http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_war
The Vietnam War claimed more than just victims overseas - at home it claimed reforms aimed at lifting millions of people out of poverty.
Almost 3 million Americans served in Vietnam. Between 1965 and 1973 the United States spent $120 billion on the war. This resulted in a large federal budget deficit. The war demonstrated that no power, not even a superpower, has unlimited strength and resources. But perhaps most significantly, the Vietnam War illustrated that political will, as much as material might, is a decisive factor in the outcome of conflicts.
Aftermath for Vietnam people
More than one million Vietnam people became boat people, about one million was imprisoned in concentration camps, more than
100,000 killed.
Mr. McNamara’s studies in philosophy and especially morals and ethics allowed him to understand the principles of these ideas and rationalize them, perhaps even have regrets in terms of his failure to follow them within the institutional setting he served in. His desperate need to find favor in the eyes of his superiors led him to fulfill wishes and orders he did not agree with, yet he did not follow his conscience and quit. Had he done so, perhaps President Johnson would have quit earlier also. Since President Johnson did not run for re-election once McNamara was gone, perhaps this acted as an indicator that the whole mess could have been wrapped up much earlier without the tragedy of the outcome: 3.27 million Vietnamese dead, the equivalent representation of 27 million Americans in terms of population size comparison ratios at the time.
1.Had a conversation taken place, many lives (58,00 American/ 3.27 million Vietnamese) would have been saved from needlessly being wasted to support the Military Industrial Complex. (“Why We Fight”, 2005)
Do we owe South Vietnam recompense for 3 miilion + lives lost like we helped Japan after our WWII travesties? You have obviously done your research for your question, and you deserve a good answer.
You are correct that U.S. involvement in Vietnam could have been much different had there been more negotiations and less of Johnson's pride on the line. As McNamara basically indicated, Johnson picked a fight that didn't need to be fought, fought the fight without the objective of winning it and didn’t listen to sound advice from his advisers.
There is plenty of evidence that the Vietnam conflict would have been much different if Kennedy was not assassinated. Few know that Kennedy ordered the recall of some military advisers from Vietnam shortly before his assassinated and one of Johnson's first acts as president was to rescind that order. It's now common knowledge that the Gulf of Tonkin incidents were fabricated, which led to Johnson receiving support to escalate U.S. involvement to full combat.
As for your question of whether or not we owe Vietnam reparation for what the U.S. had done there during the War. The answer is no, and the reason is more simple and obvious than most realize.
The U.S., South Vietnam, North Vietnam and the NLF (Viet Cong) signed a peace treaty that was to end the War and further hostilities in Vietnam. Within the agreement were actions that could be taken if hostilities resurfaced or continued. Long story short - the peace treaty was breached by North Vietnam when the NVA invaded South Vietnam. Breaching the peace treaty made North Vietnam as the aggressor and absolved the U.S. from any further responsibilities in Vietnam, which included cleaning up the mess there. Everything would have been much different if North Vietnam didn't breach the peace treaty.
North Vietnam clearly had the option to abide the peace and receive support from the U.S. but they chose not to by invading and conquering South Vietnam. This left the U.S. with only a moral obligation to assist Vietnam. Arguably, the moral obligation can be enough to assume responsibility especially with the continuing devastation that only American ingenuity can resolve.
Do we owe South Vietnam recompense for 3 miilion + lives lost like we helped Japan after our WWII travesties?opera mobile opera theater
you should go help em, they chose the Chinese over a democracy.
There is no more South Vietnam and we owe them nothing. We paid with more than 58,000 of our best. Any debt that we had (if any): PAID IN FULL.
Yes, and as I heard USA was also condemned for the agression against the people of Nicaragua.
No, we owe them nothing.
A better question is does South Vietnam and the former Axis powers owe us anything? After all didn't Japan START ww2 with the destrution of 8 of our battleships and the loss of over 2500 American lives?
And we spent billions on the economy of South Vietnam when we were there. Oh and the reason there were boat people is because we reneged on our promise to help when the North launched their invasion of the South. Johnston and his friends would have been better off getting out in 63. It would have saved a lot.
Blah blah blah.
It was France's fault. Blame them.
Their "colony". Their "problem" that they couldn't control.
How about asking China and Russia to compensate, they were the ones supplying the north, financially, technologically, with training, keeping supplies hidden across their border so that we couldn't strike at them, publicly.
Ya, didn't think you would. You don't care about the truth, just that the US gets the shaft needlessly.
after our travesties during WW2? what are you talking about? japan is the one that committed huge travesties during WW2 along with the Germans, not us. but back to south Viet Nam, i looked at my world atlas and i can't find any such country it doesn't exist. so no we don't owe them anything. as for the boat people as i recall growing up out side of Seattle during the 70's we had a big influx of kids in my school from south east Asia, because we let them into our country with the status of refugees, and political asylum. guess what else their families came with them too. know something else the federal government gave them huge amounts of monetary and social aid. you forgot to mention the aid we provided to the huge amount of refugees that came over here as you call them boat people.
YES
As you can tell from the answers, Americans have been indoctrinated to accept the Conventional Wisdom that U.S. Foreign Policy (Imperialism/ Military Empire-737 bases in 130 countries) is beyond question and is noble.
"There is a hard core of people in the United States who will not be moved, whatever facts you present, from their conviction that this nation means only to do good, and almost always does good, in the world, that it is the beacon of liberty and freedom."
Howard Zinn
Most of South Vietnam is in the United States! I guess if we paid them we could send the checks using the first class mail rather than international rates. At least the US would save money on the postage.
We tried negotiating with the North Vietnamese. It got no where until Nixon ordered the resumption of the bombing of the North. Once we left the NVA broke the agreement and invaded south Vietnam. So "talking" to them would have netted the US and South Vietnam nothing.
McNamara is engaging in revisionism in an attempt to rewrite his pace in history. He sounds like one of the old ex-Nazi Generals in their memoirs after World War 2 "if only Hitler had have listened to me!"
The McNamara moral is government by intellectuals is a failure.
Damn gooks are still trying to rob Americans.
Financially no
Morally yes (stupid protestors - could have seen victory for the U.S and its allies if not for you - shame!)
But other than that, no-one owes anything but respect
