Arguments Against The Vietnam War

In document 29-1, President Kennedy says the United States are fighting in Vietnam because the United States do not want Vietnam to be a communist. Vietnam needs extensive assistance from capitalist states because Vietnam is not capable of defending themselves from the communist. He also says that Vietnam falling to the communism means that the entire Southeast Asia potentially falls to the communism, and it eventually threatens the United States and their allies. Therefore, the war in Vietnam is for Americans to protect their free capitalist ideology. He concludes that “For when freedom is destroyed in one country, it is threatened throughout the world” (RAP 29-1). This statement was one of the most notable arguments that was meant to legitimize what is happening in the Vietnam. However, in reality, it was questionable whether the United States really needed to fight in the Vietnam or not.
In contrast, the document 29-5 tells a view from American veterans who served in the Vietnam War.
John Kerry, one of the veterans, expresses his idea of what is wrong with the Vietnam War. He says that what threatens the United States is not communists, but the crimes veterans committing in Vietnam. Veterans are not happy with the US keeps fighting in the Vietnam because they are just used to legitimize what the US is doing in the Vietnam is right and just. In Vietnam, there is not such things that threatens Vietnamese, in fact, they do not even know the difference between communism and democracy. Kerry argues that why the US does not stop fighting is that no US president want to become “the first President to lose a war.” Clearly, there is a gap between the government and citizens of the United States. Citizens are not sure about the legitimacy of fighting in the Vietnam, and it is meaningless to continue the war. However, the US government is stubborn to not quit the war because they do not want admit that they made a
mistake.

I agree with the opinion that “there is nothing that could happen in South Vietnam that realistically threatens the United States of America” (RAP 29-5). The US government said that the war is to prevent the influence of communism. It is true, and I can see why the capitalist state did not like Vietnam fall to the hand of communists. However, it does not proof that Vietnam is going to be a threat to the US. As I mentioned above, most Vietnamese citizens do not know the difference between communism and democracy. John Kerry says “They [Vietnamese] only wanted to work in rice paddies without helicopters strafing them and bombs with napalm burning their villages and tearing their country apart” (RAP 29-5). The United States exaggerated the threat of communism and made a circumstance difficult for Vietnamese to unite the country that was yarning the independence for long time. And, it proofed that the United States cannot fight communism all over the world.