Many feel that the effect of the anti-war movement was of greater
importance in stopping the war.  I think we all know that there is a strong
following for that in my view proper conclusion.  In a related matter the
fragging of officers in Viet Nam was certainly another important factor in
the opposition. Though most would not approve, even such extreme opposition
IS important.
Let's not defeat our cause with undue pessimism.


At 10:16 AM 1/31/03 -0600, you wrote:
>WCM wrote:
> >
> > Many people feel that the anti-war movement on Viet was a serious part in
> > getting the US power to admit defeat; Kurt I agree with everything you say
> > except that that anit-war was a cream pie.
> >
>
>It is known from memoirs of Nixon administration figures that the
>Moratorium of November 1969 led Nixon to cancel tentative plans to use
>nuclear weapons against the Chinese installations in North Vietnam. So
>the movement definitely did crontribute to stopping the _expansion_ of
>the war in catastrophic directions. But it was not the anti-war movement
>but the courage and strength of the Vietnamese people that made relevant
>those installations. And it was the prolonged resistance of the
>Vietnamese in the face of the horror of the U.S. assault that gave us
>the time and the political space in the U.S. to build that movement.
>
>So yes, the Movement was of great importance, but that importance was
>_wholly_ subsidiary to the efforts of the Vietnamese themselves. And
>large sectors of that movement -- I am thinking particularly of the
>Weatherman and similar ultra-left tendencies -- showed themselves unable
>to carry on the struggle and diverged into pointless individualist
>point-scoring. They were unworthy of the people they pretended (to
>themselves and others)to be serving.
>
>And the U.S. never did admit defeat. The current condition of the
>Vietnamese people (and the growth there of western investment) shows
>that in the long run the U.S. won. And so far, won in two ways. (1)
>Through the destruction of war and the effect of post-war sanctions it
>destroyed the Vietnamese effort to build socialism. (2) It rewrote the
>history of the war at home so the "lessons" of that war never got
>through to the bulk of the u.s. population.
>
>Bruce Franklin dedicated his classic work, _M.I.A. or Mythmaking in
>America_ (1992) "For all those who have been trying for decades to stop
>this war." We haven't succeeded yet.
>
>Carrol