How influential was the Anti-War movement in ending the Vietnam war?

[28350]

From what I understand, there was a very large anti-war movement (particularly in the US) against the Vietnam war. However, the Vietnam war went on for quite some time. It's hard for me to think of ways in which the anti-war movement could have hampered the war effort in any way other than influencing public opinion (if they did).

So, how much credit do they deserve for ending the Vietnam war?

[Bonobo1917]

It influenced public opinion - and among the public were some of the people who joined the army and were getting doubtful and critical of the war. Antiwar activism contributed to resistance among US soldiers, who were rebelling on quite a big scale in the beginning of the 'seventies. Disaffection within the army contributed to the US defeat, and to the decision of the US government to withdraw after a face-saving deal.

[Kléber]

Quite a few soldiers resisted the war, refused to fight, detained or shot their own officers, sailors mutinied, bombs "missed" their targets; US troops were withdrawn after a report said that morale conditions were worse than the Tsar's army in WWI.

Sir! No Sir! - The GI Revolt (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4045645915938136883#)

Soldiers in Revolt: GI Resistance During the Vietnam War (http://books.google.com/books?id=kueCJAad6egC&printsec=frontcover&dq=soldiers+in+revolt&hl=en&ei=VOLyS7m3GoOQtgOyuYGBDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false)

[howblackisyourflag]

I think when the cost was considered to expensive by big business then they really started to consider withdrawl, that and soldiers refusing to fight,which is a good reason to support a draft even if you're anti-war, because you get an army full of people who represent the mainstream view, rather than just wannabe killers and poor people with no choice.

I do know that there was no protest over vietnam until 5 or 6 years after it started, whereas with Iraq there was protest before it was even invaded, so I think the 60s must have had a really radicalising affect on America, even if it has a long way to go.

[gorillafuck]

It is the Vietnamese who deserve all the credit for defeating the imperialists.
The Vietnamese resistance was the main reason but resistance in the US forces definitely deserves acknowledgment.

[28350]

I think the resistance in the US had mainly to do with supporting the Vietnamese fighters.

I disagree. I would say most of the anti-war resistance was not supportive of the Vietnamese, they just didn't want to have a war.

[RED DAVE]

I do know that there was no protest over vietnam until 5 or 6 years after it startedConsidering that the first time I saw banners at an antiwar demonstration concerning the removal of US forces from "Indochina" was in 1963, you are dead wrong.


whereas with Iraq there was protest before it was even invaded, so I think the 60s must have had a really radicalising affect on America, even if it has a long way to go.Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory in 1964 came from his promise to withdraw US troops from Vietnam, which he subsequently refused to do. The ensuing escalation of the war starting in 1964 was a primary cause of the radicalization of the Sixties.

RED DAVE

[howblackisyourflag]

Considering that the first time I saw banners at an antiwar demonstration concerning the removal of US forces for "Indochina" was in 1963, you are dead wrong.

RED DAVENoam Chomsky lied to me!

Maybehe was talking about larger scale movements...

[Raúl Duke]

Noam Chomsky lied to me!On a side note, he suggested people to engage in lesser evilism voting in the past 2 elections when he's old enough to remember that even candidates that present themselves as the "dove" candidates, like Lyndon Johnson, aren't always what they say they are.

The interesting stuff are the GI's revolting.This stuff is seldom mentioned today in mainstream views of the Vietnam war.

[howblackisyourflag]

On a side note, he suggested people to engage in lesser evilism voting in the past 2 elections when he's old enough to remember that even candidates that present themselves as the "dove" candidates, like Lyndon Johnson, aren't always what they say they are.

The interesting stuff are the GI's revolting.This stuff is seldom mentioned today in mainstream views of the Vietnam war.

Yes, I read somewhere that something like 1 in 25 commanding officers were killed by there own troops.

[kasama-rl]

Kennedy sent advisers to Laos and southern Vietnam -- that is why early demostrations said "Indochina" (not Vietnam), and similarly once the U.S. invaded Kampuchea (in 1970s) the demands of democstrations started talking about Indochina, not just vietnam.

However, as several people pointed out, the intensity of the antiwar movement was tied to the size of the U.S. involvement. In april 1965 the U.S. ground troops started landing in large numbers (building up into the hundreds of thousands), and the antiwar movement grew from small vigils and picket lines -- to a large and complex movement involving draft resistance, GI resistance, large mass mobilizations, college occupations, and local actions of many kinds.

