Humint Events Online: Robert F Kennedy on the Vietnam War

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Robert F Kennedy on the Vietnam War

Can you imagine any major politician saying this today-- even though it still rings true?
... Kennedy made a speech where he raised the issue of morality and the Vietnam War: “Although the world’s imperfection may call forth the act of war, righteousness cannot obscure the agony and pain those acts bring to a single child. It is we who live in abundance and send our young men out to die. It is our chemicals that scorch the children and our bombs that level the villages. We are all participants.”

In an television interview later that year Kennedy again returned to the morality of the war: “We’re going in there and we’re killing South Vietnamese, we’re killing children, we’re killing women, we’re killing innocent people because we don’t want a war fought on American soil, or because (the Viet Cong are) 12,000 miles away and they might get 11,000 miles away. Do we have the right, here in the United States, to say we’re going to kill tens of thousands, make millions of people, as we have, millions of people refugees, killing women and children, as we have.”

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

During that same time period, I remember one Christmas when I was home from college, I was visiting with some people that I had lived with briefly and they had received a
cassette recording of the 1st Lt. son
who was in Vietnam.

The tape included a message for his baby son. In it, I can still hear him saying "you be a good boy while daddy is over here killing communists".

Mind you, this was guy who had graduated from Davidson College - which was and still is considered to be a fine institution of higher
education.

2:00 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Powered by Blogger