Vietnam War. Facts, information and articles about The Vietnam War. Vietnam War Facts. Dates. 19. 54- 1. Location. South Vietnam. North Vietnam. Cambodia. Laos. Result. North Vietnamese. Troop Strength. South Vietnam: 8. UK anti-war organisation. Provides news, articles, mailing lists, calendar of peace events, photos, and resources for groups and individuals. The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal that sits in The Hague in the Netherlands. The ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the. Institute for War & Peace Reporting is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom (charity reg. This video from hip hop legend Shawn “Jay Z” Carter and acclaimed artist Molly Crabapple depicts the drug war’s devastating impact on the Black community from decades of biased law enforcement. War is a state of armed conflict between societies. It is generally characterized by extreme aggression, destruction, and mortality, using regular or irregular military forces. An absence of war is usually called 'peace. Facts, information and articles about The Vietnam War U.S. Marines in Operation Allen Brook (Vietnam War) 001 Vietnam War Facts Dates 1954-1973 Location South Vietnam North Vietnam Cambodia Laos Result North Vietnamese Troop. United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. About the ICTY; Cases; Documents; Press; Outreach; In Focus; Trial Broadcast. Courtroom 1; Courtroom 3; Court Schedule. United States: 5. South Korea: 5. 0,0. Others: 8. 0,0. 00 plus. Casualties. South Vietnam: 2. Over 1 million wounded. United States: 5. North Vietnam: 5. Over 5. 00,0. 00 wounded. Vietnam War Articles. Explore articles from the History Net archives about Vietnam War. Usually, it refers to the period when the United States and other members of the SEATO (Southeast Asia Treaty Organization) joined the forces of the Republic of South Vietnam in contesting communist forces comprised of South Vietnamese guerrillas and regular- force units, generally known as Viet Cong (VC), and the North Vietnamese Army (NVA). For this reason, in Vietnam today it is known as the American War. It was a direct result of the First Indochina War (1. In 1. 97. 3 a “third” Vietnam war began. It ended with communist victory in April 1. The Vietnam War was the longest in U. S. It was extremely divisive in the U. S., Europe, Australia and elsewhere. Low estimates calculate 1. KIA and a half- million wounded. Civilian loss of life was also very heavy, with the lowest estimates around 4. Similarly, casualty totals among the VC and NVA and the number of dead and wounded civilians in North Vietnam cannot be determined exactly. In April 1. 99. 5, Vietnam’s communist government said 1. Civilian deaths during that time period were estimated at 2 million, but the U. S. China conquered the northern part of modern Vietnam in 1. BC and retained control until 9. AD; it continued to exert some control over the Vietnamese until 1. Originally, Vietnam ended at the 1. South China Sea and west to Cambodia. Population in the south was mostly clustered in a few areas along the coast; the north always enjoyed a larger population. The two sections were not unlike North and South in the United States prior to the Civil War; their people did not fully trust each other. France’s military involvement in Vietnam began when it sent warships in 1. Christians from the ruling emperor Gia Long. Before the 1. 88. French controlled Vietnam. In the early 2. 0th century, Vietnamese nationalism began to rise, clashing with the French colonial rulers. By the time of World War II, a number of groups sought Vietnamese independence but as Vo Nguyen Giap. Post- war, the French tried to re- establish control but faced organized opposition from the Viet Minh (short for Viet Nam Doc Lap Dong Minh Hoi, or League for the Independence of Vietnam), led by Ho Chi Minh and Giap. The French suffered a major defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1. Geneva Agreements, July 2. Under those agreements, Cambodia and Laos. Vietnam, however, was divided at the 1. Ho Chi Minh led a communist government in the north (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) with its capital at Hanoi, and a new Republic of South Vietnam was established under President Ngo Dinh Diem, with its capital at Saigon. The division was supposed to be temporary: elections were to be held in both sections in 1. When the time came, however, Diem resisted the elections; the more populous north would certainly win. Hanoi re- activated the Viet Minh to conduct guerilla operations in the south, with the intent of destabilizing President Diem’s government. In July 1. 95. 9, North Vietnam’s leaders passed an ordinance called for continued socialist revolution in the north and a simultaneous revolution in South Vietnam. Some 8. 0,0. 00 Vietnamese from the south had moved to the north after the Geneva Agreements were signed. The insurgency was called the National Liberation Front (PLF); however, its soldiers and operatives became more commonly known by their opponents as the Viet Cong (VC), short for Vietnamese Communists. The VC were often supplemented by units of the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), more often called simply the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) by those fighting against it. Following the Tet Offensive of 1. NVA had to assume the major combat role because the VC was decimated during the offensive. United States Military Advisors in Vietnam. The U. S., which had been gradually exerting influence after the departure of the French government, backed Diem in order to limit the area under communist control. Mao Zedong’s Communist Party had won the Chinese Civil War in 1. This fear evolved into the “Domino Theory”; if one country fell to communist control, its neighbors would also soon fall like a row of dominos. