The interference of the United States into Vietnam in order to free it from Communism has caused many debates all over the world. Back then, the United States was a fast-developing world power that had access to a lot of technologically developed equipment and thus, considered helping Vietnam to be her duty. However, not many people agreed. Some people said that from a religious point of view, it was wrong to sacrifice American soldiers and Vietnamese civilians in order to help the country get rid of the Red Terror. Many claimed that the American interference was nothing but the result of America’s own fear of Communism spread. In this paper, I’m going to prove that in spite of the fact that many people opposed Vietnam War and found it necessary, it was the United States’ duty to protect the civilians from being murdered by their own neighbors. I am also going to support the opinion that right and wrong are absolutes and thus, circumstances cannot flip their places. In the case of Vietnam War, there were definitely the right and the wrong sides.
Because of the spreading Communism that was going to take over the entire Asia in the 1960s, the United States felt obligated to interfere and help Southern Vietnam fight their own co-citizens. Northern Vietnam that supported Communism and got a huge help from strong countries like Korea, China and the Soviet Union, hugely outnumbered the southern part of the country, which made the war unfair right away. While at first, this was considered to be a civil war between the citizens of the same country, later on, large world powers got involved, and Southern Vietnam started to seriously lack people and equipment. In many historical sources, the ruthlessness of American soldiers is mentioned. For example, during the My Lai Massacre, people like officer Calley made the United States notorious for brutality in the eyes of the whole world. This one officer released his anger by killing Vietnamese civilians: he “rounded up a group of villagers, ordered them into a ditch and mowed them down with a fury of with machine gun fire” ("The Ides of March - The Express Tribune” 2012). Of course, the whole United States army cannot be judged based upon one horrible example. Moreover, scholars tend to forget the behavior of the Vietcong army towards its co-citizens and never mention its inhumaneness during the war.
Vietnam War happened during the presidency of Lyndon Johnson. As a matter of fact, the President justified his politics against the spreading Communism. According to TheVietnamWar.info, President Johnson and his allies referred to the Domino theory when they explained the interference into Vietnam. Once Communism took over Vietnam, it would very fast spread into Eastern Europe, Africa, and Cuba. The influence of Soviet Union and China could not be underestimated. Because of these major world powers, Communists had already taken over parts of Russia and the whole China. According to the Domino theory, it wouldn’t take a lot of time until Communism was in Europe, gradually moving to the United States. Lyndon Johnson and his theory had a lot of supporters in Europe, especially France, who recently gifted America with the Statue of Liberty. The fear of Communism was present in the United States, but it was very understandable and indeed dangerous for many countries. What is more, the United States had long been helping South Vietnam develop its democracy and move to a higher level of economy. Lyndon Johnson considered helping the Southern Vietnamese to be his obligation. Leaving them on their own would look like a betrayal of an ally. We can clearly see that the president and his office couldn’t act differently during this war. Not doing anything would be taken as indifference and lack of desire to reach out and help. Being a very religious country, the United States couldn’t keep out of such a huge problem that hit her ally, who was only in the beginning of the way to development. South Vietnam lost a lot of people prior to the United States’ interference and couldn’t assist itself anymore. Some sources claim that South Vietnam asked for help from the United States and other European countries. Lyndon Johnson new that his politics would be viewed as ruthless; more over, the United States was already notorious for interfering into you the neighbors’ wars. However, he decided to take the lead and sent his troops to Vietnam.
In her article called “WARS OF CHOICE: MOTIVES AND JUSTIFICATIONS IN THE VIETNAM AND IRAQ WARS”, Andrea G. Ortu mainly opposes the politics of Kennedy and Johnson during Vietnam War. However, many of the things that she argues against I would actually agree. “When the United States perceived the communist threat to South Vietnam’s independence as imminent, the U. S. insisted that it was obliged, as a member of SEATO, to stand up to the North Vietnamese” (1). She adds that the trailer to do so would demonstrate that The United States was a weak country, unable to stand for its ally, which would immediately destroy her international credibility. The author of the article introduces this argument in order to oppose the United States’ policy, while I actually think that it’s very well explains the actions that Lyndon Johnson took in order to protect his ally and his own credibility (which is absolutely normal for a big country to do.)
The cruelty of the Northern Vietnamese astonished the American minds. People who had a strong faith in God couldn’t last such a thing happen. The developing world often didn’t follow the rules of the war, while the United States has the whole “Uniform Code of Military Justice”. This code mainly talks about the rules that a soldier has to follow in order to fight a fair war. The Article 118 charges a soldier or an officer “if he or she has a premeditated design to kill, intends to kill or inflict great bodily harm or is engaged in an act which is inherently dangerous to others and evinces a wanton disregard of human life or is engaged in burglary, rape, sodomy, robbery or aggravated arson”. Such rules are often not followed in Vietnam, where the soldiers were not put on trial for killing the civilians. This was something that outraged the American society and made it interfere in this unfair war.
Every war is it ever happened in the world was very tricky. It is known that it is extremely hard to understand where is the right and the wrong sides are; during Vietnam War, a lot of documents were falsified and a lot of the events were concealed. However, I strongly believe that the right and the wrong side of this war could be easily found. It was wrong to let the Communism spread all over the world and do nothing about it; it was also wrong to let the big empires take over the small ones by the means of the former’s technological advancement and financial strength. It was right to perform one’s duty and protect one’s ally just as one promised to. If I were Lyndon Johnson or someone who had any influence on war, I would do the same thing. Needless to say that there were a lot of civilians killed by the American soldiers as well. However, without these casualties, the country couldn’t be saved from Communism, and one part of it would be destroyed. The press often doesn’t mention the amount of help the United States gave Vietnam. According to Lewy, the United States worked on removing the the civilians from the danger zones (228); many of them, however, refused to move. Those who moved were put into camps and provided with food and water. While of the individual officers were brutal and killed people, the United States as a nation worked on providing safety for them. I do believe that the United States could’ve done a better job protecting the civilians, but I also believe that the country couldn’t stay uninvolved.
In this paper, I have proved that although the policy of the United States in Vietnam is largely opposed and criticized, President Lyndon Johnson performed his duty and sent troops to Vietnam in order to protect its Southern part. If he didn’t do so, Southern Vietnam would be doomed and would never get independent again; Communism would spread all over the world, and then it would be much more difficult to fight it.
Works Cited
"Was American Involvement in the Vietnam War Justified? - The Vietnam War." The Vietnam War. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
"The Ides of March - The Express Tribune." The Express Tribune. 2012. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Ortu, Andrea. "Wars of Choice: Motives and Justifications in the Vietnam and Iraq Wars." Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
Lewy, Guenter. America in Vietnam. New York: Oxford UP, 1978. Web. 23 Apr. 2016.
