I didn't say moral ambivalence -- I said morally neutral OR ambivalent. That is IMO, the early moves were morally clean or neutral but the worst case interpretation could only say they were ambivalent. That didn't get us into trouble; nor did Johnson's morally wrong Tonkin Gulf incident get us into trouble -- the poor performance of the US Army got us into trouble. Had the Army done better, Johnson's foolishness would have been irrelevant

If you want to play the morality game, i guess you could say that had Johnson's immoral act not been committed -- and had the majority of Congress gone along with him as well as the mass of Public Opinion -- the Army wouldn't have been there to fail -- but you're also confronted with the fact that Eisnhower's basically morally sound act set the stage for the whole thing. That's why I say one should be careful throwing that 'moral' charge around with respect to a nation. Any nation. It's generally not that clear cut.

One can, I guess, make moral judgments on what nations do; I just don't think anything is that simple and I don't believe nations are people and thus they cannot be judged as one would judge an individual. Any national action, particularly in a democracy, is going to have multiple players involved in decisions and I don't think group action can be judged as one would assess a single person. Say that nations should do what's right and I totally agree; say the must act morally and I ask ; whose morals? Mine, yours, my Uncle Bud? My Friend Tom? John Gotti's? Amy Winehouse's?

What's right can be arrived at by consensus; what's moral is an individual construct.

Yes, people are supposed to be held responsible for THEIR acts and, indirectly, if they were in charge, for the acts of the nation. That doesn't seem to me to address the point you're making. Every President from John Adams forward with few exceptions exceeded his authority to one degree or another. Adams and the Naval War with France and the Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson got those Acts repealed and pardoned all who had been convicted under them -- and then he proceeded to do some flaky stuff himself.

Move on to Lyndon and then forward. I've lived through 13 Presidents and every single one of them has "lied to the American People." We've undertaken a whole lot of less than moral actions and you cannot say that, in the end, all or even most were bad.

In fact, I'd appreciate it if you could name me a military effort by this country that was 'moral' in the sense I think you mean. I'm sure there's one out there but right now, I can't recall a one. You could also name me one that was a net minus for mankind or the country if you can think of one...