It would be wrong to equate the antiwar movement simply with the large mobilizations (though their size, which reached close to a million at one point IS an indication of the strength.) The student strike after the Cambodia invasions shut down American colleges -- and represented ways that parts of the society were threatening to become ungovernable because of antiwar resistance.

Also, it is very important to see the resistance of U.S. soldiers as a powerful and rather unprecedented part of the antiwar resistance -- there were mutinies, desertion in large numbers, fragging of unpopular officers, some ceasefires negotiated illegally by rank-and-file GIs, and by 1970 increasingly a literal disintegration of the fighting capability of quite a few units (both in the war zone itself, but also in places like Germany etc.)

The ruling class lost public opinion, they were losing control of parts of society (like campuses and black ghettos), they were (as individuals) unable to speak or travel without massive protest, they were in a situation where their every escalation of the war was meeting massive responses, and (finally) their armed forces were in an unprecedented state of upheaval and mutiny.

As several people have mentioned: the reason the U.S. lost in Indochina is clearly and basically the tremendous resistance of the Vietnamese (and other Indochinese) people. It was protracted, heroic and incredibly self-sacrificing.

but while honoring that powerful struggle, it is also important to note (as everyone including the Vietnamese did at the time) that the antiwar resistance in the U.S. itself (and also worldwide) was an incredibly positive and impactful event. And it was unprecedented.

For many participants it was frustrating: they protested for years, and became aware how undemocratic the U.S. was, and how much the ruling class made decisions based on THEIR interests (and not the will or desire of the people). People often complained "we have been protesting for four years and the war continues." But in fact, in the end, the world largest superpower was defeated (literally driven out !) by a small, impoverished people -- and in that process the internationalist support of millionsof people worldwide (includingin the U.S.) played a potent supporting role.

Also, it is true that the main demand of the antiwar movement in the U.S. was "Out Now!" and that millions of people were against this war as a basis of unity. But it is also true that growing numbers (first in the tens of thousands, then in the hundreds of thousands, made a leap to far more radical and defeatist logic of supporting "the other side" -- seeing the Vietnamese liberation forces as someone fighting a just cause.) And in more and more antiwar actions (and campus protests) the NLF flag was flying high (even though it was always controversial, especially because the forces organizing many of the antiwar actions were much more conservative and much less internationalist than that. sometimes they tried to ban NLF flags etc. But they increasingly failed, and that mood and consciousness spread.)

[kasama-rl]

Several people have expressed interest in the GI rebellions... here is a brief accounting:

From "When John Wayne Went Out of Focus"
Revolt in the War Machine

Going into the Vietnam War it was taken for granted that America's youth would eagerly answer the call to war, just as their fathers had in World War 2. But rather quickly the U.S. military machine found itself severely hobbled from within: mutinies broke out in jungle gorges and on board the U.S.'s fighting fortresses; officers were killed by their own troops; hundreds of thousands of soldiers deserted the ranks before their tours were up; antiwar protests, organizations, and newspapers tormented the brass on every major U.S. military installation in the world.
When the first U.S. ground troops were sent into battle in March 1965, with the massive firepower and support capacity of the U.S. behind them, they were told that they were in Vietnam to crush a force which was politically isolated among the local populace. But from the first the U.S. troops found themselves pitted against a determined, if outgunned, armed revolution which enjoyed massive popular support. Eight years, some $120 billion and 3,000,000 troops later, the country which sent these soldiers to war had lost the war.
The Magnitude of the Contagion

