In April 1965, President Lyndon Johnson explained why he was escalating in Vietnam: “We must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape itw own destiny and only in such a world will our own freedom be secure ... we have made a national pledge to help South Vietnam defend its independence and I intend to keep that promise. To dishonor that pledge, to abandon the small and brave nation to its enemies and the terror that must follow would be an unforgiveable wrong.”
He went on: “We are also there to strengthen world order.... To leave Vietnam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s words.”
“President Biden and administration leaders sound similar to LBJ in the early stage of the Vietnam War,” warns Rick Sterling in his “Lessons from Vietnam for Ukraine,” on July 29. (https://original.antiwar.com/rick_sterling/2022/07/28/lessons-from-vietnam-for-ukraine/)
