Charles de Gaulle Quotes
I predict you will sink step by step into a bottomless quagmire, however much you spend in men and money." (On Vietnam War)
De Gaulle, Charles. Mémoires d'espoir: Le renouveau, 1958-1962. Plon, 1970, p. 268.
The Vietnam War was certainly not a victory for the U. S. Some saw it as our first defeat. While it was not ended on Johnson’s watch, he must certainly share that responsibility with Nixon and even JFK as these three all were responsible for our Vietnam failure. Johnson, ended up with what he feared most.
During the Iraq War, the Congressman partially changed his mind the following year and called for a plan to move American troops to the periphery of the fighting. A highly decorated war hero with two Purple Hearts, he was then called a coward, by some Republican members of Congress and the Bush Administration—almost always by people who had never served in the military and often sought and obtained deferments.
3 years later he led America on a huge invasion and nation building project in Iraq. It turned out that had he listened to his own advice and not flip-flopped, the huge cost of the Iraq War might have been avoided.
Four years later the President embarked on a nation-building effort in Iraq which was beset with many problems.
sending American troops to Vietnam
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Government of the French Republic from 1944 to 1946 in order to reestablish democracy in France. In 1958, he came out of retirement when appointed President of the Council of Ministers (Prime Minister) by President René Coty. He rewrote the Constitution of France and founded the Fifth Republic after approval by referendum. He was elected President of France later that year, a position to which he was reelected in 1965 and held until his resignation in 1969.
