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Because there was no official declaration by Congress that this was a war, the Vietnam conflict is one of the most embarrassing and sadistic periods in American history. Not only did the greatest superpower in the world get defeated by an almost third world nation, but they lost badly. Maybe this war could have been won, or even prevented in the first place. The U.S. could have and should have won this conflict, with a combination of better weapons practice, better tactics, and better support from their home country. Even years before the war, Vietnam was a very popular disputed territory. Many countries had taken Vietnam over, and after World War II, Vietnam was in the hands of France. Obviously, the Vietnamese wanted their own country, and their long history of being a colonized provoked the oppressed people to fight for their independence in the French-Indochina War from 1945-1954 (Karnow 136). Ho Chi Minh, a leader of the Communist party, organized the Vietnamese independence movement, also known as the Viet Minh (Dudley and Bender 15). Asking for support from America first, Ho Chi Minh did not want to have to turn to communist support for the freedom of his people. Ho made a speech in August of 1945 to the people in Bah Dinh Square (Karnow 135). He was feeble from a weakening disease and as he climbed to his wooded platform, and began speaking in his “reedy rural accent.” (Karnow 135) He asserted Vietnam’s Independence by stating, “We hold the truth that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” (Karnow 135). Since the U.S. viewed helping Ho gain his independence from France as a move against their own allies, they declined. It was only after Russia and China offered to help that Ho adopted communist ideals and wanted to make all of Vietnam communist. The Vietnam war started simply because Ho and his communist followers wanted South Vietnam to become communist after the South split off in 1954 to become its own democratic nation (Hoobler 4). The United States saw Ho as a threat to democracy, and using the Domino theory, successfully threw the U.S. into the one of the worst “wars” it has ever seen. The Domino theory first applied by President Dwight Eisenhower was trying to give an example how if Vietnam fell to Communism, the rest of the Southeast Asia was likely also. As early as 1954, the United States started sending financial and military aid to South Vietnam, hoping to stop the spread of communism. The flow of 'military advisors' from 700 to over 14,000 built up steadily through John F. Kennedy's presidency, and after he was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson escalated the war to the point of no return (Dolan 53). The people of the U.S. let Johnson build up a massive force in Vietnam, and he was also almost unanimously backed by congress.
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