CBS: Iraq-Viet War Coincidences Noted

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/07/world/main634595.shtml

A now-disputed account of a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin led President Lyndon B. Johnson to escalate America's involvement in Vietnam, a chain of events drawing comparisons on its 40th anniversary to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Johnson told Americans that communist torpedo boats fired on U.S. destroyers on Aug. 2 and Aug. 4, 1964. Following that, Congress voted almost unanimously on Aug. 7 to give Johnson approval to step up U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

Some argue Johnson and Congress acted hastily based on limited or misleading information, launching America into a divisive war where some 58,000 Americans and an estimated 3 million Vietnamese troops and civilians died.

"The (Gulf of Tonkin) resolution was a blank check," said Tony Edmonds, a professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., and expert on Vietnam. "Certainly very similar to what happened with the congressional resolution on the Iraq war."

A year after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, President Bush also received overwhelming support from Congress, in an October 2002 vote, to invade Iraq following now-discredited intelligence reports that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

[jeff30997]

1. It's an old trick,you know.

Remember the Maine?

"U.S. battleship destroyed (Feb. 15, 1898) in Havana harbor by an explosion that killed 260 men. The incident helped precipitate the Spanish-American War (Apr., 1898). Commanded by Capt. Charles Sigsbee, the ship had been sent (Jan., 1898) to Cuba to protect American life and property from the revolutionary turmoil there. The sinking of the Maine produced an outcry against Spain in the United States, particularly by the more jingoistic newspapers, which held the Spanish government responsible for the disaster. The cause of the explosion was never satisfactorily explained. A U.S. naval inquiry, headed by W. T. Sampson, reported on Mar. 21 that the Maine had been sunk by a submarine mine but that responsibility could not be fixed on any person. A Spanish naval inquiry reported that the disaster was an accident resulting from an explosion in the forward magazine. Recent evidence, however, points to an accident. Whatever the truth of the matter, “Remember the Maine” became a patriotic slogan during the Spanish-American War. The vessel was raised from the harbor, towed to sea, and sunk in 1912."

There's also rumors that the US sank his own ship to start the war.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/goering.htm

From Snopes:
The quote cited above does not appear in transcripts of the Nuremberg trials because although Goering spoke these words during the course of the proceedings, he did not offer them at his trial. His comments were made privately to Gustave Gilbert, a German-speaking intelligence officer and psychologist who was granted free access by the Allies to all the prisoners held in the Nuremberg jail. Gilbert kept a journal of his observations of the proceedings and his conversations with the prisoners, which he later published in the book Nuremberg Diary. The quote offered above was part of a conversation Gilbert held with a dejected Hermann Goering in his cell on the evening of 18 April 1946, as the trials were halted for a three-day Easter recess: