Is the Opposition against the Iraq War/Occupation larger than the Opposition to Vietnam?

[fascisthunter]

Noam Chomsky:
"Take a look at the current war in Iraq... and compare it with, say the Vietnam War... the comparisons are completely false. The opposition to the war in Iraq is far greater than it ever was to Vietnam in any comparable stage..." 14:40

Thanks to Demeter for posting a thread which had this link of a video interview of Noam Chomsky:

A Super Power Of Near Demonic Dimensions
Prof Noam Chomsky
Posted Jan. 01, 2009

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24302.htm

If true, I hope people here and everywhere else keep up the work!


*also, watch the whole thing, because it's pretty interesting. Near to the end, at 20:20 Noam talks about how fragile our economic system is and how scared the elite are....

[Clear Blue Sky]

1. Doesn't seem like it.

In the Viet Nam era, it was a cultural thing, with music, Woodstock, protests, the hippie movement, etc. Don't see anything comparable now.

[fascisthunter]

3. right, but that's probably because it's not being covered

by the MSM. Hell there was a massive march in NYC that was all but ignored by the MSM, and when they did mention the protest, they played down the numbers significantly. They gave more coverage of the Tea Baggers than they did the anti-war movement. Anti the tea bagger movement pales in comparison.

[timeforpeace]

14. You mean Afghanistan is not being covered. Iraq was, thus opposition. Afghan war is supported here.

[Mojorabbit]

9. There was a draft then

and just about everyone I knew had a brother or boyfriend that was being or was already sent over. That made it personal.

[JohnnyLib2]

2. Nothing has given me that thought at all.

????

[PDJane]

4. If you consider that the protests started before

the invasion, and the protests have drawn wider crowds, not just the ones who were being sent to Iraq, maybe. However, if you consider the number of people who have lost friends and relatives in the war, and the fact that the country has gone on with business as usual, no.

[Cleita]

5. Thanks for posting. I was just about to myself.

It seems even more so now, how we are being ignored about going to war, when Noam jogged that little memory of massive protests before raiding Afghanistan and Iraq, even when 9-11 was fresh in our minds and we were in shock as a nation. He is right. It was years later that the anti-war movement started in regard to Viet Nam. It also shows how we have absolutely no say in how we are being ruled by our leadership. The most recent health care fiasco is more proof of this.

We will have no say about any future invasions of other countries. We are already bombing Pakistan a so-called ally of ours. We will do some military action in Yemen that we can't retreat from if they have oil or something we want. We have no control any more, not even what control we had in the sixties to try to force our leaders to listen to us. It's really heartbreaking to be a member of the nation that is the biggest bully in the world.

[fascisthunter]

6. That's Sounds about Right... complete loss of control of our government

and a mainstream media that keeps citizens asleep or distracted. We need to keep the pressure on our government and ignore the fact that this media is ignoring us.

[That Is Quite Enough]

7. I really dunno. Maybe, maybe not.

[90-percent]

8. The comparison

Back then the MSM was more liberal, that is to say, REALITY BASED than it is today. I had a sense the media was trying to practice traditional honest straight forward for the good of the public journalism. I'm 55 and my critical thinking didn't understand what Viet Nam was all about at 10-16. It was painted like just escalate some more and we'll win this thing right now. That got old after five plus years. Many of us were like, well, if they think this war must be done, then they're our leaders, we should support them. What Viet Nam was became more acute as your eighteenth birthday approached. I considered war hell and I feel I would have lost my mind or life if I were drafted. The draft ended the year I turned 18. I really apprecited this circumstance at the time and I have tremendous respect for all that served.

Now MSM is all bought and paid for Corporate Propaganda that, at it's root, is trying to make us all corporate serfs or indentured servants or just broken members of the insignificant unrepresented working class and middle class.

Viet Nam was big, like a half million deployed big or something staggering like that. All of America was directly affected, or just one Kevin Bacon connection away from someone who served.

Iraq reminds me of a scenario from The Time Machine or Star Trek, where war is clean and invisible and people just line up mindlessly to be sacrificed to the war count. No Americans other than those related directly to the service person are affected by this war. We've had ten years of perpetual war. We have a generation that knows of nothing else but constant war.

We are being conquered by our Corporate Overlords. They can do anything they want to us and steal from us and get away with it.

-90% Jimmy

[doc03]

10. No way, I lived in Arlington Virginia back in 1966-68 and

remember the mass protests. I remember seeing convoys of tanks rolling down Columbia Pike on the way to the Pentagon.

[90-percent]

11. comparison

Viet Nam protests didn't get big right away. IT was a tiny war in early 60's and escalated in Johnson's second term. 1968 was possibly the peak of anti-war Viet Nam protests, which were plentiful and were meet with authorities and military.

The public protest about Iraq was quite high AMONGST THE PEOPLE all over the world, but no one knew that at the time because of the concerted pro war propaganda we were fed. I do remember this from the time, that the protests before the war started were the largest such gatherings in the history of this earth!

