Questions/issues to think about during presentations
1. What short term and long term events caused the Vietnam War?
2. Was the United States involvement in Vietnam a manifestation of anti-communist Cold War policy?
3. A nation’s belief in a cause determines what its people are willing to sacrifice for that cause.
4. Wars are fought because of ideological differences and/or competition between nations.
Self DeterminationA free, open-minded, and
absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims,
based upon a strict observance of the principle that in
determining all such questions of
sovereignty the interests of the
populations concerned must
have equal weight with the equitable
claims of the government whose
title is to be determined.
Imperialism Link
Guess and connect
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4d7Wp9kKjA
LeninImperialism is
the highest level of
capitalism. Capitalism
needs more markets and
must expand! So….
Back to the Cold War Power Point
French Indochina War 1946-1954
Look at those silly fans
Must be warm to dance with all that
on
Must be warm to dance with all that
on
1954 Geneva AccordsSplits country in two (temporarily)
Calls for elections in both North and South to reunify the entire country in 1956 (two years after)
Vietnamese Declaration of Independence 1945
• They have enforced inhuman laws; they have set up three distinct political regimes in the North, the Center, and the South of Vietnam in order to wreck our national unity and prevent our people from being united.
• They have built more prisons than schools. They have mercilessly slain our patriots; they have drowned our uprisings in rivers of blood.
• They have fettered public opinion; they have practised obscurantism against our people.• To weaken our race they have forced us to use opium and alcohol.• In the field of economics, they have fleeced us to the backbone, impoverished our people, and
devastated our land.• They have robbed us of our rice fields, our mines, our forests, and our raw materials. They have
monopolized the issuing of bank notes and the export trade.• They have invented numerous unjustifiable taxes and reduced our people, especially our peasantry, to a
state of extreme poverty.• They have hampered the prospering of our national bourgeoisie; they have mercilessly exploited our
workers.• For these reasons, we, members of the Provisional Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam,
solemnly declare to the world that Vietnam has the right to be a free and independent country-and in fact is so already. The entire Vietnamese people are determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice their lives and property in order to safeguard their independence and liberty.
Vietnamese NationalismFrom the Vietnamese perspective, what was this
war about? Connect to Dream Deferred. What happens to a dream deferred?Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore-- And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over-- like a syrupy sweet?Maybe it just sags like a heavy load.Or does it explode?
Resolution• "To promote the maintenance of international peace and security in Southeast Asia.• "Whereas naval units of the communist regime in Vietnam, in violation of the principles
of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law, have deliberately and repeatedly attacked United States naval vessels lawfully present in international waters, and have thereby created a serious threat to international peace; and
• "Whereas these attacks are part of a deliberate and systematic campaign of aggression that the communist regime in North Vietnam has been waging against its neighbors and the nations joined with them in the collective defense of their freedom; and
• "Whereas the United States is assisting the peoples of Southeast Asia to protect their freedom and has no territorial, military or political ambitions in that area, but desires only that these peoples should be left in peace to work out their own destinies in their own way: Now, therefore, be it
• "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Congress approves and supports the determination of the President, as Commander in Chief, to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.
Tet Holiday The festival which best epitomizes Vietnam's cultural identity is
Vietnamese New Year or Tet
Tet Offensive January of 1968US troops fighting in Saigon (Capital)
South Vietnamese troops capture a Vietcong fighter during the attacks
Meanwhile In AmericaCould you believe what those South
Vietnamese soldiers did to that prisoner?
How could we support such a government?
Ho Chi Minh 1890-1969
President of Democratic Republic of VietnamAdvocating and leading for Vietnamese Independence since WWI
Vietnamization
I Richard Nixon will help America out of the Turbulent 60s.
As for the war in Vietnam I will let the
South fight the ground war and…
Robert McNamara 1961-1968 Secretary of Defense
There are limited resources and soldiers fighting for the
Vietnamese. Therefore, we will fight a war of attrition. Eventually,
they will run out.
1969 Draft Lottery
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p5X1FjyD_g
Estimated 125, 000 left the country to avoid service
650,000 drafted during the Vietnam War
Cambodia 1970-1975A civil war erupts in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge wants to remove Lon Nol from power. The Khmer Rouge were communists led by Pol Pot
Ho Chi Minh Trail
Tunnels go from North through Cambodia and into the South
The US has no authority in Cambodia
The US cannot win in Vietnam without dealing with the tunnels in Cambodia
What to do?
Paris Peace Accords 1973
• Bombing Halt• Withdrawal of US troops• Determine the fate of the South• US to rebuild