Preview

Similarities Between War in Iraq and Vietnam

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
834 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Similarities Between War in Iraq and Vietnam
Similarities Between the war in Iraq and the Vietnam War

As time passes, every society endures situations which stress its' very fabric. Each societies' history is sprinkled with these situations. One such situations which the United States underwent was the Vietnam war. For years this particular event has been hotly debated. Hardly anyone who was present at the time agrees on any point concerning this war, except that they regret it. It has become "the greatest American foreign policy calamity of the century." . Now the United States finds itself entangled in another war. A war in Iraq which is beginning to resemble more and more the events of the Vietnam war. Many analysts, and even the public have begun to wonder if the current situation is the same as what took place in Vietnam. The answer is a disturbing yes. The current military engagement in Iraq is showing signs that it will become for this generation what Vietnam was to that generation. While there are many similarities and differences between these two engagements, there are more similarities. One of the most visible similarities between the two situations are the situations of the current and past Presidents. The President in charge at the beginning of the Vietnam war was Lyndon B. Johnson. The current President in charge of the war in Iraq is George Bush. Both presidents were launched into situations which they were unprepared. Johnson was catapulted unexpectedly into the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Bush also was launched into an unexpected war on terrorism after the terrorist attacks of September 11th. While their goals differ the outcome of their decision ended up the same. Johnson's goal was only to do enough in Vietnam in order to avoid losing Vietnam to communism. Bush's goals are to fight terrorism and prevent other possible terrorist attacks.
In both cases public opinion of the president and of the military engagement went down. Polls of American society

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    There is a lot of debate right now as to if the United States should go back to war with Iraq. Both sides of this debate, the people that are for going back to war and the people who are totally against it, have legitimate points” pro” and “con”. However, a lot of the people that are” Pro” engaging in war with Iraq again do not realize the underlining issues which exist. The United States just got out of a war with Iraq which brings up a lot of questions if we should go back or not. There are a few questions that most people do not sit down and truly think fully about.…

    • 539 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam War involved many decisions and outcomes, many of which have latter been reviewed with more uncertainty then confidence. With this Michael Hunt, the author uses both American and Vietnamese resources, some which before the book were never heard from. He uses these sources to try to explain how the United States of America was sucked into involvement with Southeast Asia. The overall conclusion of the book does not bring to many new views on why the United States involved itself with the issues of Vietnam but more confirms already believed views that they began in the conflict with comprehension of Vietnam’s problem other than the issue of the cold war.…

    • 724 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    DBQ Vietnam War APUSH

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The beginning of the Vietnam War can be credited to President Johnson’s predecessors – Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy. Their involvement with the conflicts in Vietnam and their sending of military advisors fueled the issues overseas which would eventually force President Johnson to become involved in military engagement upon his election. Johnson, who claimed to have preferred fighting the ‘war on poverty’ than the Vietnam War, was haphazardly thrown into the pre-existing issue. Because his re-election greatly depended on his involvement overseas as well as the outcome of the war, Johnson did not take his position as Commander in Chief lightly. However, Johnson didn’t want to focus solely on the war efforts; he began to implement certain social programs and acts that would help to build something called “The Great Society”. Johnson’s vision of a perfect society aroused the American people into believing in a brighter and more equal future. The implement of education, establishment of Medicare and Medicaid, VISTA, and Head Start were just a few of many social changes Johnson and his administration planed in order to change the United States. Failure to enact these programs as well as an almost inevitable failure in Vietnam would eventually cost Johnson his re-election. The next man to fill the seemly cursed job…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    John F. Kennedy in Vietnam

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Bibliography: Dudley, William. The Vietnam War: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1998. Gardner, Lloyd C. , and Ted Gittinger. Vietnam: The Early Decisions. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1997. Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: The War Nobody Won. New York: The Viking Press, 1983. Kimball, Jeffery. To Reason Why. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990. Lomperis, Timothy. The War Everybody Lost and Won. 2nd ed. revised. Washington: D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc., 1993. McNamera, Robert. In Retrospect , The Tragedy in Vietnam. New York: Dell Publishing Group, 1996. Olson, James S. The Vietnam War. London: Greenwood Press, 1993. Rowe, John, and Rick Berg. The Vietnam War and American Culture. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. Rust, William J. Kennedy in Vietnam. New York: U.S. News & World Report, Inc., 1985. Schwab, Orrin. Defending the Free World: John F. Kennedy and the Vietnam War. London: Praeger Publishers, 1998.…

    • 1990 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In her article, “The Vietnam War in American Memory,” Marilyn Young discusses that the Vietnam War “happened among Americans.” What Young is saying is that there was a war going on in Vietnam, but there was also animosity between the American soldiers and citizens. It was a horrifying and devastating time in American during the Vietnam War and Young even describes it as, “American civil War.” Young inquiries the government on why America got involved in this war in the first place. In the film Platoon and the article “What Did You Do in the Class War, Daddy,” there is a discussion on how to interpret the Vietnam War.…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Unlike those wars, the Vietnam, and the Philippines wars had many controversial issues, and it also seemed much less sensible to other nations. Although for the whole point of the discussion, only two wars involved with the United States would be specifically compared and contrast: the Second World War after Pearl Harbor by the Japanese invasion and the war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan after the terrorist attack on the pentagon and the world trade center. For most of the comparison some questions would be answered such as how did the United States government enforce and justified for the involvement and actions in the wars? How do nation development proponents and ideal politicians justify the policy in Iraq and Afghanistan? And last but not least, what similarities and differences do past and current individual critics, and support share?…

    • 812 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    With a husband in the Army and currently on his third deployment to Iraq, I am often asked how I think this war is different from past wars. In order to answer this question properly, I found that I needed to do a little bit of research and acquaint myself with some war history. As I learned about previous wars that Americans have been involved in, I learned that only two wars have had a great deal of controversy. The Vietnam War and the Iraq War, while almost identical are vastly different in their own right. In this paper, I will discuss the similarities and differences between two of our most recent wars.…

    • 1101 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    It is important to learn from our history and draw the right conclusions from our past. As George Steiner once said, “Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and archive mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement, against that past.” (Web) However, while each historical era may mirror itself on the past, we can’t assume that what we are facing today is exactly the same as what we have faced previously. One of the biggest similarities between the 1970s and the 2000’s in the United States is that our troops are overseas fighting a war. In the early 1970’s, the U.S. was at war in Vietnam and today we are at war in Afghanistan. Some people will say that these wars were both battles that the U.S. should not be involved in while others will look at the opposite side and say that we are there for good reasons. While there are similarities for each war, there are also differences, both sides of which should be examined.…

    • 923 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Vietnam War began on the 1st of November, 1955, and ended on the 31st of April, 1975. It was a war fought predominantly in Vietnam, but small battles did occur in areas of Laos and Cambodia. During these twenty years of unfortunate enmity, hostility and combat, the South fraction of Vietnam, fought against the North. The South of Vietnam was predominantly Capitalist, their allies strictly anti-communist, a political ideology which exorbitantly contradicted that of the North sector, which was completely and utterly Communist. This essay will focus on whether or not the United States had plausible justification when entering the Vietnam War.…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    The political outcome at the end of the Vietnam War was one president electing not to run for a second term and the Republican Party rising. The Vietnam War took a toll on President Johnson’s administration and even had Johnson withdraw from serving a…

    • 1047 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    “Iraq, Vietnam, and the Dilemmas of United States Soldiers.” Opendemocracy.com. Open Democracy, 24 May 2006. Web. 7 Mar. 2010.…

    • 1575 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    “No event in the past half-century of American history has commanded a morep rominent place in the public consciousness than the Vietnam War” (Hall xi), a rightfully said statement. Lasting from 1960-1975, it is America’s longest war and changed the United States politically, socially, and culturally during that period. In the early 1970s, the voting age was lowered to 18, largely because of the war. Also, Vietnam was one of the first wars in which African Americans largely participated. Lastly, Vietnam changed America culturally by causing mistrust in government. In the 1960s through early ‘70s, the Vietnam War changed America in ways that nothing had ever done before.…

    • 1302 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Vietnam War is truly one of the most unique wars ever fought by the Unites States of by any country. It was never officially declared a war . It had no official beginning nor an official end. It was fought over 10,000 miles away in a virtually unknown country. The enemy and the allies looked exactly the alike, and may by day be a friend but by night become an enemy. It matched the tried and true tactics of World War Two against a hide, run, and shoot technique known as "Guerrilla Warfare." It matched some of the best trained soldiers in the world against largely an untrained militia of untrained farmers. The United States' soldiers had at least a meal to look forward to unlike the Communist Vietnamese soldiers who considered a fine cuisine to be cold rice and, if lucky, rat meat. The Vietnam War matched the most technically advanced country with one of the least advanced, and the lesser advanced not only beat but humiliated the strongest military in the world. When the war was finally showing signs of end, the Vietnamese returned to a newly unified communist country while the United Stated soldiers returned to be called "baby killers", and were often spat upon. With the complexities of war already long overdrawn because of the length of the war it is no wonder the returning solders often left home confused and returned home insane.…

    • 1598 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Vietnamization

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It is has been about thirty-five years since the last American soldier set foot on Vietnamese soil, but the Vietnam War still remains to cast a dark shadow on American history. During the war, the United States fought to protect South Vietnam from the terrors of North Vietnam and the threat of turning to communism. Despite America’s valiant efforts, it lost about $150 billion on the war, as well as about 58 thousand American soldiers (Gilbert 377). Many people believed when President Lyndon B. Johnson stepped down from office in 1969, that the war was coming to an end, however it was far from over.…

    • 683 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Vietnam War

    • 2756 Words
    • 79 Pages

    Although officially, the Vietnam Conflict had neither a beginning nor an end, for the purpose of this paper it can be best examined through the decade the United States was involved: February 6, 1965 - August 30, 1975. During World War Two the French had been a major ally to the United States…

    • 2756 Words
    • 79 Pages
    Good Essays