Let me just point out something Senator Webb said today. In 1972 the Harris poll showed 74% of Americans supported the South Vietnamese government. Through the years history has been remade to make anti-Vietnam War sentiment both larger and earlier than it was. Those who took to the streets earliest were largely expressly their frustration at being in the minority.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I'm not convinced street protest on its own is the solution, but such protests at their best reflect a broader extra-political mobilization of civil society that is needed for fundamental social change.

What sort of fundamental social change are you talking about precisely, Nathan?

Perhaps those who think that we need a new kind of mass antiwar movement, with a clear and comprehensive forward agenda, articulating an alternative vision of the US role in the world, and a bold new direction for US foreign and national security policy should propose something specific. So far I'm not hearing anything, just abstract expressions of faith in the impotance and power of protest movements, and a a sort of dissatisfied yearning to be a part of some kind of coherent movement.

I can tell you as someone who has spent over four years reading, debating and arguing about foreign policy and national security issues all over the internet, that there is as yet no single alternative "progressive" foreign policy vision that is at the same time (i) substantially different from mainstream Democratic foreign policy of the past, and (ii) capable of uniting and mobilizing a winning Democratic coalition. The interesting alternatives are held by minorities, and to the degree to which people agree on new directions, the content of that agreement is unexciting and conventional.

I have my own views about significantly new directions and organizing principles for US foreign policy. From time to time I write about them at length. More often I just work them into critical comments on other people's views. I even gave those views a pretentious name recently: "global internationalism". I am happy to continue writing about them, and would even be happy to work with others to persuade more people to adopt them. But so far I don't see much evidence that these views are likely to be adopted by a majority of Americans.

I think you can tell for yourself by reading the exchanges here at TPMCafe how bitter and deeply felt are some of the divisions on the "progressive" side. These divisions come out whenever we discuss issues like democracy promotion, Israel, the size and role of the US military, free trade, China, Russia, global energy competition and nuclear proliferation.

This is why all those boring policy and history books are important- these books need to be read and debunked because when these silly rationalizations become conventional wisdom they lead to this current nonsense. The American Public did not loose the war in Vietnam. This is a modern mythology we allowed to fester because our military was demoralized and everyone felt bad that they put the first tic in the lost column. It however is total fiction. We lost the war in Vietnam because we refused to fight an asymmetrical war on the enemies’ terms and we ignored the "hearts and minds" campaign. Does anyone think this sounds familiar? Everyone should read "A Bright Shining Lie" by Vann to see the similarities in strategic error.

J. McCutchen

In 1970, I turned 18.

W/ all due respect....how many of you boyz and girlz were even a gleam in your daddies' eyes?

Between 1968 and 2006, there's been more than 40 years, there's been a world of difference.

Domestic politics is one area where the Iraq/Vn comparision is virtually useless

Couple the growing bonds between politicians and corporations and with the abysmal vote count of individual Americans and it's easy to understand why we individuals are dismissed by our elected officials. Because they are no longer elected by us.

Pressure through online organizations has helped. But the bottom line is that the people have ceded political clout. By and large, "the people" are in thrall to corporations no less than politicians. No more marching. Change buying and voting habits instead.

Cut all military spending in iraq except tp bring the troops home safely. Impeach/convict Bush/Cheney.

Tom

Can we march in support of people changing their buying and voting habits?

Tom

Re: for all the supposed "effective" politics of today, the troops are still in Iraq with NO legislation even seriously proposed by the Congressional leadership yet to pull them all out.

It was, what?, seven years from the election of 1968 to the end of the Vietnam War?
We've had just two and a half months since the election of 2006. I'd suggest being a bit more patient. It will probbaly take the election of 2008 (when Bush will be replaced one way or another) for anything effective to happen on the war.

. Change buying and voting habits instead.

Good idea. I have bought my last F-16. 

Excellent commentaries Michael Murray and Dan K. This is what democracy looks like. Many different disparate voices expressing concerns and solutions freely and without constraint. Through these rigorous and vibrant debates solutions will be found, and our shared concerns can be remedied. The critical component of the calculus is energy.

In response to Dan K, - the people I know who protest, and me personally to not take it to the streets as ["just abstract expressions of faith in the impotance and power of protest movements, and a a sort of dissatisfied yearning to be a part of some kind of coherent movement.'] - but rather because we simply do not believe the political processes are affective means to force the fascist warmongers and profiteers in the Bush government to recognize our existance, hear our concerns, or change course.

"You can bet that the street would be mobilized big time if we still had a draft." I've argued against this one often before, but it still grates on me. Now, in part I just dislike it because it's impractical (we don't have a chance in hell of a draft) and because it's also immoral (sending more to die in hope of a growing opposition to death, much like proposing to execute American citizens at random to gain opposition to the death penalty).

I've also been scared to death that a standing army, as many of the framers warned, increases the odds of war. It puts the nation in a state of permanent mobilization, and more important it gives the president the capability of action. Indeed, with a draft now, Bush wouldn't be scrambling for 21,000 troops to stretch out Iraq until he leaves office. He'd be escalating there to Vietnam levels. He'd be invading Iran, as, despite much paranoia, just can't happen without troops. Happier that way, antiwar fans? But when it comes down to it, it's just plain false on the facts.

As DanG points out in the first comment, opposition to the Vietnam war took many, many, many years to grow even with a draft. Now, even after what the public perceived as an attack on our shores, an American war and a sitting president in wartime have both achieved record unpopularity in record time. So it's just empirically false.

Can there be reasons it's false? There I can only speculate. It might just be more ready disillusionment with war, in a country that remembers Black Hawk Down and Vietnam as precedents instead of "the Greatest Generation." But I hate to tell you: it could be the lack of a draft!

First, the people worried that Americans aren't feeling the war might not know Americans, who do identify with families that have lost a loved one, because most Americans don't see themselves as privileged. Second, a large army protracts that period of support for a war, when the hypocrtical "support our troops" works, because it means us. And third, the draft helped give the image that the antiwar movement was those elite college kids, starting the GOP faux populism. Didn't those limousine liberals know how to love America?

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

I hate to be so pessimistic, but the only way the protest will work is if it drives Bush and Cheney so crazy that they're committed to a mental hospital and a successor is required.  The disapproval rating can tank; Congress can object or pass a law.  But they'll still keep troops around until they leave office.  That's their only goal, just as it was for Nixon and Kissinger, and they've the power to get away with it. Maybe if Congress actually defunded the entire federal government, but then they could also go further into red ink and raid social security.  

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

I got you beat by a year.

True, the anti-war movement during the Vietnam era took years to mature - but how did it start?  If you'll recall, it started with burning draft cards in public.  What do we have today to burn in public? 

But I support your comment about standing armies increasing the odds for war.  I had a similar thought once when I was in Vietnam.  I was drawing the floor plans for a warehouse near Saigon, that functioned as a staging area for high-tech shipping coffins.  It was a large building and the coffins were stacked 5 high through out.  The were aluminum, and had gaskets fittings on them that allowed the bodies of GIs to be "vacuum packed."  And the all had a spot on one end for "orders" and they had 5 or 6 layers of order's pasted over one another. (and this was only 1966 - relatively early in the war.)

I stood there in the warehouse trying to absorb all this - I mean the KIA figures were less abstract - but a thought kicked in from nowhere:  for several years prior to my moment in the warehouse, folks were getting up in the morning and going to work in a factory that made these coffins.  Shipping corpses around the world was an "industry."  Everything had been planned out very carefully.  Then the concept of a "self-fulfilling prophecy" came to mind, along with a sense of doom. 

Neoboho

But in 1968 Nixon was elected, and the war dragged on until 1975!

The question was not whether the war dragged on, or whether a large percentage of the people wanted the US to continue helping the government of South Vietnam. It was whether demonstrations were prompted in a significant way by the existence of the draft.

Some of the early demonstrations were held at induction centers, and burning draft cards were a prominent symbol of defiance. And it didn't take "many, many, many years" for these demonstrations to ramp up once large numbers started being drafted.

