Did protests really end the Vietnam War?

[raccoon]

A lot of people believe it did, but a lot of people believing something doesn't make it true.

:shrug:



edited for spelling

[mainer]

1. Walter Cronkite did.

As he went, so did America.

[stray cat]

2. The draft did a hell of alot more to end it than protests

[Winterblues]

4. There was a Draft during the Korean Police Action as well

The Draft was one of the reasons for protests but it was not the sole reason. There is no doubt that the Protests especially Kent State and Jackson State. when America's sons and daughters were being shot down in the streets of America it became too much..

[hayu_lol]

7. Yes...protests did bring the war to an end...

the draft energized most of the younger people of the nation into street protests, campus shutdowns, and actual violence(the burning of draft offices for example). The protests were finally taken up by the adult population at large in quantum jumps.

So, the answer is YES, the protests did force the administration and Congress to bring the war to a close. It was a very nasty period in our history.

Shrub jumped into the Iraq action because the protests were increasing to the point where his decision to go or not go was about to be taken from him. Another few months and it would have been impossible for him to take us into Iraq. No draft in that action however.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. Going broke, getting our asses kicked, and the protests ended the war.

The government finally had to acknowledge that the war was lost and get out when congress (finally) cut the funding. I expect the same will happen in Afghanistan.

[The_Commonist]

5. It was a combination of factors...

Like most things in life.

[MineralMan]

6. Combined with many other things. The protests were part of it.

[old guy]

8. As a single cause no.

They did however bring attention to many other things that collectively helped end the fiasco.

[RoyGBiv]

9. No

[old mark]

10. The draft really created the protest movement - when the lottery replaced the

draft, numbers of protests and anger against the government kind of died out. The war was terribly mismanaged from the beginning, and was pretty pointless at best. Eisenhower had observers and some advisors in while the French were still fighting the VietMinh in the '50's, and we never really left after that...it just got very stupid and out of control. It was NOT about oil as some think, but simply stupidity and arrogance. We fought a war because we were involved in someone else's war and were too stupid to leave when they did.
In the end, it became totally unjustifiable, and Nixon wanted as much political goodwill as he could get. If a Democrat had tried to end the war, the Republicans would have accused him of being a communist - it had to be a republican, same with negotiating with China.

Sounds very familiar to me, thinking of Iraq especially...

I always remember the phrase of the 1970's,"The lessons we learned from Vietnam..." and I wonder just what they were and if anyone ever wrote them down somewhere.....


mark

[Echo In Light]

11. Aggression, not "war." Biz as usual

[Ozymanithrax]

12. Massive protests conviced people like Cronkite...

and a majority of Americans that Vietnam was the wrong war at the wrong time.

This led to the slow pullout of troups.

Protests were one of the most important events that led the public to reject the war.

[The_Casual_Observer]

13. They sure did. However, you aren't supposed to know this anymore.

You see, civil disobedience works, and that's supposed to be a secret.

[Winterblues]

14. I actually think Kent State and Jackson State had more to do with it

When America's Sons and Daughters were being shot down in the streets of America things had to change.

[The_Casual_Observer]

15. They were starting to kill the protesters because the "establishment"

was running scared. Fortunately, the solution was to just end the god damn thing instead of facing a full on bloody revolution here.

The new deal was put though for the same reason, they honest to god feared a revolution was going to happen after the bloody union battles in the 30's.

[lunatica]

16. That war was openly televised every day

It was the evening news for years. Dan Rather actually gave us the latest from Vietnam while ducking in fox holes during firefights. We saw the wounded being carried away on stretchers and we say that little girl with the napalm on her body running away from her village. We saw the Bhuddist monks setting fire to themselves. And we saw thousands of our soldiers brought home in caskets. That war was like a festering wound for over ten years after it was over because as a nation we weren't able to deal with it openly.

The protests were not silent or quiet ones. Some of them got very violent and ugly.

[sufrommich]

17. The middle class turning against the war is what did it. nt

[blueworld]

18. They were a huge part of it, but real 24K journalism helped

The protests & draft card burnings were covered by the media as if they mattered. The draft was frightening & affected nearly everyone (who couldn't buy a deferment, right Cheney?).

The Life magazine pix of the children running naked from napalm...the other journalists in the war zone sending back stories & pix. Mr. Cronkite, beloved & trusted. And the NYT, in their heyday, publishing Ellsberg's contributions about the Pentagon Papers.

Kent State was a nightmare. There was of course the expense of the war. And good ol' Tricky Dick.

In those days, there were only hawks & doves in Congress. Fiscal conservatives & fiscal liberals. They managed to work together fairly well. The journalists strove to deliver the truth, at great risk to themselves. And everyone seemed to care what the American people actually thought.

And we thought we were tired of sacrificing our best & brightest - our children & their futures - on the altar of money established by a bunch of greedy old white men who bloviated publicly & reaped fortunes under the cover of the shelling.

