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Was it correct to opposed the Vietnam War ?

There is a study that says the more educated you were, the more likely you were to support the war in Vietnam.

13 Answers

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  • 2 months ago
    Favorite Answer

    I think there's alot of subjectivity to that.  Given hindsight, I think it's clear that Vietnam was a mistake.  The 'domino theory' of socialism's advance looks pretty silly to us 50 years later.  These countries tend to collapse under their own weight.  We know that now.

    But we didn't know it then.  At the time, the fear that the Soviets were going to back socialist revolutions in every small country in the developing world and turn the world red was a real fear...and seemed completely reasonable...and like something worth opposing.  Even if it meant we were on the side of dictators we didn't like very much.

    This same formula was at work in Korea and given how free and prosperous South Korea is now, that gamble seems completely worth it.  Vietnam on the other hand didn't work at all...and the main reason was failure of political and military leadership.  If Vietnam had been more competently executed, perhaps Vietnam might have turned out as successfully as South Korea?  

    But that's the thing with nation-building.  The outside force has little to no control over how successful a nation-build is going to be.  Germany, Japan, South Korea all stand out as successes that give the US more confidence than it should have that it can do these things successfully.  But while the US deserves partial credit for those things, it's the people living there that are the main factor.  And our failures, even in wars we win, substantially outnumber our successes with Iraq and Afghanistan as the most recent examples in a long line of countries the US has intervened in that didn't go so well.

    Today, I can tell you we shouldn't have been in Vietnam.  But if I were alive back then, knowing only what I would have known at that time ... I probably would have been supportive.  It's hard to know exactly.

  • Anonymous
    2 months ago

    Yes, it was. Vietnam was far away, the US supported the dictatorship in South Vietnam (morally absolutely wrong and not better than the Communists) and Vietnam is none of their business. Americans also would not want other nations to invade the US.

    Furthermore, if the US is the Land of the Free, then everybody has a free choice to say whatever they want. It would be treason to the Constitution, if people were not allowed to have had their own opinion on the war. And besides, their sons were sent into battles/death and their taxpayers money was being wasted instead of investing it in the US.

    Actually, other studies say the opposite. The more educated you are, the more opposed you are to war due to more social intelligence and being more aware of hypocrisy and suffering for all sides through more reflection.

  • ?
    Lv 4
    2 months ago

    Getting into a war without any clear objectives, with no ability to actually politically vanquish an enemy, without clear cut conditions for victory, with restrictions on how far you can take the fight...essentially getting into a war without a plan, is very bad practice. Getting into a war overestimating your ability to effect a favorable political outcome, underestimating an enemies military and political potential, and without including some analysis of potential enemy perspectives and psychology, is very bad practice. 

    The war itself may or may not have been justified, but a proper analysis of these points prior to getting into the war was near criminal. 

  • 2 months ago

    Yes, the Gulf of Tonkin incident that started the war was a political sham, it didn't happen. Politics was the cause of 55,000 American deaths for no reason as the US lost the war.

  • 2 months ago

    Can you cite the "study"?  Sounds pretty suspicious to me.  Educated people generally oppose all forms of war.  Why would the Vietnam War be any different?  Many people died needlessly, and many more suffered, just like most wars.  And for what?  Stopping the spread of Communism?  C'mon, do people really still believe in McCarthyism?  Educated people?

  • 2 months ago

    China was moving to take over se Asia.  That was stopped. 

  • Anonymous
    2 months ago

    Yes too many Young Men died to stop a civil war the USA had No Business sticking its nose in

  • ?
    Lv 7
    2 months ago

    Tell us about this study. I am not familiar with it.

  • Anonymous
    2 months ago

    The draft dodgers were pardoned by Carter.

    I read the fate of my life in an afternoon newspaper that published draft lottery results. My number indicated I wouldn't be drafted. Prior to that were a number of options I contemplated. It was all on the table. Excluding Vietnam was the goal.

  • Mark
    Lv 6
    2 months ago

    Whether you opposed or agreed with the war, the biggest issue was the draft.  The draft should only have be used when fighting for our country, not fighting foreign wars in which we were never a part of, nor did we have any major business interests,  It was a war of conquest and control of foreign lands, not defending our country.

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