What was our reason for being in the vietnam war?

myyahooanswersaccount1184

The Vietnam War was a splinter conflict of the Cold War. The country was split between the communist north (who was given funding and weapons be the USSR) and the democratic south. Essentially it could be said that the war was to stop the spread of communism, but an ally of your enemy becomes another enemy. America was not only trying to stop the spread of communism, but also trying to keep the USSR from becoming an even larger threat than it already was.

Adam B

The United States was convinced (for right or wrong) that it needed to stop the advance of communism, lest a "domino effect" sweep through the poor countries of the world and communism become triumphant.

In fact, we didn't lose the war "at home," and hippies had little to do with it. We lost the war because we didn't know what we were doing there. We were fighting an extremely dedicated enemy waging a war of national liberation against us, the foreign invader. The Vietnamese wanted to be free to choose their own government, and they couldn't stand having yet more foreign interference in their internal affairs. America tried to prop up the SVA, but there was zero popular support for the South Vietnamese government. The government of South Vietnam was never democratic. It was ruled by a series of dictators and generals who kept getting assassinated because they were so hated by their own people. No one ever voted them in.

The lesson is a good one for the USA in Iraq: a foreign invader cannot prevail against a domestic resistance willing to sacrifice everything. The Vietnamese lived there, we didn't. They knew that eventually we would get tired and go home, and we did. They didn't have to win battles, they just had to keep killing soldiers until it wasn't worth it for us to stay.

livn4themin

To deter communism - we had major impacts on communism, although it didn't happen until after we left Vietnam and left thousands to die like all the democrats and liberals want us to do with Iraq. That is the only comparison that holds water.

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ZOMGLOLWUT

France dropped the colonial ball. If the USA didn't pick it up, international Communism would spread.

In every battle, the US won. We "lost" the war at home, thanks to a leftist media and the hippie rioting.

Mr. E

We had to bail out the French... AGAIN!!!!!!

Penguino

Two presidents led us in.. Ike and Kennedy .. the premise was to bale out the Frogs, and at that time, fighting Commies was in Vogue. Kinda looks silly in retrospect

artilleryman89

Ya, it's nothing like Iraq, except there is an insurgency. That's it.

EDIT
I hate that comparison to...grrr..

Martinmm

to finish the Korean mess and what it developed ...

the d

communist north vietnam invaded democratic south vietnam

we did not want to lose an allie to communism,

WE also feard the domoino effect and that north vietnam would invade cambodia and they would fall to communism,

cambodia also fell to communsim in the mid 70's

andypanda

No,its unfortunate that we had to loose so many lives, to feather the pockets of so many dirty politicians, that thought we had to step into a country, that should have figured their own mess out. We lost way too many boys in that war.

G-Man

To fight Communism and little else. Iraq is quite different. In Vietnam, we cared little about helping the country rebuild, unlike Iraq, and that is just for starters.

nsb8685

Supposedly we were in Vietnam to stop communism but it was a lie. Because if we really wanted to win that war we could've. Only 25% of our forces were really fighting and 75% were stationed in Saigon doing nothing. It was the same rhetoric and propaganda as the war on terrorism.

jp patches

yea it was to fight Communism just think now we send them every Penny we make so the red dragon can get so strong it will buy America maybe Iraq can buy a big chunk next

corporaldumbdumb

to spawn the movie "full metal jacket."

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