Lyndon B Johnson's Speech Analysis

In his 1965 speech at Johns Hopkins University, Lyndon B. Johnson presented a multifaceted defense of the United States’ involvement in the conflict between North and South Vietnam. Johnson first contends that the war in Vietnam is necessary to prevent the spread of communism to other societies. If communism is allowed to prevail in Vietnam it is only a matter of time, Johnson says, until the world order is fundamentally changed for the worse. Furthermore, Johnson points to the decades of promises from the United States to Vietnam as a factor in the justification for continuing the war effort. He claims that if the United States were to pull out of the war, this would weaken the credibility of the U.S. both in Vietnam and around the world. This would then lead to a world where the U.S. had considerably less influence which in turn would allow
I assume the spiritual promise that McCarthy is pointing to is the one found in Joel 2:28, “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit… your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.” (ESV). First, McCarthy doesn’t even get the reference correct, switching the roles of the young and old men. Secondly, when taken in context, this passage is clearly talking about the end times, therefore, it is not applicable to this situation. Finally, the crux of McCarthy’s argument is that war is immoral. We see time and again in the Bible that this is simply not the case. Sometimes war is necessary, as shown in Ecclesiastes 3:1, 8b, “There is a time for everything… a time for war and a time for peace” (ESV). Therefore, while there are wars that are immoral, war itself is not inherently immoral. I do not think that, from a Biblical point of view, the Vietnam war could be portrayed as immoral. Instead, the Vietnam war, while bearing great loses on both sides, was simply part of the realities of living in a fallen