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Anti-War Movement During the Vietnam War
As the Vietnam war heavily covered by the media, the devastating
images were broadcasted across the globe. People were able to watch
the war from their armchair and many American people were disgraced by
the images of children dying and innocent people being shot dead in
villages. A perfect example of this, is the My Lai massacre which took
place in 1968. The images appalled people all over the world,
especially American people who felt ashamed of their country's
soldiers. 'Middle America' began to realise the harsh consequences of
the Vietnam War.
I believe that the media coverage sparked the protesting across
America, however there were individual groups who protested against
the war, they all had different beliefs about the war and had
different methods of protesting, but they all had one thing in common,
they wanted to stop the war in Vietnam. Hippies, blacks, students and
veterans were amongst these groups of protesters.
I will use the sources, with the aid of my own knowledge in order to
attempt to come up with an answer to why there was an anti-war
movement in the United States during the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Source A was taken from the book 'four hours from My Lai'. It was
written by Michael Bilton and published in 1992. The source allows me
to understand that the American soldiers lacked intelligence. "An
increasing number of recruits scored so low on intelligence tests that
they would never have been let into the peacetime army." This passage
suggests to me that the U.S army was inefficient, as with low
intelligence, the likelihood that a soldier would survive in th...
... middle of paper ...
...-war protest in America. The images were seen by all
different kinds of people throughout America and the images caused
huge protest amongst many groups and 'middle America'
From evaluating the sources, and using my own knowledge, I am able to
conclude that they do not give sufficient evidence to explain why
there was an anti-war movement in the United States during the late
1960s and early 1970s. The sources do not give enough information,
they do not show how particular groups react to events. For example
none of the sources mention how hippies reacted to the use of chemical
weapons, or how black people protested about being sent to Vietnam.
The sources do give some evidence to explain why there was protesting,
however, there is definitely not sufficient evidence to explain the
anti-war movement during this period.
In his article, “To Be Patriotic is to Build Socialsim”: Communist Ideology in Vietnam's Civil War, Tuong Vo challenges a standard view of the civil war between North and South Vietnam – the war is power struggle between the two camps. Based on a newly availble documents and other primary sources, Vu argues that “[V]ietnamese communists never wavered in their ideology loyalty during the period when key decisions about the civil war were made (1953–1960).....a modernizing socialist idology rather than a mere for national unification was driving the Vietnamese civil war from the north” (Vu 2009, 34–35).
The Vietnam War (1965-1975)was fought between the North and South Vietnam. The North was called Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the South was the Republic of Vietnam which was supported by the United States. On August 2nd, 1964 the USS Maddox was on a secret intelligent mission on the North Vietnamese coast where in the Gulf on Tonkin they were attacked by torpedo boats. The USS Turner Joy was attacked in the same area two days later. Due to the second attack Congress declared the Gulf of Tonkin resolution which led to air strikes.In 1959 there were 5,000 guerilla fighters and in 1964 the numbers jumped to 100,000. At Pleiku on March, 1965 U.S Marine barracks were attacked causing the three stage escalation bombing of North Vietnam to begin. The 3 year lasting bombing was used to force North Vietnam to stop supporting the "National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam" by destroying their industrial infrastructure and Vietnam's air defenses. Unfortunately this did not stop the North's support for the NLF. The U.S. Air Force bases were constantly being attacked so the U.S. on March 8, 1965 the 3,500 U.S. Marines was deployed to South Vietnam. At this point in time, the U.S. public supported the dispatch because the Vietnam War had been portrayed to the American people as a war against the spread of Communism. Johnson was president at the time and he kept adding more and more troops as the war went on. As the draft quotas increased, the American public protests started. When Nixon came into presidency his policy towards the Vietnam War was "peace with honor" in other words he wanted to widen the war. After more bombing and fighting, on January 27, 1973 the Paris Peace Accords was signed, restoring peace in Vietnam and U.S. forces pulled out. Nixon stopped all American attacks on Vietnam. The condensed summary of the Vietnam War is to see what presidents were involved in this war (Johnson, and Nixon) and what foreign policies were taken towards Vietnam mostly before the protests began.
