Vietnam - The Real Conflict Real Conflict of Vietnam War

A. How the United States, North Vietnam and South Vietnam fought the war.

B. Political attitudes of each side.

C. Reality of the war and what was reported as true.

D. Goals of-each side regarding the war.

A. War was different than reported.

B. Goals were unrealistic for United States.

When the United States entered South Vietnam the official reason was the imminent threat of a communist take over. It was stated that the South Vietnamese were not prepared to or capable of defending themselves and that the United States needed help to teach them how. The United States was to provide them with weapons, teach them how to use them and advise them on strategies. The threat of a communist take over was real. It was not true, however, that the South Vietnamese could not fight; for many reasons they either refused to fight or they fought for the North instead. The Vietnam War ended up being between the North and the United States instead of the North and the South. Both sides intended to win. The United States lost

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the hope that they could safeguard their villages. During this time the Viet Cong were attacking the economy and social structure of South Vietnam. There was nothing they would not sacrifice to win. The United States lacked the understanding "that the communist guerrillas were ideologically oriented to nothing short of total victory," (Paine 86) in a war that the United States refused to ever admit was a war at all. All of this time the official word was that the war was going well for the United States. False body counts were reported as evidence of this fact. President Lyndon Johnson swore not to give up until the war was won. He did not "intend to allow Southeast Asia (to) 'go the way China went'" (Higgins 66). This all consuming desire to win was, like Roosevelt in the Second World War, the only thing that seemed to matter. The United States used everything they could think of to win, from saturation bombings to the defoliant agent orange. The United States had always won its wars by applying more force than the enemy applied. In the case of the Viet Cong this failed again and again. One of the main reasons for this was because the United States thought of the Viet Cong in a racist sense. They saw them as basical
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Some common words found in the essay are:
South Vietnamese, Viet Cong, South Vietnam, North Vietnamese, Viet Cong's, Pentagon Papers, Southeast Asia, Richard Nixon, World War, Vietnam Technically, viet cong, south vietnamese, south vietnam, north vietnamese, war united, real conflict, north vietnam, united north, failed understand, united lost failed, war won, south vietnamese armies, lost failed understand, structure south vietnam, social structure south,
Approximate Word count = 1606
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)

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