Anti War Movement Vietnam Essay

Anti contend Movement Vietnam EssayIt is gener ever soy last(predicate)y acknowledged that the anti fightfare forepart in the easy 1960s and early 1970s shortened the Vietnam War how that is interpreted whitethorn depend on whether the person doing the interpretation games or does non support the fight itself. Thus, some see the antiwar effort as having pr occurrenceed the States from winning, patch others see the antiwar effort as pr instanceing the States from continuing a uneconomic and unwinnable war. The primary role of the antiwar movement was not ace that caused change in and of itself exactly that unploughed the issue before the public. The public might shoot accepted the official version of events far longer if that version were not being questioned constantly by antiwar activists. When certain events occurred that suggested that the antiwar protesters were at least part right, the public paid attention. Although at that place was ever growing dissend from cit izens in America, did their actions very help end the war in Vietnam?The Vietnam situation was one that developed and escalated so slowly in the mind of the American heap that it was not until the war had grown to massive plate that the majority of American batch could actually sit down and ask to themselves what they were leave outed into. American conflict in the war had been going on since 1954 when the French were forced to pull out after the battle of Dien Bien Phu.1There had al dashs been great deal against the war, but it was not until more than a ecstasy later that full scale protest groups emerged.Although Kennedy believed that military involvement in South Vietnam would never happen upon their intended goal, the Kennedy administration essentially followed the course that would be continued by subsequent administrations- to maintain a military presence because to do differently would guide America appear weak, and to fight against communist aggression base on the domino theory that if one country fell, more would follow.2 antiauthoritarian as well as Republican presidents continued the war because of the vox populi that it showed American weakness to withdraw. In addition, there is clearly some persuasion that once committed, America could not withdraw without achieving victory. chairman Lyndon Johnson let this caution of negative public opinion influence his policy in the war Haunted by fears of personal inadequacy, profoundly shaped by ethnic norms of courage, honor, and manliness, and determined never to allow the right wing to use his policies in Vietnam as an excuse for a new McCarthy era, Johnson approached the horrible dilemma of Vietnam already wrapped in a straitjacket3The war went largely unexamined by the public until the Johnson administration. The war seemed to conduct no end in hole and the American public was finally starting to realize this. The Gulf of Tonkin firmness publicized doubts about the war and raised quest ions about the policy. Opposition to the war increased as the war escalated thereafter, and certainly the more troops that were sent into Vietnam in the late 1960s, the more opposition solidified. Images of the war on tv set created uncertainty in the U.S. and contributed to the development of the counter-culture. Some have claimed since that time that the variance at home is what lost the war, but it is not at all certain that the opposition at home had that much to do with the loss. It whitethorn have deepened the resolve of the communists, but nothing the U.S. had done prior to the number 1 of opposition at home had been effective, raising the question of why it would have been any more effective in the late 1960s.Several events changed the way the public aphorism the war, and one was the My Lai Massacre. The My Lai Massacre occurred on March 16, 1968, and saw almost 500 unarmed civilians, the majority of which were women and children, murdered by the U.S. Army.4To make thing s worse, some bodies were found to be sexually abused and mutilated. It wasnt until a grade later that the American public found out about the murders which sparked a storm of controversy passim the United States. Another event which glowering public opinion against the war was the self immolation of a Buddhist monk in October 1963 in an act of protest under South Vietnams President Ngo Dinh Diems corrupt regime.5While the antiwar movement had no single iconic temperer to act as a face of the movement, many people from all walks of life participated. Martin Luther King declared his opposition to the war in 1967 in a speech where he outlined seven major reasons he was against the war. He felt that the war was diverting resources away from issues that actually needed attention and was doing far more than devastating the hopes of the poor at home. It was s closure their sons and their brothers and their husbands to fight and die in extraordinarily high proportions relation back to the rest of the population.6Another famous figure who opposed the war was Muhammed Ali, who was unornamented of his heavyweight title for refusing to serve in the military. Even those people unlikely to be a part of a protest movement were gnarly such as doctors, lawyers, housewives, and religious leaders. Anyone who knew someone who was likely to be drafted in the war was a candidate for the antiwar movement.The most active participants in the antiwar movement may very well have been students. Students from around the nation participated in protests during the Vietnam War. Many colleges had formed chapters of Students for a Democratic society, an activist organization which potently opposed the war. SDS expressed that the war is immoral at its root, that it is fought alongside a regime with no claim to represent its people, and that it is foreclosing the hope of making America a decent and truly democratic society.7A monumental event that elevated concern about the war occurre d on May 4, 1970 at Kent State University in Ohio. field of study Guard troops were called in to crush a protest led by Kent State students to oppose the ever escalating war by President Nixon. The event ended in misadventure as four students were killed and nine were hurt, one of which suffered permanent paralysis from the attack.8Those injured in the attack were not only protesters but also complimentary bystanders who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. For some, the event was proof not only that the American social and political systems were weakness but that they knew it and were willing to kill young people to protect the spatial relation quo. The incident was a direct response to President Richard Nixons speech make on television on April 30, 1970 which announced what he called an incursion into Cambodia by U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam. This was perceived as a turnout of the war and generated protests on campuses at colleges and universities across th e country. Students at Kent State University in Ohio took part in a series of actions over the weekend following that Thursday night speech, and among the actions taken were the breaking of windows in the business rule and the burning of the Army ROTC building on the campus. The governor ordered the Ohio National Guard to the campus as a police action on Monday, and it was this which would lead to the shooting by National Guardsmen of several students.9Student uprisings in the two years before 1970 saw an increase in confrontations. In 1969 there were two large-scale, national ostensoriums against the war, and there were also moratoriums on many campuses throughout the country. In Kent, 4,000 people marched through the downtown area. In Washington, D.C., a demonstration attracted some 500,000 people.10The Kent State killings could be seen as the culmination of a decade of campus protest, and the response of the government demonstrated how little it understood the depth of legal o pinion against the war and other issues that existed at that time. It also showed how paranoid the leadership could be when confronted with any opposition.With events like the My Lai and Kent State massacres burned into peoples minds, the idea of a war with no purpose to the common person made slight and less sense as time went on. Although antiwar activists cannot receive all the credit for the ending of the war in April of 1975 as the North Vietnamese sacrificed everything for their cause, the antiwar movement kept the issue alive and raised public consciousness in the horse opera world. While governments may routinely act against the wishes of its people, there will eternally come a point in time when enough people dare to oppose the government to bring about real change. This happened in the 1960s and the 1970s due to the efforts of Americans who had enough sense to admit America was wrong in its actions in Vietnam and enough courage to stand up and oppose it.Schulzinger, Rob ert D. A Time For War The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975. New York Oxford University Press, 1997.Robert D. Schulzinger, A Time For War The United States and Vietnam, 1941-1975 (New York Oxford University Press, 1997) 399McMahon, Robert. Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War. capital of Massachusetts Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008.Robert McMahon. Major Problems in the History of the Vietnam War (Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008) 399Gosse, cutting edge. Rethinking The New Left. New York Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.Van Gosse. Rethinking The New Left (New York Palgrave Macmillan, 2005) 399