The Vietnam War was the longest war in America's history of involvement. Twenty years of hell, land mines, cross-fire, and death. Vietnam was divided by the Geneva Accord. The north being communist run by Ho Chi Minh. The south being anti-Communist run by Ngo Dinh Diem. Before Vietnam was separated, it was run by France. France had ruled most of Indochina since the late 1800s. The Vietnamese were unhappy with the way the French were controlling, therefore, many of them took refuge in China. When in China, they began to follow the lead of Ho Chi Minh, who wanted to model the Vietnamese Declaration of Independence as that of the U.S. version. In the 1940s, Japan had taken over Vietnam which upset Ho Chi Minh and his revolutionaries when they had returned a year later.
Paul Potter, president of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), held his first anti-war rally that attracted 25,000 people. The movement occurred between 1960 and 1970. Paul Potter’s speech, “The Incredible War”, was established in hopes of ending the war by creating a social movement. The only way for people to end the war is by challenging the system, creating posters, and not by having a couple marches because that wasn’t going to benefit them. “This war was mainly fought mainly by Vietnamese Communists, who were strong in the north of Vietnam.” (Britannica) The goal of the movement was to end the Vietnam War because it was taking away the American’s freedom and destroying their peace in the world. The Americans and South Vietnam were mostly involved in the movement. The movement started because Vietnam wanted to become a communist government and until then, corruption occurred.
It has been known that the Vietnam War affected many American soldiers who were involved in the war physically and psychologically. The Vietnam War was one of the most memorable wars in history. Many Americans’ lives lost for no objective at all. Chapter 10 informed us about how the Vietnam War started and what really happened during that time. It also gave us background information about Vietnam Veterans and nurses who were involved in the war and what they went through during the war. I had the opportunity to interview a Vietnam Veteran also.
The Vietnam War created one of the most dividing periods of American history. Many saw the war as an unnecessary conflict that cost dearly in both money and lives. The United States’ involvement in the war was also considered to be unjustified. Despite the many difficulties faced during the controversial time, many activists raised issues in opposition to the United States’ involvement in the Vietnam War because of its unjust nature with acts such as the high casualty rates, scorched earth policies, and the lack of an immediate threat.
“In July 1965, Lyndon Johnson chose to Americanize the war in Vietnam.” Although Johnson chose to enter America into the war, there were events previous that caused America to enter and take over the war. The South Vietnamese were losing the war against Communism – giving Johnson all the more reason to enter the war, and allowing strong American forces to help stop communism. There were other contributing factors leading up to the entrance of the war; America helped assist the French in the war, Johnson’s politics, the Tonkin Gulf Incident, and the 1954 Geneva Conference. President Johnson stated, “For 10 years three American Presidents-President Eisenhower, President Kennedy, and your present President--and the American people have been actively concerned with threats to the peace and security of the peoples of southeast Asia from the Communist government of North Viet-Nam.”
hard for them to understand those who were so passionate against the war. “Young protesters were often dismissed by many older Americans for being part of the counterculture that rejected traditional American values and embraced experimentation with sex and drugs. Yet the protests represented a genuine, and growing, resistance in the United States to the country's role in the Vietnam conflict.” (Doswell). Because the protesters, had a hard time connecting to the older parental generation, the nation was even more tense and divided. While there were plenty of people protesting against the war, there was also plenty of people that were against the protest. For example, many police officers disagreed with the protesters. They were often just as
“Going through high school I remember talking with my friends about the Vietnam War. I had the friends who were gung-ho for the war, and I had friends who, like myself, felt the Vietnam War was unnecessary and not worth fighting for. I remember back in 1967 hearing about the protestors at the Lincoln memorial. Over 100 thousand protestors were there, and I remember thinking how great it was that so many people had the courage to march up to leaders in D.C. and voice their frustration. Then there was my father who said how all those protestors were un-American. I guess I could not blame him, he fought in World War II and served his country with honor, taking great pride in that. To me though, war is not always the answer. That’s where the difference was between people at the time, you either were fully supportive of American involvement in Vietnam, or you were opposed to it, I do not remember much in between. As for me, I could not support the Vietnam War” (Lalonde). The protests of the Vietnam War were opportunities for disgruntled Americans against the war to make their voices known, speak out against the injustice of the draft, while also helping to contribute to the end of the war and being a beneficial spark to an end of the draft.
