Oral de bac sur la guerre du vietnam

Seats & forms of power

        In class, we studied the notion “Seats and forms of power" by talking about Vietnam war. Power is the capacity or ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. So seats & forms of power is all about where and how power takes place. We are going to ask ourselves how the Americans and the rest of the world made their voices heard in their opposition to the Vietnam War. To answer the question, we will in the first place what was Vietnam War and where it took place, and then we will study the counter-Vietnam war movements.

        The Vietnam War began as a regional conflict and became one of history's worst humanitarian catastrophes. It also changed the way that wars are fought and gave birth to a peace movement that is strong today. Since 1954, a proxy war had been brewing in South Asia. Communist guerillas, backed by North Vietnam, the USSR, and China, known as the Vietcong, had been fighting the Western-backed South. The Vietcong wanted to unite the country under one socialist flag. With the forces of the South losing the war, and fearing communist expansion, the USA entered the conflict to help fight the army of the North. The fighting quickly escalated and successful operations turned the tide of the war in the Vietcong's favor. By 1967, there were more than half a million American troops in Vietnam. In the USA, the anti-war movement was growing. Originally seen as Communist sympathizers, this small group grew into a popular protest movement, as ordinary Americans became angry about the deaths of soldiers and civilians, and the shocking reports about military use of napalm, and the toxic herbicide Agent Orange. After the deaths of 4 student protestors in 1970, public opinion turned against the US government, and it found itself fighting a war on 2 fronts. The failure to win hearts and minds at home, eventually led to the USA's withdraw. Almost 60,000 American personnels had been killed, and 150,000 had been wounded. The conflict was a political disaster for the USA, both at home and overseas. Although technically a victory for the North Vietnamese, up to half a million civilians had been killed. The total amount of casualties, both civilians and military, is believed to be over 3 milion. Both sides had commited war crimes. The ripples of Vietnam can still be felt today. Such huge losses mean that, even now, the USA is unwilling to commit ground troops to conflicts. But if one positive lesson was learned, it was that ordinary people would no longer tolerate the loss of innocent lives in their names. This is the direct result of the peace movement. That lives on throughout the world today, stronger than ever.

        Nevertheless, the violence done in Vietnam generated a lot of anti-Vietnam war movements. First the american people, and then the rest of the world started to join many demonstrations  to lobby the US government to withdraw the troops from Vietnam. But the particularity of all these ,demonstration is that they are all non-violent. For example, the moratorium was a peaceful demonstration that took place in Washington DC on october the 15th, 1969. Supported by many activists all around the world, thay gathered to sing songs and to         amrch to the capitol. But not everyone supported thios movements: some officials and Nixon's administration suportes made their anti-moratorium voices heard. We can also take the example of the speech delivered by MLK on april 4th, 1967, at riverside church ( NYC). It's an anti-Vientam war abd pro social justce speech. It protests the command and deployment by L. B. Johnson of almost unlimited violence against th vietnamese for the declared purpose of protecting them from the threat of world communism.

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