Also, once the draft was eliminated, street demonstrations subsided.

The draft was not the only factor driving the anti-war movement, but the historical record is pretty clear that it was a very important factor. It's also clear that the move to a professional army was at least in part prompted by the potential for political opposition that a draft could create. If the only people who fight the war are people who've made that choice for themselves, the incentive for vigorous opposition to the war is diminished.

Something else worth considering. As Daniel Ellsberg pointed out, in the early days of the Nixon administration, serious consideration was given to the use of tactical nukes, with the proviso that this option would be foreclosed if there were large demonstrations against the war.

There were large demonstrations against the war. Nukes were not used.

Danius in effect argues that ending the draft allowed the war to continue so long. Actually, antiwar sentiment continued to grow after 1968, reaching 56% in 1970 and a high of 61% before the war ended. Moreover, the draft didn't end until 1973. That's 5 years after the embarrassment of the Tet offensive and 9 years after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, as well as after Nixon's elected president twice. By comparison, public opinion shifted against the Iraq war more quickly. 

In both cases, the only thing that kept the war going amounts to a GOP president who doesn't want war to end on his watch.  As it happens, I received a lottery number of 17 in 1972 but it became moot in ilght of suspension of the draft. I am not sorry that my death couldn't have raised the anger against Nixon a percentage point further. I am sorry you wish it had. 

John 

http://www.haberarts.com/

I agree with you, Daniel, about the fact that the Chicago demonstrations did not represent a lot of Americans in the broad sense that most Americans were not "sympathetic" to the demonstrators, even when they agreed with them in opposing the war.

But while 74% of Americans might have supported "helping the South Vietnamese government" in 1972, they certainly didn't support the war. By 1968, support for the war had already collapsed according to the polls I've seen.

Let me make myself just as clear as I can.

My main point was that the existence of a draft was an important factor driving street demonstrations against the Vietnam War. If there is no draft, there is less incentive to demonstrate. And there is plenty of evidence to support that point.

I also added a second point that I think is worth remembering. The demonstrations against the war--in particular the 1969 moratoriums--did have a positive political effect.

I'm not "in effect" arguing anything else. I'm certainly not wishing that more people had died.

Jahber, you might grate against someone skimming your comment and reacting by attributing to you things you never said.

You made a comment that began by reacting to the following statement.

"You can bet that the street would be mobilized big time if we still had a draft."

You responded, in part, " I've argued against this one often before, but it still grates on me."

My first paragraph supports the statement and argue that indeed, if we did have a draft, more people would get involved with the anti-war movement.

Since I agree with so much of what you said I don’t feel any obligation to respond to every point you have made about this issue. I felt like responding to one thing. If you believe that having a draft would not put protesters in the street, then I think you are blatantly and obviously wrong.

There is much in your response to me that indicates that you did not understand the point I made even though it still looks to me that I made it clearly.

"Anyone who supports a draft is asking more young adults to die in more wars. That's not a recipe for peace, and it'd be immoral even if it were. RJB's repeating the opposite assertion doesn't make it so."

I clearly never made any such assertion.

"But it's kind of RJB at least to recognize that it's pointless and academic to consider it."

I don’t recognize any such thing so I don’t agree that it is pointless to consider it [draft]. It might help, and certainly wouldn’t hurt the anti-war cause, if people realized that fools who push for more and more war might end up pushing us into a situation where the draft would be reinstated.

"That alone should silence draft proponents."

I’ll try to be sufficiently clear. I don’t, and never have, supported the draft. Especially not when I was drafted. I have, however, supported draftees and argued that they made as good and often better soldiers than did volunteers, but that is another subject.

I recall reading somewhere this line, allegedly from Nixon just after the draft was ended: "there never was an anti-war movement; there was a Don't Draft Me movement."

Surely an exaggeration, but it does contain a lot of truth.

 I think you've stated explicitly, by quoting the war criminal Nixon, what a lot of people, especially those born some time after that era, may believe. I would say that people are taking a  too simplistic view of the anti-draft movement and the anti-war movement.

