Who will cut the fuel of the war machine?

Alexander Cockburn
First Post, UK

http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=1104

Aside from winning, there aren't that many ways of ending wars. Governments pay attention when the troops mutiny, when there are riots outside the recruiting offices, when there's revolution on the home front, when the money runs out.

In Vietnam the troops mutinied. Units shot their officers in the back or threw grenades into their tents. Navy ratings pushed aircraft off the side of aircraft carriers. In 1971 the Pentagon counted 503,926 'incidents of desertion' since 1966 and reckoned that over half of US ground forces in Vietnam openly opposed the war. At Christmas 1971, Vietnam Vets Against the War seized the Statue of Liberty for 48 hours and draped it with a banner demanding 'Bring our Brothers Home'.

On the home front people fought the draft or simply fled it. Major American cities were to
rn by riots. The anti-war movement, coming on the heels of the civil rights movement, transformed a generation. In the end, Congress simply denied Nixon the money for war in Indochina.

I think that some of it did go on but I do not think we can put it just on anti-war. After all we do know most of the anti-war people were just busy spiting. They hardly had time to do all this also. Sorry I just can not help my self at times.