Monday, October 7, 2013

The end of the war?

From an American perspective, the Vietnam war ended in 1973 with the Paris Peace accords.  Once American soldiers returned home, the vehement opposition to war could end, and the United States could shift their focus to domestic policies.

What do you make of Nixon's "peace with honor" speech?  How was it received by those outside of the United States?  Ultimately, what was the purpose of this 10 year conflict...indeed, America's longest war?

11 comments:

  1. I think that Nixon's speech was generally not bad. He does a good job of telling the truth and not beating around the bush. Like he said, "we must recognize that ending the war is only the first step onwards building the peace." It could have been very easy for him to reword this for it to sound better than it really is. And he does that through the entire speech. But to other countries obviously this wasn't good enough. Like the text says, "it is evidently impossible for a president of the United States to come clean about Vietnam, there is too much shame and failure in the American record there to be even hinted at. This is pretty much universal for all the countries as well as it should be for ours.

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  2. Nixon's speech seems very similar to that of many other president's speeches. He is glossing over the harsh reality of the situation. He claims that ending the war will not only bring short term peace but will more importantly bring long term peace to the whole world!! Just as the Canadian piece said, of course this is not true, it is merely impossible to for the entire world to be at peace. Nixon probably wants to comfort the American people and put out an impression that he is the best president because, by ending the war, he will initiate world peace. As for the "goal" of this war, I honestly think there was none other than to make America look good. I cannot agree more with the Canadian article' statement that: "the United States waged war with incredible stupidity and callousness."

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  3. I think that Nixon acted as if we won the war, and this is very important. I don't believe we won the war, and I don't think many people think we did. But by saying and talking as if it was our win was satisfying for some people. Peace with honor merely means we ended the war but we did it because we were the "better" country that wanted peace instead of war. He absolutely glorified the war.

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  4. Nixon's speech came off as something that was obviously trying to not even cover up the shame, humiliation, and loss that was the Vietnam war, it out right avoided it. Not even a single a mention of what happened in the war. No 'formal' apologies toward the Vietnamese, just talking about "peace with honor". I swear Nixon said peace more times in that speech than Obama said change in his entire 2008 election champaign. As you can i didn't exactly like his speech, he dodge the question with such tactlessness that it almost as embarrassing as the war itself. But I do him credit for doing perhaps his only option to at least attempt to leave a good final impression. Im not alone seeing as how the canadians said that "'Exit with face saved' would have been a more appropriate phrase."

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  5. I don't think that America won Vietnam. The speech Nixon gives sounds nice and glorious and as if now finally, piece would rise in the world, because everybody worked so well on it. That sounds good and maybe it is what people needed to hear after a 10 year war that ultimately left Vietnam in a still critical position. But to admit that would mean to say that the US had given up. The truth is that Vietnam was a war that the US could just retire from without real consequences, because it wasn't about their own country. And I could imagine that lots of people were mad at Nixon for his speech, because he downplays the actual situation of the wars end. "Well this has been lovely work guys, now lets all work on maintaining the piece." The vietnamese in their destroyed countryside vs the Americans who could just go home and move on.

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  6. As for the purpose, i don't really think there was much of one besides the boosting of egos and action without much of a plan. This is actually probably why we were there for so long, because they spent so much time trying to figure out the purpose while all the action was happening and they didn't want to pull out before they could find a way to say that it was not all for nought. Nixon's speech was sort of see through in the way that every politician's grand promises tend to be, everyone either genuinely believes they can bring about the change, or they want to be remembered as the one that brought about peace for the generations to come when all is said and done in the history textbooks...

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  7. I think Nixon's speech was bs. He made everything seem so fine and dandy when actuality, no one won the war. He seems so proud and hopeful when American citizens felt the opposite. Just like all other presidents, he did not mention any negative aspects and consequences of the war. I would have liked it better if he would have recognized the harsh reality of the war instead of pretending the only outcome was peace. What about the causalities and destroying Vietnam's territory? Outside of the US, they viewed the war as shameful and humiliating. The US' ultimate goal was to prevent communism from spreading to their own territory and making it seem like they saved South Vietnam from Communism. On the other hand, the war just made the US seem nosey and disruptive.

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  8. Nixon seemed to try and make the war seem better than it went. Well, obviously the war didn't go well at all as the US failed in its main objective to contain communism. There was so much debate over whether the war should have gone ahead in the first place, that he was trying to cover for the start of the war. He sugarcoated the outcome to try and make the people feel like the US had done a good thing, but in reality this was not the case.

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  9. The way I see Nixon's speech is that it's kind of BS...(Excuse my French but i had to get it out off my chest otherwise i may die..) He was absolutely glossing over the harsh realities of Vietnam war ambiguously with out off nowhere sentiment of cheer and celebration. It is kind of ironic tha part of the speech even says "Contributes to the prospects of peace in the whole world" given the facts that after americans pulled out over 50,000 civilians along with Saicong vanished in 2 years. I really find editorial comment by Toronto Star to be amusing and incredibly accurate :"Exit with face saved."

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  10. Yes, Nixon's speech was kind and he obviously is trying to look like the 'good guy', but when I read the Toronto Star editorial I thought otherwise. The Canadian newspaper explains how there is no guarantee for peace between N and S Vietnam, and how the US "waged the war with incredible stupidity". The writer even refers to the American presence as destructive. Nixon explains how the war's purpose was to enable S Vietnam to "live in freedom and so that the world might live in peace", when in reality, the US just wanted to hold its title as the most powerful nation in the world.

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  11. Nixon's speech was meant to justify the war in some respect and give the illusion that the war was not a total mistake, and even inferring that the war went well. This speech was also aimed to establish a public stance that America is the victor in the war. The war was so long because of the style of fighting that happened in Vietnam and the overall lack of a goal, other than to stop Communism. The actual steps to that goal were not figured out very well and the war was disorganized as a result.

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