Category: History Essay

Waging a war has both social and economic consequences. As a result, some people support the war, while others oppose it based on their understanding of its merits and demerits. The Vietnam War divided the population’s opinion, especially because it took a long time to end. As a result of economic and social strain on the American people, various groups wanted the war to end. The people included citizens, whose friends and family members had died in the war, and veterans that survived. The anti-war proponents shared similar beliefs about the war not being justified and reasons for its end. Moreover, they used different media to communicate their displeasure.

The first common belief that people had about the illegitimacy of the Vietnam War was that it led to war crimes. The theme of war crimes as a reason for American withdrawal from Vietnam is evident in the three texts. In the congressional testimony by Kerry, the US troops performed illegal acts on ordinary people in Vietnam that amounted to war crimes. The American soldiers acted indiscriminately against people in Vietnam, regardless of who they were. Some of the actions that Kerry (1971) mentions include razing down villages, blowing up bodies, cutting limbs, rape and poisoning of food stocks. Such crimes threatened the foundation, upon which the American society was built and thus the war should end. The Vietnamese people were not treated as humans. The American military had designated areas of free firing zones. In such zones, the soldiers were permitted to shoot anything that was moving, which led to the killing of non-combatant civilians. While the United States had not signed the Geneva Convention agreements on human rights, it supported their preservation. However, the actions of the soldiers went against human rights expectations and thus were defined as war crimes. Ngo Dinh Diem tortured and killed his opponents at will. Despite such atrocities, the American government supported his regime and provided him with financial and military support. Such an act by the American government was unacceptable because the taxpayers’ money was used to finance a dictator who did not respect democracy. Therefore, the war had to end because the American intervention contravened its stand on democracy. One reason given to justify the American involvement was that the North Vietnamese people wanted to force communism on the entire country. America wanted to ensure that people had the right to choose democratically their government. The opponents of the Vietnam War argued that democracy should enable everybody to seek elective positions, including the communists. Consequently, the war had to end because the American presence in Vietnam denied people their freedom to exercise democratic rights by barring the communists from participating in the electoral process.

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The second belief that supported the withdrawal of the American soldiers from Vietnam was that the war was racially biased. The government was perpetuating the vices it was fighting at home in Vietnam. He mentions that African-Americans made up the largest number of casualties, despite being a minority group. The black Americans were given more dangerous tasks compared to other racial groups in the military. Kerry’s views indicated that as long as people had sacrificed to serve their country, they did not deserve discrimination and should be treated with honor. As such, the military that did not respect its soldiers, who made tremendous sacrifices, did not deserve to be in Vietnam purporting to promote freedom. Racism is evident when the Indian American testified that other soldiers despised him because of his ethnicity. The soldier said that he perceived himself as an American warrior. The discrimination, therefore, incapacitated the American abilities to promote liberties and freedoms abroad, while it had not been achieved for its people. As such, the United States did not have a moral authority to provide democratic assistance to Vietnam and t