In 1971, the Armed Forces Journal published a shocking (and now famous) article on "The Collapse of the Armed Forces":
"The morale, discipline and battleworthiness of the U.S. Armed Forces are, with a few salient exceptions, lower and worse than at any time in this century and possibly in the history of the United States. By every conceivable indicator, our army that now remains in Vietnam is in a state approaching collapse, with individual units avoiding or having refused combat, murdering their officers and non-commissioned officers, drug-ridden and dispirited where not near-mutinous. Elsewhere than Vietnam, the situation is nearly as serious."
By 1969 a majority of the U.S. troops had turned against the war for many different reasons; the demoralization and questioning among the troops was profound. Not only did most of the ground troops in Vietnam hold at least grudging respect for the enemy, being especially awed by its staying power and popular support, but by 1970 soldiers could easily be found who openly sympathized with the Vietnamese liberation struggle--that is, with "the enemy"--especially among Black and other oppressed nationality soldiers.
Desertions and AWOLs. In 1971, seventeen of every 100 soldiers went AWOL and seven of every 100 soldiers deserted (went AWOL for more than 30 days). This translates as 98,058 deserters in the Army in 1971, 67% of whom came from the lowest ranks.
Combat Refusals. According to one writer, "The latter stages of the Vietnam War produced no fewer than ten major incidents of mutiny." According to another writer, "By 1975, there were 35 separate combat refusals in the Air Cavalry Division alone." And for each of these major refusals there were dozens of minor ones or situations in which combat orders were effectively thwarted.
Simply refusing to fight became the main way the troops in Vietnam opposed the war. It generally took the form of "advancing only so far" (rather than refusing to advance at all), or refusing to "engage" the enemy ("search and destroy" missions were dubbed "search and avoid").
In the fall 1971, 1,200 of 4,500 sailors on the attack carrier Coral Sea signed a petition opposing a return to Vietnam. A thousand antiwar protesters gathered to support them. Three junior officers resigned and condemned the war and 35 sailors deserted the ship.
A year later Black sailors revolted on the carrier Kitty Hawk demanding an end to racism on the ship and a withdrawal of the carrier from the war.
A month later 150 Black, Chicano, and some white sailors seized parts of the carrier Constellation for 24 hours, forcing the ship to return to San Diego.
Fragging. Col. Heinl wrote in his Armed Forces Journal article: "Word of the deaths of officers will bring cheers at troop movies or in bivouacs of certain units." Officially there were 239 fragging attempts in 1969, 386 in 1970, 333 in 1971 and 58 in 1972. Only killing by hand grenades counted in these statistics. Attempts to kill officers using rifles, automatics, claymore mines, "misdirection of hostile ambush" (i.e., shooting your officer in the back while in combat), and so on, did not count as fragging. So the real number of attacks on officers was much higher. Many officers received "friendly warnings" like a grenade pin on their bunks.
One veteran recalled: "Nobody fucked with nobody in the field. An officer knows if he messed with you in the field, in a fire fight you could shoot him in the head. This was standard procedure in any infantry unit . Anybody tells you differently, he's shitting you."
Each incidence of fragging had a multiplier effect. One Army judge warned that "once an officer is intimidated by even the threat of fragging, he is useless to the military because he can no longer carry out orders."
[B]Fraternization with the Enemy. Jack Anderson reported in a 1980 column:
"According to military sources... as many as 500 American GIs actively assisted the enemy in Vietnam. About 30 prisoners of war went over to the enemy and played active anti-American roles in the POW camps. And as many as six Americans are believed to have taken up arms against U.S. troops in Vietnam. At least two of these--both Marine privates--are known to have joined in combat with the Viet Cong against American forces."
The most celebrated case of a soldier deserting and then fighting with the liberation forces against the U.S. was the case of Robert Garwood, a Marine Corps private who defected to the NLF in 1965, actively collaborating with the liberation forces throughout the war. Numerous GIs during the war reported sighting a "salt and pepper" combo, a white and a Black GI who seemed to be fighting the U.S. troops all over South Vietnam.
There were other much more widespread forms of fraternization between GIs and Vietnamese liberation forces, like local "truces" between GIs and local NLF or NVA fighters. Many GIs have described such experiences. In 1971, NVA and NLF troops received orders not to fire at troops wearing the symbol of a rifle turned upside down, or carrying their rifles in the down position while on patrol. A favorite saying among Black troops in Vietnam became, "No VC ever called me nigger."

*****
By the late 1960s the disintegration of the U.S. military became so severe that the U.S. imperialists were forced to regard the very reliability of their troops as a major factor in the war's overall prosecution. A small and increasingly influential number of soldiers were refusing orders in one way or another, while the majority of the troops were obeying orders often only with great reluctance or in name only. The minority of GIs who were still gung-ho were usually looked upon by the others as, at best, suicidal and at worst "traitors" within the enlisted ranks. And a significant section of the Armed Forces was consciously and often actively antiwar and linked--spiritually if not always organizationally--with the Black liberation and antiwar movements in the U.S.
The indispensable underlying cause of the disintegration of the U.S. armed forces in Vietnam was the persistent battering they were receiving at the hands of the Vietnamese liberation forces--the result of a people's war. The U.S. military was continually frustrated in its efforts to "pacify" and control South Vietnam and wipe out the Vietnamese liberation forces. This battering created a profound crisis in the U.S. military, a crisis of widespread demoralization, with troops questioning and rebelling against everything from barracks discipline, to what they were doing in Vietnam, to what kind of society had sent them to fight and die in Vietnam.




