Was America's involvement in the Vietnam War justified?

[WayNeacTia]

And for what? Sweet fuck all.

The U.S. was acting under a policy of containment at the time. The Soviets and China were propping up North Vietnam, so the U.S. had to prop up the other side. The problem was the U.S. got sucked in to far and had invested so much, that by the end the mission had become to big to fail.

[Postauthoritarian America]

And for what? Sweet fuck all.

The U.S. was acting under a policy of containment at the time. The Soviets and China were propping up North Vietnam, so the U.S. had to prop up the other side. The problem was the U.S. got sucked in to far and had invested so much, that by the end the mission had become to big to fail.

B'rer Bear and B'rer Fox were counting on B'rer Rabbit to have the same policy when they made the Tar Baby. In both cases it worked.

[The Marlborough]

No not really. Communists aren’t the good guys but we had no good reason to get involved, let alone send tens of thousands of conscripts to their deaths.

IIRC the majority of those who fought in Vietnam were volunteers, not conscripts. Something like 2/3 or something.

[The New California Republic]

It just makes me glad the UK said "lolno" to the whole thing. Shame the Aussies and Kiwis didn't do the same.

As for US involvement, it depends on what metric you want to use, for example if adequate justification is dependent on mission objectives being fulfilled then clearly that didn't happen. On the other hand if adequate justification is given by a perceived "duty" to act, then you could justify it in those terms. Clearly I'm providing an oversimplification here though; I think most people here would rightly cry foul at such precise cherrypicking in order to eke out justification or condemnation of involvement, and are aware that there are dozens or even hundreds of different aspects to consider that we need to take stock of to arrive at a conclusion.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

No. Getting involved in Vietnam was a shitty idea.

[Senkaku]

Anyways, it's often the source of debate among Americans like me on whether or not we should have intervened in the conflict on behalf of South Vietnam (the democratic side, obviously), some say that we were wasting our time and lives trying to keep Vietnam free of communism, others say that it was noble to fight for people in another country. If you want my opinion, I honestly believe we were justified in fighting that war, not only did we have a reason to fight in it because of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, but we were in a Cold War with members of the communist Warsaw Pact and other communist nations in at the time, I will agree that we shouldn't have enacted the draft in that war, but that's more of a debate on our military strategy than the question at hand.

I'm just going to assert that we weren't in Vietnam because of the Gulf of Tonkin or the Cold War, but because of domestic politics. Kennedy, and then LBJ (and as a result, the cabinet which they largely shared), were very sensitive to being painted as soft on communism or national security, especially in Asia and the Third World, for a few reasons: Truman's "loss" of China and the very unpopular and seemingly pointless (to most people at the time) Korean War, and Kennedy's own bumpy record facing down communism (the Bay of Pigs and the Vienna summit most notably). And so Kennedy sent advisors and the like, first to prop up Diem, and then when he was failing, to overthrow him, and Johnson doubled down to avoid the appearance of failing where Kennedy appeared to have succeeded... and then by the time Nixon was in office, the war had practically been institutionalized as the main project of the global American anti-communist project, and consequently assumed symbolic power of its own. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident honestly had surprisingly little to do with anything, other than giving LBJ an excuse to do things he was probably going to find a way to do anyways. Plenty had already happened before it ever became a factor.

As for the facts of actually fighting it-- our leaders knew from the start we couldn't win. We never had any intention of overthrowing the North Vietnamese government or invading, because neither Kennedy nor LBJ wanted to drag in the Chinese and end up with another Korea on their hands (they say as much, often in vivid and memorably racist terms, in meetings). As a result, our own war games could already tell us, before we publicly committed regular ground forces, that the war could not be won (at least unless we were willing to destroy the levees of the Red River, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians and probably bringing China and maybe the USSR into the war). All we were ever able to do was hang on and try to not lose, since we also were pretty much uninterested in attending to the political problems facing Saigon in actually building a country that could stand on its own two feet and permanently crush the insurgency and northern infiltration.

