Did The Peace Movement Really Help End The Vietnam War Essay

Did The Peace Movement Really Help End The Vietnam War - Essay Example Johnson is among the most unpopular United States president of all times. Diplomacy in a democratic country is believed to be a key driver for peace initiatives and unity. Following such notion, it would be rightful to assert that indeed, the Peace Movement truly helped end the Vietnam War. The Vietnam War is also known in history books as the Vietnam Conflict or the Second Indochina War that started in the later part of the 1950s. It was a war fought between the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, which is North Vietnam and the Republic of Vietnam, which is South Vietnam1. Truly, Vietnam War was nothing more but an internal conflict between power strugglers in a nation, which just won its independence from its colonizers ( in its case France). Other nations got involved when North Vietnam had the support of socialist country of Soviet Union and the communist China. The involvement of communist and socialist nations in the war prompted the involvement of the pro-democratic Western nations. Thus, the United States got involved in the war that should have been fought in the local front. President Dwight D Eisenhower was then the US president when the country decided to show off its power against the non-democratic forces. Vietnam War was seen by analysts and historians as a perfect venue where the United States could show to the world how democracy could rule the world and how it could easily defeat the hard and authoritative ways of the socialists and the communists1. The US' involvement in the Vietnam War was also the main focus of the government of the popular and assassinated president of the United States, John F. Kennedy. Initially, Mr Kennedy's intention was only to provide Vietnamese troops assistance through trainings. He also wanted to battle out the threat of communism and socialism to countries especially in the east. Mr. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963. But the involvement of the United States to the Vietnam War went on until the entire duration of President Lyndon B. Johnson's term, which ran from 1963 to 1969. It was during this period that numerous protests and activist movements were staged throughout the country. The citizens of the United States then created a model that would eventually become the framework of other anti-war and peaceful protests not just in the country but also in the whole world2. The so-called Peace Movement in the United States was a clear and loud opposition to the government's firm stand to support South Vietnam on its fight to win and rule over the whole Vietnam. The Peace Movement was a series of protest rallies, demonstrations and mass assemblies that, for the first time in world history, involved Americans from all walks of life. The anti-war movement actually consisted of college students, middle-class citizens, labor unions and government institutions. The Peace Movement gained its prominence in 1965, then peaked and became mostly hyped and controversial in 1968. Encompassing political, racial, and cultural spheres, the anti-war Peace Movement exposed a deep schism within the American society during that time1. It was noted, moreover, that the Peace Movement also made way for several opposing groups to take a consensus for once