’ involvement.

References

Brigham, R. K. (n.d.). Battlefield Vietnam: A Brief History. Retrieved from PBS.org: http://www.pbs.org/battlefieldvietnam/history/

Mintz, S., & McNeil, S. (2013). Overview of the Vietnam War. Retrieved from Digital History: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=18&smtid=1

OOTH. (n.d.). U.S. Involvement in the Vietnam War: the Gulf of Tonkin and Escalation, 1964. Retrieved from U.S. Department of State: http://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin