Could the anti-war movement here in America be hurting the troops on the Iraq battlefield?

Question

Colonel Bui Tin of the North Vietnamese Army said this,” The American antiwar movement was essential to our strategy", "Visits to Hanoi made by persons such as Jane Fonda, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark and various church ministers gave us confidence that we should hold on in the face of battlefield reverses", "America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win."

The Tet Offensive in 1968 was a huge military defeat for the North Vietnam Army. This could have signaled the coming ended to the war with an American victory. However, because of the antiwar protest in the U.S. the NVA were emboldened and continued to fight. From 1969 until the end of the war, over 20,000 American soldiers lost their lives in a war that the United States did not have the resolve to win.

Could this be happening today? Could todays protesters be puting our troops in harms way?

Sources:
http://www.1stcavmedic.com/jane_fonda.htm

http://www.lcompanyranger.com/weapons/colonelbuitinpage.htm

http://www.viet-myths.net/BuiTin.htm

http://www.grunt.com/scuttlebutt/corps-stories/vietnam/north.asp

*** If you can find the link to the actual 1995 WallStreet journal interview please link it in your answer.

Thank you to those who actually read my whole question. Some of you never addressed my main concern which was outlined in my second paragraph. That is the reason for my question.

Answer 1

I could care less what the protesters think or say.Unlike Vietnam,my Father being 1st.Cav.Airmobile....todays Army is all volunteer.We joined to be soldiers,we are professionals.Don't say you support the troops and oppose the war,we don't want your support or need it.

Answer 2

One aspect of the Vietnam War that differs with Iraq is the fact that we had a draft during Nam, but many people (of various political orientation) avoided the draft through college deferments, working the system, sheer luck, family influence, going to Canada etc. which caused bitter resentment among serving troops and no doubt undermined morale. This simply isn't the case to the same degree with the career military.

Also, the scale and tenor of the war "protests" (which often included venom towards US troops) dwarfed what we have now, where people generally simply want the war to be over and the troops home.

When the majority of the troops finally come home from Iraq, they will overhwhelming be hailed as heroes, no matter what the circumstances.

So, no, I don't think any protests have much impact on the troops In Iraq.

Answer 3

There is no comparison. The protests back then were ten fold what they are today. People hated the troops, no one hates the troops now days. Vietnam was lost because it was designed to be an ever lasting war. We would take an area and basically give it back. There are many reason we didn't succeed in Vietnam, none of which transfer well to Iraq. Iraq has been a debacle from the start and continues to be one. We had many more troops in Vietnam than we do in Iraq. Iraq is unlike Vietnam because we aren't fightin an invader, we are fighting a civil war. No comparison, and no hurting of the troops from protests here in this country.

Answer 4

Win what? We didn't know what we were trying to win any more in Vietnam and we don't really know in Iraq either. The Viet Cong had been resisting an occupying force for many years and they would have been willing to for many more years if necessary.

We're trying to get them out of harm's way when they are involved in wars than no longer make sense. We would never have achieved victory in Vietnam and we never will in Iraq. When people start to see that, they don't believe more lives should be lost.

Answer 5

No, the Bush Administration has put our troops in harms way. We are fighting a war against Iraqi citizens, in their country, who don't believe we belong there either. Our continued presence in what has developed into a sectarian civil war, will not be resolved by increasing forces unless we plan on maintaining an occupying force at the same levels or more for decades to come.

No one is emboldened to continue their fight by protesters elsewhere when it's our trying to control what we have no right to control that stokes those fires.

Answer 6

No. First of all the anti-war movement has not been anit-military like the ones of the 1960's. Second of all there is no united enemy that we are fighting like we were fighting in Vietnam. There are several groups fighting against us in Iraq, loosely grouped into three types. Local Sunni Insurgents, Local Shia Militias, and foreign fighters coming from other countries. They are at war with each other as well as being at war with us. There are no Tet Offensives for these groups because they have no real unified strategy. We are in the middle of a blood feud that has gone on for thousands of years. The various groups know we will leave sooner or later because there is no real choice for us. Even if approval was at the same level as it was when this war started, they would continue to fight us for as long as we are there. Ignoring the question of whether we even should have become involved in Iraq to begin with, our chance to bring order and stability to the country with our military essentially ended two years ago, but the neo-conservatives running the war refused to compromise their ideology in the face of military realities, and the country has now spun out of control. Blaming the anti-war movement for the situation is ridiculous.

