Peace Activism More Useful Than Banging Head Against Wall, Historian Finds

A historian of the antinuke movement, Lawrence Wittner, writing at the History News Network site, thinks that peace activism is not inherently futile. While it is true that it might be more common to see wars end peace movements than vice versa, at times those crazy peaceniks can have real effect. Wittner posits, in a piece that is certainly amenable to argument, that the outcome of the Mexican-American War, the Vietnam War, potential 1980s interventions in Nicaragua, and the Cold War itself were all strongly influenced by popular antiwar sentiment.

Wittner doesn't apply his thinking to the current war. But since USA Today reported back in November that public attitudes toward Iraq have matched those regarding Vietnam in summer 1970, with 19 percent polled wanting immediate withdrawal from Iraq and 33 wanting withdrawal within a year, this does provide some hope that popular disenchantment will lead the GOP to realize it is well past time to declare victory and come home.

Comments

[Kwix]

lead the GOP to realize it is well past time to declare victory...

"Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." -- GW Bush May 2, 2003

[John]

Yes the peace activists in the 1960s and 70s had wonderful effects, just ask any Cambodian or Vietnamese abadoned to the communists.

[Native NYer]

I have to say that Ethan's comments in a different thread are making me reasses my "bring them home" attitude.

Maybe it would be better to have them over there instead of Bush having a couple of hundred thousand combat vets stationed here in the uS?

[Dave Potts]

Yeah, those damned communists with their damned system that couldn't possibly collapse from the strain of internal pressures. They really needed us to go in and waste thousands of young people's lives.

[fyodor]

Those who know history are doomed to argue about it.

[Captain Holly]

Wittner doesn't apply his thinking to the current war. But since USA Today reported back in November that public attitudes toward Iraq have matched those regarding Vietnam in summer 1970, with 19 percent polled wanting immediate withdrawal from Iraq and 33 wanting withdrawal within a year, this does provide some hope that popular disenchantment will lead the GOP to realize it is well past time to declare victory and come home.

I don't put much stock in opinion polls, as I believe that most pollsters today base their conclusions on outdated demographic and political assumptions. For a quick example, witness the failure of virtually every major political pollster to correctly predict George Bush's margin of victory in 2004.

The only poll that really matters is on election day. And in reference to the wishful thinking expressed above I will point out that the openly pacifist candidate in the 1972 Presidential election, George McGovern, was soundly thrashed by that warmonger Nixon, who then promptly ordered a massive bombing campaign to force the North Vietnamese to return to peace negotiations.

People may tell pollsters what they'd like to see happen, but when they're in the voting booth they tell the politicians what they think should happen.

[Number 6]

If we hadn't gone to Vietnam, the South Vietamese clusterfuck of a government would have collapsed and the communists would have won. So, we threw over 50,000 lives into the breech. And the communists won. Of course, had those pesky peacniks not opened their yaps, we coulda beaten them commies! It was just a matter of more troops and willpower, you see.

[John]

Number 6, if you read the history of SE Asia between 1973 and 1975, you would understand a few things. The South Vietnamese did win. As CPT Holly notes above, Nixon bombed the North into a peace accord whereby the North agreed to get out of the South. They did do that and did not return until Feburary of 1975 after Ford said the U.S. would never return to Vietnam under any circumstances and the Watergate Congress cut off all military aid to South Vietnam leaving them defenseless against the North who were still recieving billions in aid from China and the USSR. All the U.S. had to do was keep funding the South and promise to return if the North ever invaded and the North would not have won. Instead, we abandoned them.

[John]

And one other thing, at the time the peace movement cheered both the Khmer Rouge and the North Vietnamese communists. They were just goovey people from the jungle after all.

[Lowdog]

John - ok, that makes sense. But why did we go over there in the first place? Seriously. We abandoned them only after we shouldn't have gone in the first place. Even the french knew enough to get out of there. Then the UN forces us to go back in...for what?

[John]

I think it goes back to the fact that we should have never gotten caught up with the French in the first place. Ho Chi Min was just a nationalist jerk not necessarily a communist. Further, the Vietnamese hate the Chinese and were pretty unlikely to ever be much of a an ally to China. I agree we should have delt with Ho and helped kick the French out and never gone there in the first place.

[Phil]

. . . at the time the peace movement cheered both the Khmer Rouge . . .

So did Reagan.

[confused lurker]

"They were just goovey people from the jungle after all."

I don't understand what this means. What are goovey people?

[rafuzo]

So, we threw over 50,000 lives into the breech. And the communists won. Of course, had those pesky peacniks not opened their yaps, we coulda beaten them commies! It was just a matter of more troops and willpower, you see.