You have to remember that a lot of us viewed the war as a criminal war. To have citizens drafted in order that they take part in this criminal war was abhorrent. Many of us came from families of the "greatest generation" in which we admired military service as a service to the country. Not only were we aghast at what was happening in Viet Nam we were also angry that our opportunity to serve the country in the military was being so perverted. I know some that volunteered only to become very disheartened.

My father, a WWII vet, a volunteer who had half of the males of his high school graduation class killed in the war, said to me back then that he would do whatever it took to make sure I was not inducted.  He didn't agree with the methods of mass protest but he was serious enough about his love for his country to not turn his back on what was really happening. Luckily I took my chances by not seeking any deferments and got a very high lottery number. (Arcanity of the draft back then.) I chose to serve my country as a conscientious protestor and am proud of it. 

Yes, I understand that there was a lot more principled opposition to the war than Nixon's line allows. But isn't it in fact true that the end of the draft took a lot of steam out of the antiwar movement?

Tet, while a military victory, showed that the North Vietnamese were not about to stop fighting. Kent State in 1970 also ratcheted up the opposition to the war as little else did.

What makes any discussion of opposition to the War and its impact on elections is the issue of race and the Civil Rights Movement which also alienated people from the Democratic Party.

My only point is that the anti-War movement rightly made people feel better about themsleves and the country but they have also overestimated its significance.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

The street protests began in the late 1950s with the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament -- that is where the famous peace sign comes from. They were originally against the arms race. The first ones in the US -- in the late 1950s -- were rather small. McCarthyism was still in the ascendant at that time. To participate even in a small march felt rather brave. The peace marchers were the target of stone-throwers.

The biggest and most effective demonstration was the 1963 Summer march on Washington led by Martin Luther King. I remember people then saying before hand (there is nothing new under the sun) that such a march was bound to be inneffective and lead to trouble. The opposite turned out to be the case. Later, after the passage of the voting rights act and the beginning of real escalation in Vietnam, the war became the focus of the demonstrations. Adding to the atmosphere of tension were also the huge race riots every summer, throughout the sixties, which people here seem to have forgotten (or to be ignorant of).

Demonstrations -- then and now -- were only one of many ways of getting the message out. Other ways included mailing campaigns and open-to-the public teach-ins, to name a few.

Howard,

I know of no one who is saying street demos are "obligatory" for everyone or that they are the "only" way to be heard. If there is someone saying that he/she is wrong.

Tom

I've got you beat by 32! I see more similarities than differences between then and now. We certainly did electoral politics then. We campaigned for Eugene McCarthy, McGovern, and many others. I decided to vote for LBJ when I heard him say he would "never send American boys to fight a ground war in Asia!" We petitioned, organized, etc. But we reached a point of utter frustration with the political process and the carnage and had seen the successes, and been part of in many cases, the Civil Rights demonstrations.
Sure there are differences now, but mostly I think we are at a different stage in the process.
On TPM we've seen ridiculous fears of a backlash against hippies or demonstrators trying to levitate the Pentagon or battling with police. We're just not there (yet).
The backlash then was about "law and order" and discomfort with tremendous social change, and I think it was inevitable.
Marches, then and now, have an extremely positive effect, but part of that is the spirit-lifting effect they have on the demonstrators themselves. Critics who look at it as outside observers don't get that or look down on it in a sort of elitist way and act all embarrassed by the directness, the emotionality, and the simplicity of messages like "Peace Now", chanting and waving signs. How inelegant.
I think we'll see more rallies and bigger ones at some point. Yeah, there is no draft, but there is an undercurrent of strong dissent and frustration about many issues besides war, just as there was then. Bush is single-handedly mobilizing dissent in America. As usual, demonstrators will be grandmothers, kids, Liberal Democrats, pretty ordinary people; some might even be mistaken for Republicans, some might BE Republicans. And a few crazies - so what?

