Stanley Lim APUSH – Undeclared Wars
For most of the last century and including this century so far, the wars that were fought with the involvement of the United States of America have been undeclared. The last time the United States went to war with the approval of the Congress was the attack of Pearl Harbor back in 1941 which brought the United States into World War II. All wars starting from the Korean War to now, such as the Vietnam War, the US invasion of Panama, and the ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, were all undeclared which breaks that tradition of the Constitution (2). The ability of the president being able to declare war without Congress approval is still debated today and usually a conflict between spending with the…show more content… The Vietnam War was truly a turning point in terms of how the citizens supported the war effort. This war was filled with mixed reactions and it soured the public’s view on the US government. US intervention of Vietnam was first proposed by Lyndon B Johnson to follow up Kennedy’s plan to aid South Vietnam and as a result of the destruction two US destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin (5). At first the majority of Americans were in support of the war effort in Vietnam, but that eventually changed as a result of televised broadcasts of the war showing massive bombings across northern Vietnam. Eventually mass protests broke out throughout the country asking the president to end the war in Vietnam. A majority of the Americans felt that the use of B-52 bombers was too excessive on the native population. The massacre of My Lai, a rebel held village was noted for being one of the most bombed areas. Many believed that the US army killed the entire population of the village and brought a lot of controversy as to how the Americans were fighting the war (4). A lot of the protests first started out as being peaceful, but then escalated after watching the war. For instance, the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is one of the many protest groups that helped to organize a lot of the demonstrations. By November 1967, US casualties had reached 15,058 deaths and 109,527 wounded. The protesting within the nation peaked during this time. One particular march took place on October 21, 1967, where 100,000 demonstrators protested at the Lincoln Memorial with 30,000 marching to the Pentagon later that evening. By February 1968, 50% of the population disapproved of US intervention of Vietnam. After all these protests, Nixon decides to end US involvement in Southeast Asia in January 1973 (6). The Vietnam War certainly serves as a prominent example of how people