But the other problem is presidents creating fake incidents — or taking advantage of real ones — that took us into major wars. Johnson said that had been an unprovoked attack — but he knew perfectly well it was not unprovoked, because we were provoking the North Vietnamese all over the place around there. On the night that he bombed North Vietnam in August of , and asked Congress for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution to give him authorization to fight in Vietnam, he thought that there had also been a second attack.
The result was that for almost a decade, Johnson and Nixon waged the Vietnam War based on this flimsy resolution, which was itself based on an incident that did not happen the way Johnson said it did.
Congress has behaved like lap dogs, especially in the last two decades. The founders believed that if members of Congress were patriotic, they would check the executive branch, and they would be at the throat of the president, making sure that he was doing everything to their satisfaction.
You looked at the private writings and heard the personal recordings of many of these presidents. Were there any similarities among them in how they privately thought about war, or what war did to them? First, a lot of them had emotional and physical breakdowns. Woodrow Wilson had a stroke. LBJ became extremely suspicious, and paranoid, and angry. So one lesson there is that when you have a war that goes on for any length of time, the president you get by the end is not the president you had at the beginning.
Second, almost all of them get more religious. Abraham Lincoln , when he was young, was an atheist or agnostic. He went with his daughter Luci, who was a Catholic convert, to Mass, and got comfort from it. Third, most war presidents were people of great empathy. Fourth, these people were all married to strong women who were mostly very good influences on them. Finally, each abused their power. If you are worried about a president with authoritarian tendencies grabbing too much power, you look at a president in wartime.
The quickest way he can do it is to take the nation into a war. Presidents in wartime can declare martial law. And people will accept a lot of violations of their civil liberties in wartime.
Should we expect presidents — including the current one — to keep taking the nation to war without approval from Congress? One sure thing about Donald Trump is that he will grab for as much power as is available to him. Therefore, particularly in his case, he has to be checked by the Supreme Court, Congress, and a free and vigorous media.
But do you see that as a singular danger with Trump? Community Voices features opinion pieces from a wide variety of authors and perspectives. Submission Guidelines. The American electorate is loath to depose an incumbent president seeking re-election during a time of war.
In fact, the public is so reluctant that it has never done so. The practice dates back more than two centuries and has been consistently followed since then on a bipartisan basis through the destruction of the halls of government, disastrous military battles, broken promises of peace, precedent-shattering presidential durations, and misleading premises leading to conflict, among other indignities. Marshall H. Although it was still in its infancy, with fewer than 25, American troops in Vietnam in , the American undertaking in that country to support the South Vietnamese government against insurgents from the Communist North was a backdrop for the election that year.
The incumbent, Lyndon Johnson, clobbered Republican challenger Barry Goldwater, before he began escalating the undeclared war in a way that essentially drove him out of office, or from seeking another term four years later.
It lasted from through The ultimate death toll included almost 30, Vietnamese civilians and roughly an equal number of American soldiers. With chants of "Not our war! Communist forces took control of Saigon, Vietnam, in President George H. Bush ordered U. Peace or something like it settled over the Persian Gulf until when Iraq again prompted hostilities in the region. Bush , successfully invaded Iraq with the help of Great Britain and other members of the coalition.
Insurgents took exception to this state of affairs and hostilities broke out again. President Barack Obama eventually oversaw the withdrawal of most American forces from Iraq by December Actively scan device characteristics for identification. Use precise geolocation data. Select personalised content. Create a personalised content profile. Measure ad performance. Select basic ads.
Create a personalised ads profile. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products. List of Partners vendors. Share Flipboard Email. Martin Kelly. History Expert. Martin Kelly, M.
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