Domestic Protest: Is it Alive Today?

Spanning from 1965 to 1973, the Vietnam War developed into a central point of controversy in American history. As United States President Lyndon B. Johnson ordered American troops to fight the Viet Cong and terminate the possible global spread of Communism, social protest movements emerged across the nation to publicize their dissent for the war and the Johnson administration.

In 1991, the United States, under the leadership of President George H. W. Bush, invaded Iraq in Operation Desert Storm to support Kuwait and ultimately defeat Sadame Hussein and his dictatorship. Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has once again made its presence in the Middle East with the bombings on Afghanistan and soon after, the Iraq War.

For more than two years now, President George W. Bush has continued to support the military action being taken to create a democratic society in Iraq as a paradigm for the rest of the Middle East. While the administration's policies have generated domestic protest from some, particularly liberals and the Democratic Party, the war in Iraq has not been contested in the same way that the Vietnam War had been during the late 1960s. In looking at both of these international conflicts, there are several explanations why the recent military interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan have not produced the level of public disapproval demonstrated forty years earlier during the Vietnam War.

Unlike the Vietnam War, the more recent events in Iraq have not stimulated the same level of domestic protest as the generation of the 1960s. Several reasons can be pointed to for this decrease in public dissent over the last decade and in today's society.

The Bush administration has carefully made sure to inform the American public that progress is being made in the Middle East and that our men will continue to fight for our own freedom (Hooper, CNN.com). The message that the Bush administration has communicated to families across the United States assures the justification of the war in Iraq and helps quell criticism and dissent from American citizens.

Even after failing to discover any nuclear weapons in Iraq or capture Osama Bin Laden, Bush has convinced the majority that Iraq is at the root of terrorism, and Sadame Husseins poses a major threat to the welfare of our country and its citizens.

Richard Clarke, a former counterterrorism chief to Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, writes in his book, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, that "Iraq was portrayed [by the Bush team] as the most dangerous thing in national security. It was an idée fixe, a rigid belief, received wisdom, a decision already made and one that no fact or event could derail."

Washington Post staff writer Thomas E. Ricks began his May 9, 2004 story with this statement: "Deep divisions are emerging at the top of the U.S. military over the course of the occupation of Iraq, with some senior officers beginning to say that the United States faces the prospect of casualties for years without achieving its goal of establishing a free and democratic Iraq" (Washingtonpost.com).

Even so, the United States government has convinced the public that only by restructuring the political landscape of Iraq and helping the Iraqi government construct democratic policies will terrorism finally be put to an end.

On the other hand, Editor in Chief Gary Hopkins at Education World and other working professionals in the media have stated that the events of September 11 subsequently created a sense of patriotism throughout the United States (2001 Education World). For most, the devastation that occurred on United States soil mobilized American citizens to rally around the flag. With the country in a state of disarray, the Bush administration knew it had to be willing to take any steps necessary to fight such Islamic terrorist organizations.

Consequently, Americans began to support the President and trust his decisions concerning these important international affairs. With a country still vulnerable to further damage, many believed that criticizing the policies of the current government was not a beneficial answer for resolving the predicament at hand.

Today, those who have refused to accept the Iraq War as a legitimate response have been perceived as unpatriotic and un-American. Conservatives have ridiculed dissenters and liberals, claiming that such disapproval of the war reveals their hate for the United States. Hence, the rally-around-the-flag effect from the events of September 11 and the reassurance from the Bush administration have equally repressed a large amount of public outcry and protest over the last four years.

The political disorganization of the Democratic Party forms another reason for this lack of political dissent over the war in Iraq and invasion of Afghanistan. As sociologist David Chalmers explains, the fiery liberals and the New Left that remained united in protesting the Civil Rights Movement in the South also came together in rebelling against the Vietnam War. Such a movement does not exist in contemporary American society with concern to the policies put in place for the Middle East.

BBC News correspondent Steve Schifferes explains in a January 2003 story that anti-war organizations dissenting the Iraq War are still "new and small" (Schifferes, BBCNews.com)

In fact, many United States citizens are not compelled to take a political stance and express their views on the policies implemented by our government. As mentioned earlier, these people have been afraid to express their opinions openly, believing that they will be ridiculed and considered un-American if they question the government's authority.

While the government has deterred liberals from expressing their opposition to the war, the Democratic Party more importantly has not led a strong attack against the Bush administration. The Democrats in public office have not challenged the President enough at times, and the party has not established a strong leader since the Clinton administration for which liberals and supporters can rally around.

In effect, social protest movements against the Iraq War or the Bush administration are minimal to a large extent. Although CNN, CBS and other major news networks have shown that President Bush's approval has gradually declined over the last year with more casualties accumulating in Iraq, dissenters have not made their voices publicly heard on the national scale.

