A Wrong War

    Hello and welcome to my portfolio! I am a high school junior attending Global Citizenship Experience Lab School. I am currently in a class called Policy, and in this class, we have been learning about the government, the legislative branch, the executive branch, the judicial branch, and the history of policy in the United States. While learning about the legislative branch we even got to sit in on a City Council meeting. While learning about the judicial branch we were also able to sit in on cases in the federal courthouse! During this class, we also read the book "The Things They Carried", by Tim O'Brien. For our last action project of the year, we wrote arguments on whether a War is just or unjust, according to the Constitution. I wrote mine on the Vietnam War.

Vietnam War, Manhhai, 2022

    The Vietnam War was the second Indochina war, a war between North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The war took place in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from November 1955 to April 1975. There were 6 nations involved in the war. The United States, Australia, New Zealand, the Republic of (South) Korea, Thailand, and the Philippines. There were lots of bombings in this war. President Johnson ordered the bombing of strategic military targets in North Vietnam, as well as air raids, bases, and supply routes. The U.S. dropped three million tonnes of bombs in Vietnam, although the bombing was inaccurate and these attempts didn’t make much of a noticeable difference in the war. Agent Orange was used, a deadly gas, as well as Napalm, an incendiary weapon used to burn things and people in combat. Unfortunately, the U.S. has committed many war crimes, including the My Lai Massacre, a war crime committed by the U.S. which was a massacre of many Vietnamese civilians. There was also the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a network of trails from North Vietnam to South Vietnam, and there was the Khmer Rouge, which was a massacre of many civilians by the communist party of Cambodia.


Thesis: During the Vietnam War, people knew that it was a wrong war and that it was unjust, but the Supreme Court contradicted itself and forced people to fight in the war, going against the first amendment of the Constitution.


Paragraph 1:


    Lyndon B. Johnson chose to Americanize the Vietnam War in July 1965, in fear of losing South Vietnam to the Communists, and as a response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, when North Vietnam fired upon American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. On August 7, 1964, after President Johnson requested permission from the U.S. Congress to increase the U.S. military in Indochina, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to retaliate and “promote the maintenance of international peace and security in southeast Asia”. Johnson immediately increased the U.S. combat strength in Vietnam from 75,000 to 125,000. Johnson wrote in his memoir: “Now, we were committed to major combat in Vietnam. We were determined not to let that country fall under Communist rule as long as we could prevent it.” Johnson made the decision to directly involve the U.S. with the Vietnam War, and he had good intentions, but he soon came to regret it. The Vietnam War became a very brutal and violent war, and President Johnson was realizing that it would take a much bigger effort to win this war.


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    During the Vietnam War, President Nixon ordered secret bombings of Cambodia, without consent from Congress. These bombings of Cambodia were part of Nixon’s “madman theory”, which was Nixon’s theory that he could intimidate and scare North Vietnam by presenting himself as a powerful and barbaric leader that could do anything. But due to this action of bombing Cambodia without congressional consent, in 1973 Congress passed the “War Powers Resolution”. This was a federal law that was created in a United States congressional joint resolution. This law was made intending to limit the President’s power in taking action to continue or start a war, without the consent of Congress. The War Powers Resolution requires the U.S. president to notify Congress within 48 hours of ordering armed forces to military action. It also even forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days (with a 30-day withdrawal period). President Nixon actually vetoed the War Powers Resolution bill, but Congress overrode the veto and ultimately passed it to become a law.


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    The Vietnam War was unjust. The Supreme Court of the United States never reviewed a case presenting the question of whether the Vietnam War was constitutional. This in itself suggests that the Vietnam War was unjust and unconstitutional. The Supreme Court of the United States had a case in 1969 called “Negre v. Larson”, where a man was forced to fight in the Vietnam War, even though it went against his religious beliefs. The Constitution says in its first amendment, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” According to the Constitution, Congress cannot prohibit the exercise of religion. The way that Congress drafted people into the war was unjust because it was directly going against the first amendment of the Constitution. There are other cases in lower courts that have done the same thing, like the “Gillette v. United States” case, where a man was forced to fight in the Vietnam War even though his religion went against it. His belief was that he would fight in a war if it was an attack against his land, but the Vietnam War was not. Still, he was sent to fight in the Vietnam War. "The application to the Board for correction of a record will not operate as a stay of any proceedings being taken with respect to the person involved."


Conclusion:


    The United States cannot be considered a country of free people, because the United States has been taking away the freedom of the people, by forcing them to fight in a war that is unjust, according to their beliefs. Many people came to realize the Vietnam War was unjust, including Lyndon B. Johnson. The Supreme Court created the War Powers Resolution in order to better control the actions made in the war, but many people being drafted into the war knew the war was unjust too, and the Supreme Court went against the Constitution to continue the fighting in the Vietnam War. According to the Constitution, the Vietnam War was unjust; and the Supreme Court of the United States kept contradicting itself.

Citations:

“Gillette v. United States.” Mtsu.edu, 2023, www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/234/gillette-v-united-states. Accessed 9 June 2023.

‌“Milestones: 1961–1968 - Office of the Historian.” State.gov, 2023, history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/gulf-of-tonkin#:~:text=On%20August%207%2C%201964%2C%20Congress,and%20security%20in%20southeast%20Asia. Accessed 9 June 2023.

“NEGRE v. LARSEN, 394 U.S. 968 (1969).” Justia Law, 2023, supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/394/968/. Accessed 9 June 2023.

Schoen, Rodric. “HeinOnline --33 Washburn L.” J, vol. 275, pp. 1993–1994, ttu-ir.tdl.org/bitstream/handle/10601/96/schoen3.pdf. Accessed 9 June 2023.

‌“Vietnam War | High Point, NC.” Highpointnc.gov, 2020, www.highpointnc.gov/2113/Vietnam-War#:~:text=The%20fight%20between%20the%20United,the%20North%20Vietnamese%20in%201975. Accessed 9 June 2023.

“War Powers Resolution of 1973 | Richard Nixon Museum and Library.” Nixonlibrary.gov, 27 July 2021, www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/war-powers-resolution-1973#:~:text=Congress%20passed%20the%20War%20Powers,from%20Vietnam%20in%20early%201973. Accessed 9 June 2023.