Answer 7

Welcome to America, buddy. If you will check out the Constitution, it begins with the words WE THE PEOPLE. See, We, the People are in charge here.

Viet Nam and Iraq both suffer from the same problem: they are wars that were arranged for the financial benefit of the military industrial complex, to spread an ideology to places that didn't want it. The justification for both conflicts was weak. The American people saw through the weak justifications and refused to support the war.

The message to take to heart here is that America should never go to war without a solid justification that will resonate with the citizens. If Bush had stayed in Afghanistan and concentrated on taking down OBL, we would not be having this discussion: the people SUPPORTED that effort, just as they supported the declaration of war after Pearl Harbor.

American Presidents need to realize that it is not THEIR army, it is OUR army, and if you can't convince the majority of the people to support the mission, the problem is not with the people, it's with the mission.

The reason our soldiers are at risk is because Bush PUT them at risk. I'm pretty sure if they were all still sitting at Ft. Hood, Dix, Camp Pendleton, Camp Lejune, or other US military bases, they would not be at risk. Agreed?

Answer 8

First, the people who have murdered and hurt our troops are the freaks who sent them into harm's way for no good reason, in violation of law and human decency, then refused to outfit them with life-saving equipment, extended their tours, curtailed their breaks, and let the wounded rot in unsafe hospitals.

The real answer to both wars was to not wage them in the first place, or, having done so, end them ASAP.

Otherwise, the two wars have nothing in common.

The vast majority of Iraqis want us out of there.

That's why so many people are killing as many of them as they can.

Leaving them there to die is hurting them; it's simply inaccurate to blame the people who want to save their lives and limbs.

There are always heartless morons who say it's the protesters that are responsible for deaths of our soldiers -- they are lying.

Every patriot has an obligation to speak out when their government becomes a terrorist state, and throws away the lives of our soldiers.

In both cases, it was the sub-human brutes who kept our soldiers fighting an immoral war that are responsible for the "extra" deaths and maiming, not the people who pushed for peace.

Yet the people who cheer the slaughter are the ones who call themselves patriots.

Support the troops; bring 'em home.

Answer 9

You couldn't be more correct! They all try and mask it in the lie that they just want to bring the troops home even though they don't give a rats behind about them. They claim to support the troops yet they call them murderers and terrorists. Yes, this they do, they claim we have just slaughtered over 655,000 innocent Iraqis. Not the terrorists, our troops. As if they care about the Iraqi citizen.... this is why they are doing everything they can to cut and run and leave them high and dry.

They also don't get that the enemy watches our media and they gain a great deal of hope from it. They understand that the media is their greatest weapon and they act accordingly. Why are there still bombing of innocent Iraqi's in Iraq or bombings of our soldiers in "green zone" areas? They know every last bit of it will end up on our news and the spinless libs won't have the stomach to continue to fight terror. By the libs own words in this forum... "Al Queda wasn't in Iraq before we came..." They use this excuse to justify why we shouldn't be there and that Saddam had NO ties with Al Queda. So if this is true, and the "bad guys" that we are to be hunting down were never in Iraq, why are they there now? Why would they care if their enemy was taken out? Could it be because they actually do have ties and if they don't nip this in the bud now they know that they are next?

To get off the rant and back to your question... they know it helps the enemy. All they hunger for is power, they take no responsibility for the consequences of their actions.

Answer 10

Roadside bombs and terrorists and policing a civil war, are hurting our troops in Iraq.

Sarah: Watch a soldier kiss his wife and 1 year old good bye and know he won't be back until his child is 2 1/2. Then tell me he wants to go and doesn't want to come home. I guarantee that any man with a wife and kids at home would rather be home. they go because they are honorable men
and women who have to do their duty and follow orders.

Bob the builder: Your a lunatic and I hope you block me.