It was a war that started as a sideshow to Washington, which everyone assumed would be easy to resolve, and snuck up on us in the time between our leaders promising victory and the time the public realized they were full of it. Almost every chapter of the whole sordid story exemplifies the worst of American imperialism-- from our indiscriminate bombardment and defoliation of the countryside, to our ignorant and out-of-touch micro-management of local allies, to our arrogant assumptions that the limited information we could glean from unreliable sources represented the whole truth of the war, to our careless unbalancing of the already-distressed South Vietnamese economy with a tide of troops, military infrastructure projects, consumer goods, and greenbacks... anyways, I could go on and on, but I'll leave it there for now.

Vietnam wasn't justified, we had no good reason to be there. If you think it was the Gulf of Tonkin, you're kidding yourself and ignoring everything that was already in motion by then, and if you think it was over containment or whatever, then surely after Suharto took power in Indonesia, we should've taken the hint that domino theory was not a serious risk to Southeast Asia and gotten the hell out.

[WayNeacTia]

No not really. Communists aren’t the good guys but we had no good reason to get involved, let alone send tens of thousands of conscripts to their deaths.

IIRC the majority of those who fought in Vietnam were volunteers, not conscripts. Something like 2/3 or something.

Yeah, no.... Volunteers were sent to Germany and South Korea. Draftees were sent to Vietnam by the fucking plane load.

[Senkaku]

Yet you support the nation that allowed these acts to go down. You can't distance Diem from the rest of the government (who held nearly the exact same beliefs), or the other former colonial elites who remained in power even after France left. South Vietnam was fundamentally the "bad guy" of the war if you can even draw such a distinction in a bloody and drawn-out conflict where all sides have blood on their hands.

Even after Diem was removed from power and killed, his successor were little better than him.

South Vietnam did not have to be Catholic fundamentalist.

No, but as a consequence of Francified colonial elites remaining in charge of it, it was.

There was this period between Diem and Thieu when things were not like that.

This is sort of debatable, and that's partly because the period between Diem and Thieu was also like an endless game of coup musical chairs, so I wouldn't really be citing it as a bright spot in South Vietnamese history (although honestly, what can you cite as a bright spot in South Vietnamese history).

Well, you must have never heard of total war. If UK really wants to retake Malaysia at any cost they can. It’s just pretty pointless.

I very much doubt that, unless we're talking about creating a nuclear desert and calling it peace or something.

South Vietnam was definitely more of an independent state than Iraq today but even Iraq today has genuine elections with results neither US nor Iran likes.

Why was it "more" of an independent state than Iraq today? As you say, Iraq has genuine elections with results that aren't determined by the US, and there aren't tens of thousands of American troops in the country, nor does the American embassy meddle in government staffing and leadership decisions or literally set nationwide policies on Baghdad's behalf.

On the other hand if adequate justification is given by a perceived "duty" to act, then you could justify it in those terms.

What perceived duty would that be? I think the ones people tend to conventionally cite are bullshit, as I've mentioned.

Khmer Rouge was a highly evil entity. American Realpolitik that backed KR was indeed highly immoral. As for China backing it..well, it is China so what do you expect?

Plenty of Vietnamese have said similar things about the US. I'm really not sure why you have this double standard for imperial powers, besides the sheer force of your hate-boner for all things Chinese.

And for what? Sweet fuck all.

The U.S. was acting under a policy of containment at the time. The Soviets and China were propping up North Vietnam, so the U.S. had to prop up the other side. The problem was the U.S. got sucked in to far and had invested so much, that by the end the mission had become to big to fail.

The Soviets and Chinese were not "propping up" North Vietnam when the US began its involvement, North Vietnam didn't yet exist and the Soviets and Chinese were the only ones offering the Vietnamese people weapons to use against their colonial overlords (colonial overlords who were attempting to violently re-impose their rule after more or less abandoning Vietnam to the rapacity of Imperial Japan). Once the French were thrown out and independence became official, the North Vietnamese government was not in danger of collapsing-- in fact, it was so popular that we allowed Diem to cancel the agreed-upon referendum on re-unification because we knew the communists would win a fair election. We had to intervene to shore up our shoddy and unstable client regime; Moscow and Beijing gave the North weapons and help, but that was to allow it to continue prosecuting a fairly intense offensive war effort rather than to simply try and prevent Hanoi from completely collapsing in on itself.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

The US ground forces did not actually reach North Vietnam at all.This makes it impossible for the war to end.They're just clearing guerrillas in South Vietnam and bombing North Vietnam.The United States just wants to keep the South Vietnamese government, but the South Vietnamese government is just like the governments supported by the US in South America and the Middle East----the legacy of the colonies.It's weak, corrupt, military dictatorship.

