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Originally posted by deweysghost
The US created a corrupt, repressive, unpopular puppet state in South Vietnam and proceeded to prop it up with military and economic assistance. But the Vietnamese rightly saw this as merely a continuation of imperialism by other means. By the early 1960s they had almost succeeded in reunifying their country. President Kennedy, and then President Johnson, faced charges from conservatives that they would �lose� Vietnam to �International Communism�. On May 27, 1964, Johnson complained to national security advisor McGeorge Bundy in a taped phone conversation that Vietnam was "the biggest damn mess I ever saw�.I don't think it's worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out�.What the hell is Vietnam worth to me? What the hell is Laos worth to me? What is it worth to this country?" Ultimately, he escalated our involvement in Vietnam not for the sake of the Vietnamese but to ensure that he could get his Great Society legislation, including Medicare and the Civil Rights Act of 1965, passes with minimal right-wing resistance.
But since the US had no valid reason to intervene he had to create one. His solution was to lie to Congress regarding a North Vietnamese attack on a US destroyer engaged in a provocative intrusion in North Vietnamese territory in support of South Vietnamese sabotage. Johnson later admitted to George Ball: "Hell, those dumb, stupid sailors were just shooting at flying fish." When Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution based on a manifestly nonexistent security threat, Johnson had the authority to begin the escalation of US involvement that was the Second Indochina War.
Originally posted by deweysghost
To my knowledge no one spit on or threw urine on or otherwise abused US troops returning from Vietnam. This is an urban legend started as part of the right-wing historical revisionism that is continuing with the Swift Boat Liars for Bush smear campaign. I was a Vietnam veteran. I wasn't welcomed back because the war was politically unpopular. The war was politically unpopular because we had no right to be in Vietnam.