Section 5

• What fuelled american opposition to vietnam?

  • Civil rights movement
  • Student movement
  • Cost of war
  • US casualties
  • US ill-discipline
  • US tactics
  • Hearts and minds
  • The tet offensive
  • My Lai
  • The phoenix program
  • The draft lottery
  • Kent state shootings
  • The Fulbright hearings
  • The pentagon papers
  • The media
• Civil rights movement (opposition to vietnam)

  • war was disproportionately fought by African American men- 31% of combat troops 12% of population
  • Anti-war movement adopted civil rights movement tactics (sit ins, marches etc)
• The student movement (opposition to vietnam)

  • Young people rejected authority & saw older generation (politicians) as out of touch
  • Believed war was an abuse of goverment power
  • Muscisions hiighted the hyprocrisy and horror of war (Bob Dylan, John Lennon)
• The cost of war (opposition to Vietnam)

  • government was cutting down spending on education, healthcare & increasing taxes
  • war cost $1 trillion (todays value) from 1965-1973- estimated $400,000 per Vietcong solider killed
• US casualties (opposition to vietnam)

  • 60,000 US troops killed, over 300,000 wounded, over 10,000 veterans killed themselves after war had ended
• US ill-discipline (opposition to vietnam)

  • Soldiers engaged in prostitution, drug abuse & were violent to civilians
  • 788 fragging's between 1969-1972- 86 officers died, 700 wounded
  • War was corrupting the young men sent to fight in it