<p>Almost every family has someone who was killed, injured or served in Vietnam, as a result of a deliberate misleading of the American people by President Lyndon B. Johnson. The U. S. lost 58,220 lives in Vietnam and the same politicians who lied to insert America into a civil war, lied about strategies and crippled a successful pursuit of the war.<br />
The bottom line: don’t trust these lying bastards.<br />
Fifty Years of Government Officials Lying to the American Public<br />
On August 2, shortly after a clandestine raid on the North Vietnamese coast by South Vietnamese gunboats, the U.S. destroyer Maddox (conducting electronic espionage nearby) was fired on by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Two days later, in the same area, the Maddox and another destroyer reported that they were again under attack. Although these reports now appear to have been mistaken, Johnson proceeded quickly to authorize retaliatory air strikes against North Vietnam. The next day he gathered congressional leaders and, without divulging the circumstances that might have helped provoke the torpedo attack, accused the North Vietnamese of &#8220;open aggression on the high seas.&#8221; He then submitted to the Senate a resolution that authorized him to take &#8220;all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression.&#8221; The resolution was quickly approved by Congress; only Senators Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska voted against it. Later, when more information about the Tonkin incident became available, many concluded that Johnson and his advisers had misled Congress into supporting the expansion of the war. &#8212; History.com</p>