It's true, not SciFi. Many of us are witnesses. We actually had a voice and a medium through which to express it.
Go figure.

[happyslug]

19. LBJ increase troops as long as the Majority of Americans supported the war

By the Middle of 1968, for the first time, the majority of Americans came to oppose the war in Vietnam (During the Campaign for the Presidency). Thus this switch in support for the war permitted LBJ to start to reduce the number of Soldiers in Vietnam. The drop in support came from several causes, the main ones seems to be the following:

1. The Tet Offensive (Showing the Viet Cong still had the ability to fight the US toe to toe, while the US high Command has said for years the Viet Cong was on the decline), the protest against the war (especially by ex-Vietnam Vets),

2. The realization that the Sino-Soviet was REAL and that the best thing for the US would be Chinese Forces in Manchuria NOT in or near North Vietnam,

3. The defeat of Communist guerrillas in Malaysia and Indonesia (Do more to the cut off of supplies then the terror attacks used by the CIA against those Guerrilla, the cut off of supplies was do to the US Navy intercepting supply ships to those locations AND the concentration of Chinese and Soviet aid to North Vietnam as both sought to get Support for themselves from the North Vietnamese).

4. The Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, which showed that the Soviets were capable of moving men and supplies to the extent that the US had to increase military spending for the defense of Europe.

5. The Arab Oil Embargo of 1973, which had TWO affects, first, that Europe was even more dependent on Persian Gulf Oil then we we AND any defense of Europe MUST include a defense of the Persian Gulf Oil Fields. This required additional spending on the Navy and withdraw of Naval forces from Vietnam.

6. The Arab Oil Embargo which showed the limitation of US Aerial re-supply system. The US could get supplies to Israel BUT ONLY IF THE US HAD FULL ACCESS TO OIL AND IF THE US HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN TWO PLACES THE US WANTED TO SHIP SUPPLIES, THE US HAD TO SELECT JUST ONE (i.e. If supplies were needed by Israel and South Vietnam at the same time, the US could ONLY supply one of them).

7. The Yom Kipper War which showed that the Soviet Army had Night Vision system as good as the US systems in use at that time. Israel suffered a massive set back for the Syrian Army had night Vision Goggles while the Israel defense Force did not. This lead to increase spending on such systems not only for the US Forces in Europe BUT also the Israeli Defense Force.

All told the US by the early 1970s was forced to adopt a 1 1/2 war policy (From the end of WWII to about 1973 the US had a 2 1/2 was policy). Under the 1 1/2 war policy the US could fight one offensive war and one Defensive war (Or three defensive wars). The previous 2 1/2 war policy (Which is the Official us Policy today and has been since the fall of the Soviet Union) meant the US had the ability to fight two Offensive wars and one Defensive war. By 1974 (and the fall of South Vietnam) it was clear that the US had a Choice, who would the US support? Israel or South Vietnam? In the 1960s the US could support both, but given the growth in Soviet Military Power in the 1960s, the growth in Arab Military power during the same period the US could support Israel or South Vietnam but not both. Congress (not the president) finally choose Israel when Congress passed the law banning US troops or planes in South East Asia.

My point was the start of the end of the War was the Anti-War movement, but then everything else kicked in and it slowly became clear that Vietnam was a waste of US Resources. Even as late as the Fall of Saigon you had a sizable percentage of the US population wanting to Continue the War in Vietnam, but the Political and Military chiefs no longer wanted to. The Anti-war protest gave such politicians cover but the real reason was the change in the world situation caused by the Sino-Soviet Split AND the ending of US oil independence. Together these made fighting in Vietnam a dead end and thus the war ended.

[TexasObserver]

20. Yes, pretty much.

While the last troops didn't come home until 1975, the US casualties from 1972 on were very light, comparatively speaking. I'm pretty sure the total US war dead in those last 4 years was around 700, which is no small number, except when compared to the losses of 1965-1971.

The protests and the souring of the public based upon the nightly news ended the war. The protests were a constant reminder, and the Kent State killings really dealt a death blow to the war, IMO. Many soldiers were shocked and disgusted to hear that the National Guardsmen (whom regular military detested, as the sons of privilege) had killed some students. That seemed like the beginning of the end. The country was turned in part by the horror of Kent State, and by the realization that we had wasted over 50,000 American lives there in 6-7 years.

[redqueen]

21. From what I understand it was more the result of soldiers disobeying orders.

And that once they started losing control of their own troops in Vietnam, they decided to call it quits.

[ThomWV]

22. Not!

[apocalypsehow]

23. Nope - ending the Draft did. After that, the protests pretty much dried up. n/t.

[blindpig]

24. Nope

General Vo Nguyen Giap did. He beat the French and he beat the United States, the best general of the second half of the 20th century.

[harkadog]

25. Protests had nothing to do with the Vietnam war ending.

The larger the protests the more the war escalated. When the draft ended the protests disappeared. People who claim protests had something to do with it just are trying to glorify their own importance in history.