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Tonight Americans and
Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path
to change.
This is the
principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of
Pennsylvania. It is the principle for which our sons fight tonight in
the jungles of Viet-Nam.
Viet-Nam is far
away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek
any.
The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born
into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise,
have ended their lives on Viet-Nam’s steaming soil.
Why must we take
this painful road?
Why must this
nation hazard its ease, its interest, and its power for the sake of a
people so far away?
We fight because
we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can
shape its own destiny,
and only in such a world will our own freedom be finally
secure.
This kind of
world will never be built by bombs or bullets. Yet the infirmities of
man are such that force must often precede reason and the waste of war,
the works of peace.
We wish this were
not so. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be
as we wish.
The world as it
is in Asia is not a serene or peaceful place.
The first reality
is that North Viet-Nam has attacked the independent nation of South
Viet-Nam. Its object is total conquest.
Of course, some
of the people of South Viet-Nam are participating in attack on their
own government.
But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a
constant stream from North to South.
This support is
the heartbeat of the war.
And it is a war
of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of
assassination and kidnapping.
Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are
loyal to the government.
And helpless villagers are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids
are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities.
The confused
nature of this conflict cannot mask the fact that it is the new face of
an old enemy.
Over this war-and
all Asia-is another reality: the deepening shadow of Communist China.
The rulers in Hanoi are urged on by Peking.
This is a regime which has destroyed freedom in Tibet, which
has attacked India and has been condemned by the United Nations for
aggression in Korea.
It is a nation which is helping the forces of violence in
almost every continent. The contest in Viet-Nam is part of a wider
pattern of aggressive purposes.
Why are these
realities our concern? Why are we in South Viet-Nam?
We are there
because we have a promise to keep. Since 1954 every American President
has offered support to the people of South Viet-Nam.
We have helped to build, and we have helped to defend. Thus,
over many years, we have made a national pledge to help South Viet-Nam
defend its independence.
And I intend to
keep that promise.
Peace
Without Conquest (Vietnam) speech by Lyndon B. Johnson
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