Also the source doesn’t mention anything about killing the innocent people, the writer tries to sound objective.
Another thing is that this source was written in 1990, which is 17 years after the war, therefore this source is considered to be a secondary source. Again this might mean that this source is not reliable for the reason that it has been written after a long period of time after the event. Therefore the information might not be true as the writer may not have been there at the time e.g. he was not an eyewitness. However it could be reliable being a secondary source because maybe the writer can be more objective because he wasn’t there. Also maybe more facts and evidence has come to light over time.
However on the other hand, the writer could have investigated about the war in depth, as he may have wanted the future people to know what exactly happened in the war. And he is a historian; historians should look at lots of different evidence and try to be objective.
By going over each and every point of the source, I conclude that this source is not very reliable.
SOURCE E
This source was the enquiry of Lieutenant Calley’s who ordered the murder of 22 civilians and was sentenced to 20 years hard labour. This investigation happened in 1969, and the account given is from the enquiry, which demonstrates it is a primary source. The source has been recorded while they were investigating the Lieutenant. Therefore I will say this might be accurate information because it is a primary source. But the message is from the person who was the cause of event; therefore he might not say that he was wrong. He may not give the right information to cover himself. This illustrates that the source could not be reliable at all. He calls the Vietnamese “pawns”, “blobs” and “flesh”, this proves his hatred towards the Vietnamese and shows that he didn’t really consider them to be human beings. He also says, his main aim of killing these innocent people was to destroy communism, again it shows he gave more importance to his aim rather than the innocent humans. This source is unreliable.
SOURCE F
Source F has written by Seymor Harsh who was an America Journalist in 1970. He wrote this message in order to expose how bad the Vietnamese were treated by the U.S troops. This is a primary source as the journalist wrote this while these horrific events were happening. Also the message has been told by the people who actually were there at the time. however, this does not mean that they are objective. They are Vietnamese and they could be biased. They also witnessed the horrors of war and could be very emotionally involved.
The source talks about 2 people who saw how women were raped and kids were killed. This source might not be biased because it has been written by an American Journalist, whereas the information is from the Vietnamese, therefore it can possibly a balanced source.
Overall I would say this source is fairly reliable.
SOURCE G
Source G has also been written by Seymor Hersh who wrote source F. In it two soldiers talk about how they killed a little kid. Stanley says how his friend Carter killed the kid; therefore this information considered might be reliable because the person who actually was there has said it. Also, these are American soldiers talking about how they killed a little boy in cold blood at point blank distance. There seems little reason to disbelieve what they are saying. This source may be reliable because they seem to want to tell it how it really was.
This source could be reliable because they were admitting that what they did wrong wrong. However they could be bosting. Overall, I think this source is quite reliable.
Comprehension (3.3.1)
Napalm was a mixture of petrol and chemical thickener. It produces a tough sticky gel that attaches itself to the skin. The chemical within it, white phosphorus, goes on burning for a considerable time. Three-quarter of all napalm victims in Vietnam were burned through to the muscle and bone. The pain alone often caused death because it was so intensive.
Agent orange contained traces of the most toxic forms of dioxin. Hectares of forests were destroyed using Agent Orange. Not only did Agent Orange destroy thousands of trees but it was later found to have caused birth deformities in children. It also caused cancers in soldiers fighting in the war.
Source H is a picture, which shows children hit by napalm. This suggests that the troops didn’t just deform the Viet Cong; they deformed innocent people and children. Therefore these Vietnamese who were supporting for the U.S, would now turn against U.S, as the U.S punished people who didn’t even do anything wrong. However the pictures are always not true as they can be tampered with.
Source I says American civilians were sickened of the fact that their own country used chemicals such as napalm and Agent Orange, there fore they were showing disgust towards their own country. The source also says, these chemicals affected the soldier and the civilians in the same way. This source is taken from a schoolbook; therefore it might be reliable, as the publisher may wants the children to learn the facts. However, on the other hand might not be reliable. It may be written by someone who doesn’t want American children to know how badly the U.S acted towards the Vietnamese. It could be a government publication and therefore unreliable it so also it is a secondary source.
Source J is two pictures with writing. It shows two photographs, first picture was taken before the land was destroyed by agent orange and the second picture was taken after the agent orange had been bombed over the land. The first picture shows land full of crops and the second picture shows all those crops have been destroyed; even the land looks so rocky. I believe the land must have lost all the minerals it had and it could no longer be used to farm. This shows that the U.S would was to destroy anything to achieve their aim. They didn’t care what they destroyed good or bad.
By observing these sources and using my own knowledge, I will say the napalm and Agent Orange was hardly effective at all in America’s attempt to win the war. I say this because the U.S lost the respect of her own people and that of other countries. As they were burning those innocent people, children and destroying the land. They were bitterly criticised, the Americans started to question, “Why America have to be involved with something which is nothing to do with the U.S?”
Using Napalm affected the Vietcong but it also affected the U.S troops. They were losing their own troops by using napalm. This was another important factor for why Napalm wasn’t effective to win the war.
In addition, America didn’t win the war; this proves that the Agent Orange and napalm wasn’t very effective to win the war.
However, I believe using Agent Orange helped in one way. The U.S was able to get rid of the guerrilla tactics, which the Vietcong used. Then again, the U.S was unable to destroy all the jungles, this again proves using Agent Orange didn’t help very much to achieve their aim of destroying guerrilla tactics.
Interpretation (3.3.1)
Source K (i) is taken from an American school textbook showing a picture of an anti-war demonstration at Kent State University in 1970. This is from an American book, which can be a biased source. Also it can be propaganda. It was written after 15 years, which makes it a as a secondary source.
The photograph shows younger people participating in the anti-war protests. It shows a huge amount of people participating. The photograph could be reliable as it is often harder to lie by photographs. On the other hand, the photographs can be tampered with therefore it might not be reliable.
Source K (ii) says the American people wanted peace; this is why they elected Nixon as their president. Their main aim was to get out of the war.
This source was written after 15years, which makes it to be a secondary source; it has the benefits of hindsight. This long time might have possibly given the chance of researching more evidence to produce more true information. This source uses biased language for America.
Both source K(i) and K(ii) say that the importance of the anti-war protests is that the Americans’ wanted peace. These source tries to show the American people in a good light, being biased.
Source L was published 4 years after the end of the war. It could be unreliable because it is a secondary source but it could be reliable on the other hand because more research could have been done. Therefore the information might be dependable.
This source sounds more objective, e.g. “it came home to mothers and fathers who had lost their sons”. Also the historian may have been objective, as he might have wanted the world to know the true reasons.
Source L says that the war ended because the economy was effected, the money which should have been spent on schools, hospitals and useful things was spent on the war, which wasn’t even anything to do with America. Moreover, the price of goods were rising, this was another problem, which came home to America. Americans were suffering financially; this is one reason why the American people wanted to end the war.
Another reason is the fact that the American were losing people. The civilians were losing their sons, therefore they were affected and they wanted to end the war.
Society was affected because ex-soldiers became drug-addicts, as they wanted to forget all the horrific events. The Americans didn’t want their society to be effected; therefore they wanted to end the war.
President Johnson was blamed for the war; he was terribly attacked by the protestors’ slogans. As a result America elected a new president Nixon. He realised the war will not be won but he didn’t want to sacrifice the South Vietnam to communist. Thus they wanted to end the war.
Basically, source L is different to Source K. source K only says that the war ended because the American wanted peace; it has just given a basic reason. But source L says other points such as, losing soldiers, economy effected, losing money, American people were hurt, society was affected and they knew that couldn’t win the war. Source L gives more details and has a good set of factors of why America wanted to end the war. Also it seems balanced, as it doesn’t favour the Americans
Sufficiency (3.3.1/3.3.2)
The source A – L tells me that American lost the war against Vietnam due to the following factors.
The U.S lost their support of their own people partly because of the brutality the U.S soldiers used towards innocent civilians. By using chemicals such as Agent Orange and Napalm they lost the support of the American civilians. Also this made the U.S lose the support of South Vietnam and other countries.
Also the U.S lost support, because the effect of the war began to come to their homes. American civilians suffered due to the lose of money, soldiers, etc. they had to face an affected society such as drugs-addiction. Thus Americans became more involve in stopping the war rather than carrying on and losing more things.
The Mai Lai Massacre had a big effect on the American people. I can say this because source E says that an enquiry was set up an Army officer Lieutnant Calley and he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. This shows the U.S lost the trust that their own civilians had for them. The sickened American people started to question why America had to be involved in a war, which didn’t have anything to do with America.
Source C suggests even when the U.S had a lot force and control; they didn’t have enough power to win the war, to fight against the Vietnamese. 900,000 North Vietnamese and Viet Cong died, 400,000 North Vietnamese died, only 50,000 American troops died. From this you can see the U.S although they had a lot of power and killed lot of Vietnamese soldiers, the Vietnamese would not give up easily. Even with this massive number of human loss the Vietnamese able to win the war.
All these sources are biased as most of them from American textbooks. Also most sources seem to be secondary source. Therefore they consider not being reliable.
Overall I would say all these sources doesn’t give me enough evidence to understand why a super power like the united States of America failed to defeat the Viet Cong. These sources are only taken from textbooks. I would likely to have more evidence such as:-
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film footage e.g. damaging crops and civilian using bombs,
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record tapes e.g. enquiries,
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books e.g. about war,
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past news papers e.g. pictures, articles,
- interviews with eye witness
I believe doing more research would provide more information rather than what the source’s tells us.
Guerrilla tactics was a popular tactic used by the Vietcong. These were hard among the U.S troops. This was a very important factor for why the U.S didn’t win the war. None of these sources doesn’t give any information about these Guerrilla tactics such as jungle tactic, booby traps, trip-wire, etc.
The U.S soldiers didn’t fight very affectively, because they began to be scared for their lives. Thus so many soldiers begin to leave their jobs and later in 60’s American people stayed back to join as soldiers. But the Vietnamese were strong, they had many people to fight even the women begun to fight for their land. This was another factor why America couldn’t win the war
The above two factors (guerrilla tactics and the weakness of the soldiers) isn’t mentioned in any source at all. I think I need more information on these. Over all I would say all these source don’t give me enough information.
