Agnostic.com

8 1

So, was The Vietnam War, a Religious War? There was no clear "offense" against the USA on the part of the NV. It seems USA acted out of paranoia and were given a huge boost by Conservatives. (The Religious Right being less defined then...?). Also Billy Graham's known views and influence.

It seems looking back, that USA was involved due to fear (Godless Communists) and theory (Domino).....one fed the other.

IDK, Just my thought as I woke up this morning

twill 7 Apr 6
Share

Enjoy being online again!

Welcome to the community of good people who base their values on evidence and appreciate civil discourse - the social network you will enjoy.

Create your free account

8 comments

Feel free to reply to any comment by clicking the "Reply" button.

0

Paranoid about what? They weren’t a military threat.

Paranoid about Communism, I'd say. Although it's strange that there is a communist country 90 miles from USA, yet USA went halfway around the world to ......fight communism. I'm confused.

0

It was part of a deal to get France to agree to splitting Germany at the end of WWII

So are you saying the Viet Nam war was entered into because of a deal the UN made back in 1945. France did start fighting in Nam the next year but I still don't really understand why we took over from them. I don't see the US owing France that support. I should probably say that I never full believed that the Maddox was actually attacked. Not because I believe in conspiracies but the incident seems improbable. The US authorities have admitted that the Maddox was on an intelligence patrol. The incident was reported as an attack, but if three torpedo boats attacked it wouldn't they have succeeded in damaging it more than they did? Doesn't it seem more likely that we were being observed and attacked them?

1

I actually think about this often. I was young back then but old enough that my peers were getting drafted. Back then I felt it was unnecessary to be there, although I had addtional objections and concerns (undeclared war...) When the Ken Burns/Novick PBS documentary on Viet Name came out I thought they did a thorough job of everything but exactly the question you raise. Why were we there if the threat was what everyone seems to believe, the threat of communisim, the domino effect seems absurd. I read a interesting article from the Huffington Post. I found it difficult to understand but it lays out more seemingly credible reasons.

I was especially dis heartened by the efforts that Ho Chi Minh made trying to ally Vietnam with the USA prior to France leaving. At one time, people really believed those "American Myths" of freedom and democracy. Shortly after WW2 it still seemed real. Then came McCarthy....and Graham. The 60's enlightenment fizzled, and then Onward to the present day evangelicals.

No wonder they want to short circuit education and stamp out unpleasant truths.

@twill the sixties didn’t exactly fizzle, a president resigned, a war was stopped, and a new push for civil rights was enacted. That was a direct result of pressure from the so called left.

@twill In my reading about the subject I read that Ho Chi Minh once worked in America, in Boston no less in the kitchen of a downtown hotel, but that's not the interesting part, in his inauguration speech he quoted Thomas Jefferson. I found that surprising. I mean if he revered one of our founding fathers how did we miss the opportunity to negotiate our way to peace? Rather than sacrificing thousands of Americans, it seems like a dramatic failure. I understand a factor was arrogance but surely that isn't the only answer.

2

It wasn't a Conservative thing. The Dems controlled the Presidency, House, and Senate. If you are too young to remember, whether the Government believed it or not, they used the threat of the spread of Godless Communism to get us into all kinds of shit, including the Vietnam war. It is easy to sell Americans pretty much anything. Remember the Pet Rock?

Stressed the hell out of Johnson. It compromised his Great Society agenda big time. Shows that anyone can sucked into some deep doo doo.

@twill Without that war, he would have gone down as a great President. The people around here who knew him said the war killed.

@Sticks48 I assume you mean that the "war killed....him". It was a sad human story, for sure

4

no, it was not a religious war it was a civil war. vietnam was a french colony until the japanese took it over in wwii. when the japanese lost the war and retreated, the french came back and tried to resume business as usual but the many of the vietnamese people, especially in the north near communist china, balked and said no WAY did they want to be occupied by ANYONE anymore. the french pushed. the vietnamese pushed back. the french called upon their ally, the united states, for help. grudgingly, we sent "advisors." when we got there and found out that the northern nalf of vietnam was seriously influenced by communist china, we, in the midst of our own communist scare, got a bit more serious and upped our presence, not to help the french anymore but to stop the spread of evil communism worldwide, which wasn't what was happening, but you know, we were crazy. by the time eisenhower was in office, yes, the way to turn americans against communism was to emphasize its "godlessness" (which is why "under god" mysteriously appeared in the pledge of allegiance and "e pluribus unum" was replaced by "in god we trust" as our motto) so that was a propaganda issue, but no, that is not how we got there or why we stayed there. it is almost a side issue.

g

Brilliant response, thanks. I have never understood the rationale, now it all makes perfect sense.

@Geoffrey51 ah, it took me a long while too. history sometimes manages to piece itself together. other things remain mysterious... so far! anyway i forgot to mention what i guess most folks know, which is that eventually the geneva convention divided vietnam into two countries to allow the french, getting their asses whooped bigtime in the north, a chance to flee to the south (don't ask me why anyone thought that was a good idea -- look how well it worked in korea, right?)

g

I agree with all you wrote but what do you believe about why were we there? If it was simply to draw a line in the sand so to speak, why bother with the whole hearts and minds bull? Was the Domino Effect put forth just to secure other military bases in the area?

@darkstar24 we may never know the whole story but i suspect we got ourselves into a tough spot we couldn't exit gracefully. pride played a role -- we wanted to be able to say we never lost a war. the red scare played its role of course. and then again there are all the economic benefits of war... benefits to the war machine anyway. i am sure it was not all one thing.

g

2

I don't believe it was a "religious" war, but they certainly used religion to help justify it.
"Godless communists" and all that happy bullshit.

0

Right wing (capitalist, fascist etc) vs left wing (socialism)

2

It was a Cold War proxy. The religious right didn’t come into politics until late in the war when Nixon invoked the silent majority.
It really started to come in politics big time under Reagan. GW Bush really used the religious right and it is now the worst it has ever been.
The past Presidents kept checks on the right. The present administration has pulled out stops and pretenses and goes after the religious right with open arms.

Write Comment
You can include a link to this post in your posts and comments by including the text q:325504
Agnostic does not evaluate or guarantee the accuracy of any content. Read full disclaimer.