"My only point is that the anti-War movement rightly made people feel better about themsleves and the country but they have also overestimated its significance.
Daniel A. Greenbaum"

No, we reached a point where the governing establishment rightly feared that they could no longer govern, could no longer control events, i.e. they were scared shitless. Try to imagine in rapid order: big armed riots, frank media coverage of the ugliness of war unlike now, assassinations of leaders one after another, 50,000 US casualties and counting, huge demonstrations, which yes, did get unruly eventually, social rebellion and dissent everywhere, a high level of street crime. It wasn't just the peace movement; all of those aspects were interwoven.
The anti-war movement was largely peaceful with some civil disobedience modeled after the Civil Rights movement. So rather than provoking violence, it helped keep emotions within a framework of non-violent resistance while at the same time stirring and articulating dissent.
And it wasn't glory days, it was a damned difficult time to live in, but we're on the way to exceeding the craziness of it in this Bush era.
A peaceful, passionate demonstration of commitment feels good, yes, then as now. And it gets noticed (and generates some heat as we can see from all this talk about it on TPM). This time we have the Bush administration, however, which makes a point of totally ignoring millions of people protesting worldwide. That does get a little discouraging. :) At least now Congress is getting into the act, and there is much more to come.

Make that 14 years, not 32! In my dotage I don't subtract very well.

Howard,

Who in the world would support people who "vandalize targets of opportunity"? That is not within a million miles of what those of us who supports Saturday's rally in Washington are talking about.

Tom

As Danius wrote, the Tet Offensive played an important part in influencing the American public's support for the war. If my memory serves me Westmoreland spoke before the Congress a few months prior to Tet and proclaimed that we had reached the "crossover point", that the enemy could not replace his losses in manpower as quickly as we were destroying them.

The US media prior to the Tet Offensive was, for the very large part, supportive of the war. Televised scenes of VC in the US Embassy in Saigon, the embattled Marines at Khe Sanh and weeks of house to house fighting in Hue had a major impact on how the public saw the war. Believability of the previous glowing reports of progress and public support declined from that point in time onward.

I'm glad people have mentioned the Civil Rights movement. The marches before the antiwar protests definitely stood as a model and helped involve so many people. That's part of why the draft didn't do it all. I'll back off empirical measures of whether it did and moral qualms about hoping it could, since I've already had my say there.

But I think the basic reasons a draft can't generate the resistance we want might fall into three categories. First is what really drives protest. As several have said, protests can't be boiled down to self-interest, and the self-interest of Americans can't be boiled down to personal fear of dying. That is, we all have strong feelings about politics, and some of us even have ideals, and of course the 1960s was a time of ideals. And the Iraq war has grown so unpopular because people can see the damage it's done to America. One could argue that its repercussions for America and the world are far, far more traumatic than those of the Vietnam war, for all the greater number of American lives lost then.

Second is what drives resistance to protest. It sounds great to say that sending troops will stir riots. It does, and it did in the Civil War, too. However, it also makes Americans want to love the war. Who wants to admit to themselves that their sons will die in vain? Again remember the "support our troops" line and how well it worked for Bush, but multiply that by a huge factor if all Americans were out there with their lives on the line. Indeed, during WWII opposition really would have seemed to most as treason.

Third is the actual calculation of self-interest. We've lost about 3000 lives in about 4 years. It isn't enough to spread that risk around more. Indeed, that might minimize risk to near zero, and, as I've said, most Americans aren't in cozy enclaves like me in Manhattan, feeling apart from our troops now. But regardless, it would seem that you'd have to create a real fear, which would mean American deaths at least at the Vietnam War level, and remember how much higher that was. So you'd have to not just institute a draft but increase the war effort to half a million troops on the ground. Is that truly an antiwar plan?

John

http://www.haberarts.com/

It happened with every anti-globalization rally near the World Bank, as well as in Seattle. I recognize that may be another group of people, but residents of the DC area tend to remember what happened in demonstrations, not who was doing it or what it was about.

