“Our present course [in Vietnam] will not bring victory; will not bring peace; will not stop the bloodshed; and will not advance the interests of the United States or the cause of peace in the world.”
Robert F. Kennedy, March 1968
The Vietnam War is one of the most controversial events in American history. The war was between communist North Vietnam and the democratic South Vietnamese. Many Americans felt that we entered the war under false pretenses and were interfering in a civil war that we didn’t belong. There were other reasons that Americans opposed this war, including the economic cost to our country and the use of the draft, which affected the uneducated poor, young and African American populations.
The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
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As Robert F. Kennedy stated in 1968, “It is because we have sought to resolve by military might a conflict whose issue depends upon the will and conviction of the South Vietnamese people.” On top of not being wanted by the people we were fighting for, many people at home felt that this was a war that the US didn't need to interfere in. They felt that the civil war was being fought by North and South Vietnam and we had no business getting in the middle of it. (Document …show more content…
King, a supporter of President Lyndon B. Johnson and his Great Society, became concerned about U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He believed that the Vietnam War diverted money and attention from domestic programs created to aid the black poor and would benefit only the banks who fund wars and the industries that supply the war. King said, ‘the war was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home…We were taking the black young men who had been crippled by our society and sending them eight thousand miles away to guarantee liberties in Southeast Asia which they had not found in southwest Georgia and East Harlem.'” (Document