The Anti-War Movement of the 60s: Where did it go? 

In 1955, the United States began a twenty year long war in Vietnam that ended with no conclusive winner, thousands of deaths on both sides, and veterans who were treated awfully upon their return. This sparked a strong anti-war movement amongst young Americans during the 1960s. Many people, mostly college students, protested the war as they felt that the United States’ invasion of Vietnam was unjustified. When the war in Vietnam ended, these protests were a key factor towards that outcome. Today, an anti-war movement is needed but has been unable to develop due to the far distance from which these wars are being fought, control of the media, lack of forced conscription, and the high economic benefits from overseas military benefits. 

For most young Americans, for almost the entirety of their lives, the American government was engaged in a war in Afghanistan. However, excluding the brief moment during the summer of 2021, most felt indifference towards the whole situation. Over the course of the twenty years, the war in Afghanistan “only sporadically drew extended public attention” (Levinson). Nevertheless, it is vital for the young generation of Americans to develop an anti-war movement and protests these “military interventions” in the Middle East. It is also important to mention the negative effects of these wars for the people involved. Though the military receives trillions of dollars in funding, “a recent survey found that 29 percent of the families of junior-level, active-duty soldiers experienced food insecurity (that is, hunger) in the past year” (Levinson). While soldiers are engaged in wars to further the United States’ imperial agenda, their families do not even have the proper money for food. Furthermore, it is difficult to even share the truths of these unjust wars with the public. The New York Times released a report on the total civilian deaths in the Middle East caused by US air strikes, however, this information was blocked by the Pentagon for years (Levinson). The US government has been consistently trying to perpetuate its influence in the Middle East for the past twenty years, and a movement must come about to stop this.  

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have had almost no direct effect on the lives of average Americans (Levinson). This is because these wars were completely fought overseas, and none of the fighting was done within our own country. On top of that, even soldiers themselves have become distanced from the actual “violence” of war. With increasing drone weaponry, troops have grown to feel distant to battle which has contributed to lessened resistance to killing (Weeks). This has caused people to be less exposed to the horrors of war, therefore there have been less feelings of protest. On the other hand, for soldiers in the Vietnam war, killing was much more personal, and when they came back into regular society, they shared and spread their stories.  

Today, the manner in which the media presents the wars in the Middle East is much different from how the Vietnam War was presented in the 1960s. The army now very tightly controls the news frontlines that cover these wars, as opposed to how it was in the past. Stories that capture the injustice and moral corruptness that goes on in these wars are much harder to come across, because of the control the army has (Weeks). Furthermore, our news cycles are becoming increasingly rapidly replaced, and Americans are getting used to a short memory when it comes to international issues (Weeks). The government has gone so far as to even ban “images of US soldiers coming home in coffins” (Elbaum). These restrictions are incredibly harmful, as they prevent Americans from realizing the full extent of the abuse of the American government. The control the government has on the media plays an active role in the inhibition of an anti-war movement.  

Another factor that has prevented the growth of an anti-war movement is the lack of a draft. Because of our all-volunteer military, not many Americans have been directly involved in the wars overseas (Weeks). During the Vietnam War, young men’s lives were completely uprooted against their wills and when they returned, they were severely uncompensated. Because people do not feel as though they are being forced to participate in the wars, they do not have strong negative feelings towards the fighting overseas (Weeks). During the 1960s, young Americans who had their lives ahead of them were terrified at the thought of being sent to war, and students took to burning their draft cards as a form of protest. Today, with the lack of draft, there are not any of those same urgent feelings to protest the injustices of war.   

Finally, arguably the largest reason that no movement has started against these modern-day wars is because of the economic benefits America receives from having a military presence in the Middle East. During the Vietnam war, America was fighting an idea. Vietnam was just another country that was going to fall victim to the USSR and communism. America did not gain anything financially from invading Vietnam, nor did it lose anything from pulling the troops out. However, the situation today is much different. Not only is the Middle East an essential geographic location for the US to expand its influence, but it is also an area that is rich in natural resources, and home to vast oil reserves. Because of this, many government officials were in no rush to remove troops from the Middle East (Elbaum). Many people believe that America’s financial success depends on having strategic military placements throughout the Middle East.  

Tony Auth on Vietnam's role in his career as a political ...

This political cartoon by Tony Auth takes an interesting position within this topic. Based on the image, the reader is able to surmise that Auth is taking an anti-war position. The people in the cartoon are standing and happily waving American flags, yet the Vietnam War veteran is left out of the celebration of the country. This cartoon is a criticism on how we treat our veterans, especially those who returned from the Vietnam War. Kelly Dougherty, a veteran a part of Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), argues that “we come home and everyone shakes our hands and calls us heroes, but no one wants to listen to us” (Levinson). This proves that many veterans themselves who have been a part of these wars and have seen them firsthand are willing to create a movement, but many American people do not give them or their stories the proper attention for one to be created.  

At best, most Americans are willing to acknowledge the lack of proper reasoning behind keeping our troops in the Middle East for twenty years. However, there has not been a strong, unified, long lasting anti-war movement. Many factors have contributed to this, although the biggest reason may be the fact that the US government greatly benefited financially from the military presence in the Middle East. As well as that, after the Vietnam War, the American government has gotten smarter about showing the American people the different sides of war. The years long “war on terror” was never really meant to fight terrorists and religious radicals in the Middle East to save Americans from potential threats. It was rather a strategized, planned effort to gain easier access to natural resources such as oil and bring wealth to the ruling American class. When America is engaged in an imperialist unjust war, it is up to the people to protest, that is why it is important to overcome these obstacles and fight against unjust military interventions in the Middle East. With the removal of the US military from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Americans should have realized that these senseless wars in the Middle East must end since the state of Afghanistan has not been saved from any of the “terror” American soldiers have spent twenty years fighting.  

Elbaum, Max. “Ending U.S. Wars in Vietnam and Iraq: Today’s Antiwar Dilemmas in Historical Perspective.” Peace & Change, Vol. 34, No. 3, Issue 260, July 2009, pp. 260-269 

Levinson, Nan. “We Still Need an Anti-War Movement.” The Nation, 9 February 2022, https://www.thenation.com/article/world/modern-anti-war-movement/ 

Weeks, Linton. “Whatever Happened to the Anti-War Movement?” NPR, 15 April 2011, https://www.npr.org/2011/04/15/135391188/whatever-happened-to-the-anti-war-movement 

As I was working on my research paper, I first organized a list of claims I wanted to structure my body paragraphs around. I put that into my thesis, and then I started compiling evidence I would use for each claim. I then worked all of that into my paper. My first draft wasn’t really good, and I changed directions for my final, and I liked the way it turned out. If I could do it again, I would have spent more time thinking about how I would organize my original draft.