An estimated 1-2 million north vietnamese died in the conflict, too. They certainly had us on the manpower and willpower points. But hey, they and their Sino/Soviet backers were fighting a guerilla war for freedom, and not the opportunity to bury merchants and village elders in mass graves.

[Douglas Fletcher]

What are goovey people?

The ones who know where to get the really good drugs.

[Abdul]

If the Iraqis start a peace movement, then maybe we'll be getting somewhere.

[Number 6]

But hey, they and their Sino/Soviet backers were fighting a guerilla war for freedom, and not the opportunity to bury merchants and village elders in mass graves.

Show me where I voiced any support for the communists. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Back now? Good. Perhaps now you'll want to take a moment to re-evaluate the idea that opposition to the Vietnam War equates to support of communism.

John-If your analysis is correct, perhaps you'd care to explain why Americans were still dying in the latter years of the conflict.

[R C Dean]

They really needed us to go in and waste thousands of young people's lives.

I mean, really, when it comes to wasting people, we are total amateurs compared to the Communists in SE Asia.

[John]

Number 6,

The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety 29 March 1973. There were advisors but no more mainline American troops We fought to an agreed stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January 1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S. forces, limitation of both sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a commitment to peaceful reunification. [1996 Information Please Almanac]

The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975 during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and Vietnamese military, NOT American military running for their lives. [1996 Information Please Almanac]

There were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia) the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 then there were during the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. [1996 Information Please Almanac]

[Ken Shultz]

If the Iraqis start a peace movement, then maybe we'll be getting somewhere.

The Ken Shultz Award for Best Comment of the Day goes to Abdul.

[fyodor]

John, your coulda shoulda woulda is just that. Since you may know more of the details than I do, tell me, why DID we remove all American military in 1973? I presume that was either part of the "peace accord" negotiated with the North Vietnamese or becuase doing anything else was too politically unpopular. If the former, that totally undermines your claims that we had in effect won until we retreated, because if Nixon had been negotiating from a position of strength, the provision of our withdrawal would not have been included. In other words, the North Vietnamese got what they wanted since they figured that once out we wouldn't go back in. If it's the latter, well you have a point, but only up to a point, cause once again, should woulda coulda. It's easy to say other people should be sacrificing their lives and limbs. More than easy: glib. And that's the situation now. The volunteer nature of our current military mitigates that a little bit, but only a litttle bit.

[James]

I think there are about two million dead Vietnamese who wish we had "abandoned them to communism" just a little bit sooner.

At the end of the day, the South was given as much or, in fact, far more aid than the North. The logic that the aid stopped in 1973 is absurd. In fact, aid was massively increased as a sweetener for Thieu. The South didn't run out of ammo. That's just not what happened.

Should we have stayed longer? Both sides had conscription. The North did not need Chinese or Russian troops in the field. Why couldn't the South field an army as powerful as that of the North? Why did American attempts to spark rebellion in the North fizzle disastrously? The South wasn't "abandoned to communism," but rather it simply wandered off in that direction.

This is the scary resemblence to Iraq: aside from the Kurds, who are largely fighting for their own independence, nobody is really coming out to fight for the new government. They put the uniforms on that we supply and they take our money and they go through the motions, but there's lots of people like that, in every country. But when Israel left Lebanon, the SLA collapsed. When the US left Vietnam, the ARVN collapsed. In the end, what loyalty they had was to the US. You can feel guilty that we abandoned them, but the fact that our presence mattered so much only gives credence to the Communist claim that South Vietnam was a colony of the US.

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[Mr. Ed]

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[Mr. Ed]

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[Dave W.]

Military budget cutting activism would do a lot more for peace than peace activism.

[M. Simon]

Great idea.

If it turns out no worse than Vietnam it will be fine.

Re-ed camps. 100,000 murdered 500,000 fleeing for their lives.

I suppose we will need a special imigration quota for Iraqis. To aussage the guilt.

But, heck yeah. Sounds like a swell idea. Maybe the new guys can succede where Saddam failed. Saddam only trained 8,000 guys in aircraft hijacking and other useful skills. Maybe the new guys could set up more and better schools. Heaven know the world needs more educated people.

Heck. No worse than Rawanda works for me.

[M. Simon]

#6,

Of course opposition to the Vietnam War was not support for communism. It just looks that way to folks insufficiently nuanced.

BTW when I was in the Peace camp of that era I was a Communist (folly of youth). It sure looked like a Communist victory to me.

[M. Simon]

Dave W. is so correct. A smaller military will bring peace.

If China had a smaller military, the Japanese would not have had a war with them in the 30s.

We can have peace IN America if we just disarmed all the people and eliminated the police. We ought to set the example. Show folks how it is done. The Brits are doing it and it appears to be working. Why can't we?

The UN has the right idea. Disarm the people and after that go after the armed forces of a country.

We will soon have peace for our time.