Why did America fight a war in Vietnam?

And they did.

Domino, motherfucker!

Until now, I always thought it was all those years they kept me locked up and it was the only food they could push under the door....

And Parcheesi was too foreign souding .

1. Vietnam was a colony of France. Ho Chi Mingh went to Paris in 1912 to ask Woodrow Wilson to help get the country independence and he wasn't given a meeting. More than five decades later, Mingh was still around and wanted the same thing more. Our country got caught in the middle of a civil war with one segment wanting independence from ALL foreign control.

2. Extension of the conflict in Korea (another civil war) and fear of communism if these countries were allowed to be independent.

3. Pentagon and Military Industrial Complex. Weapons built were made to be used and replaced. War. Pentagon has to justify its existence with a vaccuum of peace. Troops used to lower unemployment and crime by drafting a segment of young men who were too poor and illiterate to go to college to get their deferments.

http://www.counterpunch.org/carter12112003.html <---- more at link


They built roads connecting all parts of Vietnam to Saigon, which they promised would result in greater access for both government officials and peasants to sell their crops to a larger market. They trained and equipped a rapidly expanding military force to keep Diem in power and they began to piece together a para-military security force and a Vietnam Bureau of Investigation (VBI) modeled on the American FBI. They even inaugurated an identity card program to catalog the identity and keep track of every Vietnamese in the interest of maintaining security. Nothing would be left to chance; no rogue force would tip the expensive American apple cart. By 1960, the United States had poured into this project over $1.4 billion.

The project failed. Ordinary Vietnamese in concert with northern Viet Minh cadre began to openly resist the whole campaign. By the early 1960s, the United States came to rely almost exclusively on military solutions to put down the growing opposition, soon a broad-based and popular insurgency opposed to continued occupation and Diem's rule, now referred to as My-Diem or American Diem.

At the cost of millions of lives it may have been a bit steep, but I think this poll proves it was worth it.
 

and to provide a means for the officer corps to advance in rank. Also to enrich the military-industrial complex, but that was just icing on the cake. :hi:

An attempt to halt soviet influence that snowballed due to our corrupt puppet government and our inability to just let go.

I can only read about what we did. My Dad missed going, barely. He was in the army but never went.

so the USA military/right wing could build bases and contrlol countries, just like the War on Terror is the reason now.
Ya gotta have an external enemy to justify imperialism

on edit to add:
This bit from the article mentioned is worth a peek:
"Beginning in 1954, the United States attempted to invent a nation below the 17th parallel, the dividing line decided at the Geneva Conference that same year.
Immediately, the United States began pouring money and expertise into Vietnam to bring off this transformation."

I recommend reading it all.

Really,it seems whatever the military industrial complex can use to their convenience is what they will go with.

using excuses ( the Crusades, various wars, etc) to gobble up lands and resources.
For a long time, many of us were just like the rest of America, seduced by words and flags and ideals.
Reality can be a bitch.

No rubber no tires
Without tires people can't drive cars
When people can't drive their cars they can't BUY GASOLINE!

Girl: The failure of Vietnamization to win popular support...caused an ongoing erosion of confidence...in the various American...but illegal... Saigon regimes.

Kinison: Is she right?'Cause I know that's the popular version...of what went on there.I know a lot of people like to believe that.I wish I could,but I was there. I wasn't here in a classroom...hoping I was right,thinking about it.I was up to my knees in rice paddies...with guns that didn't work,going up against Charlie...slugging it out with him,while pussies like you...were back here party in', puttin' headbands on...doin' drugs, listening to the goddamn Beatle albums!Oh! Oh! Oh!


Dangerfield: Hey, Professor,take it easy, will ya?These kids were in grade school at the time.And me...I'm not a fighter, I'm a lover.

Kinison: Well, I didn't know you wanted to get involved...with the discussion, Mr. Helper. But since you want to help,maybe you can help me, OK? You remember that thing we had about thirty years ago...called the Korean conflict? Yeah. Where we failed to achieve victory.How come we didn't cross the 38th parallel...and push those rice-eaters back to the Great Wall of China...and take it apart brick by brick...and nuke them back into the fuckin' stone age forever?How come? Tell me? Why? Say it! Say it!

Dangerfield: All right, I'll say it.'Cause Truman was too much of a pussy wimp...to let MacArthur go in and blowout those commie bastards!


Kinison: Good answer. Good answer.I like the way you think.I'm gonna be watching you.

Dangerfield: Good teacher. He really seems to care. About what, I have no idea.

the Martha's Vineyard ferry, and the hippie artist wasn't the Secretary of Defense?

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/71328.html

on, as Kurt Vonnegut would say.

Domestic political PR are it's ugliest.

Some things never change.

USA equipment won every battle,
USSR tactics won the war,
the CORPORATIONS profited every which way.

Funny poll.