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) advised that was not the case. Earlier, “Wild Bill” Donovan, head of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the World War II forerunner of the CIA, had also advised that the U. S. The communist takeover of China and subsequent war in Korea (1. North Korean and Chinese troops had focused a great deal of attention on Southeast Asia as a place to take a strong stand against the spread of communism. During President Dwight Eisenhower. The first American fatality was Air Force Technical Sergeant Richard B. Fitzgibbon, Jr., killed June 8, 1. They were the only father- son pair to die in Vietnam.) In July 1. Major Dale Buis and Master Sergeant Chester Ovnand were off duty when they were killed during an attack at Bien Hoa. Ho Chi Minh had been educated in Paris. There is considerable debate over whether he was primarily nationalist or communist, but he was not especially anti- Western. That would have made any negotiation with Ho politically ticklish. A lingering question of the war is what might have happened if Eisenhower and Ho had arranged a meeting; possibly, an accord could have been reached, or possibly Ho was simply seeking to limit American involvement, in order to more easily depose the Diem government. American Military Involvement Escalates. American involvement began to escalate under President John F. North Vietnam, had by then established a presence in Laos and developed the Ho Chi Minh Trail through that country in order to resupply and reinforce its forces in South Vietnam. Kennedy saw American efforts in Southeast Asia almost as a crusade and believed increasing the military advisor program, coupled with political reform in South Vietnam, would strengthen the south and bring peace. The following February a “strategic hamlet” program began; it forcibly relocated South Vietnamese peasants to fortified strategic hamlets. Based on a program the British had employed successfully against insurgents in Malaya, it didn’t work in Vietnam. The peasants resented being forced from their ancestral lands, and consolidating them gave the VC better targets. The program, which had been poorly managed, was abandoned after about two years, following the coup that deposed Diem. Diem fell from favor with his American patrons, partly over disagreements in how to handle the war against the VC and partly because of his unpopular suppression of religious sects and anyone he feared threatened his regime. Buddhists, who comprised South Vietnam’s majority, claimed Diem, a Catholic, favored citizens of his religion in distributing aid. He, in turn, called the Buddhists VC sympathizers. On June 1. 1, 1. 96. Buddhist monk named Thich Quang Duc sat down in the street in front of a pagoda in Saigon to protest Diem’s policies. Two younger monks poured a mix of gasoline and jet fuel over him and, as the three had planned, set fire to him. Associated Press correspondent Malcolm “Mal” Browne photographed him sitting quietly in the lotus position as the flames consumed him. The photo was published worldwide under the title “The Ultimate Protest,” raising (or in some cases reinforcing) doubts about the government that the democratic United States was supporting. Seven more such immolations occurred that year. To make matters worse, Diem responded by sending troops to raid pagodas. In November, a coup deposed Diem, with the blessing of Kennedy’s administration, which had quietly assured South Vietnam’s military leaders it was not adverse to a change in leadership and military aid would continue. The administration was caught by surprise, however, when Diem was murdered during the coup, which was led by General Duong Van Minh. This began a series of destabilizing changes in government leadership. That same month, Kennedy himself was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. His successor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, inherited the Vietnam situation. Johnson wanted to focus on instituting “Great Society” programs at home, but Vietnam was a snake he did not dare let go of. His political party, the Democrats, had been blamed for China falling to communism; withdrawing from Vietnam could hurt them in the 1. On the other hand, Congress had never declared war and so the president was limited in what he could do in Southeast Asia. Gulf of Tonkin Incident. That changed in August 1. On August 2, two North Vietnamese torpedo boats in broad daylight engaged USS Maddox, which was gathering communications intelligence in the Gulf of Tonkin. Two nights later, Maddox and the destroyer USS Turner Joy were on patrol in the Gulf and reported they were under attack. The pilot of an F- 8. E Crusader did not see any ships in the area where the enemy was reported, and years later crew members said they never saw attacking craft. An electrical storm was interfering with the ships’ radar and may have given the impression of approaching attack boats. Congress swiftly passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that removed most restrictions from the president in regards to Vietnam. By year’s end, 2. American military personnel would be in South Vietnam. Though a congressional investigative committee the previous year had warned that America could find itself slipping into in a morass that would require more and more military participation in Vietnam, Johnson began a steady escalation of the war, hoping to bring it to a quick conclusion.
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