Is 2008 The New 1964?
A few days ago, some Iranians in speed boats harassed and threatened US warships in the Straits of Hormuz. A major incident was averted by the cool heads of our sailors. They did get video of the Iranian boats approaching and threatening our ships. Go to the link for both audio and video of the incident, with other commentary.
The Iranians are now saying the video is a hoax that the US devised to incite war—or something, who knows?
Obviously, I wasn’t there so I don’t know, but I think it is extremely unlikely, although it turns out this sort of thing has happened before—in 1964.
Thousands of pages of intelligence documents from the VietNam war, from 1945 to when the last spies left, have been declassified and a 500 page report has been issued.
Historians will have a blast going through these documents, and a revision of the CW of the VietNam war may happen.
What has been reported most from the report is the fact that in 1964, President Johnson lied to the American people about the Gulf of Tonkin attack. It didn’t happen, and Johnson sent McNamara to lie to Congress about the faux attack as well.
All this was done as an excuse to escalate the war and send more forces to Viet Nam.
This is why I keep saying we don’t really know what happened in the run up to the Iraq war and we probably won’t know for 35-40 years to come.
The truth will out—just as it did now about Johnson’s lies in 1964—44 years later.
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A resolution was already prepared - ready to send to Congress before the Gulf of Tonkin incident even occurred. Once the “attack” occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin - the resolution became the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.
Comment by Rob Mellon | January 10, 2008
Maybe it’s because I’m insufficiently caffeinated, but I’m not sure what to make of your comment.
Are you saying it was previously known that the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” was a hoax, and the recently declassified documents are only confirming that fact?
So there is really no new information about this incident in the 500 page report.
At least that’s what I THINK you’re saying.
Comment by qcexaminer | January 10, 2008
If you listen to the tapes being played to the US ships it sounds to me that the voice was prerecorded. It sounds almost like a mechanical voice similar to what you would get with a computerized reconstruction of a human voice. It is possible that the individual offering the message could not speak English or wished to remain anonymous by hiding their own voice. I have to wonder if this was not some Revolutionary Guard attempt to get the US ships to blow the Iranian fast boats out of the water, by someone on shore playing a recording to make the US boats think USS Cole. I have bee reading that there is a rift forming between the Iranian Prez and the mullahs. What better way to get them kissing again than by having a few Iranian guardsmen killed.
Comment by thescoundrel | January 10, 2008
The Johnson Administration always had designs on escalation in Vietnam from the very beginning. They had planned for it and knew that a situation would arise so they could go to the Congress to get authorization. They led the American people to believe that innocent American ships were maliciously attacked by the North Vietnamese. LBJ with the prevailing anti-communist sentiment of the time suggested that that we were provoked and had no other choice. This was another case of Johnson being dishonest about Vietnam.
Comment by Rob Mellon | January 10, 2008
The thing about Vietnam was, we would have found a reason to escalate with or without the Gulf of Tonkin incident. Both Kennedy, who espoused his feelings in an interview about two weeks before his death, and Johnson were committed to do whatever it took militarily to stop the spread of communism in Asia.
Comment by thescoundrel | January 10, 2008