This article is excepted from a longer piece by Nick Jackson titled "When John Wayne Went Out of Focus: GI Rebellion and Military Disintegration in Vietnam." The article appeared in Revolution magazine in Spring 1988 .

[howblackisyourflag]

Great post. I think it shows why leftists should be anti-war but pro-draft. If people are drafted they are a lot less likely to support the war they are fighting.

[Ocean Seal]

The Vietnamese who fought the imperialists deserve the lion's share of the credit. Even after 1,000,000 + casualties they kept fighting for their freedom.

[RED DAVE]

Great post. I think it shows why leftists should be anti-war but pro-draft. If people are drafted they are a lot less likely to support the war they are fighting.Hate to tell you this, Comrade, but the Left was always been opposed to the draft. Our opposition to the draft was a key position during the Vietnam War protests.

It is true that without the draft, middle-class support for the anti-Vietnam movement dropped off, but that was no reason to support this imperialist tool.

RED DAVE

[howblackisyourflag]

Hate to tell you this, Comrade, but the Left was always been opposed to the draft. Our opposition to the draft was a key position during the Vietnam War protests.

It is true that without the draft, middle-class support for the anti-Vietnam movement dropped off, but that was no reason to support this imperialist tool.

RED DAVE

I would disagree on that point, I would support people who avoided the draft for being against the vietnam war, but I think the fariest way to have an army if a society requies one is through a draft, since it doesnt discriminate base on wealth or class like would happen if people joined the army because they were poor or mercenary.

[LeninBalls]

Great post. I think it shows why leftists should be anti-war but pro-draft. If people are drafted they are a lot less likely to support the war they are fighting.

Why would support the government forcing lads to fight imperialist wars? That's a pretty odd stance to take for a leftist.

You don't build an anti-war movement on the dead bodies of conscripts, you build it on facts and figures and the reality and of the war. There was no conscription at the time of the invasion of Iraq, yet over the years there's still been a noticeable anti-war movement.

I suppose you think mass conscription that the belligerents of WWI imposed was something leftists should've supported at the time?

[howblackisyourflag]

Why would support the government forcing lads to fight imperialist wars? That's a pretty odd stance to take for a leftist.

You don't build an anti-war movement on the dead bodies of conscripts, you build it on facts and figures and the reality and of the war. There was no conscription at the time of the invasion of Iraq, yet over the years there's still been a noticeable anti-war movement.

I suppose you think mass conscription that the belligerents of WWI imposed was something leftists should've supported at the time?

You completely miss my point, see my previous post, I think people should support those who dont want to go to war, i.e people who burn their draft card or whatever.

Im completely against imperialist wars too, so that means Im against anyone being conscripted to fight an illegal war, the point is just that a war with a draft is more likely to work out badly for the government and army, because drafted people are a lot less likely to support it than people who would willingly join an illegal war.

Noam Chomsky on the military draft:




I was very much involved in the resistance movement in the 1960's. In fact, I was just barely -- the only reason I missed a long jail sentence is because the Tet Offensive came along and the trials were called off. So I was very much involved in the resistance, but I was never against the draft. I disagreed with a lot of my friends and associates on that, for a very good reason, I think at least, as nobody seems to agree. In my view, if there's going to be an army, I think it ought to be a citizens' army. Now, here I do agree with some people, the top brass, they don't want a citizens' army. They want a mercenary army, what we call a volunteer army. A mercenary army of the disadvantaged. And in fact, in the Vietnam War, the U.S. military realized, they had made a very bad mistake. I mean, for the first time I think ever in the history of European imperialism, including us, they had used a citizens' army to fight a vicious, brutal, colonial war, and civilians just cannot do that kind of a thing. For that, you need the French Foreign Legion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Foreign_Legion), the Gurkhas (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha) or something like that. Every predecessor has used mercenaries, often drawn from the country that they're attacking, like England ran India with Indian mercenaries. You take them from one place and send them to kill people in the other place. That's the standard way to run imperial wars. They're just too brutal and violent and murderous. Civilians are not going to be able to do it for very long. What happened was, the army started falling apart. One of the reasons that the army was withdrawn was because the top military wanted it out of there. They were afraid they were not going to have an army anymore. Soldiers were fragging (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frag_%28military%29) officers. The whole thing was falling apart. They were on drugs. And that’s why I think that they're not going to have a draft. That's why I’m in favor of it. If there's going to be an army that will fight brutal, colonial wars... it ought to be a citizens' army so that the attitudes of the society are reflected in the military.




