The americans were involved in the war in the first place was to stop the domino theory and to prevent vietnam from becoming communist. The war went on for many years and in the end, vietnam still became communist.
Unpopular for presidents
President of American Nixon became very unpopular because of the Vietnam war. A lot of american soldiers were drafted and dragged into the war. American civilians also saw what the American soldiers did to the vietnamese civilians.
No press censorship
The American war in Vietnam grew increasingly unpopular as it progressed. One of the reasons was because there was a lack of press censorship. The pictures of dreadful things were seen on the newspaper, TV shows......etc. Many people saw it and this lead to protests.
Protests
The lack of press censorship and conscription had a huge impact to the war. Protests began in about 1964 and continued through to the 1970s. This shows a protest at Kent State University because many students were killed by government troops.
Length of War
The war started in 1945 and ended in 1975. The US started to send financial and military support to the French forces in Vietnam starting from 1950. In 1961 the US had military advisors in Vietnam. The length of war was just too long.
American War of Occupation
Some people, particularly anti-war protesters, saw the Vietnam War as an American war of occupation. The war was a Vietnamese civil war, which the American’s became involved in to “stop communism”.
Bad Tactics
United States used a bombing operation called Operation Rolling Thunder. The US dropped about 1 million 6 hundred thousand tons of bombs which were 1 hundred thousand tons more bombs that were used in World War 2 by the US. It was used to cut off communist supply lines. It failed because it didn’t hit the enemy hard in the right places and also the vietnamese were able to repair damage quickly.
Many dead or injured.
During the war 58,123 US soldiers, 200,000 south vietnamese soldiers who were on the American side and 1,000,000 north vietnamese soldiers were killed. Already this is a very large number, but it doesn’t include civilians. This was one of the main reasons the war grew unpopular.
War Crimes
My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16,1968 by the United States Army Soldiers. Most of the victims were women children infants and elderly people.
Soldiers escaping
When soldiers saw that they had to fight a war they couldn’t win, many escaped. The more that escaped, the more soldiers that was drafted. Even though this caused an indirect impact to the war, but it was actually a huge impact.
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