Moreover, such responses to the war have not been brought into the public's view. The media plays a large role as well in generating dissent from its viewers-American citizens. Even if the major news networks and publications have been generally critical of Iraq War, most have not publicized current left-wing activism in the United States.

In essence, each of the reasons stated here reveals the inability of the Democratic Party and dissenters to bolster a strong enough refutation against the Bush administration's support for the intervention in the Middle East.

Although forty years separate the Vietnam War and Iraq War, both share similarities and differences in certain aspects. In both conflicts, the United States has fought against an unknown enemy. Fighting against the Viet Cong in the jungles of North Vietnam, the United States military could never accurately target their enemy. Author James William Gibson indicates in his book, The Perfect War: Technowar In Vietnam, that falsified military records to keep the public in line and preserve the belief that the United States would prevail. But in reality, many innocent children and families were killed in warfare because the United States could not identify and locate its adversary (Gibson, 2000).

Similarly, the United States has not clearly identified its enemy since the terrorist attacks of September 11. While the terrain and warfare style of the Vietnam War made it difficult for American troops to fight effectively, the inability to locate the sources of terrorism has plagued our ongoing war in the Middle East.

This predicament of attempting to identify the terrorists of September 11 has troubled the United States. Liberals and anti-war supporters continue to criticize the Bush administration in believing that terrorist organizations can not be identified in only one country and therefore, the Iraq War does not directly correlate with the attacks on the World Trade Center (Hooper, CNN.com).

On the other hand, the geography and nature of the warfare in Vietnam diverges greatly from the Iraq War. As Columbia University scholar Todd Gitlin discusses in his 1987 book, The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage, young eighteen year-old men were sent involuntarily overseas to fight in the jungles of an unknown territory but did not have the proper training (Gitlin, 1987).

In the desert now, American soldiers still have no way to recognize their enemy, responding only after terrorist attacks have been triggered. Therefore, the United States government has failed to design an effective military strategy in both wars due to these circumstances.

Even more, the lack of an exit strategy permeates in both the Vietnam War and currently in the Iraq War. With thousands of American soldiers dead by the early 1970s, the Nixon administration struggled to find a way out of Vietnam.

Similarly, the Bush administration still lacks an exit strategy for the Iraq War as more Americans slowly become uneasy about how much longer our troops will remain in Baghdad.

But the draft during the early stages of the Vietnam War provides one of the most notable differences between the two conflicts. Whether the United States had justifiable reasons for initiating the Vietnam War, Chalmers and Gitlin both agree that the government's military intervention in a war far away from home in Southeast Asia was problematic for dissenters. These people who joined the movement felt that they did not have to go to battle and support the war when they did not believe the cause was worth fighting (Chalmers, 1996). In fact, many of these members of the New Left supported the ideals and principles of Communism.

In contrast, the Bush administration has not determined that a draft is necessary to fight the Iraq War. Instead, those who want to participate in the war can volunteer on their own accord. The concept of the draft creates a large gap between the Vietnam War and Iraq War in discussing the impact and strength of social protest movements.

The issue of oil and the energy crisis currently hovering over the country represents another crucial factor concerning the United States' involvement in Iraq over the past three years. While Islamic extremists and terrorist organizations throughout the Middle East pose a severe threat to the welfare of American citizens, large oil deposits in Iraq and other surrounding countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Syria, complicates the stated reasons for our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With gasoline prices continuing to soar from the West coast to the East coast, the United States remains obliged to retain troops in Iraq in hope of gaining further control of this highly-demanded resource. Since the early 1990s, the United States has focused the majority of its international attention on countries in the Middle East region.

As oil production continues to deplete throughout the world and constant increase still in high demand, the Bush administration will continue to fight the war in Iraq not just to destroy terrorism wherever it is, but also to gain control of the oil market.

Bibliography

Schifferes, Steve. "Military voices of dissent." January 17, 2003. British Broadcasting Company (BBCNews.com).

Chalmers, David. And the Crooked Places Made Straight: The Struggle for Social Change in the 1960s. 2nd edition. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 1996.

Clarke, Richard. Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. Washington D.C.: The Free Press. 2004.

Hooper, Simon. "Is it time to hit 'mission abort' in Iraq?" Oct. 19, 2006. 2006 Cable News Network LP, LLLP (CNN.com).

Gitlin, Todd. The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage. New York: Bantam, 1987.

Gibson, James William. The Perfect War: Technowar In Vietnam. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000.

Hopkins, Gary. "Remembering September 11." August 29, 2002. 2001 Education World (EducationWorld.com).

Ricks, Thomas E. "U.S. winning battles, losing war?" May 9, 2004. 1996-2006 The Washington Post Company. (WashingtonPost.com).