Important lesson from the text
In deed, David Halberstam’s The Making of a Quagmire is quite an informative book on the Vietnam War. As a result of reading it, I have come to learn a lot of facts about the long term; short term and immediate causes of this war; its course; end and deadly consequences on the Americans, Vietnamese and other people. However, the most important lesson I can learn from it is that the failure of the United States of America (USA) in this war should be blamed on the media.
The role of the media is so fundamental in the success of any war. This is so, because; it is the media that acts as an intermediary between the soldiers and the citizens. According to Halberstam, there was a great cooperation between the American troops and the media. Both the Television and radio correspondents were free to do their job without many restrictions (Halberstam, 12). Through this, they would produce suitable pictures that would appeal to the US citizens, thus, restoring their confidence as they continued supporting the course.
This continued up to 1967 when the major split after this, the media changed its perception and started broadcasting live pictures of whatever was taking place on the battle field. As a result of this, they would broadcast sensitive information that negatively affected Americans back at home. For instance, in January, 1968, the media reported about the Tet Offensive in which the US soldiers were defeated by their Vietnamese counterparts. At the same time, subsequent coverage like the My Lai massacre where First Lt. William Calley and his taskforce had killed at least 350 South Vietnamese civilians. Moreover, it reported on the secret bombings on civilians along side the KENT STATE political fall out and subsequent signing of the Paris peace agreement by President Nixon in 1973 and later withdrawal of the defeated US troops from this nation.
Surely, all these must be blamed for the failure of USA in this war. Had it not been for the demoralizing coverage, all the people would be proud of their nation and contribution. Hence, they would support the war up to the very bitter end.
The role of Buddhists in the Vietnam War
This war can not only be claimed to be political. There was a very significant contribution of religion because the important position it held in the society then (and now). As Halberstam reports, Vietnam is a plural nation with many people belonging to diverse religious groups such as Buddhism and Roman Catholic. The participation of Buddhists in this war did not come by chance- it began many years before the actual start of the war. Religious tension had been rising in this country (Stanton, S.L., 2003).
On 8 May 1963, the Vietnam Buddhists, just like other Buddhists in the rest of the world, were celebrating Buddha’s 2,527th birthday. This was a special day to them on the ground that it was used for protesting the oppressive Ngo Dinh Diem regime that had been in power since 195.
Ngo, Vietnamese elite, was a devoted catholic. However, in the eyes of the Buddhists, he was seen to be propagating religious intolerance (Halberstam, 27). This is why the Buddhist monks organized very big demonstrations in the city centre of Saigon. President Ngo favored the minority Catholics at the expense of the majority Buddhists who constituted 85% of the Southern Vietnamese population. The Buddhists later made a lot of protests against the corrupt Ngo regime.
The most memorable event was on the 11th, June, 1963, when a prominent Buddhist monk, Thich Quang Duc committed suicide in protest of this regime. This attracted a lot of attention, other within and out of this country. In fact, it was a major turning point in this war because it even challenged the position of USA which had been a great supporter of this minority rule (Stanton, S.L., 2003).
This was in deed, a turning point that strengthened and motivated the various rebellious factions in South Vietnam. Moreover, USA started raising more questions about this regime. Surely, in the words of this author, Quang’s death was revolutionary in this war, because it confirmed the Buddhists believe that, "The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of the mature man is that he wants to live humbly for nothing!( Halberstam, 44)
In my opinion, the media was right. I applaud them for their informative contribution in this war. Even if it is the US policy that it can declare war on moral superiority, technological and bureaucratic grounds, this war was not justified. It was a mere fear of the expanding communism ideologies especially in Eastern Europe. Therefore, the US government was very wrong to launch an offensive attack on Vietnam. It was even more wrong to drop bombs and lethal chemicals on innocent civilians who had nothing to do with the US superiority (Halberstam, 36).
I support media for making an imminent contribution to the failure of this war because; its consequences would be so severe not only to the Vietnamese, but also to the Americans themselves and the rest of the word. I am fully in support of the media coverage on the political fall outs, numerous massacres and immoral killings of innocent people in various parts of this country. For example, Ohio National Guardsmen’s killing of four students.
Even it might be contrary to the spirit of nationalism, I think this was justified. Had it not been for the media, the public would be in the dark and would not know whatever was going on in the battle field. However, their contribution changed the perception of the Americans to withdraw their support from this war. Eventually, the war stopped (Stanton, S.L., 2003).
Meaning, had it not been for their coverage, the war would have continued for a very long time. This would have of course, led to the death of millions of people (Halberstam, 47). Moreover, the poisoning conducts of the US soldiers would have wrecked more miseries to the innocent civilians. I argue in favor of the media because, just before their intervention, thousands of people had been displaced, injured and killed. All these judgments were erroneously made in Saigon and Washington. In fact, they led to making the Vietnam situation the quagmire it would be in the later years.
Work cited
Stanton, S.L. (eds.) (2003). Vietnam order of battle. Stackpole Books.
