'To abandon Viet Nam would be wrong' — LBJ-1965-Speech

[IChing]

Text of speech by President Lyndon Johnson, April 7, 1965

Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change. This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. It is the principle for which our sons fight tonight in the jungles of Viet Nam.

Viet Nam is far away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Viet Nam’s steaming soil.

Why must we take this painful road? Why must this nation hazard its ease, its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?
We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny, and only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure.
This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets. Yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason and the waste of war, the works of peace.
snip>>>>>

And it is a war of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to the government. And helpless villagers are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities.

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000971144

[livetohike]

1. Daniel Ellsberg was on local radio yesterday

He said he was ashamed to say that he wrote speeches like the one that Bush delivered the other night.

Yes, sadly, as Yogi Berra would say "this is deja vu all over again".

[IChing]

2. Yes, the more things change the more they stay the same

This speech was in 1965 three years before the 1968 election, one year into Johnson
semi-second term, sound familiar?
Then we had another president give us "peace with honor" and thousands upon thousands died, waiting for "a clear path to victory".

[livetohike]

3. Too familiar IChing

I'm getting old :-(.

[IChing]

4. Yes, I remember that speech, not yet at draft age

Only 3 or 4 TV channels so you had no choice except to watch it,


But reached draft age 4 years later and the war still was going strong and many of my
friends and older brother's friends had died.



More of LBJ speech

"We hope that peace will come swiftly. But that is in the hands of others besides ourselves. And we must be prepared for a long continued conflict. It will require patience as well as bravery, the will to endure as well as the will to resist.

I wish it were possible to convince others with words of what we now find it necessary to say with guns and planes: Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to the challenge.

Because we fight for values and we fight for principles, rather than territory or colonies, our patience and our determination are unending."

[livetohike]

5. We're about the same age then

(53 in July). My family watched the news every night during dinner. Nothing like Viet Nam war footage to stimulate the appetite :sarcasm:

"Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to the challenge."

We're going to be in Iraq a long time.

[kentuck]

6. I was a senior in H.S. - one month from graduation...

Vietnam, with only 400 casualties, was not really on my radar. I was 17 years old at that time. But, rather than attend college at that time, because I was too poor, I went to Detroit to work and make a little money. In October of the next year, I was in basic training in Fort Campbell, KY. Less than one year after that, I was in Vietnam. I spent my 21st birthday in Vietnam. I was there for Tet as the casualties started to add up to tens of thousands. Eighteen-year olds do not understand the gravity of the situation.

[IChing]

7. "Eighteen-year olds do not understand the gravity of the situation"

That is why the "pottery barn" metaphor is so stupid and dehumanizing, equating war and destruction
to a trip to a Mall.

[nikraye]

8. The difference between Vietnam and Iraq...

Vietnam was the first war that streamed into american living rooms every night via television coverage. Every night, we were witness to courageous tv news coverage that dared not censor itself: video reports of graphic bloodshed, horrific acts of barbarism, mountains of body bags filled with the remains of dead american soldiers. Every night, the 6 pm news cast ended with the new total of the number of dead american soldiers, accompanied by their photos. Every night.

What do we see now, on the Iraq war, on our television screens? Highly filtered, carefully censored information and images. No photos or video that dare show the true horrors of this war. In this war, under this administration, even photos of flag-draped coffins are barred from the public and banned on national media. This administration offers their excuse for such censorship: Respect for the grieving families of slain soldiers.

Bullshit. This administration knows full well the impact such photos had on the shaping of americans' collective attitude toward the Vietnam war--an attitude which led to righteous dissent, moral objection, civil unrest and ultimately, the nationwide demand for withdrawal from Vietnam.

[IChing]

9. Guess that's why "To abandon –(Viet Nam) Iraq would be wrong"

Europeans get the visual TV news that does not reach us, but it's so true that the impact of photos have a lasting impression on opinions.

[Coexist]

10. Not too many Security Moms would be able to handle

the violent imagery for very long. They should show the photos. This war would end.

[IChing]

11. We need the prison photos, destruction photos also

the recent burn victims photos of the women soldiers, so the public see
what war really means.