From Saigon to Baghdad

Yun Ting (Claudia) Chao

ASA Section 2

Week 5

From Saigon to Baghdad

After reading Andrew Priest's article “From Saigon to Baghdad: The Vietnam Syndrome, the Iraq War, and American Foreign Policy,” I felt that it was interesting to see that the “textbook” response to this incident was different at different types of schools or curriculums. Some curriculum heavily criticizes the United State’s foreign policy in butting their heads in everybody’s businesses, some taught this part of history in a lighter approach, giving constructive criticism and suggestions on how America could have done to lead to victory, and others taught history without really focusing on international affairs, and just focusing on domestic affairs. To be honest, maybe I just do not notice historical events that much, but I actually did not know that the United States lost in the Vietnam War. I try to recall what my history classes taught me in high school, but I genuinely could not remember much about Vietnam. My question would be, shouldn’t curriculums present the whole truths to students, and leave the analyzing and opinion forming to students?

p.s. I posted this before the deadline but somehow the post disappeared when I checked again? So here's a repost. Sorry if there's a duplicate.