From Delancey Place, August 15:
Today's selection -- from War Made Easy by Norman Solomon.
A report of an attack on a U.S. ship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 was the predicate for escalating U.S. military action in Vietnam. The report was false:
"The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave President Johnson authority 'to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.' It was to be followed by several other resolutions from Capitol Hill in the next decades that also stopped short of a declaration of war -- yet relinquished congressional responsibilities by deferring to presidential power to make war as the man in the Oval Office saw fit."It all seemed very clear. 'American Planes Hit North Vietnam After 2d Attack on Our Destroyers; Move Taken to Halt New Aggression,' said a Washington Post headline on August 5, 1964. That same day, the front page of the New York Times reported: 'President Johnson has ordered retaliatory action against gunboats and "certain supporting facilities in North Vietnam" after renewed attacks against American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.'
"But there was no 'second attack' by North Vietnam -- no 'renewed attacks against American destroyers.' By reporting official claims as absolute truths, American journalism opened the floodgates for the Vietnam War.
"The official story was that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an 'unprovoked attack' against a U.S. destroyer on 'routine patrol' in the Gulf of Tonkin on August 2 -- and that North Vietnamese PT boats followed up with a 'deliberate attack' on a pair of U.S. ships two days later. But the truth was very different.
"Rather than being on a routine patrol August 2, the U.S. destroyer Maddox was actually engaged in aggressive intelligence-gathering maneuvers -- in sync with coordinated attacks. 'The day before, two attacks on North Vietnam ... had taken place,' wrote scholar Daniel C. Hallin. Those assaults were 'part of a campaign of increasing military pressure on the North that the United States had been pursuing since early 1964.'
"On the night of August 4, the Pentagon stated that a second attack by North Vietnamese PT boats had occurred earlier that day in the Tonkin Gulf -- a report cited by President Johnson as he went on national TV that evening to announce a momentous escalation in the war: air strikes against North Vietnam. But Johnson ordered U.S. bombers to 'retaliate' for a North Vietnamese torpedo attack that never happened....
....MUCH MORE
Here's Bruce Springsteen with a cover of an old song made famous by Edwin Starr:
