We just passed the 100-year anniversary of a tragic event, and will be observing the 50-year anniversary of another. World War I started on July 28, 1914. The Tonkin Gulf Resolution was approved on Aug. 7, 1964.
All wars are evil, and all could have been avoided if individuals, tribes, leaders and countries had practiced common decency and common sense. But some wars are more vile, more unjustified than your run-of-the-mill war. WWI and the Vietnam War both fit that description.
Not only was WWI the most devastating the world had ever seen, it did not lead to peace. In spite of the widespread horror at the carnage of WWI, WWII grew out of the seeds of WWI.
On Aug. 7, 1964, the U.S. Senate voted 88-2 to approve the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, henceforth used as the legal basis for the U.S. war in Vietnam. The resolution was based on lies and pretense — history is clear on this. Only two senators, Morse and Gruening, had the courage to say no. The Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial wall in Washington, D.C., which lists the 58,286 US troops who died in the war, is about 150 yards long. If a similar wall were built for the Vietnamese who were killed in the war, the wall would stretch for miles. People are still dying today from the war’s Agent Orange and land mines.
The anniversaries are an opportunity to understand our past and thus more effectively wage peace in our war-torn present.