Vietnam and When to Leave a War

Miscellaneous History
1

A friend of mine and I had a debate about Vietnam and ending a war. We both agree that the US should not have interferred in and gotten involved in the first place. However, given that the US did enter the war, we debated about what to do next. I argued that the US should have left as soon as possible, accepting a mistake, and moving on. My friend argued that, given the war was underway, we should have pushed through to victory and used whatever means necessary to do so, specifically bombing the dikes and cutting off supply to North Vietnam. His reasoning is:

  1. Abandoning a war makes future enemies more willing to engage in prolonged conflict and hope to wear you down. Bin-laden has cited Vietnam specifically as evidence that Al-queda can win in the long run.

  2. It makes future allies less likely to trust you when you promise help to them.

  3. We made a promise to aid those fighting a Communist regime and should not have broken that promise.

I made various counter arguments, but I’m curious as to other views out there.

2

All of those three arguments assume that the US could have won the war in the long run.

3

War is murder.

4

I do believe that if the US put the full force of our military into Vietnam, then we would have won. My point was

A) Whether it is moral

B) Whether it would be prudent to continue the war even if we would win.

5

are you joking ?

6

I’m not joking. My point is: When a country engages in a war and later realizes that entering was a mistake in the first place, under what circumstances would it make sense to win anyway. The three strategic reasons my friend gave are, although I ultimately disagree with them, I think compelling.

7

What has that got to do with the morality of murder ?

8

His claim is that the action he is taking is designed to destroy the North Vietnamese communists and that the principle of double effect is in play. He would also claim that the North Vietnamese are not being murdered, they are being justly killed.

9

To elaborate, he maintains that those aggressing against others have forfeited their rights and thus the North Vietnamese, who were aggressors, could be justly attacked.

10

But the NVA didn’t aggress against the US.

11

He claims that it doesn’t matter. You can defend someone in the street who is being attacked even if you haven’t been attacked.

12

Yes, you can. And when you compel someone by force to “defend” someone, that’s wrong. Even if the person volunteered, the person is still being paid by taxes, so it’s still wrong.

13

The soldier is being paid by taxes whether or not he is in war. So the question is not whether the situation is morally ideal, but which course of action (continuing or leaving the war) is less wrong and most prudent.

14

Fine. So he can go to Vietnam and fight any criminal he wants. But, what has that got to do with the massacring of innocents that the American murderers, aka, the military, engaged into ?

Do you realize that force can only be used for individual self-defense no ?

15

Could you elaborate? What about a group of people asking for help?

16

Again : how is killing people who are not attacking you ever ‘right’ or ‘less wrong’ ?

17

Lesse: which is more prudent–killing people who didn’t attack you or not killing people who didn’t attack you?

18

His argument is that because

  1. We promised our help to the South Vietnamese

and

  1. Not winning can cause strategic problems later on by emboldening potential enemies

we should have destroyed the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Communist government.

He claims that the commuinists had no rights at all, becuase they were aggressors, and those of the worst kind.

19

Again, proxy defense is not immoral.

20

Such as ? You still need to target individual aggressors anyway, not use napalm.