[Postauthoritarian America]

IIRC the majority of those who fought in Vietnam were volunteers, not conscripts. Something like 2/3 or something.

Yeah, no.... Volunteers were sent to Germany and South Korea. Draftees were sent to Vietnam by the fucking plane load.

Besides which plenty of men with low draft numbers "volunteered" in order to choose their military poison rather than be randomly assigned to a branch of service.

[Parxland]

No, not really. Look at Vietnam now. They're our allies.

I'll go as far to say that Vietnam is the closest existing example to what a communist country should be like. It's not terrible toward a majority it's neighbors. They have lots of trees. That's about the only good things I can say about it. Which isn't a good thing for other communist countries.

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

The US ground forces did not actually reach North Vietnam at all.This makes it impossible for the war to end.They're just clearing guerrillas in South Vietnam and bombing North Vietnam.The United States just wants to keep the South Vietnamese government, but the South Vietnamese government is just like the governments supported by the US in South America and the Middle East----the legacy of the colonies.It's weak, corrupt, military dictatorship.

The legacy of colonies does not actually apply to Latin American countries that have been independent for almost as long as America nor does it apply to important pro-US entities in MENA such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Instead the main issue in most of Latin America is the racial conflict. Neither left-wing dictatorship nor right-wing dictatorship is common in Uruguay which is the most homogeneous country in the region. On the other hand weird dictatorships were and are common in the rest of Latin America. We will have to interpret rightism in Latin America as European-Arab interest and leftism as indigenous-mestizo-African interests.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

The US ground forces did not actually reach North Vietnam at all.This makes it impossible for the war to end.They're just clearing guerrillas in South Vietnam and bombing North Vietnam.The United States just wants to keep the South Vietnamese government, but the South Vietnamese government is just like the governments supported by the US in South America and the Middle East----the legacy of the colonies.It's weak, corrupt, military dictatorship.

The legacy of colonies does not actually apply to Latin American countries that have been independent for almost as long as America nor does it apply to important pro-US entities in MENA such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Instead the main issue in most of Latin America is the racial conflict. Neither left-wing dictatorship nor right-wing dictatorship is common in Uruguay which is the most homogeneous country in the region. On the other hand weird dictatorships were and are common in the rest of Latin America. We will have to interpret rightism in Latin America as European-Arab interest and leftism as indigenous-mestizo-African interests.

Spanish colonies in Central America,British and French colonies in the Middle East and North Africa and Ottoman's legacy.By the way, the racial problems in America are caused by colonialism.Or do you think so many races come from?

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

The legacy of colonies does not actually apply to Latin American countries that have been independent for almost as long as America nor does it apply to important pro-US entities in MENA such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Instead the main issue in most of Latin America is the racial conflict. Neither left-wing dictatorship nor right-wing dictatorship is common in Uruguay which is the most homogeneous country in the region. On the other hand weird dictatorships were and are common in the rest of Latin America. We will have to interpret rightism in Latin America as European-Arab interest and leftism as indigenous-mestizo-African interests.

Spanish colonies in Central America,British and French colonies in the Middle East and North Africa and Ottoman's legacy.By the way, the racial problems in America are caused by colonialism.Or do you think so many races come from?

Well ultimately it was but here is an important distinction: most Latin American govs aren’t that weak. So your claim doesn’t really apply. South Vietnam was indeed weak though its weakness looked Sinic (e.g. lots of soldiers and their family members ran away in 1975, causing a rout) as opposed to be from any kind of French legacy. I can sort of see a variant of Chiang’s ROC in South Vietnam.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

Spanish colonies in Central America,British and French colonies in the Middle East and North Africa and Ottoman's legacy.By the way, the racial problems in America are caused by colonialism.Or do you think so many races come from?

