Talk:American History Homework Twelve Answers - Student Nine
From Conservapedia
Re: "Vietnam War was an unfortunate war created by Lyndon Johnson...." I think you might find that the first American troops were sent in by President Eisenhower in 1954 in order to support the French Government. Several Americans were killed flying missions in support of the French troops in Dien Bien Phu in April 1954 and at least three American airmen based in Viet Nam as part of the support mission were captured by the Viet Minh around the same time. President Kennedy was the next to send troops in THEN Johnson.BetsyNewson 11:13, 15 December 2008 (EST)
- You don't describe a war. Occasional incidents occur all around the globe, and still do, without being wars. President Johnson authorized the Vietnam War, not Kennedy or Eisenhower.--aschlafly 11:16, 15 December 2008 (EST)
- Always happy to be put straight particularly on matters historical but I seem to recall that one of the issues at the time of the American involvement in Viet Nam was that America didn't declare war on North Viet Nam at any stage. BetsyNewson 11:20, 15 December 2008 (EST)
- Congress didn't declare war. But President Johnson obviously did.
- If you insist that Eisenhower or Kennedy started the Vietnam War, you'll be in a tiny minority of historians on that. Obviously Johnson was the one.--aschlafly 11:23, 15 December 2008 (EST)
- OK, I'm not an American and know nothing about your legal procedures so can you put me straight on who makes a formal declaration of war in America? (Here in the UK it's a rather sensitive matter after the Iraq invasion.) I thought that in America a formal declaration of war had to come from the President with the consent of Congress and that all Johnson did was get a motion passed (after the Gulf of Tonkin incident) which stopped short of a declaration of war? If that was so then America wasn't technically at war with Viet Nam. BetsyNewson 11:31, 15 December 2008 (EST)
- I'm not particularly bothered what it's called. I posted originally in order to correct what appeared to me to be a minor error of fact that had been included in the homework answer and then, following the comment from Mr Schlafly, I simply asked for clarification of the status of US involvement in Viet Nam. If correcting what appears to be an error was wrong on my part I'm happy to apologise. Having got that out of the way, I'm still no clearer on what the American system for declaring war is! Perhaps you can explain? BetsyNewson 11:44, 15 December 2008 (EST)
- Betsy, please take the history and government courses offered here and you'll learn more. You've gone off topic from how you started this threat, which was by implying that the Vietnam War was started by Eisenhower or Kennedy rather than Johnson. That was simply not so. Regardless of who declares war (officially, it's supposed to be Congress, but in practice, it has been the President), Johnson and not Kennedy was the instigator of the Vietnam War.--aschlafly 13:28, 15 December 2008 (EST)
