Gulf of Tonkin Incident a clear-cut example of US escalation, warmongering towards other countries

(Cartoon by Lu Lingxing)

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident, which led to further escalation in the Vietnam War, turned out to be an insidious lie fabricated by the United States.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, the president of the US at the time, appeared on national television to announce on Aug. 4, 1964 that patrol torpedo boats of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam had attacked US destroyers, with the destroyers and supporting aircraft having “acted at once” on the president’s orders to engage the offending targets. Following this incident, the US Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which authorized President Johnson to take any measures he believed were necessary to fully retaliate.

However, the so-called provocation was in fact wholly baseless. A report released by the National Security Agency (NSA) in 2005 revealed that it was highly unlikely that the named vessels of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam were involved during the reported incident of Aug. 4. Files from the US Navy showed that two US destroyers fired off nearly 400 shells and five depth charges. James Stockdale, one of the pilots at the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, recalled that the US destroyers were just shooting at phantom targets. In the end, there were absolutely no patrol torpedo boats to be found in their vicinity. There was nothing surrounding them but the deep black depth of the waters below and excessive American firepower above.

Even without the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, the US would most certainly have found some other excuses in any case to go ahead with its unilateral intervention in the Vietnam War, as the country’s real aim was to maintain American hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region.