My feeling then, and now, is that IF there is to be an army, then the burden of service should be shared, not assigned to the disadvantaged by one or another means, as in the case of all onerous tasks. That does not imply that those called upon to share the burden should necessarily agree. There are always cases where refusal is justified, and refusal to serve in Vietnam was, in my opinion, one such case. Same always. Garbage collection should be shared, not assigned to the disadvantaged, but if someone is ordered to dump toxic wastes in a schoolyard, he or she should refuse.

[Raúl Duke]

Noam Chomsky onAll because Noam Chomsky say so doesn't make it true.

He supported "lesser evil vote" Kerry when in reality he was just as hawkish as Bush talking about increasing the amount of troops. Something that Obama has also done in Afghanistan.


Im completely against imperialist wars too, so that means Im against anyone being conscripted to fight an illegal war, the point is just that a war with a draft is more likely to work out badly for the government and army, because drafted people are a lot less likely to support it than people who would willingly join an illegal war.
I don't disagree per se that the draft will end up likelier to create social upheaval in certain cases.

The U.S. also knows this thus why they're not going to call a draft.

They will only do so in a moment where they foresee (although that only goes so far, American exceptionalism/hubris seems to cloud their judgment) it would benefit them but they won't do so lightly.


My feeling then, and now, is that IF there is to be an army, then the burden of service should be shared, not assigned to the disadvantaged by one or another means, as in the case of all onerous tasks. That does not imply that those called upon to share the burden should necessarily agree. There are always cases where refusal is justified, and refusal to serve in Vietnam was, in my opinion, one such case. Same always. Garbage collection should be shared, not assigned to the disadvantaged, but if someone is ordered to dump toxic wastes in a schoolyard, he or she should refuse.This stuff, particularly the talk about "disadvantage", makes no sense in a post-revolutionary society (where I'm expecting there to be mostly volunteer militias) and in reality whatever he thinks about how an army should be in this class society does not matter to those in control.

[ComradeOm]

It is the Vietnamese who deserve all the credit for defeating the imperialists.Which would be fair enough if Vietnamese formations had thrown the US Army into the sea. As it was the withdrawal of the US military from the country proved to be a key element in the VPA's eventual victory

The Vietnamese deserve full credit for fighting the USA to a standstill and presenting Washington with a war that it could not win without massively increasing its commitment. The anti-war movement (albeit as the tip of the iceberg) deserves credit for ensuring that the US government could not escalate its involvement without fatally undermining its credibility at home. Domestic considerations proved to be a major constraint on the prosecution of a foreign war as events in Vietnam directly challenged bourgeois hegemony in the US

That brings me nicely onto...

They want a mercenary army, what we call a volunteer army. A mercenary army of the disadvantaged. And in fact, in the Vietnam War, the U.S. military realized, they had made a very bad mistake. I mean, for the first time I think ever in the history of European imperialism, including us, they had used a citizens' army to fight a vicious, brutal, colonial war, and civilians just cannot do that kind of a thingHere Chomsky is unquestionably correct. The modern US Army is a far superior instrument for fighting imperialist wars. Both it and its governing 'Powell Doctrine' are direct legacies of the Vietnam War


* My feeling then, and now, is that IF there is to be an army, then the burden of service should be shared, not assigned to the disadvantaged by one or another means, as in the case of all onerous tasks.However this is simply wrong. Chomsky is recalling the glorious 'Citizens Armies' that were once so central in the revolutionary mythos in the 19th C but ignoring all subsequent history. To quote an old post of mine:

"The reality is that a 'citizen's army' is a bourgeois army and an instrument of bourgeois control. It may be less effective at stifling dissent than a professional force but that does still not make it revolutionary or progressive. In both models the officer corp will still be drawn from the middle classes and will still have the responsibility of indoctrinating the rank and file. In a worst case scenario, as seen in early 20th C Europe, the ideal of the 'citizen-soldier' can be perverted and reduced to 'soldier-citizen'

Of course there is always the irony of a self-professed anarchist endorsing conscription into a bourgeois army"