![]() Johnson surged troops into the country, tens of thousands of whom were slaughtered, and Nixon, while promising to end the war, unleashed horrific bombing campaigns, and even contemplated the use of nuclear weapons. Thus even though the Vietnam War was pointless homicidal insanity, with no clear path to anything resembling “victory,” both Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon resisted accepting the obvious conclusion that it was an unjust war and the correct course of action was to leave. ![]() It was impossible to cut their losses and withdraw from Vietnam, no matter how much the war was costing in lives and money, because the U.S. leaders felt the pride of the country was at stake, that America could not be seen to fail. One reason it continued, however, was that U.S. ![]() It should have been realized early on that the Vietnam War was destined to be a catastrophe. It became clear that the war could not be won, because “winning” would require permanently occupying the country, continuing to use force to keep an unpopular authoritarian government in power. was defending Vietnam when it was in fact destroying it, dropping more tons of bombs on Southeast Asia than were dropped by all parties during all of World War II. Over time, it became more and more difficult to sustain the myth that the U.S. was propping up an unpopular dictatorial government and trying to crush a nationalist insurgency. This is one reason why invading another country is a very risky proposition and why it often goes badly for the invader.ĭuring the Vietnam War, the United States government insisted that it had to invade Vietnam to save the democratic South Vietnamese from North Vietnamese communist aggression. ![]() Even if the occupier has a friendly puppet government in place, when local support is lacking, the occupier has to impose their will through extreme violence, which only further alienates the population and cements their hatred of the occupation. It is not easy to occupy a country with a hostile population that despises the occupying power. ![]()
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