![]() The pursuit of this widened war has narrowed domestic welfare programs, making the poor, white and Negro, bear the heaviest burdens both at the front and at home. American planes are bombing the territory of another country, and we are committing atrocities equal to any perpetrated by the Vietcong.Ī third casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the Great Society.ĭespite feeble protestations to the contrary, the promises of the Great Society have been shot down on the battlefield of Viet Nam. We have well over 300,000 American servicemen fighting in that benighted and unhappy country. Today we are fighting an all-out war-undeclared by Congress. For nine years we vigorously supported the French in their abortive effort to re-colonize Viet Nam. It reveals our willingness to continue particpating in neo-colonialist adventures.įor nine years following 1945 we denied the people of Viet Nam the right to independence. Whether we realize it or not our participation in the war in Viet Nam is an ominous expression of our lack of sympathy for the oppressed, our paranoid anti-Communism, our failure to feel the ache and anguish of the have nots. By entering a war that is little more than a domestic civil war, America has ended up supporting a new form of colonialism covered up by certain niceties of complexity. The second casualty of the war in Viet Nam is the principle of self-determination. As Americans and lovers of Democracy we should carefully ponder the consequences of our nation's declining moral status in the world. Even the long standing allies of our nation have adamantly refused to join our government in this ugly war. ![]() We have also placed our nation in the position of being morally and politically isolated. In the process we have undermined the purpose of the United Nations and caused its effectiveness to atrophy. ![]() Instead we unilaterally launched an all-out war on Asian soil. It is very obvious that our government blatantly violated its obligation under the charter of the United Nations to submit to the Security Council its charge of aggression against North Viet Nam. One of the first casualties of the war in Viet Nam was the Charter of the United Nations. The casualties of principles and values are equally disastrous and injurious. These casualties are enough to cause all men to rise up with righteous indignation and oppose the very nature of this war.īut the physical casualties of the war in Viet Nam are not alone the catastrophies. A war in which children are incinerated by napalm, in which American soldiers die in mounting numbers while other American soldiers, according to press accounts, in unrestrained hatred shoot the wounded enemy as they lie on the ground, is a war that mutilates the conscience. Some one million Vietnamese children have been casualties of this brutal war. Most tragic of all is the casualty list among children. We see the rice fields of a small Asian country being trampled at will and burned at whim: we see grief-stricken mothers with crying babies clutched in their arms as they watch their little huts burst forth into flames we see the fields and valleys of battle being painted with humankind's blood we see the broken bodies left prostrate in countless fields we see young men being sent home half-men-physically handicapped and mentally deranged. We see them in our living rooms in all of their tragic dimensions on television screens, and we read about them on our subway and bus rides in daily newspaper accounts. I have chosen as a subject, “The Casualties of the War In Viet Nam.” We are all aware of the nightmarish physical casualties. I would like to speak to you candidly and forthrightly this afternoon about our present involvement in Viet Nam. Speech: “The Casualties of War in Vietnam” 25 February 1967. The Black Freedom Movement The Casualties of the War in Vietnam Lyndon Johnson and 1960s Political Culture
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