American public opinion and response to the Vietnam War

American Response to Vietnamese War

Twenty five years and more have passed since the United States officially withdrew its forces and involvement in Vietnam. Not since the civil war had the country been so divided and separated in the political and social opinions. Almost every family in America was in some way affected, losing husbands, sons, friends and daughters. More than 100,000 American soldiers were killed and those who made it back to the homeland suffered extreme mental and physical trauma and someone them still do. A lot of the war veterans were so traumatized and treated with disrespect in their own country that they ended up taking their own lives, while most of them ended up on streets begging for a loose change.

American Response to the Vietnamese War

However the effect of the war on the Vietnamese people was even more drastic, by the time Saigon was lost while invading the North Vietnamese forces in 1975, almost 2 million Vietnamese had already died. More than million either disappeared or took their own lives, most the refuges escaped to Cambodia during the entire carnage which took Khmer Rouge by a massive storm. Many people even today do not clearly understand why the Vietnamese war started in the first place, and what did America and Vietnam gained from the war, because the only outcome of the entire tirade was a massive distrust on the government which had always trusted and nation which was left questioning the sanity of people in power.

The American public's opinion about the ongoing war at that time in Vietnam moved through various stages and phases, at first people showed little interest or concern to a war which only involved handful of soldiers to be deployed and that too from the regular army section. However, at the same time most of the American public was either not interested or not aware of the communism which was spreading all over Europe and Asia at the same time, hence countries were committing themselves to Vietnam more and more. The first spark came when the news got out that the U.S. will finally be contributing to the war in 1966 and this step meant that the armies and national servicemen will be posted on the frontlines made the anti-war groups finally speak up. The public opposition to the war increased even further more when the deployment of extra battalions of navy seals was announced.

The public's resentment grew and finally erupted in 1972 with signs of civil war showing in the homeland itself. U.S. had already started to back out of Vietnam when protests had spread all over America these were called the moratorium marches and took place everywhere in the country's major cities. The U.S. And Australia were close allies in this war and all the decisions were approved after they had gone through both the governments' officials. So when the U.S. decided to back off so did Australia, finally in 1975. After more than twenty five years since the war, people with various percentages still believe that the war completely unnecessary. According to statistics, 55% of the U.S. citizens think that it was wrong to send the troops to Vietnam while only 30% agree that it was the right thing to do (Mitchell K, 2007).

Role of Political Concerns in the Public's Response

Below are various arguments and interpretations of the U.S.A.'s political role in reference to the biggest and the most sustained social movement since World War ll. Whilst keeping the whole thing modest and ticking to basic origins, the campaigns against the Vietnam War started in the mid 1960s, which steadily became a mass movement in which 1000s of people were active participants during the 1970s. Almost all of the explanations that the government gave to the people revolved around nationalist theories. Ina sense the government was looking at it from a perspective that the actions taken were in the altogether interest of the power holders of the country which was dubbed as the national interest of the entire country. But during that time nationalist perspective was what defined the country which meant that the leaders were above the classes. However, for the conservatives the individuals of the state served only to be the units of analysis not class. The importance of class varied different everywhere, especially in the labor politics, but the most consistent uses of class analysis were close to those of the Communist Party of the U.S.A. (Cable, 1991).

Impact if War on Domestic Politics of 1960s and 1970s.

The Vietnam War had several effects on the U.S. economy. The requirements of the war effort strained the nation's production capacities, leading to imbalances in the industrial sector. Factories that would have been producing consumer goods were being used to make items from the military, causing controversy over the government's handling of economic policy. In addition, the government's military spending caused several problems for the American economy. The funds were going overseas, which contributed to an imbalance in the balance of payments and a weak dollar, since no corresponding funds were returning to the country. In addition, military expenditures, combined with domestic social spending, created budget deficits which fueled inflation. Anti-war sentiments and dissatisfaction with government further eroded consumer confidence. Interest rates rose, restricting the amount of capital available for businesses and consumers. Despite the success of many Kennedy and Johnson economic policies, the Vietnam War was an important factor in bringing down the American economy from the growth and affluence of the early 1960s to the economic crises of the 1970s (Anderson, 2002).