[Peace-discuss] Trivial antiwar movement?

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The following is from "Foreign Policy" and is written by Robert Haddick of 
"Small Wars Journal," a former Marine.  I think Hayden's piece, which is quoted 
(and available on the Nation website) is fairly seriously inadequate as an 
account of the Long War, and Haddick isn't much better on the history of the 
antiwar movement. But they're talking about important things. --CGE]


...Tom Hayden, a former leader of the 1960s antiwar movement, yells "Stop!" 
Writing in The Nation, Hayden delivers his review of this decade's wars, summing up:

     "So what has counterinsurgency achieved thus far? At most, a stalemate of 
sorts in Iraq after six years of combat on top of a brutal decade of sanctions. 
Nothing much in Afghanistan, where conventional warfare pushed Al Qaeda over the 
border into Pakistan. Nothing much in Pakistan, where the Pakistan army is 
resistant to shift its primary focus away from India ... The Long War now has a 
momentum of its own. The impact of the Long War on other American priorities, 
like healthcare and civil liberties, is likely to be devastating. Since most 
Americans, especially those supportive of peace and justice campaigns, are well 
aware of domestic issues and general issues of war and peace, it is important to 
begin concentrating on the great deficit in popular understanding."

Will Hayden be as successful mobilizing mass resistance to the Long War as he 
and his colleagues in the antiwar movement were during the Vietnam War? Several 
factors weigh against him. First, there is no conscription as there was during 
the Vietnam era. Second, the active duty headcount today is much smaller than it 
was during the Vietnam era and even smaller as a percent of the U.S. population; 
the vast majority of Americans today don't have any contact with the military, 
in contrast to the Vietnam era. Finally, the weekly death rate during the 
Vietnam War was ghastly compared to today's toll.

With conscription, a large army, and a high casualty rate, the Vietnam War was a 
very personal matter to America's youth. Those circumstances don't exist today. 
So Hayden may find it difficult to fill in "the great deficit in popular 
understanding."

But watch this space. On April 24, I took note of criticism of President Obama's 
policy for Afghanistan and wondered whether in time the Afghan war might no 
longer be the "good war." The antiwar movement seems trivial today. But it also 
appeared that way to many in May 1965.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4931