-90% jimmy

[robdogbucky]

12. I love Chomsky on most things, but

having lived through the VN era and having lost friends and having it affect so many strata of our society, I beg to differ with the learned professor on this opinion. I was there in January and Februay of 2003 when indeed many hundreds of thousands here and probably millions worldwide demonstrated their opposition to GW's invasions. Nonetheless, the scope of opposition to Viet Nam was enormous and touched every facet of our society. I am not seeing anything like that now, aside from those initial protests in 2003.

To wit:

From http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/antiwar.html

"…Buoyed by the attendance at the Washington march, movement leaders, still mainly students, expanded their methods and gained new allies over the next two years. "Vietnam Day," a symposium held at Berkeley in October 1965, drew thousands to debate the moral basis of the war. Campus editors formed networks to share information on effective protest methods; two of these, the Underground Press Syndicate (1966) and the Liberation News Service (1967), became productive means of disseminating intelligence. In spring 1967, over 1,000 seminarians from across the country wrote to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara advocating recognition of conscientious objection on secular, moral grounds. In June, 10,000 students wrote, suggesting the secretary develop a program of alternative service for those who opposed violence. A two-day march on the Pentagon in October 1967 attracted nationwide media attention, while leaders of the war resistance called for young men to turn in their draft cards. The movement spread to the military itself; in 1966, the "Fort Hood 3" gained acclaim among dissenters for their refusal to serve in Vietnam. Underground railroads funneled draft evaders to Canada or to Sweden; churches provided sanctuary for those attempting to avoid conscription. Perhaps the most significant development of the period between 1965 and 1968 was the emergence of Civil Rights leaders as active proponents of peace in Vietnam…

…As the movement's ideals spread beyond college campuses, doubts about the wisdom of escalation also began to appear within the administration itself. As early as the summer of 1965, Undersecretary of State George Ball counseled President Johnson against further military involvement in Vietnam. In 1967 Johnson fired Defense Secretary McNamara after the secretary expressed concern about the moral justifications for war. Most internal dissent, however, focused not on ethical but on pragmatic criteria, many believing that the cost of winning was simply too high. But widespread opposition within the government did not appear until 1968. Exacerbating the situation was the presidential election of that year, in which Johnson faced a strong challenge from peace candidates Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, and George McGovern, all Democrats, as well as his eventual successor, Richard M. Nixon.
The antiwar movement became both more powerful and, at the same time, less cohesive between 1969 and 1973. Most Americans pragmatically opposed escalating the U.S. role in Vietnam, believing the economic cost too high; in November of 1969 a second march on Washington drew an estimated 500,000 participants...

…The movement regained solidarity following several disturbing incidents. In February 1970 news of the My Lai massacre became public and ignited widespread outrage. In April President Nixon, who had previously committed to a planned withdrawal, announced that U.S. forces had entered Cambodia. Within minutes of the televised statement, protesters took to the streets with renewed focus. Then, on 4 May, Ohio National Guardsmen fired on a group of student protesters at Kent State University, killing four and wounding sixteen. Death, previously distant, was now close at hand. New groups-Nobel science laureates, State Department officers, the American Civil Liberties Union-all openly called for withdrawal. Congress began threatening the Nixon administration with challenges to presidential authority. When the New York Times published the first installment of the Pentagon Papers on 13 June 1971, Americans became aware of the true nature of the war. Stories of drug trafficking, political assassinations, and indiscriminate bombings led many to believe that military and intelligence services had lost all accountability. Antiwar sentiment, previously tainted with an air of anti-Americanism, became instead a normal reaction against zealous excess. Dissent dominated America; the antiwar cause had become institutionalized. By January 1973, when Nixon announced the effective end of U.S. involvement, he did so in response to a mandate unequaled in modern times.

References
• DeBenedetti, Charles. An American Ordeal: The Antiwar Movement of the Vietnam Era. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1990.
• Garfinkle, Adam. Telltale Hearts: The Origins and Impact of the Vietnam Antiwar Movement. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1995.
• Halstead, Fred. Out Now! A Participant's Account of the American Movement Against the Vietnam War. New York: Monad Press, 1978.
from Encyclopedia of the Vietnam War: A Political, Social, and Military History. Ed. Spencer C. Tucker. Oxford, UK: ABC-CLIO, 1998. Copyright © 1998 by Spencer C. Tucker.


Just my dos centavos

robdogbucky

[JohnnyLib2]

13. Thank you. I had just copied that reference to post.

I'm astounded by Chomsky's opinion. :wow:

[varelse]

15. Considering that there is no draft, and the number of American casualties is far lower

I'd say opposition to the Iraq war is less immediate and personal than was opposition to Vietnam. Because the stakes are not the same, it isn't conducted with the same urgency and at the same risk to personal safety and freedom as were the protests against the Vietnam war.

The Vietnam War was fought with draftees, and cost the United States 58,000 lives and 350,000 casualties. Source: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/modules/vietnam/index.cfm

The Iraq war has been fought with an all volunteer force, with 4,370 US soldiers wounded and 31,582 wounded (as of Sept 30 2009). http://usliberals.about.com/od/homelandsecurit1/a/IraqNumbers.htm

[robdogbucky]

16. Yes, that is true and further observations

from the robdogbucky archives on this topic.