Well ultimately it was but here is an important distinction: most Latin American govs aren’t that weak. So your claim doesn’t really apply. South Vietnam was indeed weak though its weakness looked Sinic (e.g. lots of soldiers and their family members ran away in 1975, causing a rout) as opposed to be from any kind of French legacy. I can sort of see a variant of Chiang’s ROC in South Vietnam.

So why can't they solve the problem of drug dealers?Drug dealers are not afraid of the government, but the government is afraid of drug dealers

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

Well ultimately it was but here is an important distinction: most Latin American govs aren’t that weak. So your claim doesn’t really apply. South Vietnam was indeed weak though its weakness looked Sinic (e.g. lots of soldiers and their family members ran away in 1975, causing a rout) as opposed to be from any kind of French legacy. I can sort of see a variant of Chiang’s ROC in South Vietnam.

So why can't they deal drug dealers?Drug dealers are not afraid of the government, but the government is afraid of drug dealers

Drug dealers in Latin America usually have political support. Both left-wing and right-wing militias probably sell drugs.

[Shanghai industrial complex]

So why can't they deal drug dealers?Drug dealers are not afraid of the government, but the government is afraid of drug dealers

Drug dealers in Latin America usually have political support. Both left-wing and right-wing militias probably sell drugs.

Does this not mean that their government is weak, fragile, corrupt and only can control a little things?Even if you want to sell drugs, you can't let your police be chased by drug dealers

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

Drug dealers in Latin America usually have political support. Both left-wing and right-wing militias probably sell drugs.

Does this not mean that their government is weak, fragile, corrupt and only can control a little things?Even if you want to sell drugs, you can't let your police be chased by drug dealers

The govs aren’t fragile in the same sense that post-Saddam Hussein Iraq is. Drug dealers deal drugs but they are not a competitor of the gov.

[Cordel One]

So why can't they deal drug dealers?Drug dealers are not afraid of the government, but the government is afraid of drug dealers

Drug dealers in Latin America usually have political support. Both left-wing and right-wing militias probably sell drugs.

The CIA does that too (RIP Gary Webb).

[Picairn]

The US was in Vietnam way before the Gulf of Tonkin. The OSS (predecessor to CIA) helped the Viet Minh fight against the Japanese in WW2. Then the US supplied the French in their effort to recolonize the Indochina, which was a betrayal. After the French got smashed in Dien Bien Phu, the US stepped in and propped up a dictatorship in the South. Nowhere throughout 1945-1975 had the US been on the right side of history.

The Gulf of Tonkin was a false flag set up by LBJ. There were one legitimate confrontation on August 2, 1964, then a fake one 2 days later. It was this fake incident that helped America to go to war. The Pentagon Papers, McNamara's memoirs, and NSA publications confirm this.

All of this war, death and suffering could have been prevented had the US allowed the 1954 national election to take place. But they knew that Ho Chi Minh was going to win in a landslide so they put a stop to it. A pity, since Ho Chi Minh admired the US a lot, even placed the US Constitution preamble into his own Declaration of Independence. It is likely that had this election happened, Communism would have been contained to Vietnam, and not spreading to the entire Indochina.

[Kubra]

No not really. Communists aren’t the good guys but we had no good reason to get involved, let alone send tens of thousands of conscripts to their deaths.

IIRC the majority of those who fought in Vietnam were volunteers, not conscripts. Something like 2/3 or something.

wasn't the point of conscription so folks would volunteer instead of waiting to get their number drawn
Deffo remember that being said somewhere

[Kubra]

In any case no but it's not the US's fault, it's *France's* fault. If De Gaulle hadn't been such a little bitch about losing Indochina uncle ho would have leapt at the opportunity to enter the American sphere of influence.

[Esheaun Stroakuss]

Lol no.

[Jedi Council]

No, not really. It's hard to justify something if you have no good plan on how to actually achieve the goals you set for yourself

[Nekostan-e Gharbi]

Drug dealers in Latin America usually have political support. Both left-wing and right-wing militias probably sell drugs.

The CIA does that too (RIP Gary Webb).

Yup. Intelligence services are rarely ethical. The only intelligence service I have heard about that at least gives a shit about citizens of their country is Mossad.