Tucker: An Iran war would destroy Trump's presidency - Tucker Carlson Warns: ‘Gulf Of Tonkin Incident’ Could Be Staged To Get U.S. Into War With Iran
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The Gulf of Tonkin Incident
The American commitment to the war against Vietnam, which killed over 50,000 U.S. military personnel, and probably over 2 million Vietnamese civilians, was cemented by an incident that appears to involve more fiction than fact.
In the Gulf of Tonkin incident, North Vietnamese torpedo boats supposedly attacked the USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin, off Vietnam, in a pair of assaults on August 2 and 4 of 1964. It was the basis for the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which committed major American forces to the war in Vietnam. The resolution passed the House of Representatives unanimously, and passed in the Senate with only two dissenting votes.
In retrospect it is clear that the alleged attack was little more than a transparent pretext for war, delivered in a one-two punch. First, media descriptions of the August 2nd attack as an "unprovoked attack" against a U.S. destroyer on "routine patrol" hid the fact that the Maddox was providing support for South Vietnamese military operations against the North. Second, the alleged August 4th attack appears to be a fabrication, official accounts attributing the "error" to confusion.
| s u m m a r y |
| title: Gulf of Tonkin Incident |
| On August 4, a new DESOTO patrol to North Vietnam coast was launched by Maddox and the C. Turner Joy. The latter got radar signals that they believed to be another attack by the North Vietnamese. For some two hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of torpedoes. It is highly unlikely that any North Vietnamese forces were actually in the area during this gunfight. Captain John J. Herrick even admitted that it was nothing more than an "overeager sonarman" who "was hearing ship's own propeller beat." Also in 1995, General Vo Nguyen Giap, commander-in-chief of North Vietnamese forces at the time, disavowed any involvement with the August 4 incident, though he did confirm the August 2 attack. |
| site: www.nationmaster.com page: www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Gulf-of-Tonkin-Incident |
National Security Agency Publishes Long-Secret Documents
On December 1, 2005, the National Security Agency released hundreds of pages of previously-classified documents relating to the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident. The collection included a 2001 article by agency historian Robert J. Hanyok, which examines numerous reports indicating that the alleged attack never happened.
| e x c e r p t |
| title: Vietnam War Intelligence 'Deliberately Skewed,' Secret Study Says |
| authors: Scott Shane |
Vietnam War Intelligence 'Deliberately Skewed,' Secret Study Says... In his 2001 article, an elaborate piece of detective work, Mr. Hanyok wrote that 90 percent of the intercepts of North Vietnamese communications relevant to the supposed Aug. 4, 1964, attack were omitted from the major agency documents going to policy makers. "The overwhelming body of reports, if used, would have told the story that no attack had happened," he wrote. "So a conscious effort ensued to demonstrate that an attack occurred." Edwin E. Moïse, a historian at Clemson University who wrote a book on the Gulf of Tonkin incident, said the agency did the right thing in making public Mr. Hanyok's damning case. "A lot of people at the agency haven't been happy that communications intelligence was used to support a wrong conclusion," he said. |
| site: nytimes.com page: www.commondreams.org/headlines05/1202-06.htm http://911review.com/precedent/century/tonkin.html |