Things now are very different from 1963-1975. Maybe only we boomers that were on the ground floor and hence were the cannon fodder of that time can fully appreciated the changes.

The cold war political theater ended shortly after the pullout from VN, when the peoples of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union said no more of this. They brought their oppressive system down, we didn't. After that the generals from both sides missed their little proxy wars of liberations, VietNam chief among them, meant to keep them all rolling in the taxpayer hay. Ours were the most able to re-kindle the kind of scenario of a strategy of constant tension that we see today. When the reality of the military base closure program of the HW Bush admin hit home, although they were only the fat and a veritable drop in the bucket of the complete military network worldwide by the US, I believe the neocons, seeing themselves as the only unopposed superpower left could not give up this cow that delivered all their cash and made their dreams of power come true. Maybe it was just all a part of their process to re-tool for the terrorist age? It has always been thus. Nature abhors a vacuum and they rushed to replace the cold war. A new enemy was needed to revive the MIC. A study of American film and propaganda will show a steady, systematic merger of government, news, entertainment, education, religions, etc. exploiting the age old xenophobic fears of evil ungodly foreigners bent on destroying our way of life. Presto, we already had the client state of Israel, with their ready-made neighbor-villains in the wings, and with only a little prodding, they were encouraged to lash out at Israel's sponsor in their region. That would be us. Add the oil procurement needs of this vast mechanized military network and you have the present situation.

Watch any late '70s or early '80s era film of Chuck Norris, international spies, etc., or heck, half of the television dramas involving world enemies and voila! The Arabs. Long before there was any al Ciada or Taliban to ruminate on. Terrorism from the middle east replaced the communist bloc nations as our foreign villain, as their peoples no longer bought into the artiface and wanted to live their own lives. The drumbeat was started, never diminishing, until the neocon Pearl Harbor of 9/11. Easy to appeal to the lost movements in this country, the pentagon after VietNam closed down for them, of the racist elements, the fundamentalist Christian movements, the gun nuts and police-state conspiracy black helicopter big guvmint types on the John Birch reactionary right, and to get them all pointed in the same direction. Easy to raise money. Easy to transmit the same message of who is now the evil foreigners bent on destroying our 'freedoms,' and oh, so easy always to paint the opposition as soft on......(first communism) now terrorism. A new industry, patriotism reinvigorated with a new generation unfamiliar with the travails of the cold war, and with a little prodding from a by-then completely coalesced fascist controlled media outlet complex in print, radio, television, film, education, etc. to promote this new program. War is a racket and always has been.

Most people here know this all to be essentially the way it went down. How Iraq differs is that we now have the all-volunteer army, complimented by equal numbers of mercenaries. Couple that fact with transfer tubes, cover bans, more politicians in the pocket of the energy and defense industries, and the constant need for state secrets and you have our present environment. Eternal war. Entire black operations budgets are used for the intelligence necessary, completely unknown to those that pay for it all, the US taxpayer. In the VN era history shows us the anti-war movement started with the students and remnants of the old ban-the-bomb activist elements from the '50s. It gathered steam as the civil rights activists joined the opposition. The media still had some journalistic integrity, and given the freedom to report that war directly to the homes in America, the true nature of the conflict could not be kept under wraps or constantly couched in propagandistic terms. Eventually all strata of our society opposed it, putting pressure on the war machine to halt its wasteful adventures in SE Asia.

More history to chew on:

Again from: http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/antiwar.html

"…The antiwar movement reached its zenith under President Richard M. Nixon. In October 1969, more than 2 million people participated in Vietnam Moratorium protests across the country. The following month, over 500,000 demonstrated in Washington and 150,000 in San Francisco...

In the spring of 1970, President Nixon's invasion of Cambodia and the Kent State shootings (followed by those at Jackson State) sparked the greatest display of campus protest in U.S. history. A national student strike completely shut down over 500 colleges and universities. Other Americans protested in cities across the country; many lobbied White House officials and members of Congress. Over 100,000 demonstrated in Washington, despite only a week's prior notice…

Despite worsening internal divisions and a flagging movement, 500,000 people demonstrated against the war in Washington in April 1971. Vietnam Veterans Against the War also staged protests, and other demonstrators engaged in mass civil disobedience, prompting 12,000 arrests. The former Pentagon aide Daniel Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. Meanwhile, the morale and discipline of U.S. soldiers in Vietnam was deteriorating seriously: drug abuse was rampant, combat refusals and racial strife were mounting, and some soldiers were even murdering their own officers.

With U.S. troops coming home, the antiwar movement gradually declined between 1971 and 1975. The many remaining activists protested continued U.S. bombing, the plight of South Vietnamese political prisoners, and U.S. funding of the war. The American movement against the Vietnam War was the most successful antiwar movement in U.S. history…"

from The Oxford Companion to American Military History. Copyright © 1999 by Oxford UP.


More centavos

robdogbucky