It was on this day..August 7, 1964 that our elected representatives gaveDemocratic Prez Lyndon Baines Johnson all the powers his little heart desired to go hog-wild in Vietnam.
Well, maybe not all, but a big chunk of them. The House passed the resolution unanimously. The Senate had two lone dissenters: Wayne L. Morse, Democrat of Oregon, and Ernest Gruening, Democrat of Alaska.
The lone voices that opposed the resolution made this their reasoning: "that the resolution was "unconstitutional" because it was "a predatead declaration of war power" reserved to Congress."
You can read about our recent history with regard to "war-mongering" here. Its one of the "this day in history" Front Page reprints that the NYT puts up daily. Its short and it reminds me that if we do not learn from our past..we are doomed to repeat it.
I might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but we spent alot of money in Vietnam, killed and/or ruined the lives of a whole generation of men who went off to the war AND..we did end up "cutting and running".
We now do business with the Republic of Vietnam btw..Intel is building a huge factory there among other things. Check out this post from my recent past about how we "embrace" Vietnam now.
So, can't we just cut to the chase and embrace the Middle East and forgo all this dying and bombing?
Tags: Politics,War,Vietnam,