In like manner, the farmers and truckers, as well as Vietnam War protesters, "shut down the city" including vital services such as people getting to hospitals. With the truckers, the police negotiated specific ways that key personnel would be escorted/driven to their destinations, and the police played straight that the people so handled were, in fact, doing public safety or other critical services -- as opposed to politicians.

You'll have to understand that part of my perspective comes from decades in DC, where demonstrations are going to be more common than in other cities. People in Florida are sensitive about hurricanes, even the ones that didn't do much damage.

--
Howard

*equal opportunity offense to both extremes*

The beginning question is whether protest demonstrations are an effective tool to change the course of governmental action. Demonstrations during the Vietnam War are the main reference point. The arguments break down to whether they were affective then and would they be affective now. They further break down to the question of why they are not happening now.

Many argue that a major reason we had large demonstrations during the Vietnam War was the draft. Some of those people say that if we had a draft now that we would again have large demonstrations. Include me in that group. This is not though, for me at least, an argument for the draft to be reinstated which is anywhere near strong enough to carry the issue but rather an explanation of one of the main reasons that a very large part of the American community can stay uninvolved or even supportive of a war that they would otherwise vigorously oppose. It is to me a harsh criticism of our country but not a suggestion for remedial action by reinstituting the draft.

I agree with talking about the draft because it is a way of pointing out to many that they support an action that they expect only others to be willing to pay for and because it allows them to ignore or support the stupid actions of leaders who might create the conditions where a draft would be reinstated. I would also like the details of implementation worked out ahead of time on the chance that the draft is reinstated. I believe it is foolish in the extreme to believe it couldn’t happen.

Many serious people believe that losing a significant part of the Middle East oil production will cause extreme hardship to the entire developed world. They are almost certainly right. If the resulting shortage of oil was equally distributed the U.S. would likely experience the most extreme differences in the living conditions, differences likely to be harsh enough to be life threatening to very many.

If this were to happen our leaders would choose to go after control of that Middle East by defeating and then dominating the whole region militarily. Even Carter said that we would do whatever was necessary to protect our vital national interests in that region. With the size of our current army we cannot even control Iraq. Those who think the answer lies in the number of troops would prevail. The country as a whole would support them. If you had a healthy young son you wanted to protect you would have to give him up for adoption by the Bush family. Some people would hit the streets and protest.

With all this, just remember that we might decide to make the commitment to have a draft,……..  I have maintained for as long as I have been at TPMC that we might, for various reason, make the commitment to have a draft. At least a few times this was in exchanges between you and me where our views differed so I am not likely to forget my position for a little while, at least.   …….but that is a general public policy question rather than anything specific to Iraq.  Do you mean that a chicken policy may decide to lay a rotten egg? That would violate the conclusion that virtually everyone has come to. That is, that it would be political suicide and so will never happen that a draft is begun for mere policy reasons. A true emergency would have to be perceived. A stupid policy of starting a war for reasons that every pejorative adjective I can think off apply could create that emergency. That is specific to Iraq.

Howard,

--

My objection was only to your last sentence, the one which seems to sum up your position. It is about the sequence of possible events. You say that if we have a draft it will be the result of a general policy decision. You do not say that it will happen only in the event of an emergency. You do say it will not be specific to Iraq.

I don’t think that is correct. I don’t think we will have a draft in the foreseeable future which results from a general public policy decision. I think, and I said, that an emergency could result in a draft and that emergency could very well be the result of a militaristic policy such as we have used against Iraq. In that case, a draft would hardly be just general policy.

Many of the people still advocating staying in Iraq say that if we leave, that the entire Middle East may erupt into chaos. They may be right. Of course if we stay in Iraq that will also very likely happen. In either event, If chaos breaks out and we need a draft we will see that it was a war policy which created the chaos and the need, not that we adopted a policy of having a draft just in case we needed more soldiers.This is a difference that seems to me to be worth noting.

You mention Republicans muttering about the need for a draft. If you are refering to politicians I have missed it. Can you supply some names?

"Where are the crazy hippies and wild-eyed radicals...?"

In the minds of a few TPM CAFE bloggers who don't get it.

Tom