The Vietnam War And The Long Arms Of American History

The Vietnam War is a sore spot in the long arms of American History. Nearly 60,000 Americans died and estimated millions of Vietnamese. It was considered to be the longest war in American history as well. Many questioned the motives and causes of the war calling it an atrocity. Others say that it may have been a terrible effort to defend a noble cause, the spread of communism. The years precluding the Vietnam war, there was a war taking place in Vietnam. It was known as the Indochina War, where the Vietnamese waged war against the colonial rule of France. The French were defeated in the battle of Dien Bien Phu. Following this defeat, there was a peace conference in Geneva, which resulted in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam to receive their independence. The Geneva Accords officially divided Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh and his communist forces led the North. A French backed emperor led the south until elections in 1956. These elections were supposed to reunify Vietnam. United State’s Cold War policy was beginning to come into play by this time. The U.S. was concerned with the domino theory, which believed that the communist overtake of North Vietnam would cause other countries in surrounding regions to adopt the ideology. In the interest of the U.S. to support South Vietnam, they back an anti-communist politician named Ngo Dinh Diem. In 1955, Diem took control of the South Vietnamese government with the support of the U. S. Later inShow MoreRelatedTinker Vs. 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