During the war in Vietnam, Americans growing opposition towards the war increased especially in 1967. By 1967 close to nineteen thousand soldiers had died so far and each month, another thirty thousand were drafted into the military. Also, Americans were once again agitated when, in order to meet the costly war expenses, President Johnson requested the creation of new taxes (Keene 792). The Americans who opposed the war included working- and middle-class people, college students, working-class women, and African Americans and they were all apart of the antiwar movement. These college students, African Americans, and middle class members recognized the problems with the war, were affected socially and culturally by the war, and helped shape the general response to the war by the American public.
The Vietnam War (1954-1975) was, and continues to be, a contentious issue around the world. Many analysts of the war attribute it to Lyndon B. Johnson, who was president of America from 1963 until 1969, because under his administration, the American Army became involved in combat in Vietnam. Although there were many facets that lead Johnson to make his decision and there were three other presidents, in power during the course of America’s involvement in Vietnam, who also played key roles, it was Johnson who made the decision to escalate US intervention in Vietnam.
There were many events that lead up the Vietnam War, it started in 1945 with the hostilities between the French and Vietminh. “Geopolitical Strategy, economics, domestic US politics, and cultural arrogance shaped the growing American involvement in Vietnam” (Anderson 1). As a matter of fact, the Vietnam War was several wars, but it was not until 1962 that America had their first combat mission, however, Americans were killed during ambushes by the Vietnamese before the first combat mission. There is much controversy over the reasons for the Vietnam War, supported by the several different books and articles written about the war. “The most famous atrocity occurred in a tiny hamlet called My Lai in March 1968” (Detzer 127). History shows that the reaction of many Americans to the attack by US soldiers on the village of My Lai during the Vietnam War was opposition, and the actions of the US soldiers during the My Lai Massacre will be forever remembered as a significant part of the Vietnam War and American History.
James A. Baldwin once said, “The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose” (BrainyQuote.com). In the 1960s, “the man” was youth across the country. The Vietnam war was in full force, and students across the country were in an outrage. Society needed an excuse to rebel against the boring and safe way of life they were used to; Vietnam gave them the excuse they needed. Teenagers from different universities came together and formed various organizations that protested the Vietnam war for many reasons. These reasons included protesting weapons and different tactics used in the war, and the reason the U.S. entered the war in the first place. These get-togethers had such a monumental impact on their way of life that it was famously named the Anti-War Movement. When the Vietnam War ended, The United States did not have a real concrete reason why; there were a bunch of theories about why the war ended. Through negative media attention and rebellious youth culture, the Anti-War Movement made a monumental impact in the ending of the Vietnam War.
The Vietnam Antiwar Movement is one of the most prominent eras in American History. Throughout the Sixties and Seventies, people across the U.S., young and old, publicly opposed the Vietnam war. Opposers of the war expressed their antiwar opinions by organizing protests and mass demonstrations. Multiple anti-Vietnam war protests significantly effected North America. Despite being underestimated by the United States government and pro-war supporters, the Vietnam Antiwar Movement led to powerful and influential impacts.
Turning Point of Vietnam War The Vietnam War was an extension of the Cold War An Ideological conflict between Capitalism and Communism. In this protracted war scores of critical events happened and many proxy wars were fought between nations belonging either to the Capitalist/ Communist bloc. The contrasting ideas of West and East about Government and economy was the driving force between the two major forces of the World.