Re: Maybe. But not THEIR children, of course.
by
The Real RML
09/20/2009, 9:09 AM #
Just for grins what was the lie in Vietnam? I think fighting the spread of Communism and Tyrany serves us well.
##### While you might consider the spread of communism to be against the USA, the USA never declared war on it in congress and therefore it was never a legit reason to go to war. Please show me in the constitution where it is the duty of US citizens and soldiers to die to keep another political philosophy from spreading in OTHER COUNTRIES. At no point was communism threatening our freedom or our lives or our property.....it merely meant people in other nations might choose another way of life that they wanted-indeed DEMANDED via revolutions against truly tyranical people such as the money grubbing south vietnamese leadership.
What was not legit about the reasons JFK sent us into Vietnam and his decision to escalate the war?
####### JFK NEVER escalated the war. Talk to Texan gun nut LBJ who actually did escalate the war. More specifically keep in mind that the US government has finally admitted that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was a lie used (like WMD in Iraq) to somehow justify a massive escalation of military use in the region.
WIKIPEDIA:
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident is the name given to two separate incidents involving the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the United States in the waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 2, 1964 two American destroyers engaged three North Vietnamese torpedo boats, resulting in one of the torpedo boat's sinking. On August 4, 1964, the American destroyers reported a second engagement with North Vietnamese boats. However, this second report was later discovered to be in error.[1][2] Together, these two incidents prompted the first large-scale involvement of U.S. armed forces in Vietnam.
The outcome of the incident was the passage by Congress of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which granted President Lyndon B. Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression". The resolution served as Johnson's legal justification for escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War.
In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded[3] that Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese on August 2, but that there may not have been any North Vietnamese vessels present during the engagement of August 4. The report stated "[I]t is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2.[4]"
AND...........
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident occurred during the first year of the Johnson administration. While Kennedy had originally supported the policy of sending military advisers to Vietnam, he had begun to alter his thinking due to what he perceived to be the ineptitude of the Saigon government and its inability and unwillingness to make needed reforms (which led to a US-supported coup which resulted in the death of Diem). Shortly before his assassination in November 1963, Kennedy had begun limited recall of US forces. Johnson's views were likewise complex, but he had supported military escalation in Vietnam as a means to challenge what he perceived as the expansionist policies of the Soviet Union. The Cold War policy of containment was to be applied to prevent the fall of Southeast Asia to communism under the precepts of the domino theory. After Kennedy's assassination, Johnson ordered in more US forces to support the Saigon government, beginning a protracted United States presence in Southeast Asia.
AND...WHO STARTED THE WAR IN VIETNAM?
A highly classified program of covert actions against North Vietnam known as Operation Plan 34-Alpha, had begun under the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in 1961. In 1964 the program was transferred to the US Defense Department and conducted by the Military Assistance Command, Vietnam Studies and Observations Group (SOG)[6]
For the maritime portion of the covert operation, Tjeld-class fast patrol boats had been purchased quietly from Norway and sent to South Vietnam. Although the crews of the boats were South Vietnamese naval personnel, approval for each mission conducted under the plan came directly from Admiral U.S. Grant Sharp, Jr., CINCPAC in Honolulu, who received his orders from the White House.[7] After the coastal attacks began, Hanoi lodged a complaint with the International Control Commission (ICC), which had been established in 1954 to oversee the terms of the Geneva Accords, but the US denied any involvement. Four years later, US Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara admitted to Congress that the US ships had in fact been cooperating in the South Vietnamese attacks against North Vietnam. Maddox, although aware of the operations, was not directly involved.
To do your fact check links, here is the link to WIKI about the Gulf of Tonkin--the real shame of Texan LBJ:
<link>
While I know there are Lying Presidents like Nixon and Carter and Clinton and Obama there are not lies that got us into our current wars......I know your version of what the lies are that GWB made and I don't need a refresher in the recent re-write of history by the party currently in Power
###### Sorry Pete but the facts say Bush lied. We have the most sophisticated intel operations in the world--he said Iraq had WMD and he inferred there were ties to 9/11. He LIED. And please note that these were known facts BEFORE Bush left office. I assure you that if any WMD had been found our friends on the right would have made sure the video was being shown 24/7 with various "I told you so" experts shouting it from the mountaintops.
And what exactly did Carter lie about? And what about Reagan who claimed he didnt know about Iran-Contra and then admitted he did in his book? And George HW Bush was head of the CIA so he never lied?
It must be nice to live in a fantasy world Pete......
