Reasons Against The Gulf Of Tonkin Resolution

On August 7th 1964 the United States Congress passed into law the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution which, for all intents and purposes, officially brought the United States into the Vietnam War. Following this resolution, a draft was instated to increase the number of men that could be sent to war. Shortly after men started to be signed into conscription for the United States Military, a public outcry started over the use of a draft to increase military size. The draft was found to be unfair to American Citizens because certain groups of men were severely disadvantaged, the draft was illegal in many ways, and veteran’s future lives were harmed, among other reasons.

The Gulf of Tonkin incident was a series of reported confrontations between the USS Maddox on August 2nd and August 4th, 1964. The second of the two confrontations, on August 4th, was later proven to have never happened, and the legitimacy of the first confrontation on August 2nd is in question. The USS Maddox reported that on August 2nd, while patrolling in international waters, it was attacked by three North Vietnamese Torpedo Boats. President Johnson went on live television on August 4th saying that the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy were attacked again by Vietnamese boats. He used these attacks as reason to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that granted him the use of conventional military force in Southeast Asia without a formal

Social and economic tensions were not the only things strained because of the war, political activities were on the brink as well. The Domino Theory, speculation that if one country takes another to communism, the surrounding countries will fall to it as well, was one of the main reasons for starting the war. If the Domino Theory had occurred, the United States would suffer a horrible loss to foreign affairs, something they were not able to handle at that time. When the affair in the Gulf of Tonkin happened in 1964, the U.S. government jumped on the idea to stop Vietnam. In the Gulf of Tonkin, a ship, the U.S.S. Maddox, was attacked by Vietnam patrol boats. Even though the Maddox was unhurt, the LBJ jumped on the opportunity to squash the Domino Effect before it started. Soon after the attack, Lyndon B Johnson got the ‘stamp of approval’ from Congress to counter attack. He was allowed to “Take all necessary measure to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.” (Doc A) Little did they know that their

The sides were the United States should not have war or they should keep going. An example of this was the promise that Lyndon Johnson broke to the citizens(Doc 4a). In his campaign he said that he will spend less time on the Vietnam war and more time on the African American Problem. After he got elected Johnson did the exact opposite of what he said. This made many Americans that for him because of that statement was furious. One more example of the citizens acting against the war was when 280,000 students from college left school and made a huge protest(Docs 5a and 5b). Many of them boycotted the school and some even got arrested. This made the country even more divided.

On August 2,1964 a United states ship was attacked by a North Vietnamese patrol boat in the Gulf of Tonkin. The Vietnamese ship had blankley opened fire against the United States which prompted Lyndon B. Johnson to ask congress if the United States could take action against the ship who was firing upon them. With this the Tonkin Gulf Resolution was passed giving our president the ability to conduct war against the North which allowed him to have authority in authorization. This aspect negative because it was giving the president too much power to conduct a war in southeast asia when the south, who the United States was trying to help out. The South Vietnamese seemed to be deceitful because they didn't have any territorial, military or political ambitions, it was simply just the United States trying to help fellow peers from falling into the communist ways

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution – The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution was a resolution that stated that the president could take any and all action necessary in Vietnam. This was spurred by a supposed attack on a United States gun boat in the Gulf of Tonkin. A point of comparison to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution could be the declaration of war following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. On December 7th, 1941, the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) launched a large bombing mission against the ships and the soldiers at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. After this event, the original idea to try and keep the United States out of World War II was abandoned and the United States began to churn out military equipment and supplies to combat the Axis powers. In both cases, the seemingly correct thing to do was considered to be obvious.

All in all, congress did not make a right decision in approving the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution because of the war it caused, how much bombing there was, and how many innocent lives were taken. The result was negative, and they did not succeed in anything. They only caused a

1)"Although the some Americans still supported their government policy in Vietnam in 1965, as the war went on, more and more Americans turned against it. The Vietnam War had been described to the US public as one where the richest and most powerful country would have a lot of problems defeating one of the smallest and poorest countries in the world. The protests against the war started

President Johnson used the Gulf of Tonkin as an excuse to declare war on Vietnam, which was believed to be fabricated, and was easily able to obtain the War Powers Act from congress. This lead to major protests from around the whole country, many thought the war was immoral, and many thought that the United States had no valid reason to intervene with the foreign affairs in Vietnam. This and many other protests from around the country made the 19060’s to be one of the most hostile decades in American history. In 1968 a killing of over 400 Vietnamese civilians later named the My Lai Massacre only added fuel to the protests flames, and it was clear that most Americans now disapproved of the war in Vietnam. 1969 these protests seemed to force politicians to end the

The American involvement in the Vietnam War was a very controversial decision, with many people being for the war, however many people in the United States were also against the war. The Vietnam War was the longest lasting war in the United States history, before the Afghanistan War, in which most people felt strongly about, be them United States citizens, Vietnamese citizens, or just the global population. In order to better understand the ideas of those American citizens that are either for or against the war, one would have to look at the reasons that the United States was involved in the war, the impact of the Vietnam war on the American society, and the impact on the United States foreign policy.

In February of 1965, bombing of the North Vietnamese took place and the intensity kept increasing. In this war, there were not the many ground battles though. At the beginning of the war, the majority of the United States citizens agreed that it was a good idea. As the war went on and on, more and more people jumped on the antiwar bandwagon. It had gone on too long and too many people had died and nothing was getting resolved.

Those attacks, and the ensuing naval actions, known as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, were used by President Lyndon Johnson to get congressional enactment of the Southeast Asia Resolution (better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution) on August

The United States issued the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution in 1964. It said that Congress empowered the President, as Command in Chief, "to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the U.S. and to prevent further aggression." Most importantly, the memorandum gave the President the permission to retaliate North Vietnam's threats to international peace, as the attacks were reason enough for further American involvement in Vietnam, as well as an escalation of military forces.

“The American people were pro war due to Cold War propaganda against the US; however, due to conscription of young men the support decreased” (Bottaro, 2012:52). Americans supported the involvement of the US in the Vietnam War because of the propaganda which was against the US due to the Soviet Union. Also, they supported the fact their country was preventing communism take over in Vietnam. However, things changed after conscription of young men to fight and media coverage of the war. “The Vietnam War was complicated by factors that had never before occurred in America of a war, because the American media had come to dominate domestic opinion about its purpose and conduct” (Hallin, 1986:3). Since the Vietnam War was the first ever televised war, Americans and the world were able to see the destruction caused by the US soldiers on Vietnamese land and people. Americans did not understand why the US government allowed soldiers to continue a war America was clearly losing. “Along with the Civil Rights movement campaigns of the 1960s, the anti-war movement was one of the most diverse forces in the 20th- century in US history” (Halstead, 1973:22). Despite the increase in anti-war protest, poverty decline in the economy and the Civil Rights movement situation were happening in the US during this period in America, the government still did not

There was not much serious thought in escalating the Vietnam War until the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred. In the Gulf of Tonkin it was reported “that two American destroyers had been attacked by North Vietnamese PT boats on August 4, 1964,” (Friedman 293). Shortly after these incidents, “Johnson immediately escalated the war by ordering airstrikes on North Vietnam” (Friedman 293). These events made it so Johnson could raise United States involvement in Vietnam without congressional backing on his decisions. Increasing involvement in the war was appealing though because after the Tonkin Gulf incident support of military involvement in North Vietnam raised from thirty one percent approvals to fifty percent approval (Moise 226). Although approval of the amount in favor immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin incident rose, it was a “mistake on Johnson’s part… assuming that the