The Vietnam War (Chiến tranh Việt Nam), also known as the Second Indochina War, was a war between the United States, South Vietnam, and their allies and North Vietnam and their allies. It began shortly after the division of Vietnam in 1954 and lasted until the Liberation of Saigon on April 30, 1975.[1] The United States entered the war after the faked Gulf of Tonkin incident.[2] Overall, the war led to three million Vietnamese deaths.[3]
Background
The First Indochina War was a struggle for independence between the Viet Minh and France. France was defeated at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954.
US war crimes
From 1967 to 1972, the CIA helped South Vietnam identify and kill suspected communist guerrillas. This was called the Phoenix Program and led to at least 26,000 deaths.
In March 1968, US soldiers killed at least 347 unarmed civilians in Sơn Mỹ village.[4] The soldiers who tried to stop the massacre were considered traitors by the other soldiers and U.S. congressmen.[5]
- ↑ Charles G. Boyd (1998). The Paris Agreement on Vietnam: Twenty-five Years Later. Washington, DC: The Nixon Center.
- ↑ Andrew Glass (2016-08-07). "Congress approves Gulf of Tonkin Resolution: Aug. 7, 1964" Politico. Retrieved 2022-01-05.
- ↑ Ziad Obermeyer, et al. (2008). Fifty years of violent war deaths from Vietnam to Bosnia: analysis of data from the world health survey programme. British Medical Journal. doi: 10.1136/bmj.a137 [HUB]
- ↑ Susan Brownmiller (1975). Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape (pp. 103–05). Simon & Schuster. ISBN 9780671220624
- ↑ Hugh Thompson (2003). Moral Courage In Combat: The My Lai Story. [PDF] Center for the Study of Professional Military Ethics, United States Naval Academy.