On many occasions the US government has used events to turn public opinion to go to war. Many of these events were either outright orchestrated by the government, known in advance and allowed to happen or greatly exaggerated to produce the maximum outrage of the public. I will be putting together some content regarding some of these proven or suspected events. This first one is the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It was an “attack” by the forces of Vietnam on US destroyers in the gulf off the coast of Vietnam. The details of the attack were highly embellished at the very least. Most believe at this time, that the incident was completely made up to create outrage with the public that would translate to approval for military involvement in Vietnam. It worked and over 50,000 US and estimates as high as 3 million Vietnamese died in the conflict.
